From Murder to Dust

ALP - 5 - Watch

We had been in captivity for about a month at this point, and we were honestly sick of it. Ink treated us horribly, the reforming wasn't even working, and to top it all off, they were going to resort to 'more intense reforming tactics,' which probably meant we were going to be in more pain. In addition to our problems, the balance was also wavering. It would be slow at first, but if we weren't going out to do our job, negative emotions would disappear, and Nightmare would probably die. We were going to have to do something soon; Nightmare was already becoming ill. The enemies passed it off as a cold, but we knew better; Nightmare was going to dust if we couldn't find a way to spread negativity. We had no way to do that, though; we had to think of something. If we didn't find a way within half of a week or whenever it started to get seriously bad, Nightmare was going to have to allow us to tell the other side about our job, whether he liked it or not. We weren't going to lose our dad. Currently, we were standing in our line again, and Ink was searching our room; Nightmare didn't look very well at the moment. Ink wasn't thrilled when Nightmare looked like he was going to pass out, but he didn't act on it - yet.

When Ink finished searching the room, he came up to us and performed the second phase of his searching, which we had all been accustomed to. He searched every possible hiding spot in our clothes we could have ever thought of, which took roughly twenty minutes, making today's morning search last about an hour and a half; we hated standing for that long without being able to do anything. When Ink finally finished his entire search, he left the room, allowing us to sit down; we were tired out. Even Killer wasn't up to playing after searches; they just felt so long. We lay on the floor, wishing for a way out; there was nothing. After a while, the door was softly opened; this wasn't Ink's usual hard opening. We looked to see Nightmare's brother, Dream, with a soft smile and a caring outlook; that probably wasn't good for the balance - I decided to retain my negative appearance to preserve something. Dream sat next to us and looked sorry for his brother, not even thinking that he could have been part of the cause of Nightmare's sickness. He offered his brother some comfort, which wasn't optional; Dream hugged his brother, who couldn't fight it. Nightmare couldn't have returned the gesture if he wanted to; he was too weak from his illness.

We wished so much that we could just tell the enemies about the balance now, but we promised not to until we were completely sure that we absolutely had to. It was actually comforting to see Dream's affection towards Nightmare, but that wasn't good for the balance. After a few minutes, Killer couldn't take it anymore; he cried. Dream looked concerned.

"Um..are you..okay?" Dream asked. 

"F-fine.." Killer managed to get out; Nightmare seemed to slightly benefit from Killer's crying.

"Do..you need help?"

"No.."

"I can..try to cheer you up?"

"Don't cheer me up! I like bein' sad!"

"How could you..like being sad?"

"Well, he has a thing with emotions, and he happens to like the sad ones." Error quickly filled in. "There's really no need to cheer him up!"

"O-oh." Dream was confused, but he didn't question it further. "So, are you..enjoying yourselves?"

"Be better home." Horror sighed.

"Being s-small isn't v-very fun.." Cross wanted to be big again.

"May I ask what it is that you don't like here?" Dream questioned. "Maybe we can do something to make you feel more welcome."