Chapter Eight-Glow

Jack really really wasn't a fan of dying. He'd done it twice now, one in his human life, and one just then when he'd ended up with a dagger in his chest. He thought that he knew how much it was going to hurt, but almost impossibly it hurt more than last time, it was absolute agony. He honestly didn't think it was possible for it to be more painful than when he drowned but it was. A searing fire that began in his chest and then attacked the rest of his body, a monster inside of him. The pain was all he could feel.

He was dimly aware of someone catching him before he fell to the ground. The grip was firm, but fluffy. Must be Bunny he thought. Everything sounded muffled, but he could hear screaming. It was all around him, screams of anger, and then one further away. From the girl. Great, he thought idly as he heard cackling, at least he had made someone happy.

The laughter stopped as everything began to shake. Jack wasn't sure if it was just him trembling or the ground. He didn't really care. His hand landed in something warm and sticky. He had a look at his hand, which was now red. Huh, he thought, he was bleeding. Jack was slightly anxious for a moment, before remembering that he'd been stabbed and he was dying, so that was okay. Wasn't it? Nobody else seemed okay with it.

The ground disappeared beneath him. Was he flying? No being carried... yes. The ground was still shaking and so were the walls. The girl with the glowing eyes was going crazy, were they going towards her? No she was shrinking, getting further away. Was it her fault that everything was shaking? The woman with wings... Tooth was yelling. The ceiling was falling down around them, big rocks blocking the girl with the glowing eyes off from them. That's not good, Jack decided, we should help. But they kept getting further away- why weren't they helping?

Jack wanted to go back, but they kept on traveling towards the circle of light that wasn't the moon, or the sun. And then they popped through the circle, without the girl, Ree was her name. It smelt nice up there, fresh. Like freshly fallen snow. The golden man threw a ball of sand at him. Jack was just about to ask why before it hit him, and he fell into a deep sleep.

Yay... Snowballs...

...

"Who's going to tell him?"

"Tell him what, that he's not gonna die? I would have thought even frostbite can figure that one out when he wakes."

"No. The- the other thing."

"Oh you mean..."

"Yeah."

Jack felt terrible. His mouth was dry, and his stomach lurched from side to side. There was a violent throbbing coming from his chest and it felt like North was doing the conga in his head, and not quietly either. There was a great pressure building up in his throat that didn't relent when he opened his mouth to join in the suspicious conversation that the guardians were having above him.

"Hey." His voice was raspy, barely louder than a whisper. Immediately he felt feathered arms wrapped around him.

"Oh thank goodness! You're awake!"

"What 'appened?" He slurred.

"You don't remember mate?" The Pooka shared a troubled look with North.

"We were... Jaime was... is Jaime alright?" The youngest guardian flailed his limbs in his panic to see Jaime. North laid him down.

"Jaime is fine. What else do you remember?"

"Uh Pitch was... he had my staff but we got it back and... then he stabbed me." He finished simply.

Tooth's voice came out as a squeak.

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, the wall were shaking, and the light kept getting bigger and someones eyes were glowing." Jack looked at the shamefaced guardians.

"What is it? Where's Ree?" They all gulped. Sandy showed an image of Pitch, then an image of a gravestone. The boy on the bed, though thin and tired and weak made them all leap back with his glare.

"You left her? To Pitch?"

"Now mate..." Bunny began weakly "You've gotta listen, and hear us out."

"Why should I?"

"Because Jack we didn't want it to happen, and we tried to stop it, we really did." Tears glistened in Tooth's eyes.

He nodded slowly. North began:

"Do you remember Pitch's deal?" Jack shook his head. "Pitch offered the staff and Jaime to us, in return for you or Adrianne. If not, he would kill Jaime."

"Adrianne offered herself mate. There was nothing we could do, cause if we did we would have got Jaime killed."

"She got to Pitch, that horrible man- I should have taken all his teeth-"

"Tooth!"

"Fine! Yes well, he gave you back your staff and Jaime, and then he threw his dagger at you."

"I remember that." Jack confirmed darkly. "You were all screaming, but someone was laughing."

"Pitch was. and then Adrianne, she sort of... show him Sandy."

Sandy threw up an image of Adrianne screaming dementedly, her eyes glowing like hot coals.

"The girl with the glowing eyes." Jack muttered, it finally making sense. "Then everything shook."

"Yeah mate, we don't know how she did it, but she somehow caused an earthquake. Pitch was thrown against the wall, and we had to get you out."

"So you left her." Jack concluded.

"No! Bunny and North took you, and me and Sandy went to get her. But there was a rock-slide of some kind and..."

North gently clapped him on the shoulder.

"I'm sorry Jack. We don't think she made it. Buried in the rocks."

Jack felt tired, an aching tiredness, but for some reason could not compute that Adrianne was dead. He just didn't believe it.

"She's not dead."

"Jack..." North looked at him with an apologetic smile on his face. "There's no way she could have survived."

"But I didn't feel anything." Jack was rapidly losing lucidity, his pale eyelids drooping.

"Frostbite, she couldn't have-"

"Just check. Please?" In his last moment of consciousness he tipped his head and stared at them wide eyed, radiating all of the childhood innocence in the world.

"Please?" He opened his mouth, allowing Tooth to catch a glimpse of those wonderful teeth. She felt herself melting...

'Fine. We will. But you rest now.' The sandman wrote. Jack yawned, and was out before he hit the pillow.

"He didn't even ask about himself."

...

Pitch didn't think he'd ever been more delighted in his whole life. True he was trapped underground with no air or light but that didn't matter. Because the girl was a prodigy.

When he had heard of the girl dying in the same lake Jack Frost had drowned in, he had thought that if a spirit arose, she would be the same as him. He could twist her like he had failed to twist Jack Frost, and plunge the world into the next ice age. Imagine the fear as a mother's child freezes to death beneath her arms, as food becomes so scarce people simply collapse in the street- it would be wonderful.

When he had learnt she could control fire, he was excited beyond words. Not only could she freeze the earth, she would be more than a match for the pesky frost child, she could burn him to a crisp. What would be more fitting than the girl who he could have prevented from dying killing him? It would be irony in it's goldest form.

And when she caused an earthquake, he as ecstatic beyond belief. She could easily be a match for all the guardians. And for me, but he pushed that thought away.

True, it had been difficult obtaining the girl, but now he had her all he needed to do was break her. She was a fiery one, but he had never failed to break a spirit in the past and when he broke her... he would brand her with nightmare sand, to make her his.

The only problem was... where was she?

There were some downsides being the nightmare king- he couldn't conjure light, of any form, not even with a lighter or some other device. He was just too dark, for light to be created while he was around even, and by him it was impossible. He groped around in the darkness before his hand came into contact with something cold and metal. Finally, it was the end of a chain. He followed the chain through the dark, only to find the actual manacles had been snapped off. She'd escaped.

His arm slipped against a jagged rock, which on closer inspection was covered in blood. Her blood. She was injured, and bound. She didn't stand a chance.

The Nightmare King smiled, showcasing all his jagged teeth. She couldn't have got far.

All he had to do was catch her.

I found out the other day that the name Adrianne has two meanings. The first is from Adria, a sea region.

The second is quite simply, darkness. Anyone else getting the feeling of impending doom?

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