It had only went downhill from there.

No one knew what had infected Nightmare, but no cures were working. No herbs or healing power would work, and he seemed to only be getting worse for the next two months. Dream had sent out letters to get healers from around the world in, but none of them were able to do anything. Some sort of black, thick liquid kept leaking from his left eye socket, which wouldn't stop no matter what they tried. It had started to consume his body somehow, already covering the bottom left side of his skull and slowly making its way down his rib cage, mostly covering all of the bones there. The coughing didn't happen constantly now, but sometimes he would break out into coughing fits. It turns out that whatever that was in his drink had infected the soul itself, so the pain was more intense than ever. And, of course, healing soul curses was much harder than just healing a plain old body curse. In fact, no soul curses have ever been known to be healed, and this wasn't even a known one.

Nightmare was stuck in the infirmary constantly at this point, barely even able to walk around. His Followers were the ones taking care of him, helping feed him, try to remove the black liquid that always just came back after a day. There was nothing Dream could do, and he just kept getting worse.

Dream had never felt so useless before.

He didn't want to go to her hut at first, but with no cure in sight, and Nightmares condition just worsening overtime, he had no choice but to go confront the cause of this.

Dream, as the Prince of Light, didn't want to go attack her in anyway. He always was a peace first sort of man, and his Followers supported him in that idea. Nightmares Followers were completely willing to go and burn down her hut with her inside, but Dream said that they should wait to see if she would try to pull anything. Now, his Followers watched the food they prepared and made sure that two people were stationed to watch the dish. Dream started to not let people enter the castle unless they were a Follower or a healer for Nightmare. Some curtains on windows started closing, a few Followers were even sent out to go research a cure.

But, he had to make a decision, and that decision was to go face the cause of his problems.

What choice did he have?

She was the one who created it, so she would have to be the one who could cure it. Nothing else was working, and he was afraid that Nightmare was going to die. He needed something, anything, and she would have to give him something.

So Dream had went to Malediziones house alone, not wanting to put anyone else in danger but himself. He didn't even bother to knock on her back door, he simply just blasted it open with the magic he should've used before, storming in.

"Maledizione!" He yelled when he spotted her wide eyed expression at his intrusion.

"How are you able to stand? I cursed you!" She yelled, standing up and backing away.

"That's the thing, Nightmare drank it instead of me," Dream said, kicking aside a box to storm towards her and grab the front of her clothes, "Are you aware of what you've done?"

His expression filled with fear and worry when she learned that she had indeed hit the wrong target. Her mouth gaped open like a fish, as if realizing that she had hurt Nightmare hurt her.

"Oh my lord..." She whispered, her face paling, "I-I... I didn't... Not Nightmare..."

"Why?" Dream asked, trying to blink away a few tears, "Why did you do that to my drink? Now Nightmare's h-hurt, and he's not getting better."

"I swear... I..." She seemed at a loss for words.

Dream was shaking from frustration and worry, his teeth gritting together from the idea of not having Nightmare in his life.

"What's the cure?" He demanded, his voice raising, "What's the darn cure to it?"

"There is n-no cure..." She said, her voice whimpering as her bottom lip trembled from sorrow.

Dream dropped to her knees in front of her, his hands scraping into the ground. Than, he lifted up his right hand and twisted it into a fist before smashing it down onto the floor, repeating this process over and over. His fist had started to burn with the pain, but he paid no attention to this detail, too distracted by the pain of his own emotions to even bother with the mere physical pain.

"NO!" Dream screamed out with each time his fist struck the ground, "NO! NO! NO! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!"

Maledizione was looking sideways at the floor with a dull look, her lips pressed together as her mind came up with a solution she dared not to tell Dream.

"No... there has to be..." Dream had quieted down from his outrage as reality set in, tears running down his face as he sobbed loud, hideous sobbs of pure pain, bent over the floor.

And there he stayed, his mind racketing over any type of solution. He tried to look for an explanation of why the world would do this to Nightmare, but nothing came of why he deserved this fate. Dream should've been the one poisoned, he was the child of the two who refused to grow up.

No, there was still time. There had to be something, anything, for Dream to do.

He stumbled up to his legs, of which were shaking.

"You, You need to find a cure!' Dream said, grabbing at Malediziones shoulders and leaning his weight into her body, "Please! Everything has a cure, right! There's always a back action to everything! Don't let him die!"

"I-I could try, but this curse doesn't kill, it technically taints," Her usual cool attitude was gone, and now she was a stuttering mess with tears in her eyes as well, "B-but I can try..."

"T-Thank you!" Dream sighed with relief, drawing the female into a hug, "Please try everything. I-I don't think I can imagine a world without Nightmare..."

~~~~~~

It had only been three days since his last visit, and Dream had went again to see if she had made any progress. She was his only hope, and Dream had desperately wanted her to find any sort of cure. He was begging that if anyone could save him from whatever fate this curse gave him, it would be her.

The forest was in an eerie silence when he arrived, snow fluttering around him as he climbed off of his horse, tying it to the fence post next to the house. His horse neighed softly, but he paid no mind as he went to her back door and knocked lightly.

No response.

He huffed, not in the mood for distractions, and opened the door, snowflakes flying in with a whoosh of wind as the dark room was lit up by the light of the outside, all of the windows covered by papers, making the room awfully dark.

The stench...

It was disgusting.

Dream gagged while covering his nose socket, stepping into the shadow filled room. Even with the door open, it only lit up the middle of the room, so the corners and other rooms were still sealed in shadows. She wasn't inside of the main potion room, so she most likely was in her bedroom, of which the door was cascaded by the shadows. So, he had to feel for the doorknob, and when he opened it, it was utterly black in there. He couldn't make out any sort of shape.

"Maledizione?" He asked.

Silence.

He swore if she had ended up running away out of fear of being imprisoned, he was going to flip.

But first he should find a candle.

He stumbled into the room, only a few steps in stepping into a puddle of some sort of sticky liquid.

"I thought she cleaned up the mess..." He groaned, kicking aside some sort of bag next to the liquid.

Finally, after some feeling of the walls, he managed to find the candle, which was actually mostly used up. There was only about an inch left, so he would probably bring in some extra candles next time, if she hadn't abandoned him in the work. Using his magic, he lit the candle, which helped light up the room, though dimly, it still helped.

And when he turned around, he almost dropped it.

He stared from surprise at the puddle of liquid on the floor, knowing that just wasn't any kind of potion she made. Though he hadn't seen it often, he could still recognize that red color of an injured human anywhere.

Old blood.

Does that mean...

His pupils drifted to the object of which he kicked to the side, which turned out to definitely not be a bag of ingredients as he first thought. First, he spotted a knife covered in the dark red, almost brown liquid, gripped in a deathly pale hand. And he followed that bare arm up, noticing the old bleeding cuts before he moved to her chest, noticing a large stab wound inside of the middle of it.

And finally her head, with dead grey eyes staring directly at him.