Nameless :RotG: :chapter 3:

Golden eyes reflected the moonlight.

On that calm night the sky was almost cloudless. The snow fell slowly, covering the forest floor that surrounded a small town, making the landscape even more gloomy and cold. The whitish flakes landed delicately on the shoulders of a man dressed in black, blending in with the dark hair, merging with the obscure suits in a way that almost passed through the fabric to crust in the gray-skin, but the man did not move, standing with his arms crossed behind himself, staring at the moon.

It was like a forgotten statue. Abandoned for years by humanity. Hidden among the forest secrets waiting for the day that he could move again.

Pitch expression had touches of melancholy... A mixture of doubt and regret. Curiosity and joy. Butterflies in stomach and anger.

He felt hatred for failing to find answers to why... Why he felt so many things when he met, saw or just remembered Jack... A simple mortal could arouse many feelings in the nightmare king. A mere human, made of flesh and bone, had the ability to do Pitch fear. Fear. He, the being made of shadows whose purpose was to create nightmares, have fun when people were afraid to even leave their beds after a terrible dream... He feared for his own fate, his own fortune.

And yet there was that pressure on the stomach, that desire to, every night, return to the small Burgess town. That relief sense, the joy of being able to see Jack sleeping. In peace. Smiling. Dreaming of things that Pitch did not know. And then suddenly he found himself tempted to invade the boy's sweet dreams, eager to be part of his happiness. To become a Jack's memory. The most valuable. The most sweet.

He let out a short sigh, knowing that the Man in the Moon would not answer his prayers.

The boogie man did not hear that being for years, so much that his ears had already forgotten the tone of his voice. If he possessed one... However, Pitch could not avoid that hope which had clumped in his throat, waiting that some explanation for his situation would be sent out by the winds.

The king of nightmares was starting to get lost inside himself. He no longer knew who he was.

Pitch lowered his head, walking through the landscape coated in white, leaving behind footprints that nobody would see.
The moon illuminated his path, leading him to the near village. To Jack's house.

~xxxx*xxxx~

The chilly breeze almost froze his fingers, leaving small and subtle pieces of ice in his black clothes.

Pitch knew he should not be there. He did not need. But the view was simply beautiful, too attractive to ignore. It was as if the ice had trapped his shoes on the ground, preventing him from moving an inch.

His sharp eyes sparkled, trying to capture every moment, detail, color, feeling of that unique moment. The birth of a new spirit. One more soul chosen by the Man in the Moon to inhabit human world.

At the same time that his euphoria was great -the shadows around him fluttered with excitement, a tightness in his chest grew. Steel claws attached around his heart, stopping, gradually, the fragile heartbeats, because there, in the midst of suffering, ice, water and confusion was Jack.

The boy had been chosen for that immortal life. Pitch could no longer spy his dreams or try to be part of his memoirs; after all, Jack was no longer human.

The boogie man felt like he had failed. Failed to make Jack see him.

The shadows surrounding his ethereal presence slowly, covering his entire body like sand, but before Pitch closed his eyes, his lips parted almost without intent and his hoarse, weak voice whispered a question that remained unresolved, wedged in his throat.

"Do you believe in me?"

"I always did"