CHAPTER 37: NIGHTMARE REVISITED
Jill opened her eyes.
She was laying on her back again, and there was a faint silvery light that illuminated her surroundings. She was… inside a coffin?!
"No!" Jill's hand flew up to the lid. This time, it opened easily for her. She stepped out quickly, noting that the coffin wasn't even buried. It was just… sitting on the ground. Did someone unearth her coffin and move it? But that only the beginning of her questions.
Jill was in the middle of an eerie forest. The sky was as red as blood, and the moon was much, much larger than it should be. The ground was a lifeless, papery white, and the surrounding trees were black. Jill took a closer look at the trees—they all seemed to have doors in various shapes, sizes, and colors. There were signs nailed into the wood: THIS WAY, THAT WAY, TURN BACK, and so on. The contradictory instructions made Jill feel uneasy, like she was in a maze with no true end. There were no leaves or branches, no sounds of birds or critters, and a light fog brushed up against her ankles. She shivered. "Where am I…?"
She glanced down at herself and yelped in surprise. She was overblotted again! Didn't she change back to normal when she was defeated? Jill checked herself hastily. Yes, she still had the pinstriped dress, the crown, the missing eye, the skeletal limbs… how did she overblot a second time? Where was her Phantom? And why wasn't she bloodthirsty anymore?
"Am I dead?" she asked herself faintly. "Is this the afterlife?" This didn't seem like Heaven or Hell. Perhaps she was somehow barred from both realms, like the legend of Stingy Jack, forever doomed to wander the earth. Except this didn't seem like Earth, or even Twisted Wonderland. Was this purgatory?
A cold wind stirred the fog, and Jill looked around in a panic. She sensed that she wasn't alone here. "What are you worried about, Jill?" she asked herself. "You're the scariest thing around here for miles…"
"Is that so?" a voice behind her asked.
Jill screamed and scrambled behind the nearest tree. She nervously peeked out, but couldn't see anyone. She was shivering so badly that her knee bones clattered together, and she took a deep breath to steel herself. "H-Hello?" she called out. "Who's there?"
There was no response. Jill's heart pounded into overdrive, and she braced herself against the tree. "Alright, you win!" she said. "You're the scariest, okay? You got me good! N-Now show yourself… please!"
The stranger laughed quietly with a gentle voice. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself. I had to protect my title!"
And from the darkness, out stepped a tall skeleton. He had a circular skull, a pinstriped black suit, a bat-shaped bowtie, and an amused expression. Jill's mouth fell open at the sight.
"Y-You're…!" she gasped. "You're Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King!" And then she squeed and bounced on her heels. "OMIGOSH, OMIGOSH, OMIGOSH, THIS IS SO COOOOOOOL!"
Jack winced. "Jill, please don't do that," he said. "We don't have much time."
"Wait, how do you know my name?" Jill asked.
"It's a little difficult to explain, but… we share a connection," Jack said. "And before you ask me, we are not in the afterlife. You're dreaming."
"Dreaming…" Jill finally calmed down a little. "Yeah, I guess I could only meet you in a dream… So we're inside my brain then?"
"Exactly. Each of these doors represents an important memory of yours," Jack went on. "But there's a door that's been hidden by your own mind—a memory you need to recall. It will explain why you're in Twisted Wonderland."
"Wait, so… I remembered why, but I forgot…?" Jill asked. "How could I forget something so important?"
"You'll see," Jack said, and he offered his hand. Jill placed her bony palm into his, feeling like a lost child. Then she followed him further into the woods. Despite being rather tall herself, the Pumpkin King towered over Jill, and she had a hard time matching his long strides.
"Um, so…" Jill muttered. "If you know me, does that mean you know what I did? You know about my… overblot?"
"I do," Jack said simply. Jill couldn't read his face, but she knew he was unhappy.
"Look, I'm really sorry about that," Jill said. "I swear, I would never attack anyone—especially not my friends! But it was like one of those bad dreams where you can't control yourself! I couldn't stop! I felt like I had to kill everyone so that I wouldn't die all alone, and that made sense at the time, but it was really, really bad! A-And I made Hallowgrim look bad, and I made you look bad, and…" Jill's good eye teared up. "And I hurt the people who cared about me…"
Jack stopped and looked back at her. "Jill," he said sternly, "do you know why you overblotted?"
Jill sniffled and rubbed her eye. "Because I lost hope, right…?"
"Yes, you lost your confidence in yourself and the people around you," Jack told her. "You disobeyed everyone and went off on your own way, and it didn't end well. What should you learn from that?"
"To do as I'm told," Jill grumbled, glancing at her feet.
"Nope!" Jack grinned. "You need to forge your own path!"
"Whaaaaa…?" Jill stared at him, her own mouth hung open. "But I tried to forge my path, and it was a bad idea!"
"Oh, it was an awful idea!" Jack agreed, still smiling brightly. "One that you must never repeat! But at the same time, you learned a lot, didn't you? You learned just how strong your friends are, and how much they care about you. You learned that both Twisted Wonderland and Earth are precious to you. And you're about to learn why you were spirited away from Crittenden! Don't you think that makes this whole mess worthwhile?"
"I…" Jill found the strength to smile. "I think you're right, Your Majesty!"
"You don't have to be so formal. You can just call me Jack," the skeleton told her.
"Oh, but I already have a friend named Jack. Could I call you Mr. Skellington?"
"If you want."
Jack and Jill walked together again, this time side by side. The forest continued to twist this way and that, with signs pointing all over the place like in Wonderland's Tulgey Wood.
"But you know what?" Jill said. "All this time, I thought I'd either stay in Night Raven or go back to Crittenden forever… but I can't do either. These two worlds are parts of me—I want to stay in both of them! I want to go back and forth whenever I please! I wanna go all over Twisted Wonderland and see all the cool Disney cities! Oh, and I wanna go all over Earth, too! I could see the Grand Canyon, or the Eiffel Tower—ooh, I could even go to a Rainforest Café! Or even entirely new worlds! If I could find a way to travel dimensions, the possibilities are endless!" She finally caught her breath. "Why didn't I think of that before…?"
"Because no one told you it was possible," Jack said. "So you need to tell yourself that—and then make your dream come true!"
"Yeah, and then I can steal all the holidays!" Jill joked.
Jack laughed. "Oh, no, don't do that—I can't have you upstage me!"
The two of them continued merrily for a little longer until they stopped at a different tree. This one had red tape plastered all over it like a messy art project. Jack grabbed one of the edges and pulled at the tape until the whole tangle was undone. Jill could now see a very familiar door—a rectangular one that was old and gray with a little slit for putting in mail.
"This is the door to my grandpa's house," Jill said quietly. "Do I have to go through here?"
"I'm afraid so," Jack replied.
"Okay…" Jill took the skeleton's hand and moved forward, but Jack didn't budge. Jill stared up at him in confusion.
"I'm sorry, Jill, but I can't go with you," Jack said sadly. "Here is where we must part."
"What? I'm not ready to say goodbye yet!" Jill cried in alarm. "I still have a lot of questions to ask you! And there could be something really sad or scary on the other side of this door! I don't think I can face it! I'm nowhere near as brave as you are…"
"You can't become brave without facing your fears," Jack told her. "But I told you, we're connected. You'll always have the Pumpkin King spirit right here." He pointed to her chest.
"In my heart?" Jill asked.
"No, in your ribcage," Jack said.
Jill giggled, and then hugged the Pumpkin King tightly. "I love you, Mr. Skellington."
Jack hugged her back and smiled warmly at her. "Take care, little one," he told her.
Jill finally released him and approached the tree. She held her breath, then opened the old door to reveal a dimly-lit grayish hallway. She took one last look at Jack Skellington, and the two waved farewell to each other. Then Jill went inside, and the door closed by itself, trapping her within.
It was time to learn the truth.
Author's Note: This is another idea I had when making this AU. Instead of reflecting on their traumas, the overblotted mages would meet their inspirations, who would then give them the advice they need to move on and become better. The idea of meeting Disney characters was just too fun to ignore! :D