The Greatest Fear of the Nightmare King

Chapter 3

There's something wrong with the children.

When they leave their houses to play in the snow with Jack, they leave their coats and shoes inside. When Tooth comes to collect their teeth, she finds that they've been losing them earlier than they're supposed to. When searching for hidden eggs on Easter, they look in dangerous places. When they fight with the toy swords they got from Christmas, they're just a little too violent, as though they don't realize that they could get hurt.

The Guardians consulted Manny about it, but all they got was that they needed to focus on Pitch.

This was why Jack had to keep an eye on him. Everyone thought that Pitch must be doing something shady (he usually was, being a shade himself), but after that episode last week, Jack was confident that Pitch was not to blame.

Jack has visited the hole in the ground once a day, and every day, he thought think back to the thing that had been clawing at Pitch. He needed a plan before he went in again. He didn't want a repeat of his first day going down there.

Sandy was the oldest of the Guardians. If there was any information about what that lump of darkness that had been hurting Pitch was, Sandy would have it. Probably.

Today, instead of having another pointless visit to Pitch's lair, Jack had gone to find Sandy. It wasn't difficult. Any strand of dream sand could be traced back to him, so Jack had no trouble finding him standing in the calm night skies of a small town in North America, dancing about melodically as he wove dreams together, sending streams of golden sand through the sky and into the minds of children.

The sandman soon noticed Jack's presence, smiling and waving as he continued with his work.

"Hey sandman. I have to talk to you about something. Do you have second?"

Sandy focused on finishing the set of dreams he'd been working on, and sent them on their ways before giving Jack his full attention, raising a question mark in the sand above his head.

"I need to know if there might be another spirit at work or something." Jack began, "See, when I went to visit Pitch, there was something else there in the darkness, and this time I know it wasn't Pitch. I think it was hurting him."

Sandy looked unimpressed, obviously not particularly concerned with the safety of a spirit who has nearly killed him twice.

"Look, I just need to know what it was. If I knew what that dark, red-eyed blob of darkness was, maybe I could get a bit closer to finding out what's going on with the kids. That's what matters, right?"

Sandy nodded, creating a picture book out of dream sand and handing it to Jack, who looked down at the man in puzzlement. Sandy motioned to the book again before getting back to creating dreams, leaving Jack to his business.

Jack flew down to a rooftop to begin flipping through the pages with great interest. The book was titled "The Golden Age", and told of demons, fearlings, and other dark creatures from all over the universe being trapped in a cage, protected by a brave guard that the king had trusted.