Chapter Text
Stories and Fairy tales of distant lands always have a way of taking a reader to some place else. Somewhere that they’ve never been, and somewhere where they’ll likely never go. Seeing the world through the eyes of a character that they’ll never get to be. Feeling like a brave and noble hero that they will never be seen as by others.
Nightmare always read stories like that to escape his world. He was reading a book, page by page, about a hero turned villain when the kingdom refused to be merciful to the antagonist when he was defeated. The hero saw a side of the antagonist that still had the potential to be good. But the kingdom would rather betray their trusted hero than listen to him. So instead of redeeming the antagonist, the hero sided with them, and turned his back on the kingdom.
Nightmare leaned back as he sighed to relive the emotional weight on his chest from the page he read.
“He reminds me of you… In a way.” Nightmare hummed softly as he sat in the shadow of his brother’s statue. It was a shining sunny day, with not a cloud in the sky, and a breeze that brushed against Nightmare’s cheek as he sat at the feet of his petrified brother. Dream’s statue had a younger face than Nightmare’s matured features, standing with a straight back and a blank expression with a stone apple still caged in his hands and a single bite out of it. “The hero saved the villain, at his own cost…” Nightmare muttered about his book with an old standing pain in his voice as his head leaned against Dream’s stone leg. It was one of the more peaceful places for Nightmare to go and read. No one in the village bothered him when he was with Dream’s statue. Usually… Most had the sense to keep the area around Dream’s statue as a peaceful playing field. Flowers and a small stone wall were placed around the statue, making it into more of a monument, or a small flower garden, perfect for sitting in peaceful silence.
But not everyone had that same sense of respect for Dream’s statue. Nightmare saw the usual suspects watching him out of the corner of his eye, thinking that perhaps he was done reading and that Nightmare would leave Dream’s statue so they could follow him. That was as good a reason as any for Nightmare to keep reading his book and stay in his little safe haven with Dream.
He waited another hour or two before it looked like they had finally left. The sun was just starting to set on the horizon when Nightmare braved to step away from Dream and walk back to the Tree of Feelings. It wasn’t a long distance of course, but it was enough to get cut off if anyone wanted to stop him on his way.
Every step, he took with caution. His eyes faced forward so he didn’t look like he was watching out for anyone when he was. He quickened his pace the closer he got to his tree. Racing his feet through the grass and natural flowers that surrounded the tree. At first it looked like he was home free. No one was around and he had made it to the bottom of the small hill that the tree stood on.
But Nightmare wasn’t surprised when four of the guys who were watching him earlier emerged from behind the trunk of the large tree, making him slow to a stop as they cut off his path to the tree.
“Finish your book?” One of them asked less than sincerely.
“Get away from my tree.” Nightmare ordered in a low growl. As the only guardian left, he was the one responsible for protecting the tree and its fruits.
“What would we do with the tree?” One asked hostilely, “Turn ourselves to stone?”
“Fuck you.” Nightmare growled with a dark glare. The four thugs moved closer to Nightmare slowly.
“Watch your tongue, snake!” They hissed at Nightmare disapprovingly. Nightmare only responded by sticking his purple tongue at them as he gripped his book to his chest and backed away as they got closer. Perhaps not the most mature thing, but Nightmare was going to get into a fight with them no matter what he did.
“He’s gonna run!” One of them called out as they watched Nightmare’s eye peer behind him for a clear route out. Nightmare booked it just as they tried to catch him before he could. He ran as fast as he could with the book clutched in his hand. His options dwindled as two sprinted closer to him on his side, forcing him to turn away from the straight path to Dream’s statue. Nightmare had learned to run quickly for long distances over the years, but still his body was never built for speed. They herded him like sheep dogs, even if they couldn’t quite catch him, they could usually drive him down any path they wanted to corner him in.
Today however was Nightmare’s lucky day. He managed to run just fast enough to end up in the neighbouring forest by his own choice rather than getting cornered somewhere that they wanted to lead him to.
While rushing through the trees the playing field was a little more balanced as everyone was forced to slow down if they didn’t want to trip on a rock or a root. The two faster thugs even slowed down more than the others, being extra cautious with the uneven ground and new obstacles to watch out for as well as watching which direction Nightmare was running. If there was one thing Nightmare could do faster than anyone in the village, it was climb trees. Especially the ones that weren’t easy to climb. All he needed to do was get far enough away and find the right tree to climb to the top of. From there, he could just spend the night sleeping in the trees if he had to. But they were fast this time, catching up with Nightmare even through the rough terrain, leading all of them to run further into the forest than Nightmare had ever been before.
“You’ll tire out eventually Nightmare!” One of them yelled at him to taunt him. “We’ll chase you all night if we have to!” “You’re only making this worse for yourself!!” They yelled his name with venom in their tone as Nightmare’s chest tightened with heavy panting and short breaths as he exhausted himself. If he had a mortal heart, it would be pounding out of his chest.
Still, Nightmare ran further, trying to push down the thought that he might not even have the energy to climb a tree quick enough if he could get away from them. He tried to dismiss the fact that he knew that he wasn’t going to make it this time. Meanwhile the four chasing him all taunted him as they noticed Nightmare slowing down.
“Give Up!” they yelled, “Just wait till we get our hands on you Nightmare!!” His head spun with exhaustion as the taunting got to Nightmare’s mind. The path through the forest became more unstable as they drew deeper in, the trees and bushes were thicker. More and more rocks and roots tried to trip their feet and the sky got darker with every passing second.
One of the thugs tripped behind Nightmare, but as Nightmare ran down a steeper hill, he finally tripped too. Tumbling down the small hill only enough to knock the wind out of him without really hurting him.
Nightmare held his book to his chest as he rolled down, protecting its pages and leather cover from damage. For a moment, the sound of the four thugs seemed to disappear behind him. But as Nightmare stopped rolling at the bottom of the hill and looked up, he was faced with a dead end made of cut stone bricks.
Nightmare shakingly looked up at the wall of grown over stone. Amazed to be unable to see the top of the wall of a massive abandoned structure of some kind.
“Look who found the hideout!” One of the guys taunted as all four of them slid down the admittedly not very steep hill. “This is our castle! We found it first!” Another one huffed possessively, as if Nightmare wanted to steal an abandoned old castle.
Before Nightmare could get up off his stomach, one of them kicked him back down. Another started kicking him more as two grabbed his book from out of his hands.
“Wait!!” Nightmare begged desperately before getting kicked in his ribs again, making him curl up uncomfortably with his outstretched arm quickly moving back to grip the aching spot. One stood his boot on Nightmare’s back before another got on top of him and pulled him up into his hands and knees in a headlock.
“What’s this?” Two looked through Nightmare’s book, reading it for all of three seconds before deeming it boring and ripping out a page.
“NO!” Nightmare yelped desperately, as he tried to claw his way out of the headlock and watched as they ripped out more pages randomly. “Stop it!!” Nightmare cried out at them as he was kicked and punched where his clothes could cover his bruises. They ripped up the individual pages and stepped on them as they had their fun with the book, dragging them through the dirt and tearing the cover off before purposefully stomping it into the forest floor.
So few things reminded Nightmare of Dream anymore. Most heroes were like the kingdom, ruthless, merciless, apathetic to the life of the antagonist without caring about what might have made them into a villain in the first place. But Dream was like the hero in that book, he loved Nightmare, and saw through all his flaws. He saved Nightmare’s life until the village took him away and destroyed his perfect white pages. Dream had lost his life, and Nightmare had nothing to show for it. Nothing that made the sacrifice worth it.
Once the book was destroyed, they kicked Nightmare a few times before they lost interest. Nightmare’s streaming tears and crying pleas were enough to satisfy their sick idea of entertainment. One last firm kick to Nightmare’s head made everything fade for a moment as he was released from his headlock to fall over to his side as the thugs walked away. All four of them were long gone by the time Nightmare gained the strength to pull himself up and crawl over to his torn up book in defeat.
Everything still seemed to spin as he watched time slip by through his clouded and tear filled eyes. Before he knew it, the sun had long set and the dark consumed the forest as Nightmare tried to piece the book together, knowing how helpless it was to even try.
Helpless to fix Dream, helpless to fix a book, helpless to run away from his life because he couldn’t leave Dream’s statue or the stupid Tree of Feelings. A part of him had lost Dream all over again.
Nightmare’s emotions boiled inside him like a small hurricane in place of where his heart should be if he was mortal. He gripped the broken pieces of the book in his fists before screaming out his cries with a roaring voice that shook the castle and the forest. Nightmare’s cry echoed through the night, releasing the anguish in his chest until there was nothing left to breathe out. He panted as he cried softly, slowly releasing the pieces of his book from his hands defeatedly, letting them fall back to the forest floor.
There was a moment of quiet as Nightmare panted, trying to catch his breath and bury his feelings if it wasn’t for his tears streaming out of his eyes uncontrollably. But the lonely quiet that Nightmare sat in was disturbed with a rustle in the bushes, making him stiffen and quickly turn to the sound of something big approaching.
“Nightmare?”