"I'm waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust
I'm breathing in the chemicals
I'm breaking in, shaping up, checking out on the prison bus
This is it, the apocalypse."

'Radioactive', Imagine Dragons

Chapter 3

For a while, it had looked like they were going to win.

Bunnymund's golems succeeded in killing Kraken, taking heavy losses in the process. Only 9 golems were left after that battle. With the help of Jack's army of ice warriors, they stopped Chernobyl, and lost the last golems. The Nightstalkers were beaten back by the Faires and Elven armies, and Jack's ice army. And by the grace of a miracle, North had found a way to banish the evil spirits and ghouls back to the Spirit world with the use of his own magic.

But then Pitch had his most diabolical idea yet. After all, fear exists in the one place no one can escape from; the mind. He infested the minds of politicians around the world with fear and apathy. He spread paranoia in their thoughts and sowed dissension in their ranks. Instead of working together, reaching out to help each other, the nations of the world began to shut their borders and ready their war machines. The Guardians had tried everything to stop this and bring peace, even trying to have Sandman stay with them to try and purge the nightmares from their minds.

This backfired horribly, just as Pitch Black had planned. He whispered into the politicians and generals' heads that the Sandman was trying to manipulate them, trying to control their dreams and thoughts. What right did some children's fantasy have to run rampant in their heads? The scheme worked all too well, and soon tension around the world reached a terrible point. The fear became too great.

The world's leaders turned to the nuclear weapons to destroy the bases of their 'enemies.'

They ended up just destroying each other.

Cities burned, forests burned, ports and rivers burned, capitols and refugee camps burned. Everything that wasn't in the absolute middle of nowhere burned. Billions of people died. The Guardians did what they could, rescuing and evacuating children and their families, but it wasn't enough. They could barely save a fraction of those that cried out for their help.

All of this horror and death occured within two years time, from Pitch's return to the nuclear winter that now blanketed the world.

Jack, Sandman, Toothania, North, and Bunnymund ran with all of the humans left alive that they could find, and fled to Jack's fortress in the bleak mountains of Tibet. What had been created as a haven against Pitch was now the last bastion of humanity and any spirit that could reach them. Nature spirits barely made it in, most dying despite the Guardians' help. Other holiday spirits were so devastated by the loss of their peoples' that they couldn't recover; even more spirits were lost. Those that did survive stayed within the walls of the Winter spirit's fortress, not daring to try and step outside its safety.

Less than 13,000 souls filled the cold halls, all that was left of 7 billion people. North, Sandy, and Toothania continually scoured the globe, searching for more people, but each day they came back empty handed. Tooth's fairies and North's elves kept watch over the children as their faithful guards, and the yetis permanently manned the defenses of the base.

Jack was complimented on his architectural skill in building this palace of ice, that he named Snow's Hall. Housing wasn't an issue, since the fortress was huge with thousands of rooms, but food was. In the hard, rocky soil of the Himalaya's, it was almost impossible to grow anything. Bunnymund, however, could easily take care of that. Aster's nature magic could make food grow, springs gush from the earth, and the ground soften and turn to fine soil. The brilliant Pooka also built special mirrors and windows that would amplify any light they found into the full light of day, the better for the plants and animals to grow.

It was cramped, cold, and forever cloudy from nuclear winter, but they could make it through. Already, Bunnymund and North were researching ways to recover the world. Hundreds of people helped, researching and experimenting on the soil and water to try and clean it of the radiation. The last remaining spirits worked harder than ever to soak their energies into the land and water, anything that could sustain life, in the hopes of one day restoring the Earth.

When the world ends, it tends to give people perspective. Such as saying what you've always wanted to say to another. After how they met (which resulted in the Blizzard of '68), and how Jack became a Guardian, the Winter spirit had all but given up on confessing to the Easter Bunny about the rather large crush he'd had on him. But when things had gone so terribly wrong for the world, it had been a giant wake-up call to both Guardians. Jack finally worked up the courage to talk to Bunnymund, and the Pooka had finally sat down and figured out his own feelings toward the young spirit.

It took five attempts, three blow-ups, one fist-fight, and two very awkward dates before things were settled down. Jack and Aster finally became a couple, to the joy of all the spirits and the vast majority of humans of Snow's Hall. (Sandy especially got drunk off his cloud on the last of the eggnog, as he'd won the bet with Tooth and North. Toothania was still calling dibs for the wedding date, which was still up for grabs in the betting pool.)

And for 32 years, there was peace. Not a grain of nightmare sand was seen in all that time, nor stirrings from Nightstalkers, evil spirits, or monsters. The children slept as peacefully as could be expected, and eventually had little to no nightmares at all. It was as if Pitch Black had vanished from the earth. Tooth even put forth the theory that since they were the only humans left, the only beings left that Pitch and his minions could feed off of, Pitch wouldn't try to destroy them for fear of destroying his own supply of power.

Toothania was wrong.

Pitch had decided to let them live while he chased down any survivors he could find. The search had entertained him for a while, but now, none are left. And the madness that he fed to his minions had leached ever deeper into his mind. One could actually blame North for this. With so much infected nightmare sand returning to him when the spirits had been banished, Pitch had been forced to absorb it all. And the dark spirits had left a terrible stain on the black sand. It now was infected with madness. The nightmare sand was constantly corrupting an already dark mind.

Now, Pitch Black had gone insane.