The living room was poorly furnished, with only the most important pieces of furniture such as a sofa and a shelf full of books. The rest was empty and dusty, as if the place was not even worth maintaining. This was probably the case. After all, it was only a makeshift shelter, a place they would soon leave and flee to a safer place, before danger caught up with them again and forced them to do the same thing again.
Dream weighed down gently, gazing at the pages of his novel without being able to concentrate. Another night he didn't sleep, another night of biting anxiety, of detestable anguish.
"Worrying won't get you anywhere." he heard abruptly.
He barely jumped, grumbling with discontent at this unwelcome coming. Though the term was a bit strong... he simply did not wish to see Cross at this moment.
"Go to bed." the guardian told with exasperation.
But the monochrome ignored him to come and sit beside him, leaning nonchalantly against the backrest while darting his one valid eye on the prince of dreams.
"What's bothering you? he asked, although he already knew the answer.
- Nyx is long gone, but nothing has changed. How can you expect me not to worry about that?"
The swordsman looked up at the ceiling:
"Who knows?
- Don't be so phlegmatic! He's still your pupil, and my nephew! Shit, what if something had happened to him? What if the portal had been unstable? What if... What if he was erased from this reality? Oh my God, what if... God..."
He took his head in his hands, and took a sigh from Cross:
"Dream, I was there. I saw what was on the other side of the gate. Don't worry, he got to the other side safely.
- You can't go safely through the past, damn it Cross!"
And as each time the guard got up sharply, starting to walk a hundred paces, waving his arms excessively, his eyes dark, his teeth clenched:
"If something happened to him, I won't get over it! I promised myself that I would support him, that I would relieve him of a burden!
- Maybe he succeeded, but it just created another timeline, without touching ours.
- Maybe it did! But how do we know that? Damn it, you should have gone with him! You should have!!"
Cross looked up at the sky:
"Don't scream, you'll wake Lux. And then he..."
He got up, approached the guard gently to make him stop moving:
"...do you really think I could have left you when you were facing Dust and Killer? Dream ... the multiverse is completely corrupted ... ...you and I have lost our families, our friends... I've... I've already lost Epic. It's just you and Lux and Nyx. We're alone, completely alone... and if I hope Nyx is happy in another timeline, I can never bring myself to abandon my husband and daughter."
He took him in his arms, hugging him gently:
"... Even if it means going down with our multiverse ... I want to be with my family to the end."
Dream responded feverishly to his embrace, his soul clenched.
If only... If only he could have stopped Nightmare in time... if only he could have prevented all this... there wouldn't have been so much loss, so much suffering, so much regret. The multiverse had already begun its downfall the moment Ink had let himself be corrupted by the black apples, but now that Error was dead in turn...
There was only a storm of miscodes left. Codes that were nibbling away at the last remnants of their world. The question was whether they, or the bad guys, would finish them off first...
=== ===
Horror frowned, perplexed, as he let go of the meat that was grilling in the pan. He wanted to believe that Nyx was bad at cooking, but not knowing how to hold a knife ...
"Nyx, are you all right?"
His doubt was confirmed when he saw his comrade stretching slightly, but as always, he took back his impenetrable mask and that false smile that was beginning to unbear the cannibal:
"Yes, I'm all right! I'm just having a little trouble with the vegetables.
- If you held your knife differently too..."
Horror approached him and stole the kitchen tool to better position it in his palm:
"You see, it's like this..."
He paused, perceiving from the corner of his eye the slight grimace of his apprentice. This worried him even more as he began to guess what was going on. Increasingly annoyed, he released the knife and grabbed Nyx's hand frankly, wrenching a cry of surprise and pain from him. Before the drawer could free himself, Horror rolled up his sleeve, revealing a wrist in poor condition, wrapped in a half-untied bandage as if it had been done in haste.
"Wh- I'm dreaming! What the hell happened to you?"
Nyx came out quickly, too abruptly as he grimaced again, aggravating the pain in his wrist. He brought his hand against him and looked away, suddenly feverish. Too feverish.
"N-Nothing..."
His stuttering, weak voice set Horror on fire, and he had to take a deep breath to avoid anger and to stay in control of his actions. He didn't insist, at least not verbally, as he came and grabbed Nyx by the arm - the one that wasn't attached to the broken wrist - and suddenly teleported him to the bathroom.
If Nyx gave him a confused look, Horror didn't explain himself and simply forced him to sit on the edge of the bathtub. Then he turned to the cupboards and searched them thoroughly, only to come out of the bandages a few minutes later.
"You're out of luck ... the oldest growled as he walked back to Nyx. You've stumbled upon the only castle where no inhabitant is gifted with healing magic."
The drawer remained silent, simply watching him take his wrist more delicately to remove the half-open bandage.
"Did you put that bandage on yourself? asked the cook.
- ... Yes, I did.
- ... Damn it. . . You're as bad at cooking as you are at caring. Worse than Killer."
Nyx laughed, which made Horror smile. Finally, the black-boned skeleton regained some of his good humour, even if it wasn't that yet.
"What's up? Are you going to tell me how you got hurt?"
The cartoonist massaged the nape of his neck:
"You might laugh...
- Eh, why? I promise, I'm not laughing!
- Mm... I was on my bed and I wanted to draw. I leaned over to the bedside table to grab my notebook, but I slipped and smashed on the floor."
There was a great silence before Horror, looking hallucinated, burst out laughing:
"Oh shit, are you serious? You're even more clumsy than I thought! You'd never think of breaking your wrist like that!"
Nyx had an embarrassed smile. Embarrassment that passed for shame to the cannibal, when in truth the one with the black bones felt guilty for lying like that. But he could never have confessed the truth to anyone...
=== ===
Nightmare stayed for a long time watching the files on his desk, but he left them there phlegmatically, realizing that he could not concentrate. How could he? Nyx's case preoccupied him, preoccupied him too much.
It was hard to admit, and to tell the truth he would probably never admit it to anyone, but the master of woes had become gently attached to the damned cartoonist. And yet, the Creator alone knew how much Nyx could bear it! Seriously ... he came out of nowhere, was not known to anyone, but seemed to know everything about everything, as if he had studied every monster on the multiverse! Well, Nightmare was probably exaggerating a bit, but to see that Nyx knew him - a bit too much - well when he knew nothing about himself was ... terribly frustrating.
Not to mention this barrier around Nyx, a kind of mask, a role that the artist was giving himself. As if he was hiding his true thoughts, his true purpose, behind all sorts of tricks, spells ...
Yes, there was magic. Nightmare wasn't stupid: by noticing that he didn't feel Nyx's emotions, he understood that Nyx was using a spell, a terribly powerful spell that exceeded the power of the nightmare master.
One more mystery about the skeleton with the grey scarf.
And if that's all it was... Nightmare was willing to believe that Nyx was more powerful than he let on. But... from there to blocking his mind?
For no matter how hard Nightmare tried, he had to face the fact that Nyx did not dream. Every living being had a dream bubble at bedtime. A bubble that Nightmare could see and control, a bubble in which a dream, a nightmare, or simply nothing was diffused.
But the Nyx bubble didn't exist. Nightmare searched for it every night, waiting for Nyx to go to sleep, but it was nowhere to be found.
As if Nyx did not sleep.
But it was impossible. Everyone was asleep, skeletons included.
But then... (Sighs) Didn't Nyx look exhausted all the time?
It was true that his black bones perfectly concealed his dark circles.
But ...
Nightmare growled.
He had to get to the bottom of it.
=== ===
[Looks at me]
Shut him up...
[I love you, my angel]
Shut him up!
[I'll always be here]
Wha....
[I'll always be there for y...]
SHUT UP! SHUT HIM UP!
Nyx opened his eyes, too quickly to relate to reality, too quickly for his vision to get used to the darkness.
[It was dark. All dark]
Terror made him speechless, he got up hastily, took his legs in the blanket, fell backwards and felt his shoulder crack against the ground.
[Black, still black]
He ignored the pain, ignored the burning, the inferno of his soul, to rise up with uncontrollable trembling, erratic breathing, white dots dancing before his eyes, a sign of his confused spirit being tormented again by darkness.
He threw himself on the bedside table, had great difficulty in lighting the lamp as his hands trembled.
He was suffocating.
[He needed it]
The sob escaped him in spite of himself.
[WHERE WAS HIS FUCKING BAG?!]
He turned his head towards the office, beamed there instantly.
Using his magic made him twist, made him even more unstable than he already was.
[An apple]
He felt more than he saw the crack on his soul, the crack that spread a little more over his poor inverted heart.
[WHERE WERE HIS APPLES?]
His fingers couldn't find anything. The pain grew stronger, as did the white flashes that kept dazzling him.
He spilled his bag on the ground, in a din that seemed far away, too far away.
Stormy flashes, flashes of memories.
[His birth, a mistake]
He threw himself to the ground, nervously rummaging among the spilled objects.
[Desperate Ink, to the point of accepting a black apple]
Lack of sleep is fatal to health. The mind starts playing with us, deluding us. What is the dream, what is the reality?
Nyx didn't know. He never knew.
[The years of torture and rejection]
[Fighting Continues]
[Plum]
[His Plum]
[His parents]
[ERROR!]
New Flash
And Ink, whose wards had now disappeared, reaped the joy of his son's distress:
"Ah... ahah ... Pathetic and miserable... so this is what you have inherited from me... ?"
The fracture sounded like a mirage, a distant sound. A distant sound but yet so close, too close, too violent.
Plum's neck had just been broken.
Then there was nothing but dust, and the frightened look of Nyx. His gaze turned grey, empty of all emotion.
If he had not been born, the conflict between Ink and Error would not have become so serious. Killer would not have left Nightmare for Color.
If he hadn't been born, his parents wouldn't have continued their unhealthy relationship thinking that they only had this left.
If he hadn't been born, Nightmare wouldn't have been desperate, not so desperate as to upset the already fragile balance of the multiverse by corrupting the majority of universes. He wouldn't have taken possession of Underlust, he wouldn't have killed all its inhabitants except Plum.
If he hadn't been born... Plum wouldn't have joined the Badlands by force. He wouldn't have gotten dragged into this, attached himself to it, died.
And the best irony in all this?
Plum didn't even love him. Never had. But then again... Nyx was the only form of tenderness in the castle. So Lust had fallen back on him.
But Nyx had never needed to read his feelings to know how much Plum disliked him.
For ... Nyx was the son of Nightmare, the master of nightmares. As well as Ink's son, the former guardian, the traitor.
Nyx was the mistake of a lifetime.
But if Plum didn't love him... Nyx had sincerely loved him. From the depths of his soul.
"You..." he stammered, still on the ground, watching unbelievingly as Plum's clothes fell to the ground.
Ink looked at him, leaned his foot a little harder against his skull:
"What, are you going to cry now? Do it Nyx, cry! That's all you're good for anyway. You're only good at sobbing on your own s..."
The Creator stepped back sharply, dodging in extremis the tentacle that had just sprung from the ground, which had failed to perforate his body. He shuddered at the sudden drop in temperature, took another step backwards, lowering his eyes, his eyebrows furrowed.
The magical concentration around Nyx made him yelp. An unhealthy, feverish, trembling magic that accompanied the bitter tears that rolled down the young skeleton's cheeks, his bitter tears that blurred his vision but did not hide his blinking pupils.
Red, grey, red, blue, red, grey, red, blue, red, red, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED, RED.
BLACK.
Nyx exploded:
"AHHHH!!!!!!!!"
Ink petrified, his brush exploded against the ground. He screamed as his patella shattered, shattered cleanly by another tentacle. Falling one knee to the ground, the painter was suddenly propelled to the ceiling, spat out a sheaf of blood before being smashed against the floor.
Nyx was no longer in control, cowering over himself as he continued to scream, the negativity escaping him far too quickly to contain it.
His eyes turned red again. He looked at Ink with his red pupils, dangerous, threatening.
Another tentacle sprang up, grabbed the painter by the neck. But this time Ink had the presence of mind to teleport despite his weakness.
Nyx turned sharply, intercepted the punch with his arms. Ink, who thought he had him on his backside, growled loudly before he teleported his brush in his hand, spraying paint on his son.
The younger one hiccupped, suddenly finding his hands bound by chains, before Ink hit him with his handle, sending him crashing into the wall behind.
He was in the castle room, in another timeline, in another TIMELINE!
Nyx knew he was going to die.
He was out of apples, he was out of apples!
Ink was going to finish him off.
WHERE WERE HIS APPLES?!
But through his blurry vision, Nyx perceived this intrusive blue thread. This wire that he had never seen before, but whose owner he knew.
He found one. An apple. His last apple.
Error immobilized Ink, his livid face, as if he couldn't believe the spectacle he was watching, which he couldn't grasp as his little artist had turned in such a way.
He stuck his fangs in the black pulpit, sweeping away his last glimmers of lucidity, his mind finishing to twist when he felt the oppressive and foul embrace of anger, of resentment, materialize around his soul to tear it apart.
A cold sweat covered him, gravity grabbed him from all sides. He felt his body fall heavily, his skull hit the ground.
"Who are you, kid?"
Nyx didn't answer. Ink did it for him:
"A HORROR, A MISTAKE, THAT'S WHAT HE IS! THIS IS WHAT HE WILL BE FOREVER!"
Nyx groaned piteously, trying to regain his senses, to return to the present moment. But the memories were still playing out, Error's eyes were resting on him.
"I am Error, the Destroyer of UA."
Nyx looked at him, half-conscious.
"I'm gonna get you out of this hellhole."
Nyx blinked.
He looked up at the ceiling.
The silence was soft, terribly soft, after the inner screams of his subconscious.
He blew, clutched his tunic to the place of his soul.
His seizure was over... but for how much longer?
His energy completely drained, he turned his head softly, his pupils lingering on his things strewn about the floor.
Tears came, less painful than the previous ones. A form of fatality, of sinister acceptance.
[He ran out of apples.]
We knocked on his door with strength, drive, will. A noise that sounded like a terrible death knell for Nyx, who got up painfully and eagerly, hiding his objects under his bed with a clever turn of his foot. He dragged himself to the door, dressed in his impenetrable mask, with a smile that he knew to be increasingly false.
"Good evening, Nightmare," he greeted his host with a casual greeting.
The master of the house was not at all reluctant and entered the room without the slightest hesitation, sweeping it with his gaze before returning to Nyx:
"You're not asleep."
An observation, not a question. The cartoonist laughed:
"That's right. But I was planning to go to bed soon.
- I'm not talking about now."
The guest swallowed, didn't have the opportunity to answer that Nightmare's aura was more worrying, intimidating. For Nightmare was like that: he hated not understanding, that one thing escaped him:
"You're not sleeping. You don't sleep. Otherwise I would have seen it."
Nyx tilted his head to the side, mimicking astonishment, then forced a laugh:
"It's true I don't sleep much, but when l-"
Nightmare's gaze grew harder and colder as he snapped his tongue:
"Don't take me for a stupid Nyx. I'm not able to feel your emotions, but I can still read people's eyes. And you lie like a little cheeky."
Nyx felt faint. But he was lucky, this young skeleton. As lucky as a kid in a situation could be. Lucky that Nightmare showed up after his seizure. Lucky that he ate a black apple before confronting the master of misfortune. Lucky to be emotionally stable again, enough not to break down, not to reveal his weakness as he did in front of Horror.
His quiet smile of each day returned.
Nyx looked as confident as ever:
"Nightmare, I'm sorry if I'm upsetting you so much. But are you sure you're all right? Wouldn't your power fail when the baby comes?
- Wha...?
- Insomnia is adorable... but what energy he has! You and Killer must be exhausted, right? If you need help, I'm here, you know? I love the kid, I'm willing to babysit him for you once in a while!"
Nightmare blinked, not understanding how the discussion could have turned out this way. He was about to go back to the initial subject but Nyx cut him off again, leaving to retrieve his abandoned notebook on the bedside table:
"I could teach him to draw, he has a lot of potential! Look!"
The master of the house was slightly startled, surprised that the paper was put in front of his eyes. In spite of himself, he found himself looking at his son's scribbles. And even though it wasn't high art, he was quickly moved without even realizing it.
Nyx had a sweet laugh:
"Killer was talking about a new restaurant the other day... Why don't you go there tomorrow? I'll keep Insomnia with Dust!
- ... I'll ... Suppose we could do that, yes."
Nyx walked him to the door with a smile:
"It'll be great! You're a couple, but you can't let up! Isn't there anything more beautiful than two lovers seducing each other every day?"
Nightmare got a little worse, not even realizing that he had reached the corridor. Nyx waved to him:
"We'll confirm all this tomorrow! Good night!"
He closed the door ... and Nightmare opened his eyes.
Seriously, though... Nyx managed to get him out?
Again?
He grunted, massaging the bridge of his nose, before turning his attention to the drawings he'd kept in his hand. Was Nyx right? Was he simply too exhausted after all? As much by his couple as by his child?
He grumbled. Nyx had turned the tables a little too easily... but it was true that Nightmare needed a break.
He turned around and went to his room, where Killer must have been waiting for him, sleeping soundly.
Yeah, well... tomorrow he was going out with his husband. Then he'd confront Nyx.
Anyway, there was no rush...
...isn't it?