Two Halves | Book One of The Judgement series

Chapter 16

Dream's Point of View 

He showed up near the beginning of the argument so I know he heard a lot, if not everything. I could sense his presence, his pain, his anger. None of the others noticed him but I did. Ink, being the mediator that he is, convinced the girls to go home. Ink had opened up a portal and turned to me when the girls went through. I simply held up my hand and gave him a look saying, 'There's something I need to do.' Ink had nodded but his eyes told me that we would talk about it later. The portal closed as soon as Ink stepped through. Radio silence for a few moments. The boy probably thought that everyone was gone. Before he left, I called out to him. "You can come out now." His fear levels spiked. I felt sick to the stomach feeling so much negativity from one person, but then again, this is a younger version of my brother we were talking about. He stepped out, though with obvious hesitance. 

This world's version of Nightmare stared at me. He looked exactly like my twin but that was to be expected. Ink was not one to skip the details on a project. Nightmare was on guard and though it was obvious he did not want to, he spoke out. "You look like my brother." 

"You still regard him as family," a sad smile crept onto my face. "That means you don't completely hate him." 

"Who the hell are you?" 

Looking up at the stars, I thought over this question. "It doesn't matter who I am. The better question is, who are you? Who are you willing to become?" Mini Moon stayed quiet. Either he was thinking about these questions or he didn't understand their relevance. Knowing him though, he'd admit to neither. 

"You look exactly like my optimist brother. I assume you're like him in most ways but..." 

"But I am not like him at the same time." I sent a sidelong glance to the small skeleton. He was staring at me attentively. His brow bones were furrowed and his single visible pinprick was scouring me, searching for something. 

"You're lonely. You feel like you're missing something but you don't know how to get it back." Ah, so that's what he was doing. Reading emotions. 

"I won't deny that. In fact, you're the only one to notice that about me." I stopped craning my neck towards the sky and gave the boy my full attention. "That's a good gift to have. The ability to read someone like an open book but, you only get half of the story. The half that isn't well liked, am I right?" His jaw slackened ever so slightly, like he was astonished by my observation. "It was the same for my brother. No one liked him because of it and he was tormented by our peers." Anger filled Mini Moon's eyes. 

"But you did nothing to help him. You wrote it off because you thought if you didn't acknowledge it then it didn't happen. You abandoned him when he needed you most!" 

I nodded slowly at the accusation, confirming his belief. "I did and because of that I lost my brother. I lost him to the darkness that threatened to consume him. Like that darkness attached to your bones." He looked down at his hands, his sockets locked in a glare. "I cannot get my brother back, no matter how much I regret my past decisions." 

"Regret!?" Nightmare's voice cracked and he started breaking down into a fit of pain filled laughter. "He doesn't regret it. He doesn't regret anything he did. He made her leave. Made her abandon us because he did nothing when we needed him!" Throughout all of this, I stayed silent. It was good for him to release this pent up emotion. What surprised me was that during this outburst, the darkness that clung to him receded and left his body in the form of big, black tears. 

Continuing my silence, I walked up to the crying skeleton and wrapped my arms around his body. He flinched but he didn't push away. This was a good sign. I rubbed Mini Moon's back as he cried into my chest. His tears were staining my clothes but I didn't care. I held him close to me, like I wanted to with my own brother. I felt a golden tear slide down my cheek bone and drip onto the corruption covered ground. The reaction it caused made us jump back from one another. A bright flash of light and the electric crackle of magick in the air. Out of instinct, I summoned my bow and notched an arrow on the string. Mini Moon shot me a confused glance. 

"Sorry," I quickly took in my surroundings. Determining there was no threat, I lowered my weapon. "When you've been through as many fights as I have, it becomes instinct. Fight or flight, you know?" He nodded and wiped his eyes, as if he was trying to hide the fact he was crying. I handed him a small handkerchief. He paused to stare at it. The emblem stitched onto it was exactly like the one on my cape, the previous covering of the Tree of Feelings. A golden sun on a yellow background. He quickly shook his head and wiped the tear stains off of his cheeks. 

"What was that flash?" 

"I'm not sure." I got on my knees and examined the ground. Mini Moon pointed to a pair of two small seeds. One gold and one galaxy. I'm not sure how he saw those but as soon as I laid eye sockets on them, my body froze. Mini Moon asked me what they were. "These," I looked up at the young skeleton, "are what can save your relationship with your twin."