Breath taker

Part 17- A Discovery

Pitch Black stood over a sleeping girl. Everything in her room looked like it was from the skies above them. The walls looked like the sky, they were painted with clouds. The ceiling was painted with constellations. A telescope pointed out the window.

The only thing missing was the golden dreams of spaceships above her head. They were missing and Pitch was so glad that it was so easy to poison her mind with his nightmares. Turning to his nightmare beside him, he told it "Go.".

The nightmare jumped up and dived down upon the child, but flew back upon impact, hitting the cloudy wall.

"What? What are you doing? Get back here, try again!" he commanded it. But the nightmare just shook its head, cowering by the wall. Furious, Pitch placed his hands on the girl's head, trying to place her in a nightmare himself, giving himself a vision of a space like world, looking down he saw the earth. Above he saw a white ceiling, with chains coming out of it, attached to the earth below.

Grinning, he grabbed the chain closest to him, and pulled, when a green light surrounded the chain, burning him and forcing him to let go. Looking around, he was shocked to see all of the chains glowing green, a chant could be heard, loud and clear in his ears.

Let the children reside in the black world of quiet peace when they enter the world of sleep at night. Nothing may hurt them at this time. Let nothing be able to pull their chains out of the world, nothing but the morning call of sunrise. Let this command be stronger than one by any other. Let nothing be able to stop my command, without removing the catalyst.

When the chant was finished, he was pulled out of his vision and thrown across the room by an invisible force. Shocked, he sat there for a few moments, questioning what had just happened. Was that voice Lorelai's? Had she done that? Why?

He merged into the shadows, before popping back out at the now black sandcastle. The room where the dream machine once was, was now empty, aside from the black sand and dark fog.

The broken machine was gone. Pitch wondered if it had taken one of the guardians down as well, like he intended, or had they been outside of it when it went over. But that was not why he was there.

His nightmare began to prance around the room, through the fog, before stumbling on something and running away, in fear and pain.

"What is it girl? What is it Onyx?" he looked up at his trembling horse.

Fun fact: that was his horse's actual name in the movie.

The horse looked towards a single place in the middle of the room. Pitch walked towards it, before blowing the fog away to reveal the mosaic floor, and a single dagger stuck in the middle of it.

Lorelai's catalyst. It glowed with her green magic. Grinning to himself, he thought Too easy my dear.

Bending down, he reached to pull the dagger out, when the worst imaginable pain overtook him. Letting go, he looked back at his hands. The skin had melted off of them, revealing burned and decaying flesh and bones. Gasping, he watched as his skin began to reappear, recovering his bones. Looking up again, he saw a ghost like version of Lorelai, looking at him.

"I would not try that again. The longer you hold on, the worse it will get, eventually, it becomes permanent." it said before disappearing. Chuckling, he replied to nothing "Touche my dear.".

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Meanwhile, Lorelai and the Guardians were climbing up the mountain to the caves, when Lorelai felt something prick inside her. Her catalyst had been touched. She chuckled to herself.

"What's so funny?" North asked her. "I think our friend Pitch just found out that he can't use his nightmares on the kids." she replied.

"Why?" Bunny asked. "Someone just touched the catalyst. For about five or so seconds." she said. "I think he learned his lesson. He hasn't touched it again yet."