Nightmare

1. #1Backstory

   Keys: Backstory

   Everything starts when Nim stops feeling safe so close to the worlds of the other two trees, where she senses something is very wrong. She moves her world to the multiverse of Undertale to keep it safe from harm, but a human wielding a weapon capable of harming guardians finds her anyway. He tries to kill her in order to obtain one of the golden apples, which he would use for evil, but he only leaves her wounded, giving her time to get rid of him first. After declaring her hatred for mortals, she resorts to the last option she has to keep the Tree of Feelings alive, as it would die if she did: she summons its energy and all that's left of her own and creates replacement guardians, which turn out to be tiny, helpless balls of light.

   She gives each a human body to protect themselves with, but they let out too much energy for such an enclosed shell to contain, and these bodies end up exploding. Searching the Undertale multiverse with her mind, she comes across Swap!Sans and recreates that body for the new guardians. These work as the body of a skeleton is open enough for the energy to flow through without restriction, and Nim leaves them on their own as she fuses with the tree.

   Dream and Nightmare spent roughly a little less than a year alone, their only knowledge coming from their mother whom they could still hear. It wasn't very resourceful knowledge, though; they were only taught how the tree functioned, and nothing about the world. That was when people started coming, and eventually an entire medieval village was built around the tree.

   Dream was the first to go and get to know them, however Nightmare never even tried to approach the people. He was afraid of talking to them. He didn't see the point, so he stayed by the tree. This was one of the first things the villagers mocked him for, though he didn't care at first. He didn't want trouble, so he kept doing his own thing. But over time, the fact that he never defended himself from anything they said encouraged the villagers more and more, until they started using harsher words and resorted to violence, and even those who thought it was wrong joined in. Nightmare never told Dream any of this, fearing that the villagers would go after him as well for standing up to them.

   Meanwhile, those same people started taking advantage of Dream's kindness, getting him to do anything they asked. And they didn't ask nicely most of the time; they continuously demanded things from him, telling him he has to do this, he has to do that, he must help everyone, he was born just to do that... and it got to the point where Dream started overworking and stressing himself out to meet all their expectations. It got to the point where he stopped having free will in the village. He couldn't even have real friends because there was always someone waiting to give him more things to do right after he was done. Both Dream and Nightmare were nothing but tools to those people.

   Because Dream kept that stress to himself, people continued to task him with everything they could think of, no matter how unnecessary, knowing he would never say no. He got to spend less time with Nightmare, and the people took advantage of his absence to keep tormenting him. Even though they were demanding, they still didn’t want to lose Dream’s trust by letting him see what they were doing to his brother, and Dream was still happy to help anyone in need.

   After a while of doing this without saying anything about it to anyone [not even Nightmare, as he didn't want to worry him], it became a habit for Dream to run off and cry somewhere far away from the village to let all that stress and frustration go without anyone there to realize he was internally suffering. He always came back not long after, acting like everything was alright.

   At some yet unknown point before the apple incident, Dream met a homeless cat-monster while he was out crying. He had never seen anyone that far away from the village, so he was unsure how to react. When asked why he was crying, he resorted to flustered silence before making something up.

   This cat was Neil, a character introduced into the story as of February 2018. He once had a family, his wife and his son who was no more than five years old at the time, but they were caught in an intentional fire that burned their home down. In an attempt to save them, Neil lost his arm when a wooden beam fell on him. Enraged, he went to the village in search of justice. The people who burned his house down were known for causing trouble and were prosecuted, but Neil was not happy with that. He tried to attack the villagers because they knew what was going to happen and never did anything to help him, but his behavior got him exiled from the village forever. He tried to build a new house on his own, and met Dream on his way back from gathering resources.

   Seeing that he was all alone, somewhat ill-looking and trying to build a house with just one arm, Dream started visiting Neil more often, for once feeling like someone needed real help. Neil hated everyone in that world, so the next time he saw Dream there he tried to scare him away. He was not too fond of his persistent attitude at first, but Dream kept trying to help him, silently building the house alongside him, and as the days and years went by, they became friends. Actual friends, something they had never had. Neil found someone who wasn't judgmental, someone who wasn't afraid of him or looked at him like he was crazy, and Dream found someone who would treat him like a person and not like a machine. He was the only person there that he could actually talk to.

   One day, when Dream returned to the tree, Nightmare had drastically changed. He was not talking, not looking at him, not reading, just hiding between the roots of the tree. That was when his entire routine changed. He stopped visiting Neil. He stopped going to the village as often. He would just sit there with his brother even if he wasn't getting any kind of response from him. He couldn't leave him alone anymore knowing that each time he left, Nightmare would grow more distant and his injuries would get worse.

   However, the villagers started getting pushy. They couldn't do anything to Nightmare as long as Dream was there, and since he was not leaving, they started coming to the tree to demand help from him. They made up any excuse to make him leave, and even though Dream was more hesitant than before, he still couldn't say no. He also could not go back with Neil because the people started keeping a closer eye on him, and he knew running off would be suspicious. Dream had actually managed to make Nightmare feel a little better before he was forced to leave, and from then on things just started spiraling down again.

   The day the apple incident happened was the day Dream needed to take a golden apple to heal an ailing person, and also decided to go apologize to Neil for disappearing without a word. Since he was already relatively far from the village, Dream could sneak back to where Neil was without anyone noticing.

   That was when Nightmare decided he had had enough and tried to prove himself. He was tired of all the hatred; he couldn't even think straight anymore. Everyone respected Dream [or so he thought], so he was certain the only way to prove he was not some useless punching bag was to show everyone that he could protect the same things he did. Nim had explained them many things about how the tree worked, such as what kind of effects the apples had on people, etc... but she never told them they could not touch each other's apples, or else they would turn into the opposite energy.

   The apple he took got corrupted, and then so did every other apple, and then so did the tree itself. It stopped spreading positive energy through its roots, so boundless negativity began to contaminate that entire world. Everyone went silent, everything started to wither and even the sky began to darken, which was what Dream and Neil saw. Dream's immediate thought was that something had happened to Nightmare. Neil tried to stop him from rushing back to the village, fearing what was out there, but that didn't stop Dream from running off, and against his better judgment, Neil decided not to follow.

   Dream came back just as the negativity started affecting the nearby people as well. They were already filled with unreasonable hatred, but that hatred quickly turned into mindless rage toward the one being they loathed and blamed for the loss of their world. They were all going to kill Nightmare, and Nightmare was not going to do anything to defend himself. He was too scared, too ashamed, too helpless, because all he had ever known was that he was there to be hated and he had just destroyed the one thing he was meant to protect. Dream tried to stand in front of the villagers, trying to keep them away from his brother, but they just walked right through him, knocking him unconscious in the process.

   Nightmare heard the voice of a man coming from the apples, telling him to eat them and fight back or he would die. This voice was actually the man who killed Nim. His body was absorbed by the roots of the tree when he died, and his soul and conscience had remained trapped within the negative side of the tree ever since, giving said side more power than it should have had without Dream or Nightmare ever knowing so. Following the encouragement, Nightmare ate the apples, giving all the negativity a body to possess. He completely lost control of himself. He became someone else.

   The living mass of negativity that now replaced him acted upon his thoughts to the extreme, killing anyone that was close as means of revenge. In a frantic attempt to protect the last golden apple from him, Dream was forced to eat it. Being only one apple, its effects were nowhere near as strong on Dream as the power of hundreds were on Nightmare, but more than enough to change his life. The apple fused with his life force, creating a soul that would allow him to directly feel everyone's positive and negative emotions.

   This being a new power, and being surrounded by utter chaos, Dream was left dazed. As he still believed his brother was in there and didn’t want to fight, he only summoned a defensive weapon, a staff that could create shields and shoot small projectiles. This, of course, was nowhere near enough to deter Nightmare. Still unsure of how to handle his powers, Dream was drawn toward the despair of the remaining people, lowering his guard and giving Nightmare a chance to attack. Dream was turned to stone by the unimaginable hatred of the other.

   Hearing the screams of people, Neil rushed to the village just in time to see Nightmare leave. Dream was left there, and Neil stayed by him since, as the leftover people were slowly consumed by the negative energy they had been overcome with. One day, however, Neil came back to a strange person next to Dream. When confronted by him, she revealed to be the guardian of the Tree of Magic [or Yggdrasil], Lanny. She told him that she could find a way to free Dream from the stone prison, but she was only a materialization of herself and couldn’t do anything outside of her own world. Neil, of course, decided to help her, though the whole process took 494 years.

   Lanny eventually becomes Dream's teacher and trainer once he is freed.

   Before or after Dream is set free, Nightmare will try to snatch the fruits from the two remaining trees, actually managing to steal one [from which tree is still unknown]

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