A Taste Of Hope

Chapter Seven

30 minutes earlier, at Nightmares castle

The sound of a ticking clock echoes around the office as the soft glow from the nearby lamps illuminate its surroundings and showed the presence of a dark skeleton, seemingly made out of black goo. He silently looks over the many papers that were presented to him, as scrolls and reports were carfully folded in his tentacle like limbs that hanged on his back.

He let's out a soft sigh as he placed down his pen and stared at the calander on his right that had a bright red x on a date that was only a few weeks away. '500 years,' Nightmare thought solemnly as his permanent frown deepens.

'It's been 500 years since the 'apple incident', since I've turned that naive fool into stone.' He lightly scoffs and turns his attention back to his paperwork. 'Why do I still bother coming back to that place anymore?' He thought with a light grumble, not expecting an answer.

He's been asking himself that same question for centuries now. Ever since he first came back to visit after a 100 years and kept returning once every year. There was nothing left for him back at DreamTale anymore, no one left alive after the massacre.

Yet he always came back, to stare at the stump that used to be his so called 'mother' and to sit silently next to his stone turned brother with nothing but silence as his company. He always came back, but he never knew why.

He let's out a sigh as he gently rubs his socket and leaned against his chair as he debated on going to bed or finishing his piles of paperwork.

'He.._..! sleep_.._.o._..e_we.k'

'#S.dmare' :(

'Ugh,_._h.t._pap.rw..k'

Nightmare let's out a low grumble as he hears the many broken voices of the creators that chatted mindlessly in his head as he could only make out bits and pieces of their conversation.

'I_w..d.r_h.w_Er..r wo..._re.ct_.._.. f.u.d
..t th.. Dre.._.._.....mares_br...er?'

That alone, immediately gained Nightmares attention as he started focusing on the broken sentence itself and tried to interpret what they just said. 'Honestly, it's times like these that make me wish I managed to grab the last apple.' Nightmare grumbles.

Ever since he almost ate every negative and negative turned apple on the tree of feelings. He gained magic that was unimaginable and the rare ability to hear and communicate with the creators from the beyond.

...sorta

You see, while he can technically hear and converse with the bodyless voices of the creators, he can only hear the broken peices of their conversation. And when he was able to semi understand them, it was mostly them commenting on what he was doing, or their opinions on his gang.

It was more of a neucenss then anything and are one of the main reasons why he was so often in a bad mood. Though there are few times when the things they say do become helpful, and a few even helped him on his goal for total domination.

All of a sudden, a spike of Positivity appears out of nowhere in the Multiverse, as Nightmares eye widens in suprise as he shot up from his chair. 'This magic...it couldn't be,' he thought to himself and closed his eye to focus on the location of the magic

OuterTale timeline #52 immediately came into mind as he teleported out of his office and into the Au timeline itself. He didn't know what he truly expected when he appeared in the said timeline, but it certainly wasn't FUCKING DREAM FIGHTING WITH THE DEMIGOD OF DESTRUCTION OF ALL SKELETONS!!

He knew that his younger twin brother was stupid, but not THIS stupid. He felt his soul freez as he witnessed his exhausted brother barely dodging the many attacks that were thrown at him, when all of a sudden. He collapsed on the rocky ground from pure exhaustion and a stray bone was heading straight towards him.

*Badump*

Almost by pure instinct, Nightmare immediately teleported right infront of Dream as one of his tentacles came to life and knocked the bone right out of the air. He turned towards Dream, who held fear, suprise, and recognition in his golden eyes and stared at his corrupted older twin brother for the first time in 5 centuries.

'Hello....brother,'

'Nightmare...'