The ride home was dull, too fast to even pay attention to. Even though it was a good time frame, it seemed only a mere second that he hopped onto his horse to leave, only to see the second in the next second. He didn't know how to even feel about this discovery of a suicide. It was just... dull...

Dream had brought back some items from her hut before he left, mainly the book she had been reading the day of the accident. There was a certain page bookmarked, and the picture of the potion in the top right was circled multiple times in dark ink. He didn't read the page when he got it, he only grabbed the book, all of the ingredients in there he could find, and some vials too, since he would most likely have to figure out the cure himself.

Or some way to stop the process.

He didn't even know what was happening to Nightmare, all he could think about was how Nightmare was in pain, and it was his fault.

But he could fix it.

Somehow.

~~~~~~

Dream leaned back in his chair, chewing on the feather of his writing utensil as he looked back over his notes, scattered over the desk and the book open laying in the middle of it, with certain parts underlined and circled with little notes Dream wrote across the paper.

The Prince of Light had now figured out what was consuming his brothers body, a curse of which there was no known cure, a curse so horrible and terrible it had only been made in theory, not ever tested on someone in real life.

A curse of evil.

This potion would cause the victim to be consumed by their hatred and madness, driving them into a spiral of insanity once the liquid of true madness consumed their body, then their soul. If this curse took over Nightmare entirely, Nightmare himself as a person would be utterly destroyed. He would only be a faint memory of what he was, only the negative emotions he felt before the curse would remain. His happiness, his memories, his ability to enjoy life, it would all be gone. Just like that. Left to a fate of despair. The curse, once driven the victim to insanity, would twist their sense of life into nothing. They would end up killing and destroying everything they see out of an anger from not understanding until someone would be forced to kill them. It was an infection that consumed the soul and drove it to destroy anything it could until death eventually took hold.

Dream had cried when he had discovered this fact, that Nightmare was bound for only more pain in his future. They had so many plans they wanted to do, so many things to see and find. They had actually been thinking of going on an adventure over the ocean, since ships were being built, and to see what the other land masses would look like. They were both so excited, they were going to go on an adventure together as brothers. Fight off demons, discover new land and name it after themselves and fighting over the name, maybe pick up some love on the way for Nightmare. Then Nightmare has teased Dream about his crush on one of his Followers, a skeleton with the name of Killer, and this resulted in Dream screaming at him while chasing him around with a blush.

Now that would never happen.

Dream picked up some of the papers on the desk, his neat handwriting going over possible theories of how to slow the process or to make a cure. Having helped the cause of this with some of her potions, he knew how reverse potions worked with the actual potion, and had some ideas of how to create one. He would also spread out the word that he needed people to research a cure for this potion.

There was just one problem.

There wasn't enough time.

Nightmare already had half of his body consumed, and he was in the state where he woke up screaming from pain almost every night. He spent most of his day coughing, and sometimes he would end up being sent into a seizure at least once a day, his Followers having to move the blankets so he wouldn't get tangled and accidently hurt himself. They would have to take shifts, since Nightmare couldn't be alone in the room. Sometimes he would even choke on the hatred liquid since it could leak into his mouth. He had maybe a few weeks at most before the full effect would set in. Dream had time to make only one of these potions, and if it didn't work, then...

Nightmare wouldn't make it.

The poor brother stood up from the desk, his hands trembling as he looked down at the notes. What could he do? Maledizione ruined his life already, she couldn't even help him in this time of need!

The skeleton slammed his hands down onto the desk, his soul aching with pain. No, he shouldn't have been unprofessional and decided to play the game with Nightmare without thinking of the risks. That's always what he did, never thought about the risks of his actions.

He acted like a child.

And that costed him of Nightmare.

Dream scowled at his own stupidity, covering his skull as he leaned over the desk. He didn't like this, he hated this. Why did Nightmare drink his drink that day? He should've been the one to drink it, not his dearest brother.

And there stood Dream, only experiencing self hatred as he went over different scenarios of what could have perhaps played out. He could have ordered a Follower to watch the food when being made. He should've turned away Maledizione when she showed up on his doorstep. There was so much he could've done that day.

But he didn't.

That didn't mean there was nothing he couldn't do now.

But there wasn't enough time to do anything helpful.

Dream perked up, a thought running across his mind. What if he had more time to work on a cure? Freeze the curse in its tracks, stop its progress to give Dream and others time to test out the possible cures.

Like some sort of sleeping spell, such as the one Maledizione was reading the day it happened...