The lights on the dark globe danced above Jay, mocking him, laughing at him, teasing him about the punishment he was about to receive. 

He was in the globe room, another cavern like room in the lair, which had a high ceiling. It was full of Nightmares, the dark horses that caused Jack and his brother so much pain.

Pitch had his arm in an iron grip and threw him against the ground, hard. Pain exploded in his senses as his face hit the stone floor. Jay was sure his nose was broken. 

Jack hit the ground next to him, moaning as he cracked his elbow on the ground. 

"What did you think you were doing?" Pitch demanded. 

Jay didn't know what he had been doing. Neither did Jack, apparently, because he looked confused as well as terrified.

"The Nightmares tell me you tried to freeze them. Is this true?"

Jay started to panic. His heart thumped in his chest and sweat shone on his forehead. He hadn't done it. Jack wouldn't do it, either. They both knew better than to do that, because Pitch would punish them if they did.

The way he was about to now.

"Is this true?" Pitch repeated.

When he didn't get an answer, he grabbed Jack by the hair and yanked up.

"When I ask a question, you are to answer me. Understood?" Pitch seethed. Jack's eyes widened with fright, his breath coming in uneven gasps.

Pitch struck the side of his face. Jay watched his brothers' head snap to the side, blood spraying from his lips.

"Understood?" Pitch pulled harder on Jack's hair. Jack gave a choked whimper, cringed, and nodded. "Good," Pitch said turning to Jay and dropping Jack to the floor, "Now, once again, did you attempt to freeze the nightmares?"

Jay shook his head.

Pitch snarled and kicked him in the stomach. Jay coughed and fell to the ground, his vision blurring.

"Don't!" Jack begged, "Don't h-hurt him!"

You're so stupid, Jay thought, You're going to get yourself hurt, protecting me like that.

"Another liar. You did try to freeze the Nightmares, didn't you? I shouldn't have even bothered to ask." Pitch shook his head. "We can't have that. You'll have to be punished, won't you? Don't you deserve it?"

"Y-yes," Jack whispered, and Jay nodded, his heart pounding. Was Pitch even expecting a different answer?

Pitch snapped his fingers and thick tendrils of dark dreamsand snaked across the floor, binding themselves tightly around each boys' ankles and wrists, pinning them to the ground.

Jay lay perfectly still. If he struggled, it would only give Pitch more reason to hurt him. 

Footstep.

Make it quick.

Footstep.

Let me go unconscious.

Footstep.

Why me?

Footstep. 

What did we do to deserve this?

Pitch kicked him in the ribs once, twice, three times. Jay felt something snap, and then pain wrapped its fiery fingers around his chest. He bit his lip to stop from screaming, but his lower and upper teeth met each other, completely piercing through his lip.

A pause.

Jack screamed. Jay looked over and saw blood covering his brothers' face, his nose broken.

The clink of metal.

The glint of knives.

No.

The blades shredded his already tattered hoodie, piercing his skin, blood running down his bare torso in rivulets. Jay screamed as the knife hit one of his now-broken ribs. 

A blade started at his shoulder, burying itself deep with the flesh. Jay whimpered. Then Pitch s-l-o-w-l-y dragged it down his arm, twisting it, jerking it, causing agony for the teenager.

The knife was pulled out of his arm, and then Jack started screaming.

The screams of his brother. How torturing they were. How high in volume, how panicked. Listening to Jack scream was the worst, even worse than the knife. 

Jay felt the floor beneath him get warm as blood -both his own and Jack's- pooled around them. 

"Be quiet!" Pitch snapped. The sound of a slap. A choked cry of pain. Then silence. Somehow, Jack was able to endure the knife shredding his skin without making a sound.

Jack had always been stronger than Jay, though Jay was faster. Or, he had been, before Pitch had shattered them both. But, even now, Jay was able to see that his twin was every bit as strong, though in a different, weak, bloodstained way.

"You're both pathetic," Pitch sneered, "I'm not surprised that no one can see you. Who would want to?"

Jay let out a weak, poorly contained whine that he immediately regretted.

"Oh?" The Nightmare King asked, "Do you something to add, Jay? Are you finally going to speak after all these years?"

No, he didn't. Speaking was bad. Talking to someone would be letting them through his walls, into the sanctuary he had worked so hard to create, where they could hurt him. The only one allowed in was Jack, but even still, Jay found that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't talk to his twin.

"No, you're to stupid." Pitch laughed, "To think that you  could do anything other than be a nobody is nonsense!"

Though he was used to them, the words stabbed through Jay like a knife. Jack murmured something inaudible, but Pitch continued.

"No, the only place either of you will belong is here. In the lair, with the nightmares, as my servants. Mine. Understand me? You belong to me." A nasty smile contorted Pitch's features. "To find that you have tried to escape and freeze the Nightmares, all in one week, is unlike you, boys."

Well, considering they hadn't actually done one of them...

"That sort of behavior is unacceptable." Pitch ran a finger over the broken bone of Jay's arm, earning a shudder from the teen. "That's why you must be punished. And, by the way, we're not finished."

"Pl-please... " Jack's voice came out in a choked whisper, his breaths shallow with fear. Pitch only hit him again.

Stop hurting my brother, Jay thought, though he couldn't say the words. Don't hurt him anymore.

"No, we're far from finished." The Lord of the Shadows said cruelly, evilly, sadistically.

There was more metal clinking, and then the smell of smoke and the felling of heat from hot coals. Jay recognized all of these components, which added up to just another method of torture Pitch used against them.

Jay shivered, pressing himself harder against the floor, gritting his teeth and clenching his hands into fists.

"Jay, you first." Pitch said it as if Jay had been jumping up and down with his hand in the air, 'pick me, pick me!'

Jay shut his eyes tightly.

"No," growled Pitch, hitting the side of his face, causing blood to drip down Jay's temple. "You aren't allowed to close your eyes. I want you to watch this happening."

So Jay did. He forced his eyes open and watched as a white-hot end of a thin metal rod descended towards his chest, feeling the heat get closer and closer and closer until-

It was touching him. First, Jay was numb, not able to comprehend whether it was hot or cold, but then it was hot, burning, tearing, screaming hot.

Jay writhed, involuntarily straining against his bonds, each cry of agony earning him another cruel touch of the iron. Another scream was wrenched from his throat, then another and another. 

With each noise of pain Jay made, begging could be heard from Jack. Don't hurt Jay, he said, Don't do this to him, he said, stop hurting my brother, he said.

Please, he said, don't hurt my brother. 

But Pitch didn't stop.

The iron felt like molten metal was being poured over his skin, like acid was being thrown against his flesh.

But Jay couldn't doo anything.

"You're a sickening sight. The patron of the season of death and cold, the both of you! No one could possibly care less about you then they do now." Pitch said gleefully. "Those who know about you only wish you to die."

Jay screamed again as the tip of the scalding iron hit the sensitive skin of an only just healing bruise.

"Scream, Jay, scream again. Your shrieks are like music to my ears," whispered Pitch.

"Give J-Jay a b-break, please," Jack pleaded, "Hurt... H-hurt m-me now."

Pitch smiled.

"Well, because of your interruption, I believed you've just earned your brother another fifteen minutes!"

"No! Pl-please, I-I'll do whatever you want!"

"Oh, all I want is to hear screaming," said Pitch, "That's all."

Jay started to shake violently.

Why?

Because this, this terror, this freakshow, was all part of the nightmare that made up his life.