I Chose to Run Instead of Breaking

Chapter Sixteen: In Darkness and Regret

Whelp... Character Death, you have been warned. Even if its off screen.

Hate scowled, he had been so close.

The little rat had escaped his AU, he just had to wait till he felt there magic again.

Freaking pest, couldn't believe the real Nightmare had hidden there.

"Boss?" a voice asked, Hate pasted on his Nightmare expression and turned to look at Cross who looked like they wanted to run.

"I hate loosing," Hate snarled.

CROSS! X screamed.

Yet it was to late.

Hate would gain more power no matter what.

------

The building was burning, more ashes and ruins then house.

Error sighed, the false Nightmare was long gone.

He pulled up the console and started the process to destroy this AU, not like anyone actually lived here anymore.

"The souls are missing," his eternal dark shadow said.

"There getting desperate," Error responded.

"Ge..." Reaper began.

"No," Error said cutting him off.

"Please... Error," Reaper begged.

"You know why," Error replied, then vanished as the unnamed Copy AU deleted itself.

Moments later he was gone also.

------

Dream wanted to cry at seeing those moonlit bones, bones he thought lost under cursed murk.

Golden liquid landed on Blues arm, and Dream quickly wiped it away realizing he was crying.

Carefully he held Blue's hand, afraid if he looked away his twin would vanish on him.

It was funny how the mind worked, Blue had always been exactly like he had hoped Nightmare would grow up. The insane energy Blue always had was explained, as he'd bound his normal energy and had to bleed it off.

Blue.. had been a brother in other ways, he hadn't even noticed Blue fitting in that empty aching slow left by Nightmare years ago.

He wanted to break into loud sobs, his brother had always cared to much.

Dream had been rather blind, oblivious and naive to the villagers double faces.

When he broke from the stone statue he'd become, it had been easy to flee.

It... had taken a horribly long time to return, to look at the fragments of his childhood. The village was sin ruins, most returned to nature in tat period but somethings stood the time gone by.

Now that he had the truth, on the false Nightmare it was even more soul breaking. In those ruins he'd found weapons with marrow on them, and he could see faint scars on Blue/Nightmare's bones where they shone just slightly less.

"I'm so sorry Blue, if I'd known..." he whispered, eyes tracing those horrible bone scars.

The collar beeps, an ugly piercing sound as it regulated his brothers magic after it unsealed it. He jumped a bit, Stretch on the other side of the bed jumped a bit to.

"Sci..." Dream called to the scientist, the other skeleton looked up his eye lights blinking tiredly from behind his glasses.

"Wha.. what is it Dream?" Sci asked.

"We stabilized his magic, but he still won't wake. Is.. there anyway to stabilize his soul?" Dream asked hopefully and Stretched looked hopeful too, Sci sighed.

"We'd need an apple from the tree," Sci whispered softly, Dream whimpered.

When he woke from the statue there had only been one apple, the false Nightmare having eaten the rest. He had protected that apple with a level of paranoia that had scared everyone that met him, pretty much feral in its protection.

Then one day he'd woke up after the first restful sleep in... a very long time, the apple was gone but it instead had somehow become his soul allowing him to survive. It was why he had nothing against Ink even though he was soulless, as the soul he'd kind of had till then had been tree of feelings.

"But.. aren't all those apples all gone?" Stretch responded face tight.

"False Nightmare ate all of them, except the one that became my soul," Dream admitted quietly.

"Oh! So that's why it feels like there are two Nightmares!" a voice said excitedly.

"Stars Damn it Ink! Get off the ceiling! In fact how are you even standing on the ceiling!" Sci demanded with a shriek, a whole so done with it look on his face.

"Oh, Error did it to me once so I learned how to do it on purpose," Ink said happily dropping from the roof, landing right side up standing on the floor.

"Wait! Error.. he's older then even Nightmare and I and knows coding better then anyone," Dream said wide eyed.

"Cool! We can ask Reaper where he is," Ink chirped.

"Eh.. why would Reaper know?" Stretch asked confused.

"Oh, he stalks Error," Ink answered.

There was silence, other then ugly beeps of the machine.

"What... did I say something wrong?"