Nonexistent (Rise of the Guardians)

16. Reunited

This chapter is awful, I'm sorry. I'm really just trying to get these last few chapters out because I feel bad for leaving this fic unfinished. I may or may not be creating that rewrite, since I'm very occupied with all of the other stories I've overextended myself on. Anyways, I'm back and I'll try to chug out some chapters per the summer so I can finish and rewrite this book. Thanks, for your patience, everyone!

I don't know how long I lay in the snow, lost in dizzying pain and mental anguish that tore at my heart and buried me in sorrow.

Also snow.

I was covered in frost and soaked through, the deadly chill of cold seeping into my bones. Never had Jack's element made me so afraid. I was afraid to die. I had already done it once, and what did I do with my second chance? Wasted it playing around and goofing off with Jack Frost.

If I had a chance to do it all again, I would do something different. I wasn't sure what, but I would make something of my afterlife. Maybe go and find the guardians earlier, help them do what they needed to do. Or hell, I would have gone back and protected my little brother. I wouldn't even be in this mess if I had remembered Will. If I had stayed with him and made my presence known, comforted him throughout his life so he could move on. Maybe he would have even had a happy life, grown up and aged and died with a loving family around him.

But I had abandoned him.

Pitch Black was entirely my fault.

As I sank deeper into the sorrow and snow, I could feel the numbing cold feeling into my limbs. My hands were numb, my lips were blue. I couldn't move except to shiver pitifully in the ice.

I gave one last plea for help with my cracking vocal cords. "Please... Jack, Bunny... North... somebody..." my voice was snatched away and I went completely limp, stopping my pathetic attempts to dig my way out of the snow. I gave up.

I was done.

Suddenly, vibrations rattled my frozen bones, like a rhythmic drumming on the endless ice. They were faint at first, but the volume and strength of the vibrations increased gradually until I could feel the movements pulsing beneath me.

I tried to move my frozen limbs, only for a slight shudder to pass through them before going limp. My blackened right hand burned slightly, and I was startled when twin blasts of hot air blew the snow off of my face. The air stung harshly after the intense cold, and tears sprung to my eyes as the temperature of the air on my cheeks changed dramatically.

I forced my bleary eyes open, looking up and seeing nothing but a blurry mass of blackness. But along with the sudden noise and movement above me came an oddly comforting sensation: warmth.

I was startled to see a large black muzzle mere inches away from my face. My frozen muscles gave a quiver, it was my best effort to flinch away from the sudden object that had invaded my personal space. My dulled golden eyes worked their way up the long, black, sandy face and up to meet a familiar pair of wide set golden eyes gleaming in the light of the snow.

My nightmare had returned.

"H-hey." I rasped, my teeth chattering and my blue lips quivering with cold. "W-what are y-you doing h-here?"

I was answered with only a soft nicker, and a sharp tug on the back of my shirt. Snow fell off of me in showers of white powder. I groaned with the movement, protesting the rousing of my shaking body, and braced myself as the nightmare took the chance to drag me completely out of the snow.