Chapter 12

Nightmare quickly swings his head up, his breath coming in quick paces, and looks around, scanning his surroundings, his left eye blue. He's in a small room, the only thing in it is a bed. The voice is silent right now, not making a single peep as Nightmare looks at his hands. Some sort of braces are on his wrists now, causing him to flinch. 'What the..' His thoughts are almost immediately interrupted when he hears footsteps outside. He looks around desperately, trying to find a place to hide, but the doorknob turns and it starts to open before he can.

At first, Nightmare almost expects it to be Dream there, coming to see if he's alright. But he knows where he is, and he immediately recognizes the dark energy coming from the figure before he even enters, knife clenched in one hand. "You are seriously pathetic," Killer growls as Nightmare ebbs to the wall, shaking severally. He shuts the door behind him and heads towards Nightmare. Unable to move father, Nightmare attempts to teleport, but it doesn't work, causing his to get even more terrified. "Don't bother, those braces cut of your connection to your magic," Killer says before sitting on the bed next to him.

Nightmare looks at him, confusion joining his fear when Killer doesn't try to attack him at all, in fact, he also starts wondering why he isn't tied up either. Seeing his confusion, Killer sighs and speaks up. "Look, we got off on the wrong foot at first, Cross was attempting to take charge of the situation and that obviously was a bad idea," Nightmare almost laughs at that, but keeps his mouth shut when Killer looks at him. For some reason, Killers expression does seem sincere and calmer then it usually is, but after what Nightmare has been threw, he isn't believing anyone he knows he can't trust.

"Why would I believe you? The only things I know about you is you're crazy and want to corrupt me!" Nightmare growls, a bit surprised by his sudden bravery. Killer looks down, as if he's agreeing with him, but Nightmare can sense a small part of him aching, like he just lost someone important to him. "Nightmare.. if only you could remember.. then maybe you wouldn't act like a confused child," Nightmare looks at him, his expression annoyed, and then he speaks up. "If I knew the truth, I'd probably hate myself even more, and I'd hate you too," "You're wrong,"

Killer stands up again, his grip on his knife nearly breaking the handle. "If you knew, we wouldn't be here right now, arguing over nonsense!" He snaps, a little speck of white appearing in his eyes. "All you've done is ruin everything for us you stupid brat!" At that, he swings his fist right at Nightmares face before he can react, causing Nightmare to fall forward and hit the floor, half-conscious. The purple skeleton feel a sudden shot of pain as Killers knife stabs threw his chest, causing him to let out a surprised gasp of pain as Killer starts yelling again.

"Give him back!!" He snarls, swinging his knife up and down, purposely missing his soul each time. Pain fills Nightmares thoughts, causing his fear to rise as well. 'Stop..! Please..!' He says, though the words never came out. Horror and Dust come in and have to forcefully drag Killer off of him, though their attempts almost do nothing. "Call down for f—k sake! Stabbing him to death isn't going to bring him back genius!" Dust growls as they finally get him off, liquid hate pouring down his cheeks. "You b—rd.." Killer murmurs, his smile almost losing form.

Nightmare can't look up, he can barely move at all. His clothes are now torn and some black is on them, but he can't tell if it's from Killer or himself. "Wait.. hang on.." Horror says, his sight turning to Nightmare. "That... that actually worked, Killer..!" Nightmares fear rises as they say that, realizing that they've found a way to corrupt him again if he can't calm down. "...Grab him," Suddenly, he's lifted to his feet by Horror and Dust, Killer standing in front of him. "Finally.. this is it.." Killer says, now back to his senses again. The other two seem to be smirking now, insanity in their eyes, any hint of what they were before any of this lost.

'Why is this happening..? Why me..?!' He thinks to himself as he tries to break free of their grasp on him, but the strength he had before has seemed to vanish. All that happened seems to flash threw his eyes. The tree, his brother, waking up to learn about this, and even memories he doesn't remember doing at all. 'No... no..-stop already,' The voice speaks over him, cutting him off. 'This is it.. just give up, you know who's going to win..' Killer lifts his knife and slashes it down on Nightmare. He lets out a yelp of pain, but that's all he can do as the pain worsens, his shell cracking more.

'Dream.. anyone.. please... I was wrong.. I- Shut up already. Stop resisting and just deal with it. You're meant to be like this.. why else do you think it happened?' The voices words poison his thoughts, making him believe it for a little, but he doesn't stop fighting for control. Killer swings again, this time, harder. Nightmare vision blurs to the point where he can only see Killers silhouette, the the sides of his vision going dark. Finally, he manages to force words out. "STOP!" Suddenly, he notices Killer tense at the sudden change in his voice, so do the two holding him.

Though his vision and the pain in his body only gets worse, he finally breaks free at their distraction and punches Killer right into the wall before breaking into a run towards the now open door. He feels something sharp hit him in the back, causing him to stumble a little, but he continues to run, now desperate. To his relief, Error and Cross are nowhere to be seen, so nobody stands in his way. Suddenly, the pain gets even worse, like he was just stabbed in the chest, causing him to drop and start coughing. The thing that hit him in the back was removed and he realizes Dust had thrown his knife.

They don't even bother pinning him down, and Nightmare knows why. The voice is right, he can't win this. As the rest of his vision starts fading, he feels something shoot out of his back, causing him to gasp in pain threw the goo coming from his mouth. Suddenly, not knowing why, he feels angry, no, he felt furious. His life was ruined, his brother tried so hard to help him, but at the same time, this was his fault. He just stood and watched just like theses three are right now, he watched him turn into a monster, he watched him beg for help, but he did nothing.

No one cares about him, they're just trying to get him on their team, why? It's because he's both of their worst foes. Nightmare doesn't know what happens next, all he hears is the voice let out a surprised gasp and his vision go completely black as the pain starts to fade and he slowly collapses on the floor, barely hearing Killer say a few last words, a small hint of relief in his tone. "Welcome back, Nightmare,"

                               ~{TBC}~