The Bloody Night Calls

Chapter Sixteen

Nightmare stood up slowly, pushing his chair out behind him with a tendril. He checked the clock on the wall blearily.

Three in the afternoon.

He rubbed his single eyelight, trying to blink away the fuzz on the edge of his vision. The workload he had been dealing with was excruciating, and the papers he had to deal with took up most of his day already. Not to mention the nights. He hadn't slept in ages.

Part of him cringed in a bit of guilt at that- he had told Error he would sleep. While he hadn't specified when exactly he would sleep, he knew that Error didn't want him still up and working.

Unfortunately... there wasn't much of a choice in the matter. This was necessary.

Usually, Nightmare would torment an AU for a few days in a row, then leave the AU intact, feeding off of the fear and negativity he had created. But since he was covering Error's job, he no longer had the prolonged energy source that was a festering AU still affected by his actions. It was a burst of negativity and power that he needed to thrive upon.

Now, simply destroying the AUs as quickly as possible to keep up with Error's workload prevented that energy from manifesting in such prolonged timespans. There was a sudden explosion of negativity when he destroyed the AU, and then nothing more once it was gone.

There was a reason Nightmare didn't take on both jobs at once lightly. He literally could not survive healthily on destruction alone- his papers, forged to take the place of important documents in random AUs and cause chaos and despair by ruining the peace, were really all that was keeping him afloat. And those papers were no true substitute for in-person negativity, and on top of that, they took an eternity to forge and create.

It was taking its toll on the Guardian, his power slowly siphoning away from his magical strength and trying to focus more on keeping Nightmare's body together instead of a puddle of tired corruption.

His body was screaming at him to rest- eat and sleep and relax for a long while, regain what vitality he had lost. His willpower kept that voice at bay most of the time, but other times, like now, it shouted at full blast inside his head, echoing and giving him a headache. Or maybe just intensifying the one he'd had before. He couldn't tell anymore.

But.... the only alternative was Error going back into the fray. And he wasn't quite ready for that. If Error got injured again... the wait could be increased to a very dangerous length, possibly enough to send Nightmare into a comatose state.

And it was time to destroy another AU yet again, the reminder on his phone beeped out at him.
Taking in a deep breath, Nightmare coiled his tentacles around him in a relaxed state, picking them up from their limp positions on his desk, and walked out the door, putting a bit more effort than usual to make sure his eyelight stayed at the neutral, normal brightness instead of the dullness it usually was right now.

He slipped out of his office quietly, disguise in place as he closed the door and headed towards the entryway.

His eye widened a fraction when he saw Error siting on the couch, watching Undernovella reruns quietly.

"Hey, Nightmare," the glitch said, flicking his eyelights away from the television screen to face the tentacled skeleton. "Where are you off to?"

"Work," Nightmare replied, somewhat evasively. "You're doing alright?"

"I'm fine," Error said, smiling at him. "Are you making chicken pot pie tonight?"

Nightmare stopped, thinking. "It's Thursday, right? Yeah, it's chicken night and I'm making chicken pot pie."