AN: Over two hundred reviews! You guys are so awesome! Okay, super, SUPER nervous about this chapter! Excluding the small introduction of Pitch in chapter seven, I've never tried writing Pitch Black before. I hope I did alright! And if you guys don't like it, I can always change it.

RECENTLY RE-EDITED (3/29/16)

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.

Sweet dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) ~ Emily Browning (Cover)

~O~

Unlike the night before, Alice didn't show any outward signs that she was aware of Pitch's presence when she entered her guest room for the evening.

The girl walked right past the shadowed corner where Pitch currently hid, seemingly oblivious that she wasn't alone. The shadows under the bed would have been a more ideal place to hide, but when Pitch heard the approaching footsteps outside the bedroom door, he didn't have time to disappear into the shadows underneath the bed. He didn't expect Alice to return to her room so early. Naturally, with his luck, it only made sense that she would pick this particular night to skip out on dinner.

Pitch remained deathly silent as Alice rifled through the guest room wardrobe for something to sleep in. She muttered under her breath as she searched, clearly not approving of the wardrobe's selection of sleepwear. With an indignant huff, Alice snatched up the closest thing within reach before shutting the wardrobe doors and stepping into the bathroom to change. Pitch listened to the muffled sounds of clothing being discarded and the faucet running before being shut off minutes later. When she came back out the woman went straight to bed, nearly out cold as soon as her head hit the pillow, and Pitch finally detached himself from the shadows of the room, smooth as silk and entirely soundless. He didn't have the luxury of wasting time. He was in the very heart of enemy territory and if he were to be discovered, North would surely have his head for trespassing, and that was something he rather avoid.

As the Boogeyman stood next to Alice's bed, gathering up the energy and concentration he needed to perform his new trick, Pitch noticed the glowing candle on her bedside table. He chuckled darkly as he reached over and snuffed out the tiny flame between two fingers. It stung but he was used to the pain by now. The skin of his thumb and pointer finger were calloused enough to dull the sharp burn to a barely noticeable ache. It's been a while since he had seen a candlewick as a night light, but he supposed habits died hard with this one. He felt a warm seed of nostalgia blossom in his chest at the dark memory of the Victorian era, during the very peek of the Industrial Revolution. What a wonderful time for someone like him to be in business. Man deliciously created their own nightmares then.

Even in a deep sleep, Alice seemed to sense the absence of the weak candlelight. Fortunately for him, she didn't wake. Her face only curled up in discomfort while she burrowed deeper into her blankets. Judging by how fast she had fallen under, Alice must have went quite a while without a decent amount of sleep. While it was quite a shame for her, it was a generous advantage for Pitch. He could use his new trick confidently without worrying about the woman feeling the pull on her mind and waking up.

Without further hesitation, Pitch reached out on of his gray hands and gently placed it over Alice's forehead, as a parent would to check their child for a fever. He gathered up his energy once more and closed his eyes, taking in slow, steady breathes. He cleared his head of all sounds and distractions except for his and Alice's heartbeats as they slowly started to beat in tandem. Minutes later, he started to feel the familiar sensation of being almost transparent, an acute sense of astral projection. He concentrated hard on that feeling and followed it until he felt he would fade completely out of existence. Once that feeling fully overtook both his mind and body, Pitch gathered up his shadows and took a deep plunge downwards.

Straight into Alice's mind.

~O~

When Pitch opened his eyes again, he found himself standing in the middle of an extravagant, and slightly dead rose garden. An ominous, rundown castle stood proudly in the distance while an untraceable sun shined brightly from somewhere in the endless, peach pale sky above. Pitch grimaced at the lack of shadows but did nothing to hide himself. The dream's inhabitants wouldn't be able to see him, not even Alice, if by some off chance he happened to cross paths with her. He was an outside spectator, nothing but an apparition to the creatures of Wonderland and their creator.

Unfortunately, Pitch wasn't in the real Wonderland. Despite all his snooping, the Boogeyman had yet to find out how to open the portal to Wonderland. As far as he could tell, only the rabbit and the woman had access to the secret, but he knew that Alice would have an exact copy of it hidden somewhere in her head. The foolish girl never could go anywhere without her outrageous delusions. They had always been her biggest crutch.

After straightening himself up and smoothing back his black hair, Pitch took in his surroundings, realizing that he stood in the middle of a giant red and white chess board the size of a football field. Colossal chess pieces littered the board in several different positions as if he had stumbled upon an unfinished game of chess that no one had bothered to clean up and was left abandoned as is. The chess pieces were clearly made of hard, cold marble, but strangely enough it looked almost as if they were breathing. Pitch believed he might have even seen one of the knights flare its nostrils.

Ghastly, skeletal creatures shaped like demented playing cards were scattered all along the rose garden. They growled at one another as they tended to the oversized flowers that littered the garden walls. Their faces were nothing but fleshless, yellowed skulls with empty eye sockets and sharp teeth. Even from several yards away, Pitch could hear the sickening pops and cracks that their decrepit joints made as they worked. The Boogeyman shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose at the sight of a particularly bloody and gruesome looking Ace of Spades, holding a yellow watering pitcher while it delicately sniffed a white rose with its nonexistent nose. Such wonderfully, horrifying creatures with the potential to cause delicious nightmares, and Alice used them as her own personal deck of gardeners. The very idea sounded almost criminal.

Dismissing his disappointment by the lack of terror, Pitch refused to be distracted further him from his goals. He needed to work fast if he wanted to find anything valuable before Alice woke up. Time moved much faster in the dream realm, but he wasn't going to take any chances. Once he was satisfied that he was truly invisible to the beings around him, Pitch reached into his black robe and pulled out a small, leather pouch. He untied the drawstrings before turning the bag upside down and watching as the charcoal black sand spilled out in a thin stream. When it was empty, he tossed the bag away and waited as the small pile of nightmare sand started to move of its own accord. The sand lifted and narrowed into a thin, needle-like tendril before forming a large ball that split into nine separate forms, and the sand twisted and morphed into the familiar shape of Pitch's nightmares.

The newly formed Nightmares whinnied as their forms grew solid, stomping their hooves in anticipation as they awaited orders from their handler. Pitch moved over to the nightmare closest to him and gently petted her long muzzle. Her nostrils flared in a heavy exhaled and she leaned into her master's hand.

"Spread out and search the land," Pitch ordered in a silvery tone. "Ignore Alice's asinine creations and don't leave any shadowed area unchecked. There has got to be something in this kaleidoscopical disaster that's worth looking into."

With a gesture of his hand, the nightmares whinnied loudly while rearing back on their hind legs. When they hit the ground again, the mares galloped off into nine different directions, their sandy hooves pounding against the green grass of the rose garden. Pitch watched them go until they were completely gone from sight before placing his hands behind his back and strolling into the rose garden maze. Pitch smiled fondly at the fading sound of his mares in the distance. He no longer held ill feelings against his nightmares for turning on him two years ago. He had gotten cocky and arrogant with the control he had over them. Pitch wasn't the kind of person who could easily accept failure and blame. In fact, he would rather blame every living creature on Earth before he blamed himself. But after hauling his wrecked and ragged body from the dark depths of his own underground lair, having been dragged down there kicking and screaming by his nightmares, Pitch was a little more willing to admit his faults, if only in the privacy of his own head.

He had always known that his black nightmare sand was more volatile than the Sandman's dreamsand, but Pitch's sudden gain in power and control and being on the verge of finally defeating the guardians made him sloppy. He knew the nightmares had a tendency to bite the hand that fed them, and yet he still allowed his mind to get clouded. That was a mistake Pitch didn't plan to make twice. He worked his fingers to the bone to gain control of the nightmares again, and worked even harder to finally prefect his new trick.

Entering a dreamer's dream was an extremely difficult trick to perform, but after nearly two centuries of secret practice, Pitch felt that he had a good enough handle on it. He doubted even the great Sandman could do it. He could look into people's dreams, but the golden spirit couldn't enter them. For once, Pitch Black could do something that the Sandman couldn't, and that was a fact that brought great joy to the Boogeyman's little black heart, every time he thought about it.

The trick was difficult because it required a lot of energy and concentration to enter and exit the dream realm, so much energy in fact, that it sometimes left Pitch exhausted for weeks at a time, depending on what kind of person he was practicing on. But despite the shortcomings, his new ability served as the prefect tool for spying, and Alice served as the prefect guinea pig. It allowed him to enter the most intimate part of a living being and riffle through their thoughts and secrets.

True, it was risky of him to try it on another spirit, because in every aspect spirits were more difficult to deal with than mortals, but since Alice knew so little about Pitch and his powers, it made things easier for him. She didn't know what to watch out for when it came to him and his nightmares. It was so easy that the Nightmare King was almost disappointed. Bunnymund should have done a better job of preparing Alice to defend herself against the unseen dangers of the Guardian world, like the Boogeyman. So again, a shame for Alice but an advantage for Pitch.

During his endless circle of thoughts, Pitch found himself walking deeper into the hedge maze until he found himself at the end. And not just the end of the maze, but the end of the entire world it seemed. Pitch was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost didn't notice the broken off edge of the maze until he was inches away from it. He managed to stop himself before he walked right off and fell into completely oblivion.

Once he was several steps back, the dark spirit straightened himself and carefully moved closer to the deadly edge with his arms behind his back. He leaned over to see the bottom, but as far as he could tell there wasn't one, just more sky and clouds. However, he did see several landmasses floating in mid-air around the kingdom. They were smaller pieces of the same destroyed castle behind him, making it look as if the kingdom was once one gigantic landmass, but some powerful force like an earthquake ripped through it and broke apart the kingdom, scattering its limbs and sending them floating off into the endless sky.

The grimace on Pitch's gray face grew as he continued to look down. Not wanting to find out if the edge of the kingdom was truly bottomless, he turned around again and went back the way he came. He didn't enjoy being out in the open, but at least outside of the maze he could see if he was about to walk off the edge and fall to his death. It took some careful navigating but Pitch was able to find his way out, and when he did, he found one of his nightmares waiting for him. She whinnied and stomped her hooves as her master approached, her head bobbing in all directions. Pitch reached out and gently hushed the restless sand creature. Under his touch, the nightmare's powerful legs slowly stilled and its erratic breathing calmed.

"Have you found something for me?"

The nightmare fidgeted again as she bowed her head, eager to show her king what she had found.

"Show me," Pitch ordered before he climbed on to the nightmare's back.

The black horse neighed while once again rearing back on her hind legs. Long streams of nightmare sand whipped behind her as she broke out into a fast gallop. The ride was a blur of colors, shapes and sounds. The mare covered a great distance in a short time, hopping from platform to platform, weaving through invisible portals to different areas, and expertly dodging different obstacles that crossed her path.

When the nightmare finally came to a skidding stop, Pitch climbed down and took in the new area. He found it even more ostentatious than the rose garden. At least the kingdom had a very unsettling and foreboding aura surrounding it. The new area was filled with nothing but colorful dollhouses the size of skyscrapers, toys and overgrown baked goods. Pitch looked over the sea of primarily pink houses and stifled the urge to vomit. The pastel colors and oversized toys were already giving him a splitting headache. Pitch gripped the bridge of his nose again in irritation before he threw his nightmare a pointed glare.

"And why exactly did you bring me here?" Pitch asked, his irritation evident and boiling just under the surface. He didn't like it when his valued time was wasted, especially if it landed him in a place like this.

The nightmare let out sharp puff of air through her snout as if insulted by her master's skepticism. The mare stomped over to the edge of the green building block they were standing on and gestured downwards with her snout. Humoring the pile of sand, Pitch walked over and looked. At first he didn't see anything but an endless desert of doll clothing and broken toy parts, but then he saw something in the far distance; a black patch against the ground, polluted with shadows and thick fog. Pitch couldn't sense any fear from within the fog but he found it worth investigating regardless.

The Nightmare King let out a dark chuckle as he rewarded his nightmare with gentle strokes along her flank before mounting the mare once more and clicking his tongue. His grip on the black reins tightened as the nightmare jumped over the edge of the platform. Darkness surrounded the two as they plummeted deeper into the underbelly of Wonderland. When all four hooves hit the ground again, the mare took off at neck-breaking speed towards her master's destination.

Once there, Pitch jumped from the mare's back and resumed his usual, confident stance with his hands behind his back. Pale yellow eyes took in the colossal structure that laid in ruins before him. A large mountain of broken wood and nails with twisted doll parts littering the area around it. Pitch could tell that the giant pile of rubble was probably once a proud, dark, looming structure that floated in the air along with the other dollhouses. A rotting cipher against the rest of the colorful world surrounding it, but something must have dragged it down to the graveyard where it now resided.

Whatever it was, it screamed all levels of horror and gave off a wave of maliciousness that made even Pitch's eyes sting.

Several whinnies suddenly drew Pitch's attention and he finally noticed the other eight nightmares approaching, the shadows of Wonderland drawing them all to the same place as they fell into a familiar formation around their master. The mares shifted and trotted in place restlessly, awaiting orders like a pack of leashed hounds. Pitch ignored them as he strolled up to the nearest pile of rubble that looked like the remains of the main entrance or front gate because of the half-buried wooden sign sticking out of it.

Not wanting to risk getting cut by jagged, rusty nails or the ugly barbwire wrapped around the edges, Pitch used his foot to kick away the scraps of wood until the sign's wording was completely visible. His eyes traced over the crooked black lettering of the sign.

"Dollmaker's Workshop"

Pitch smirked at the idea of a darker, scarier version of North's beloved workshop. He mused to himself as he thought of the possible backstory behind this lovely structure. It was obviously some defect that didn't agree with the rest of Alice's ideal décor, so it was torn down and left to rot in the Wonderland Graveyard. Why something so dark was built in the first place, Pitch couldn't even begin to fathom, but it was a work of art to him and he almost mourned its fate.

The sounds coming from one of Pitch's mares drew his attention. He looked to his far left to see a nightmare slowly, cautiously inching towards something on the ground; a black, gelatinous substance seeping out of another pile of broken wood. It bled through the planks and dripped on to the ground like oil as it bubbled and hissed. The dark spirit watched as the nightmare leaned down and sniffed at the black ooze. For a moment, the ooze did nothing but pulse like a living organism. Then out of nowhere, long black tendrils shot out of the puddle and attached themselves to the nightmare's snout. The black horse bellowed loudly and reared back, trying to dislodge the substance from her long muzzle while the rest of the ooze puddle gathered around the mare's legs and started climbing them.

Pitch instinctively moved closer to his nightmare, but stopped short to watch the slime slowly invade and infect his creation with stunned fascination. The mare bucked wildly with so much panic and distress, Pitch didn't even know something made of nightmare sand was capable of. And despite the best efforts of the mare, the ooze didn't let go and it continued to bury itself into the black sand. The mare kept fighting for several minutes until it eventually became completely overwhelmed and finally collapsed into a smoldering pile of sludge. The other nightmares bellowed and neighed, spooked at the sight of what the mysterious black ooze did to their comrade. Pitch's face twisted up in disgust at the repulsive, bubbling puddle.

After seeing no more signs of life from the fallen mare, Pitch carefully stepped around the puddle and gestured for his remaining nightmares to explore the ruins around them, but halted when the ooze started to move again, slowly bubbling in a gross, rhythmic way until it escalated into a furious boil and the ooze expanded. Pitch quickly moved back as the puddle begun to rise higher and higher, causing globs of black ooze to cascade down to the barren floor like a faulty kitchen sink, leaving the Boogeyman and his mares to stand by and watch as the sludge twisted itself back into the familiar shape of a horse. The newly formed nightmare, or whatever it was, only resembled its previous self in shape alone. As far as Pitch could see, it was no longer made of his black nightmare sand, but instead it was made of the mysterious, black ooze.

Long tendrils of ooze dripped from every orifice on its long face while polluting smoke drifted off its body in waves. The thing stomped its hooves roughly against the ground before rearing back on to its hind legs and letting out an ear shattering noise, so loud that Pitch almost had to cover his ears. It was a sound that made one's skin crawl and your teeth ache. A sickening cross between a furious neigh and a sickly gurgle.

Pitch jumped out of the way as the reformed nightmare suddenly charged. It continued on as it ran past Pitch and his nightmares, heeding to no commands from its former master. It ran away from the ruins were it was born, and off into lighter side of Alice's twisted mind, a black cloud of pollution forming in its wake. The Nightmare King stood there stunned by what had just occurred. His pale eyes trailed from where the creature disappeared, to the black hoof prints it left behind. The image of the grotesque beast, created from a mixture of his nightmare sand and the toxic ooze, burned furiously through Pitch's head like wildfire.

He has never seen something so terrifyingly beautiful in his entire life.

Pitch had anticipated that he would find some rather dark things in Alice's mind, but he had never imagined it would be anything like that. Clearly, there were much deeper and darker things living in Alice's psyche, things that even the great Bunnymund probably wasn't aware of. And what ever they were, Pitch craved to know all about them.

With a sense of determination, Pitch gathered up the rest of his nightmares and willed them back into shapeless piles of sand before ushering them into the leather pouch he brought with him. Once his nightmare sand was tucked away in the safe confines of his robe, the dark spirit collected himself once again before disappearing deeper into the ruins of Dollmaker's Workshop.

~O~

It was around midnight when the Sandman appeared outside the balcony doors of Alice's guest room.

He floated up to the doors without a sound, putting his round face and small hands against the cold glass as he looked into the dark room. His face squinted up as he tried to peer through the darkness. After a few moments of searching, the dreamsand spirit was able to make out the guest room bed and the small lump buried underneath the blanket. A smile broke out across his face once he realized that Jack had been telling the truth about Alice turning in early, not that Sandy doubted him. From what North told him earlier, there had been a moment of panic when Alice didn't show up for dinner. Bunny immediately got up to go search for the young woman when he noticed her absence, but stopped short when Jack arrived with the news that Alice had returned to her room for the evening and wouldn't be joining them.

North felt a bit disappointed that he would only be dining with Bunny and Jack, and not with their entire group. Tooth hardly ever stayed overnight and Sandy was working. But like always, the Russian let the disappointment roll right off his shoulders and appreciated the company of the Guardians of Hope and Fun. Sandy returned to Santoff Claussen later that night to hear about how North's day went with Alice shadowing him, and the small man was excited that Alice was sleeping. He had waited for the chance to use his dreamsand on a sleeping Alice ever since the Man in the Moon chose her to be the next guardian. He hasn't had the opportunity to give the dark-haired woman a good dream since before the night of that horrible fire.

Unbeknownst to the other guardians, back before Alice became a spirit, Sandy tried to reach her in that asylum, but he was always met with failure. His sand would evaporate instantly before it could even get two feet past the front entrance. There was so much pain and suffering surrounding the building that even Sandy's dreamsand couldn't penetrate its walls. The Sandman knew more about Alice's life after the fire than the other guardians were even aware of. In fact, he knew about Alice's incarceration in Rutledge Asylum long before Bunny did. The pooka didn't find out about the asylum until Alice sought him out that Easter Sunday, twenty-two years later. Despite his very best efforts, Bunny had lost track of Alice when she was transferred from Littlemore Infirmary a year after the fire. The asylum orderlies took her away on one of those rare days where Bunny wasn't sitting in a chair next to her bed. When the poor spirit returned, he found nothing but an empty room and no traces of where the girl was taken.

Sandy remembered the day Bunny stumbled into North's Workshop, a frantic ball of matted fur and nerves. He remembered watching with a sullen face as North regrettably told Bunny that since Alice's light went out on the Globe, there wasn't much they could do to find her. She wasn't a believer anymore and that limited their resources considerably. Bunny was already aware of the fact that he was invisible to the little girl, but that didn't stop him from sitting by her side every chance he got, even if it proved detrimental to his health. Although, now that he had finally lost Alice in both mind and body, the pooka couldn't do anything except fall to his knees in renewed grief and failure.

After seeing his friend's heart break all over again after the pooka slowly accepted what North was telling him, Sandy felt a strong determination building inside his small body. A determination he only felt when the safety of a child was at risk and they needed his protection. Without muttering a single sand symbol, the Sandman left the pooka to grieve as he set out to find Alice and somehow think of a way to bring her back to his distraught friend. Sandy wasn't as limited in his powers and abilities as some of the other guardians were. His dreamsand could reach and affect believers and unbelievers alike. It took a while, nearly a year of carefully combing through most of England during his usual dream spreading routes before Sandy was able to track down Alice's location. When he found her, a big part of him wished he hadn't. He was able to find her body, but Alice's mind was gone. She was nothing but a hollow shell of the curious little girl she once was, and there didn't seem to be any hope that she would ever fully wake up again.

For years, Sandy struggled with the weight of the knowledge he had in his possession and the decision whether or not to tell Bunny about Alice's declining condition. He visited the asylum sporadically for five years before ultimately deciding to keep his information from the other guardians, Bunny in particular. Sandy watched and listened for any signs of recovery. He even broke into the office of Alice's doctor and read the man's notes, just to make sure, but each visit ended in disappointment. Five years wasn't very long compared to the immortal lifespan of spirits, but it was a long time for a human to be trapped within the walls of their own broken mind. So long in fact, that very few are able to resurface again, and Sandy feared that Alice wasn't one of those few.

So imagine his surprise when, two decades after the fire, Bunny came bounding into the workshop with news that Alice had come back to him, and not only lucid and completely coherent, but also as a spirit. When the news passed from North to Sandy, the golden spirit couldn't help but look up at the moon. Even now, when Manny chose Alice, Sandy looked up at the moon in silent wonder. What were the chances, that the little girl Bunnymund had befriended over a century ago, would turn out to be their sixth guardian? Did the Man in the Moon somehow foresee Alice's future when she was little and led Bunny to her? Or was it all just purely coincidental?

Knowing the moon, those were questions that would probably never be answered. The Man in the Moon always knew best, and when it came to choosing new guardians, the moon always had his reasons for his choice. Even though those reasons were sometimes hard to see. That didn't matter to Sanderson. He had placed his trust in the moon when Jack was chosen, a choice even Sandy didn't see coming, and he wasn't left disappointed. Jack saved them all and helped them defeat Pitch. He was a good choice and the guardians were lucky to have him.

And Sandy knew the same would be of Alice Liddell.

He quietly opened the balcony doors, noting in the back of his mind that the doors were unlocked, and slipped inside the dark room. He floated over to the bed and looked at the woman sleeping under the thick blankets. Her face was so peaceful as she slept, void of all scowls, sneers and glares. To Sandy, the woman looked five years younger without her cynical facial expressions. He wanted to mourn the innocence that was lost so early and all the hardships the woman had suffered throughout the years, but he refused to. Alice was with them now, soon to be a part of their team. Everything was going to be okay.

Sandy clapped his small hands together and rubbed them. Glowing dreamsand pooled in between his stubby fingers and the illumination from the sand bathed the guest room in a warm light as Sandy weaved his dreamsand. Once he had gotten the ball of sand to form a long strip, he sent it over Alice's head.

The golden spirit blink in bewilderment when the thread never reached her.

He stiffened when the thread fizzed and then dissipated into the air, inches from Alice's sleeping form. He pursed his lips in confusion before he gathered up more dreamsand and tried again. The thread took this time and the Sandman's shoulders relaxed. Sometimes his dreamsand didn't work the first time, especially if it was on adults or other spirits. Usually a little more sand and a second try fixed everything.

Satisfied with his work, Sandy floated away from the bed and took a seat in a nearby lounge chair. The short spirit sunk happily into the red cushions and folded his hands over his stomach. He wanted to stay and watch the things that Alice's mind would shape his dreamsand into. He remembered the dreams she used to have as a child. The Sandman always remembered the dreams of children with exceptional imaginations. Children that grew up to be famous artists, writers and performers. Known for their creativity and eye for the extraordinary. And she had been given the chance to grow up properly, Alice could have been one of those children. Her dreams were always so colorful and stunning. She dreamed of a far off place where everything was bright and beautiful. A place where everything was topsy-turvy, clocks ran backwards, rain and tree leaves fell up instead of down, and animals wore fancy clothing and attended plays and tea parties.

And Alice was never lonely. Unlike in the waking world where other children thought her strange and did everything they could to avoid her and delusions.

Sandy looked up from his suspended feet at the cloud above Alice's head. He could make out the shapes of oversized roses and two figures moving around them. The tallest figure was undoubtedly Alice, the dress being a dead giveaway, and the figure she was following was a rabbit, much too small to be Bunnymund, though. Sandy watched with a smile as the Alice sand figure ran after the rabbit, the long tails of her apron bow fluttering behind her. Slowly, he could feel his eyelids grow heavy and his head drip.

Then suddenly, like a switch, the dreamsand shuddered and the images collapsed into a floating pile of formless sand before it dissipated once again.

Pulled from his dozing, Sandy sat up straight in his chair. His attention peeked and he tilted his head to the side when Alice mumbled in her sleep and turned over. He got up and floated over to her again, a third ball of dreamsand already forming in his hands. Now determined to create a dream that would stick, Sandy weaved out another thread of sand and sent it towards Alice. It took again, but Sandy stayed next Alice's bedside to make sure the dream wouldn't collapse like the other two. He couldn't figure out why the woman's dreams kept breaking. It was never usually this difficult to make a dream stick, even if the dreamer was a fellow spirit.

When Alice started to shift more sharply in her sleep, Sandy grew concerned. Her face twisted up in discomfort as she tried to curl deeper into the blankets of the bed. The cloud of sand hung uselessly above her head as Alice's movements intensified. Sandy's heart sank as he recognized the telltale signs of a developing nightmare. Wanting to stop the nightmare before it could truly get started, he willed the sand cloud to come back to him so he could weave it again.

The cloud didn't move. Sandy froze and blinked in shock as the golden sand ignored his commands. That was...unusual.

Then the sand started to darken in color.

Immediately, Sandy's guard was up and his eyes searched the shadowed areas of the room for that oh-so familiar dark figure. Alice continued to struggle in her sleep while he checked all of Pitch's usual hiding places. The Sandman knew Pitch Black wasn't gone for good when his nightmares dragged him back to his lair two years, but the spirit didn't think the Nightmare King would return so soon, and try something so bold as to attack a potential guardian right inside Nicholas St. North's domain. That was insanely too risky for someone like Pitch.

Sandy floated down to the ground so he could check under the bed, but scratched his head in confusion when he found nothing. Who, or what, was causing Alice's nightmare if it wasn't the infamous Boogeyman? As far as Sandy knew, only Pitch could warp and control his dreamsand.

When Sandy floated back up over the side of the bed, he jumped and stared in horror at the sight of his dreamsand. The glowing cloud of golden sand was gone and in its place was a floating puddle of sludge, like thick oil. It bubbled and hissed above Alice's head as the girl become more frantic in her sleep. Sandy had never seen a dream turn so sour, had never seen a nightmare become so much worse.

Alice thrashed violently in her sleep as the chaos and pain continued to shake her mind to the core. Sandy tried desperately to reverse what was happening, but his dreamsand just wouldn't take. It was rejected from Alice's mind like vomit, leaving a trail of sludge and foulness in its wake. Sanderson realized right away that what Alice was experiencing, wasn't a nightmare.

It was a full blown night terror.

He recognized the signs right away. Dreams were his purview after all, but this black ooze that swallowed and corrupted his golden dreamsand - that was something entirely new. Sandy had no idea what the stuff was. Whatever it was, he couldn't focus on it right now. Alice was more important, and unfortunately he couldn't do a thing to make the night terror go away. It felt like his heart began to ache, having to watch Alice wither in agony like that, but he knew his interference would only make things worse for her. Night terrors were very different from nightmares. For most people nightmares could be easily brushed off. They were just very unpleasant dreams after all. But Night terrors could have a child thrashing and screaming like they were being physically attacked. Sandy was no stranger to night terrors. They were quite common for young toddlers, but he hardly ever came across someone older than six having a terror.

And Sandy has never witnessed one so violent before.

He absolutely hated night terrors because they left him feeling helpless. With nightmares, if Sandy could catch one early enough, he could sometimes weave it into something more calming. And if he couldn't, he could always make up for it by weaving a better one once the child fell asleep again. With night terrors, there was nothing Sandy could do but stand back, and wait. He did take a quick moment to move the bedside table a few feet away from the bed, that way if Alice fell out she wouldn't hit her head and injure herself. After that, Sandy floated next to the guest room door and waited.

The night terror was going to run its course regardless of Sandy and his dreamsand.

~O~

North was working late in his office when the first scream ripped through the air.

He was just about to add the final touches on his ice castle sculpture when the sudden noise made him jump in his chair and his hand slip. The ice pick he was holding rammed through the ice and broke off a large chunk of it. North let out one of his dramatic gasps, watching the ice chunk slide off the side of the table and shattering against the stone floor. The Russian's bushy eyebrows knotted in frustration as he rubbed his temples with his fingers, cursing the world and all its inhabitants. He had been so concentrated on his work, he hadn't fully register what noise had startled him, but when another scream sounded out, the ice sculpture was immediately forgotten as he ran towards his office door, already armed with his dual sabers.

He threw the heavy door open and stepped out into the workshop, walking up to the railing and looking over the side. His sky blue eyes searched the area for any signs of trouble, but the workshop was quiet and empty, void of its workers. North's fingers tapped anxiously against the handles of his swords as he looked around the workshop with a perplexed expression on his bearded face. His eyebrows lifted when he spotted a group of yetis coming towards him.

"Moy Droog!" North called to the head of the patrol. The yeti was out of breath and hunched over with his hands on his furry knees. "What is happening? Who's screaming?"

Once the yeti gained most of his breath back, he went off into a long explanation that North could barely follow. The Christmas spirit only had to catch the words "Alice", "Sandman" and "trouble", before he suddenly spun around and hopped over the side of the fourth floor railing, leaving the yetis waving their heavy arms and shouting after him as he sailed downwards. When his booted feet hit the ground floor, he took off towards the lodging section of his domain.

The further he traveled through the guest room hallways, the louder the sounds of screaming and shouting became. As North rounded a corner and ran down another empty hallway, the large man came to abrupt halt when a door ahead of him suddenly flew opened. He nearly lost his balance as his boots skidded across the floor but somehow managed to stay standing. He looked at the door and watched as Jack Frost came stumbling out of the room and into the wall across from it. The ice spirit struggled with trying to pull on his blue hoodie while also holding his staff and opening his door. If the situation hadn't been so serious, North would have taken the time to point and laugh at the boy's comical display and the face he made when he ran into the wall.

"Wha- what's goin' on?" Jack said, his eyes and voice were still heavy with sleep. One of his arms was stuck inside the torso of his hoodie and the other was wrapped around his staff. Jack had been in the middle of a nice nap when a scream yanked him from dreamland and caused him to fall out of bed in disorientated panic.

"North! What's going on? Are we being attacked?"

North shook his head with uncertainty as he took hold of Jack's staff, allowing the boy to fix himself without stumbling into the wall again. "Not certain. Yeti say scream came from Alice. We must go check on her."

Without waiting for a response, North handed Jack his staff and quickly moved past him. Jack finished tugging down his hoodie and followed closely behind him, not knowing what to expect but ready to fight if necessary. The growing sound of clearly distressed, female screams certainly told Jack that he just might have to.

When the two entered the hallway where Alice's room was, the narrow space was almost completely packed with yetis and elves. North cursed in Russian before he started shoving his way through the crowd while Jack, being much smaller and skinnier than North, was able to weave in between the furry creatures with ease. North was almost at the end of the hallway when he heard a familiar voice shouting loud over Alice's panicked yells.

"Get out of my way, Sandy!"

The Russian finally broke through the yeti crowd and reached Alice's door to see a furious Easter Bunny trying to push his way past the Sandman. The glowing spirit floated in the doorway of Alice's room with his arms crossed over his chest. There was a thin veil of dreamsand behind him, blocking the pooka from entering the room. Scream and crying could be heard from inside the room. North and Jack looked at each other in shock at the scene in front of them before running up to the fighting spirits.

"Sandy!" North shouted over Alice's screams. "What is meaning of this!"

"Tell him to get out of my way, now!" Bunny angrily shouted back, his eyes burned with a fire that almost made North flinch. "She needs help and she's callin' for me!"

North set his swords against the wall and reached out to help calm the pooka. Bunny roughly shrugged off his hand and glared dangerously at the sand spirit who was still denying his entry to Alice's room. North was trying desperately to gain control of the situation, but it was difficult when he had no idea what the situation was. Alice was clearly in a very violent state of panic, but why wasn't Sandy letting anyone inside to help her?

When Alice's struggles began to slowly die down, Sandy looked over his shoulder through his dreamsand to see Alice lying still on her bed. He looked back at his friends and his stubborn frown fell at the looks he was receiving from them. Bunny was almost shaking with rage as his breath came out in heavy pants, North looked at him confused and concerned for the distraught girl, and Jack, who Sandy just now noticed, stood behind North while tightly clutching his staff in both hands, looking just as lost as the Russian. The Sandman couldn't stand having his friends look at him like that, so with a weakened resolve he dropped the veil of sand blocking the door. As soon as the sand barrier was gone, Bunny shoved past Sandy and entered the room.

Bunny was immediately at Alice's side. Her chest was raising and falling rapidly, her emerald eyes were only opened halfway and she stared vacantly up at the ceiling. Bunny sat on the corner of the bed and gently reached out to touch her shoulder. When she didn't react, he slowly eased an arm under her stiff back and pulled her into his chest.

"Alice?" Bunny whispered. "Look at me, Half-pint. What's wrong?"

At the sound of his voice, Alice blinked and slowly looked at him, his forest green eyes meeting her clover ones. The pupils of her eyes dilated as if she had just woken up, attempting to adjust to the dim lighting of the room.

"Bunny?" Her voice was hoarse and raw from screaming. She reached up a pale, shaking hand and rested it on Bunny's nose. When it twitched under her palm, Alice's eyes widened in shock and relief. "You're alive..."

Confusion flooded Bunny as he looked down at the delirious girl. "Of course I am, Half-pint. Why wouldn't I be?"

Alice didn't answer. She only gave him a warm smile before it fell away from her face. Her eyes became unfocused again and they slid shut as she feel back into unconsciousness. Bunny sighed heavily, setting the girl back down on the bed and covering her up with the red blanket that was thrown to the floor during her struggle. Sandy floated into the room and sprinkled a handful of dreamsand over Alice's head to make sure she would stay asleep. With any luck, she wouldn't remember anything about the terror in the morning.

Sandy gave North a nod when the man stepped halfway into the room. North looked at the sleeping Alice, and then around the room before his eyes landed back on Sandy.

"Pitch?" North mouthed, not wanting wake Alice up.

When Sandy shook his head, North's confusion grew. He stepped back out into the hallway and got to work with dispersing the crowd of yetis and elves. After he herded all his workers out of the narrow hallway, he turned to Jack. The immortal teen was standing cautiously in the doorway of Alice's room, watching as Bunny quietly demanded an explanation from the Sandman. North walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Keep eye out for me," North whispered, leaning in close. "I will go contact Tooth and join the night patrol of workshop. Sandy doesn't think it was Pitch, but I increase patrols just in case."

"Sure thing," Jack mumbled quietly as he listened to North's heavy footfalls disappear down the hallway.

Jack's crystal blue eyes stayed on the sleeping woman and the grey pooka by her side. Bunny and Sandy's argument ended and the room fell into an uneasy silence as the three spirits watched over the unconscious woman on the bed. When Jack looked over at Sandy sitting in a nearby chair, their eyes met. He gave the golden spirit a heavy look while his tired eyes asked him the same question that everybody would be asking tomorrow.

What the just happened?

AN: I really hope you guys liked it! I plan to spend some time going back through my previous chapters and doing some serious editing and proofreading. Don't worry, the plot will not change at all. I just want to fix the mistakes I missed. Most of you probably don't care, you just want the next chapter dammit!

Don't forget to review! They let me know that you guys want more. Recently I haven't been getting as many reviews as I used to and I don't know if that's because I'm doing something wrong, or if y'all are just being lazy bums.

~Scorpiofreak~