Shattered Souls [sequel]

It's Complicated

Long chapter warning, because as the title says... It's complicated

[1446 words]
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"So... A pretentious name to go with the whole evil, regal outfit?"

Dream heard Nightmare say this, kind of. Everything was a little off and a little strange right now and Dream was so so tired. He just wanted to sleep.

But... He was too tired for that. Too tired to sleep, too tired to live, too tired to do much else than watch and listen as some monster who corrupted his soul and shattered his life killed and killed and killed.

It was probably going to kill his friends.

Dream, with eye sockets all cried-out, couldn't bring himslef to care.

He had cared a little bit at first, when Shattered wanted to kill Cross, and Dream had just about managed to stop him.

But then Shattered had wanted to hear the scream and suffering of countless other souls - and what he wanted, he got.

In such a short span of time Dream found that caring meant more hurt than it was worth.

He wasn't strong enough to stop Shattered anyway. That bit with Cross was just a fluke.

It was hopeless hopeless hopeless.

Dream watched his limbs, now covered in a charcoal-black substance that he had seen so many times in his imagination, moved on a whim that wasn't his own.
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For all his bravado in words, Nightmare looked at the abominable creation infront of him and thought that, really, he felt... Guilty.

Shattered, or Voice, had been made as part of Nightmare after all.

And hadn't it been Nightmare that had been so beautifully and deliciously evil that he managed to manifest his own cruelty, then kept Voice around for another few hundred years for his own emotional weakness? No wonder It was back here now, tearing apart every soul it saw in rage.

Shattered was practically Nightmare to an extreme. This was his fault, it always was, and Nightmare found that there was a certain degree of sadness that came with the realisation that Nightmare was purely and wholly Evil.

It hurt. Just a little.

What could he do, or say, in essentially a fight against himself? What mattered in the face of that? How, in any universe, could Nightmare justify this?

"Hey, boss!" Came a strong and assured voice behind him, "We got this, alright? No puffed-up copy is gonna best us!"

Nightmare looked back at Killer whom, despite his bruises and cuts deep enough to scar, was smiling confidently at Nightmare as though hadn't a single doubt.

And Nightmare knew then that he wasn't, couldn't be, wholly evil because he had built himself a family and they had grown together and learned together and loved and lost together.

Nightmare knew then that there were some things he had to get off his chest if he was ever going to stop Shattered.

See, because Shattered worked with emotions, Dream and Nightmare's souls were prime targets as hosts - the fact that Shattered was created by Nim didn't hurt either - but it also meant that emotions could be used to fight back against Shattered.

And there was one thing Nightmare needed to admit to get rid of Shattered once and for all.

The Apple Incident...