I didn't know exactly why I was so furious by this development, or who exactly to be furious with. Charlie? I couldn't really bring myself to be angry at her. Even if I could, she didn't seem to know anything about this situation. Maxwell? He was typically who I would be angry at for any random thing, but this felt more ancient than even him. Something built into the world far before his time even started here.

Perhaps the Ancient Guardian, for leading all of us so astray in our assumptions. The Ancient Guardian, for giving us these titles but lying about them.

I wasn't the Martyr. I never had been the Martyr.

What was I supposed to be?

I had been to the World Between more than once at this point. Sometimes by Charlie's side, in the few moments she stole away from Nightmare, but oftentimes by myself. The first time, I had nearly walked face-first into one of the world memories, and then spent the next several hours watching it on repeat.

What could I have done differently?

Repeat.

Was this really the right thing for me to have done?

Repeat.

It had to be. My entire title is based on me making this decision.

And it was a lie. An absolute, filthy, disgusting lie.

I swept further into the room, every limb stiff with undisguised rage and, as little as I wanted to admit it, terror. "SHOW ME THE MARTYR!" I snapped into the void, because surely this was wrong. Surely it wasn't a lie and I really was the Martyr. Surely, surely, surely-

The world didn't always give up its secrets when requested, but it seemed to gleefully today. Maybe it found as much enjoyment in my torment as everything else in this god-forsaken world. Whatever the reason, one of the many world memories separated ever-so-slightly from the rest, drifting towards me as if by accident despite the sheer audacity of it all.

I barely even had to look at the image inside of the orb in order to dismiss it with a growl of frustration. I refused to believe this. I refused to believe any of this.

"THE MARTYR!" I repeated, clearly enunciating every syllable of the word.

And again. Another memory, with a too-young, too-small spider child in its forefront.

I shoved it away with little care, ignoring the way it drifted and bumped into a handful of other memories. I tried again and again and again, each time my voice growing more desperate, my demands more visceral. Just for the slim hope that there was a mistake, that the memory presented was a coincidence, that just once it would show me instead.

But still. I never once showed up.

The world must have really been laughing it up at this point. The memories it provided belonged solely to him, void even of any of the rest of us just so I could be one hundred-percent sure of its meaning

Webber was the Martyr.

Webber was the Martyr.

It wasn't like I stalked the group. I couldn't even if I wanted to. I had more power than most Survivors, but nowhere near as much power as Charlie or Nightmare. While, under normal circumstances, Charlie could roam anywhere as long as it was dark, I struggled to stay on any other world for more than a few minutes at a time, if I could manage it at all. The only places I could really be without straining myself were Darkness, the World Between, and Checkmate. Outside of those three worlds, my range was limited.

Still, though, I tried to keep an eye on my old companions, utilizing the world memories to the best of my abilities. I couldn't see things as they happened, but soon after the event passed, a new orb would suddenly clear and its knowledge would become available. With this, I was able to keep tabs on their progress from afar.

It was… emotionally draining. Especially for someone who was built with the purpose of not having emotions. I felt more exhausted in the past few days than I had over the course of my entire life.

But it was necessary. I refused to be kept in the dark about what was happening any longer. Even if it meant watching idly as the people I once knew fought, grew apart, regrouped, made the same mistakes over and over again, while I couldn't do anything about it. I had to watch my best friend nearly succumb to poison without being able to help at all. I had to watch Wilson get worse and worse, every world seeming to twist his mind further than the last, and all I could do was watch it unfold.

Was this what Charlie had suffered all these years? It was a wonder she hadn't gone entirely insane yet.

It was the familiar sound of footsteps that finally dug me out of my frenzy. I pushed away any orbs that had drifted towards me and buried my head in my arms, unwilling to see any more play out. Lies, lies, lies, lies.

"CHARLIE," I choked out after a long moment. It was supposed to be a sort of greeting, but it sounded more tense and demanding than I intended. I didn't correct it.

"I cannot even fathom why you would expect to see her here, little automaton."

The voice was so jarring, so different from what I was expecting. It wasn't Charlie's soft cadence, something sad and melancholy in every word. It was a voice full of paradoxes, of descriptions that contradicted each other and made little sense.

It was Nightmare who had intruded on me.

I had almost no one-on-one encounters with the demon. The very few times I had seen it, it was always with Charlie. Trailing after her as her shadow, forcing her hand to do something even if she didn't want to do it. I didn't need to have had conversations with the creature, though, to know everything I needed to know about it.

It slithered closer to me even as I refused to look its way. Its footfalls were distinctly muffled, as if walking on furred feet. I listened hard to keep note of its location, but I still found myself jumping when it spoke again from only a few inches behind me.

"Why are you here, little pet?"

"PET?" I scoffed, unable to help myself. I knew better than to taunt the demon, but the reply came naturally and immediately. "I AM NOT THE ONE WHO FOLLOWS CHARLIE AROUND LIKE A LOST HOUND PUP."

I blinked, and it was suddenly in front of me. It tipped its head slightly, something almost akin to amusement passing over its incorporeal face. When I finally tipped my head to look it in the eye, I couldn't help but notice a single strange detail that had changed about it.

There were new spots around its eyes. Small, white circles, strangely bright among the reds and blacks of its face, two under each eye and a third above and off to the side of them. I felt like I recognized the pattern somehow, but I couldn't even begin to guess why.

"A lost hound pup?" It repeated. Its image flickered slightly at the edges as it regarded me. "Is that what you see me as?"

"I WOULD BE MORE SPECIFIC IN MY CONSIDERATION OF YOU, BUT I WAS NOT PROGRAMMED TO USE THOSE KINDS OF WORDS."

Again. Definitely not a great idea to taunt the all-powerful demon in its own realm.

"Hmm." It was still for a moment, before something flew out from the ground behind it. By the time I processed the movement at all, a scythe of inky darkness had already erupted from the floor and pierced through my stomach.

Well, it would have, if there wasn't already a much larger hole decorating the entirety of my torso.

As it was, the scythe simply passed through me and out the other side. I immediately turned a sneer towards Nightmare for the blatant miss. With a small scowl, it flicked one hand, and the scythe turned abruptly on itself and shot through my shoulder instead.

An involuntary grunt left my chest as agony blossomed from the wound, and wow who would've thought that pain would still be so noticeable when you were already dead?

Still, though, I tried to keep a straight face. I was not about to let the demon get the best of me.

It seemed unhappy with this. The weapon retreated with another small movement of its hand. The sensation of the scythe ripping out of the skin was nearly as bad as going in, but I metaphorically bit my tongue and kept any acknowledgment of pain from my face.

"You are aware," it said pleasantly. "That since death has already claimed you, it cannot claim you again." It shifted closer, and I had to physically restrain myself from shuddering in its presence. "I can do whatever I want to you, and you would be aware of every second of it."

When I didn't respond, its form fluttered to my side, clawed hands digging into my shoulders. I couldn't stop myself from cringing slightly away as the rough grip landed directly on the fresh injury.

"Have you ever been tortured before, pet?" Nightmare purred. "Taken apart and put back together? I assure you, it is an experience you will never forget."

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" I snapped. My voice wavered unnaturally around the words, much to my dismay. I knew that Nightmare was telling the truth. It could, and would, torture me just for its own amusement.

And yet it fed off of fear. I had to keep that in mind.

"What is wrong? Worried I might hurt you?"

"GO AWAY." I pulled myself away from it and pushed forward. Maybe if I ignored its presence enough, it would simply leave me alone. It was supposed to be Charlie's annoying shadow, not my annoying shadow.

"You won't find any of your answers here."

It took all of my power not to stop and listen. If there was anything that knew all of the answers I sought, it would be Nightmare. It had a sort of bond to the world that nobody else had- not me, not Charlie, not even Maxwell. And yet, I also was aware that not a word out of its mouth could be trusted.

"Were you aware," Nightmare continued as if I hadn't spoken. "That this world goes on much farther than your eyes can see? Every single movement, every single thought and word and action, has been documented time and time again, then torn apart by the world's fraying edges. Even this timeline, as solid as it may feel to you, is already beginning to unravel in preparation for the end."

I kept moving forward. Nightmare followed me.

"I have seen all of the endings." Its voice was an unnatural purr. "I have seen all of your endings."

"I DON'T CARE."

"You will."

This was more than I have ever spoken to Nightmare, and quite frankly, I was already annoyed with its presence. My body ached from the tension I was holding in my attempt to keep steadfast. Waves of pain flooded from my shoulder, but it was already healing faster than it would have in life. Soon, the only wound left would be the one that killed me.

I shuddered at the implications of what Nightmare could get away with, what it could do to me, when injuries it inflicted on me healed so quickly.

"How would you react, I wonder, if you learned of how the Martyr was to die?"

I stopped.

It wasn't a conscious decision, but suddenly my feet stopped moving, and Nightmare was chuckling at me for it. I clenched my fists, biting back a growl.

"I am curious, robot. How would you feel if you discovered he had ended his own life?"

"SHUT UP." I didn't want it to speak any more. I didn't want to hear its words. I had already seen the entire thing play out. I had already heard everything the boy wished to do to himself, even if the others hadn't.

After all, the world didn't need observers to catalog its memories. It didn't matter if nobody else was around to see it, I saw all of it. I saw the way he would claw his own arms until he bled, as if he was making himself pay for something he didn't do. I saw the way his eyes would flicker to bystanders when his thoughts started to become crazed, as if watching for witnesses.

I knew that it was a very, very real thought.

"And in the end, it would all be because of you. Because you could not protect him. Isn't that such a sad story? A little boy, left alone and abandoned, cracking until he feels suicide is the only way out. And the one who promised to protect him…? Hm."

I still didn't respond, but I could no longer hide the shaking of my limbs. It wasn't fear, though, but pure rage. The audacity of this creature-

"Oh, but forgive me for speaking in hypotheticals. After all, that would never happen, right? I'm sure his friends would protect him." Sadistic humor laced its voice, as if the mere concept was a joke to it.

"DID YOU JUST COME HERE TO SPITE ME?"

"On the contrary, you are the one intruding on me." Nightmare suddenly closed the gap between us again, its words so close to my face that I couldn't stop myself from shuddering. "You aren't supposed to be here. In fact… you seem to have an awful habit of being in places you shouldn't be. I know you have been dreamstepping." It rested its claws on my shoulders again, and although it wasn't a restricting grip by any means, I found that I couldn't pull away. Its shadowy form surrounded me almost entirely, twisting until it was directly facing me again, red eyes glowing faintly. "Little pets shouldn't be so far from home," it murmured. "They sometimes see things they don't wish to see."

"I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO YOU," I said in a low voice. It was a struggle to speak, like some sort of constricting force was pressing down on my internal hardware. Any tighter and it would crack.

I have to get away.

"That's a shame," Nightmare sighed. "I have so many things to say to you. So many tales I've heard about you that deserve punishment. Places you shouldn't be. Things you shouldn't have seen. And now, I've even caught you in the act, automaton."

I looked away from its piercing gaze. It felt like something was trickling into me. Smoke, maybe, wriggling into cracks and cascading into the hole in my stomach. I tried to look, to prove to myself that there was nothing there, but gentle claws rested on my chin and brought my gaze back up. It was an almost tender touch, impossibly careful and compassionate. It was far from the kind of thing I would have expected from such a monstrous demon, and some part of me almost relished the touch. As if it was something I had craved, and the thought of it being taken away was a hell of its own.

"Don't worry, little pet," Nightmare cooed. "It won't be forever. I still need you, after all."

I could only hum in acknowledgment. The words should have been threatening, but such an overwhelming feeling of calm had taken over me. Even the smoke or sludge or whatever was creeping under my skin wasn't enough to concern me. In fact, I felt almost weightless in both body and mind. Like if I just let go long enough, I would simply float away.

Why should I worry?

It's happened before, and it will all happen again. The thought was sudden, but comforting. Yes, I had been here a million times, and I was sure to be here a million more. I had made it out every time, hadn't I?

"Goodnight, Little Pet."

…

The first thing that sparked back into awareness was my sight.

I felt numb, disconnected from my body. My limbs held no sensation. The only thing I could hear was the soft ring of a malfunctioning sound processor trying to work in pure silence.

Yes, the first thing was my sight, but I didn't even realize that I was awake until I started to regain sensation over my limbs. How long have I been awake? I couldn't point at a single moment where I was one hundred percent present.

The reason behind that, I quickly realized, was because I was somewhere completely empty. And dark. A quick look down showed that I couldn't even see myself

No proof that I even existed.

Immediately, something primal reared its head. A blip in my coding that had gone unnoticed for so long, suddenly flaring into being again. My hands flew out, splayed across the ground beside me in an attempt to touch something.

There were no walls. No voices. Not even the distant sound of wind.

I reached out blindly, but my hand touched nothing. Even the ground below me was cool and smooth, not the soft grass I would have expected from Darkness.

There was no sky above my head. Just more inky darkness.

"CHARLIE!" I called out, desperate for a response. There wasn't a place this cold and quiet in the world. The World Between was eternally bright without any discernible source of light, and Checkmate was dotted with torches that lit on their own. Darkness would have had a sky, wind, some sort of proof that time was moving.

I didn't know where I was.

I was alone.

I was alone.

I wasn't sure what led me into a hopeless crawl forward. I could've stood and walked- my legs worked just fine, but my hold on the world felt tentative at best. Like if I stood up, there was a real chance of the world shattering beneath my feet. Further silence and emptiness greeted me.

At some point, so gradually I barely noticed, the scene started to change. Pale, flickering light shone from somewhere far above my head. Dust particles flickered in and out of the new lighting.

Pain started to set in. Everything below my waist was twisted and beaten. My legs dragged uselessly on the ground behind me.

Water was dripping from somewhere. Occasionally, a single drop would fall from above and land on me, creating a small spark wherever it landed. The sound of metal scraping on metal was deafening.

I pulled myself forward until I physically couldn't anymore. When that happened, I simply lay on the ground, and waited patiently for some of my energy to return. It would be almost impossible given how many broken circuits were leaking power in my legs, but there wasn't much else I could do except wait.

When I finally could, I pulled myself back up, maneuvering until my legs were splayed out in front of me.

It appeared as if I had been dropped from some great height. While my entire body held heavy damage, my legs had taken the brunt of it. Smashed into little more than scraps of metal that folded in on itself. I leaned back slightly and turned my gaze upwards.

I couldn't see the sky, but there wasn't a roof I could see either. Instead, whatever may lay above me was obscured by dust and haze. I couldn't tell where the light was coming from.

I did what you wanted, I thought emptily, gazing down at my broken body. I was everything you wanted.

You said I was perfect.

You said I was perfect.

And yet…

I wasn't.

Emotion built up in my chest. Wrong. Despite my sheer inability, I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to march back towards them and destroy them just like they tried to destroy me. I wanted to taunt their failure in doing so.

I wanted to be near someone.

I wanted to be near someone.

But I couldn't do any of that. Instead, I was trapped somewhere cold and dark. Somewhere damp and without sunlight.

I wanted to see sunlight.

I had never seen it before.

I wasn't built to feel sunlight.

But today felt like a day of new things.

New things like learning to rebuild my own body.

It was a great luck that I was surrounded by metal and scrapped robotics. Pieces of machines that had been built and scrapped long ago. Many of these pieces wouldn't work on me, but I was a robot. I was built to know things.

But I was also built to feel things.

But I wasn't.

But you built me to feel things.

My thoughts were laced with bitterness. Thrown aside and set to be demolished for simply existing.

But I couldn't think about that now. No, I had to worry about putting myself back together.

And so, that is exactly what I did. The world felt smudged and uncertain during the entire process, and when it all snapped back into focus, the light had changed and I was in a single piece once more.

Pride filled my chest as I stepped back and folded my arms, admiring the machine that I had built with my own two hands. My legs were sturdy beneath me, repaired so well that you couldn't even tell they had been smashed to bits only a couple of weeks ago.

"You want to be somewhere you belong, right?"

I scoffed at the notion, but didn't protest the sentiment my faceless companion spoke of. No matter how much I protested and argued against him, he always seemed to be able to see right through me. It was easy to see that I couldn't hide anything from him, and in a way, it was a comfort. He knew everything about me, and still chose to help me.

I wanted to feel sunlight. In theory, I knew what it felt like, but warmth like that was such a foreign thought that I couldn't even begin to imagine what it was like.

At my companion's patient urging, I stepped closer to the machine. It hummed in my presence as if waking up from a deep sleep. Once, a long time ago, I had seen such a machine. I had seen it, but my mind had barely processed it. Had I simply blocked out what had happened Before?

It didn't matter anymore, because I wasn't Before anymore. It was After.

Sunlight felt amazing. It was a sensation that even my wildest dreams couldn't have properly prepared me for.

There were other things that drew me in, too. The wind felt like a companion all on its own. Always brushing against my side as if reminding me it was there. Rustling the leaves high above, like it was always watching over me.

Nature in general, I hated in theory, but couldn't quite hate in practice. Sure, concepts like empathy and sympathy were lost on my mechanical brain, but the simple things about it brought me facsimiles of enjoyment. The softness of grass against the bottom of my feet. The whisper of leaves and the crunch of twigs that followed my footsteps.

And then, there were the downsides of it. The people.

Downsides? Upsides? I couldn't even tell. I hated them, but I needed them. I didn't want them around me, but without someone around, I felt lost and without anchor. I was too good for them, but I wasn't good enough to be around. A world of paradoxes that would've killed any lesser machine.

The first tiny smile, the first bit of admiration and acceptance stuck with me. Over time, the arguments- while never disappearing- started to change into something else. Develop into something I had never expected.

Fights turned into arguments. Arguments into debates. Debates into teasing. Teasing into banter. Banter into conversations. Conversations into something closer to… friendship. Yes, that was the best word for it, although the concept was so strange and obscure that I wasn't sure what to call it at the time. Friends. They were my friends.

Friends. That was the only word that crossed my mind as I gazed down at the unconscious boy in front of me, one hand pinned high above his head and blood pooling from an open gash on his throat.

I knelt down beside him and murmured something before tearing the knife out of his hand. His eyes shot open as he crumbled to the ground, and when they landed on me, I saw sparks of panic.

"No, no, please," his voice cracked, feet pedaling uselessly on the ground as he tried to push himself away. I reached out, but froze when his eyes locked onto my outstretched hand. "Please, please WX, don't kill me."

"I'M NOT GOING TO HURT YOU, KID," I muttered. I rested a hand on his shoulder and he immediately stopped breathing as if waiting for me to strike.

"WX." The voice came from behind me. Shaky and hoarse, tight with terror. As I turned to face Wilson, something felt distinctly wrong.

He was severely injured, almost as badly as Webber. Furious slashes rendered his arm all but useless, hanging loosely at his side and painting the ground red around him. His face was covered in so much blood that I could barely make out the wounds that caused it. "Put the knife down, WX," Wilson demanded, but the rasp of his voice ruined the effect.

I turned my gaze to the weapon in my hand. It fit my grip perfectly, as if it had been made for me. Sticky with blood and gore.

I jumped back and dropped the knife as if it was made of fire. The way it made my hand burn, it certainly felt like it was. Wilson gave me a shaky sort of smile before abruptly bending over to cough out clots of blood. Every line of my coding was screaming wrong, wrong, wrong, but caught in the image as I was, I couldn't discern fact from fiction. All I could tell was that both of my old companions were dying, and I was the only one with a knife.

Commands and questions fired off in my head faster than I could process any of them. Mixed signals of run and wrong and blood and kill, kill, kill, KILL-

It was all that ran through my head as I faced down the Ancient Guardian. The beast was massive, its furred back scraping the stalactites far above our heads.

The creature was crazed with something unnatural. Gelatinous black fluid poured from two empty eye sockets and leaked from its severed ears. Its horn was streaked in blood and the entire monster was covered in entrails. Severed organs, belonging to what must have been hundreds of past victims. Some were fresh; still-beating hearts and pulsing intestines hanging over its body like streamers. Others were old; green and rotting, maggots swarming over the exposed innards.

I didn't have to look to know that I was alone. It was some knowledge that I simply had that not all of those entrails belonged to strangers.

(If I looked hard enough, would I see spider pieces too? A stray whisker or a slab of chitin?)

I stood alone against it, and I was frozen in place.

The Ancient Guardian moved with purpose, each step calculated and calm, a direct opposite of the way it tossed its head and snorted furiously with puffs of steam. When its head lowered slightly, more of the fluid began to drain from its orifices. Bubbling from a jaw that hung from its head, seeping up from swathes of peeling skin and rot. I needed to run. I needed to kill it. And yet, I couldn't do either.

The fluid was dripping from me, too, I now realized. It leaked from every seam, every crack in metal. My vision was flooded with it, and I could taste nothing but metal and acid. It fell from my body and gathered around my feet before sticking like glue. Holding me in place forever. With every fresh glob of fuel that stained my skin black, I felt some integral part of me leak away.

Drip.

My emotions.

Drip.

My friends.

Drip.

My family.

Drip.

Soon, there would be nothing left of me. I would be completely empty, just a shell of metal with nothing inside. Just like my creator had always intended.

The Ancient Guardian was only a few feet away now. My feet were stuck in the buildup of fuel at my feet.

With an impossible gentleness, it pressed its horn against my torso.

There was an explosion of agony the second it pierced skin. It was a slow process, but one that forced me to feel every second of it.

I knew it wasn't what had happened. I clearly remembered every inch of this scene, and none of it looked like this. None of it felt like this.

That knowledge didn't save me.

It's a peculiar feeling, I decided, to be disemboweled. Eventually, the pain should shoot above the threshold of understanding and into something more obscure. A concept that you were aware of, but something you couldn't quite grasp anymore. It's at this time a flesh-and-blood being would have passed out or even died, but I wasn't alive in that way.

When I was killed, that threshold had been reached immediately. I had barely felt a thing. Sure, it didn't feel pleasant to be impaled, thrown over a dozen feet into the air, crash into the ceiling, then fall onto stone again, but I can't say the experience was extremely painful after the initial hit. And yet, this time, the threshold stubbornly refused to be reached. I was forced to feel every second of it, fighting and writhing and kicking in a pathetic attempt to protect myself. To get them away from me.

I wasn't even sure what was dissecting me anymore. It was far too precise and methodical to be the Ancient Guardian, but my vision was malfunctioning to the point that I couldn't see them at all. The further they cut, the more senses started to sputter out. The weaker I fought back.

Eventually, you get to a point where you realize there's no point even in trying to fight it off. That is the point where you fall completely still as your innards are torn out in handfuls of flickering wires, as tiny chips and processors designed to keep you living are smashed to bits, as the only movement you find yourself capable of is the most pathetic of twitches.

It made sure I felt it all.

"Have you ever been tortured before, Pet?"

Nightmare's words came back to me in the last fleeting moments of the nightmare- ha ha. I suppose its name was fitting, wasn't it?

Well. I suppose this was an experience I could check off of my bucket list. After-bucket list.

Been tortured. Check.

…

It was Charlie to rouse me.

Sleep wasn't something I was accustomed to. I was capable of it, but it wasn't ever something I needed. Many late nights spent staring at a fire, silently, lost in thought proved that.

So, upon waking up from the first time I had slept in a very, very long time, I reacted in what I assumed to be a normal reaction.

Luckily, Charlie caught my fist before it could make contact to her face, saving me the guilt of having attacked another friend. Still, after recognizing her properly, I scrambled away. She didn't attempt to get any closer, much to my relief. Instead, she stayed a few paces back, her face creased in an unreadable expression.

The second I was too far for her to reach me, my hands flew out towards the wound in my midsection. Immediately, my fingers became tangled in damaged and loose wiring, but I felt nothing but relief when I came into contact with other, intact mechanical pieces.

None of that had happened.

None of that had happened.

"Nightmare caught you," she said. It wasn't a question, merely a statement. I nodded slowly anyway.

While later, I would probably regret such a reaction for how simply pathetic it was, I couldn't help but curl my knees into my chest and hide my face.

I was in Darkness, just within the range of a gray-fire torch that lit in my presence. If I was a living creature, I surely would've been embarrassing myself even further with the way they showed terror. As it was, there were no failed attempts to breathe, sobs, or panicked wheezing.

Instead, when I pulled my gaze back to Charlie, the only thing to betray my horror was a violent tremor in my arms and legs. She frowned slightly, and I couldn't help but wonder what she saw on my face. I certainly felt shell-shocked, but I wasn't sure whether or not my expression could show such a depth of emotion.

"What did it do?" She asked, her voice taking on a softer, kinder note. I shook my head, stubbornly refusing to respond.

Nearly dying by the hands of my creator.

Pride at building Maxwell's wretched portal.

Tearing into my companions with a knife until blood soaked the ground.

A rotting monster, being ripped to shreds-

"CHARLIE," I said calmly. Calmly. There certainly wasn't such a violent shake to my voice that it was barely recognizable as her name. She tipped her head slightly, an invitation for me to continue. "HOW," I started to drag myself to my feet, but my legs could barely hold me up. I stumbled back to the ground and landed heavily on my knees. Instead of trying again, I opted to finish my question. "DO YOU KILL NIGHTMARE?"

Charlie barked a laugh, which was the opposite of the reaction I was expecting. She quickly covered her mouth, eyes wide. "That wasn't funny," she clarified. "I just… that's such a you question."

"I AM NOT JOKING," I said lowly. I was one of the more mentally stable survivors. Honestly, probably the most mentally stable except for maybe Winona. The things I had experienced in a terror cut short by someone with the knowledge of how to do so would drive any lesser person to insanity.

I had always been well aware of the danger that Nightmare posed, but being a victim of its power was the wake up call that I needed. A creature that could inflict such intense, violent, real dreams on someone it wasn't even connected to was much more dangerous than I had initially anticipated.

"You don't understand just how powerful Nightmare is," Charlie sighed. "What you just experienced… that isn't even a fraction of its power." I looked away as she continued. "It can use magic you can't even conceptualize. It is Their leader, and They follow it everywhere except for where They can't follow. It can read your mind, WX, you couldn't even come up with a strategy it wouldn't expect, and it can teleport with barely a thought. That isn't even the beginning of what it can do. It was born alongside the world, spawned from the same source as the Nightmare Throne. The only way you could kill it is by destroying the entire world in the process, and even then, it's only vulnerable, not dead."

"THEN HOW DO WE FACE THAT POWER?" I protested. I threw one hand out. "THAT IS NOT THE KIND OF MAGIC THAT SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO ROAM FREE!"

"You don't face it, WX. You work with it." Charlie ran one hand through her hair and closed her eyes. A sigh escaped her chest. "I know what you just went through… what Nightmare just did must have shaken you up terribly. I've been there myself time and time again. Nightmare hates me, you know." She let out a joyless chuckle. "But understand. It is the god of this world. This world begins and ends with Nightmare. There is no culling that."

I folded my arms on my knees and gazed into the distance. It was pitch black here, save for the tiny spot of light I sat in, but it was so different to the darkness from my dream. It was bustling with nighttime creatures and rustling with wind and glittering with stars. Darkness would be beautiful in any other circumstance.

"WHAT IF IT GETS TO WEBBER?" I asked quietly. There it was. The question I'm sure Charlie had been waiting for the entire time.

"You can't protect him from everything, you know…"

"HE ALREADY WANTS TO DIE, CHARLIE. WHAT IF NIGHTMARE TAKES HIM? WHAT IF HE BECOMES LIKE WILSON?"

She hesitated.

"WHAT WOULD THAT DO TO YOUR 'CYCLE'?" I pressed. It wasn't just my emotional attachment to the boy that had me worried about this scenario. If Webber really was something so powerful as the Heir-

And my thoughts stopped there, because he wasn't the Young Heir. Because that was a lie.

"HE'S THE MARTYR."

Charlie blew a thin stream of air out from between her teeth. "Yes."

"YOU KNEW." I felt betrayed. For so long I had trusted her. I had listened to her when she told me what was going on, and I took her words at face value. The mere idea that she was in on this… this sick lie sat in my stomach like a ball of lead. She knew. She knew, and she just led me to believing something that wasn't true this entire time. She lied.

"Listen, it's… it's a lot more complicated than that." She looked away, wringing her hands together. "I can't explain it to you, but it's not just… as it seems on the surface." I could tell that she was choosing her words carefully.

She wanted to tell me as little as physically possible, which was quite honestly the most annoying thing she could have done.

"YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN OR YOU WON'T EXPLAIN?" I snapped. "YOU ALL SPEAK OF HIM LIKE HE IS THE YOUNG HEIR, BUT HE ISN'T. HE HAS NEVER BEEN. WHY THE LIES? WHY THE SECRECY?"

"Because this is about more than just you," Charlie said. She drew herself up, eyes glinting. "There are so many pieces that not even I know. I can't explain it because it hasn't happened yet."

I threw my arms in the air in frustration. "THEN WHAT CAN YOU EXPLAIN?"

"I can explain that there's nothing you can do to change what's happening." She waved one hand as if brushing something off. "I can explain that Nightmare is a force that you shouldn't mess with, and if it already is against you, it's best to lay low. I can explain that annoying Nightmare is what doomed both Wilbur and Tyler. But you won't listen to any of that, will you?"

"DOOMED?"

"Oh, that's what you pick up on." Charlie sighed. "Yes, doomed. Nightmare killed Wilbur's mate. Be glad that you've only seen him after he met Tyler."

(I had certainly seen World Memories from before that, and I was more than happy to keep that version of the prime ape far away from me.)

"As for Tyler… well, Nightmare never did kill him like it was supposed to."

We had all heard the demon's fury at the boy continuing to live. I had no idea what had invoked Nightmare's ire, but I had a few good guesses.

"Come on, WX. Can you walk?"

I scoffed at the question. I wasn't going to suddenly become paraplegic because of one scare.

And if my knees refused to completely cooperate and my legs shook under my weight, well, that wasn't anything I was going to point out.

Many times, staying by Charlie's side grew unbearable after more than a few hours. It wasn't any fault of hers, but simply my disdain for Darkness and my curiosity about the World Between often drew me away.

However much I insisted I was completely fine, though, I still didn't leave Charlie for quite a while after that experience. I had seen my old companions to the end of the second world. I just had to have faith that they would make it to the end of the third without anything terrible happening.

In hindsight… perhaps I should've known better than to hope.