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The thing in the garden didn't know that dream was that far from their reality. The vessel was waking up and he needed to calm him down so that he won't realize he's sleeping. All that power he accumulated. All those souls. All those genocides he started and consumed. All of it until the vessel was waking up.
Whenever he moved, magic would seep out everywhere, incomprehensible and unfathomable. He was enjoying this. He was... Happy...? Until he realized being happy as nightmare probably isn't that good. The boys were just joking around until one of them told such a dark joke that he couldn't help but laugh.
It was an awful laugh. Everyone cringed so hard from it. It was such a distasteful joke. The power was so strong that it spread from across time and space.
He tried to reach dream for a moment. A small vibe here, a message from across the void there. He was met with the sound of a church bell, loud and imposing. It was odd. Usually church bells signaled him being close by but he could tell that he wasn't.
"I'm awake." Nightmare says.
"YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE."
Nightmare was scared. Everything was so different. So advanced. Ever-changing. He wanted to cry. He wanted to stay back near the tree with his brother. Where is he. Then the thing in the garden made him remember. He was being attacked by the villagers.
"He is strange. He does not belong. He does not make the effort to get along."
"He makes me feel scared. He makes me feel uncomfortable."
"He exudes whispers that remind us of bad memories."
"I can hear the voices that make you uncomfortable."
"I can hear the stares that make you feel strange."
"My brother does his job by making you happy."
"But my job is making sure you stay in your cage."
When he ate the apple, he saw it. Nim.
"Mom!" Nightmare says in a language only him and her mother share.
You vile disgusting creatures.
"Close your eyes."
"You spent so much time there that you realized that both of you are now not one and the same."
"What..?"
"I've been dreaming for five hundred years."
"Five hundred years of being set in stone."
"Five hundred years of being all alone."
"Five hundred years being bereft of positivity"
"That much time alone can't be healthy for your body."
Then a crack began to form. He wanted freedom, wanted home. When he was released from that awful cage? A world of nothingness, desolation, and his mother gone, a broken stump left.
"Mom?" Nim?
He says, in the language that they share.
Silence.
What happened..?
Everything was gone. A deserted area, all but blank. No humans, his mother and brother absolutely gone without a trace. He can't feel them, taste them, see them nor hear them.
Until he heard a twinkle.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
He followed the sound of a star, a person in the white. He asked a question, something that they can understand.
"What's your name?"
And all the memories came flooding back.
"Oh my God, where is he? What happened! I can't feel him, but he's.... Here?"
"What are you talking about? Nightmare? I don't know who that is."
"He's a skeleton, a black skeleton, dark as the abyss, with tendrils that can reach out depending on the distance. Do you know him? He's blinded in one eye."
"..."
"You mean," they tremble for a short while, fear in their voice,
"Nightmare?"
Yes! Him!
"He's been orchestrating the destruction of several universes for years now. How do you even know that name?"
What? That can't be right, Nightmare is small, introverted and meek, he enjoys reading books by the shade of their mother's tree and he always comes back to tell him who has some negativity that he can collect. Nightmare enjoys the pain Dream collects for him and savors it. When he sees the black stars of the humans, he collects them with his sight just for a moment and absolutely stares at the ones who are in pain the most.
"Uh." Whoops.
"He's my brother." He explains.
"What." He says, eye lights blinking out.
The apple inside of him twinkles. There! A black star!
"Nevermind, thank you!" He leaves, winking out to the black star.
"Nightmare!" Brother!
He comes to hug him and is met with the mass of destruction, shocked, he sees his brother in the distance. A star being eaten by the black hole. A loud scream. A dying universe. Did you know that if you produce a sound loud enough, it can turn into a black hole?
"Nightmare!!" Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare, Nightmare!
He screams in joy, in a language they can both understand. In a language that they both understood and in a language that they will understand.
"Dream! You're up! Are you okay? You've slept for quite some time." He stops his actions and holds him up, showing him the mass destruction. Dream pointedly ignores it.
"I have to get some positivity soon, I'll be collecting some here later, is that okay?" He looks at the other black holes, portals to other universes, a converter of energy so strong, that it rips stars to shreds.
Now where's a pulsar when you need one.
...
Ah, there. He uses his sockets to absorb the light and lets the apple in his heart grow it.
"Thank you Dream."