One year.

One cycle of the earth had passed since Nightmare was put to an eternal sleep and Dream only had around twenty scientists total left to work for him. A few more had decided to leave after the group did, but he managed to find some more scientists and potion brewers to come in, so he had around twenty total workers helping him find a cure to save his brother. Some were curious to see if there was a cure to stop this curse from inflicting others, some were interested to test out their limits and find the cure with such low probability, and the rest simply understood the love for families and were willing to help Dream to try and save his own.

But, this had a cost.

It was starting to get more difficult to go out into public, rumors were starting to spread. Rumors of how he wouldn't be able to save his brother, how his brother would end up destroying the world, how he bit off more than he could chew with this.

It's all fine, Dream can handle it.

But the rumors started to grow more wild. Some said that Dream himself was cursed too, and that was why he hid in his castle. Others said that his Followers were being held captive with himself in his castle by Nightmare, which spread out false claims of himself being under a sleeping spell. And a few, few rare ones were whispered about that Dream was being tricked by Nightmare to free him, and that his childish beliefs were getting in the way of him seeing the truth.

Curtains started closing in the castle.

Followers started to move out, into different villages.

Dream started to grow more distant.

He closed doors.

He shut blinds.

Candles remained lit longer.

Everything just hurt.

He just wanted to talk to Nightmare again.

Dream spoke more about cures than himself and how he was feeling, he spent more time dwelling over the pain than the fun, he sat next to Nightmare more than in his own bed. He started sleeping, rarely, in the child bedroom, sobbing over memories of his former life. Everything about his days became focused on Nightmare, on the cure, on the curse, days blurred into weeks, weeks blurred into months, before the year had passed and still no positive results were showing. The others comforted him, saying how he had time and would find the cure, one day, somehow. Their backrubs felt distant and dull, Dream couldn't focus. His hand started to cramp from writing too much. His pelvis and spine ached from sitting on a chair and bending over a desk too much. Happiness was like a fleeting memory. He saw Nightmare less and papers more.

That was fine. He could handle it.

He was just fine. He was a Leader, he could push through this.

~~~~~~

Dream had been working on a possible combination of herbs in a soup form instead of a potion form for the cure when he heard the crash of glass from another room, followed by screams of people.

He could hear thudding as people started to run towards it to find out the cause of the loud crash, and Dream followed, running down the hall past a few people to discover whatever that sound was.

It had come from Nightmares room, people were starting to crowed the inside of the large room, so Dream had so push some aside to finally lay his gaze upon the shattered glass beneath the now open window, a rock sitting in the middle with a peace of paper wrapped around it with a rope. Nightmare was still on the bed, sleeping peacefully, so Dream sighed with relief.

No culprit in sight.

"Sir Dream..." One of his Followers said, "It looks like someone wanted to send a message."

"Let's find out what it is," Another said, picking up the rock and handing it to Dream.

It was most likely intended for him, anyway.

"I hope it's a nice letter..." A third Follower replied.

Of course it wasn't.

Instead, it was a scribbled out message in awful handwriting of pure hatred towards Nightmare, making Dream want to burn the piece of paper and smack the person who wrote it. Of course, whoever wrote it ran off into the forest, so he wouldn't be able to find them.

"Dream!" Some people said, backing away from him.

Indeed, he had burned the piece of paper, still holding it within his hands, it had caught aflame by his magic, burning with pure yellow magic and crumbling to ash at his feet. It was his own magic, so it didn't affect him, but it was only mere seconds before the message was destroyed below him.

"Move Nightmare to a new, safe location if someone will," Dream said, dusting off the residue of the message from his bones, "We can't keep him near windows, someone may perhaps try to break in and kill him."

"Sir Dream, what did the message say?" One of his scientists asked.

He didn't respond, simply turning around and walking out the door. They didn't need to know, it was just a stupid hate note, and they didn't even attack Nightmare, it was fine. And it was just one little not, not even two full sentences, they probably didn't even know what they were talking about.

It was fine, Dream was fine.

The door to his workroom was closed behind him before he fell to his knees in front of that door, his vision blurring from tears.

It's okay, Nightmare is okay.

A tear ran down his skull.

He can save Nightmare.

A sob escaped from his teeth, loud and sorrowful.

He could do this, he could handle it.

He screamed into his hands that were covering his face, bending over his body as he crumpled into himself. He cried, he screamed, he hurt, everything was a blur. He could hear some knocking at this point, but it was distant, all he could feel was the intense pain from his soul as one thing went through his mind.

'If there is a God out there...'

'Please...'

'Make it all stop, make the pain go away just for one day...'

'Please...'