We had been in captivity for about a month at this point, and we were honestly sick of it. Ink treated us horribly, the reforming wasn't even working, and to top it all off, they were going to resort to 'more intense reforming tactics,' which probably meant we were going to be in more pain. In addition to our problems, the balance was also wavering. It would be slow at first, but if we weren't going out to do our job, negative emotions would disappear, and Nightmare would probably die. We were going to have to do something soon; Nightmare was already becoming ill. The enemies passed it off as a cold, but we knew better; Nightmare was going to dust if we couldn't find a way to spread negativity. We had no way to do that, though; we had to think of something. If we didn't find a way within half of a week or whenever it started to get seriously bad, Nightmare was going to have to allow us to tell the other side about our job, whether he liked it or not. We weren't going to lose our dad. Currently, we were standing in our line again, and Ink was searching our room; Nightmare didn't look very well at the moment. Ink wasn't thrilled when Nightmare looked like he was going to pass out, but he didn't act on it - yet.

When Ink finished searching the room, he came up to us and performed the second phase of his searching, which we had all been accustomed to. He searched every possible hiding spot in our clothes we could have ever thought of, which took roughly twenty minutes, making today's morning search last about an hour and a half; we hated standing for that long without being able to do anything. When Ink finally finished his entire search, he left the room, allowing us to sit down; we were tired out. Even Killer wasn't up to playing after searches; they just felt so long. We lay on the floor, wishing for a way out; there was nothing. After a while, the door was softly opened; this wasn't Ink's usual hard opening. We looked to see Nightmare's brother, Dream, with a soft smile and a caring outlook; that probably wasn't good for the balance - I decided to retain my negative appearance to preserve something. Dream sat next to us and looked sorry for his brother, not even thinking that he could have been part of the cause of Nightmare's sickness. He offered his brother some comfort, which wasn't optional; Dream hugged his brother, who couldn't fight it. Nightmare couldn't have returned the gesture if he wanted to; he was too weak from his illness.

We wished so much that we could just tell the enemies about the balance now, but we promised not to until we were completely sure that we absolutely had to. It was actually comforting to see Dream's affection towards Nightmare, but that wasn't good for the balance. After a few minutes, Killer couldn't take it anymore; he cried. Dream looked concerned.

"Um..are you..okay?" Dream asked. 

"F-fine.." Killer managed to get out; Nightmare seemed to slightly benefit from Killer's crying.

"Do..you need help?"

"No.."

"I can..try to cheer you up?"

"Don't cheer me up! I like bein' sad!"

"How could you..like being sad?"

"Well, he has a thing with emotions, and he happens to like the sad ones." Error quickly filled in. "There's really no need to cheer him up!"

"O-oh." Dream was confused, but he didn't question it further. "So, are you..enjoying yourselves?"

"Be better home." Horror sighed.

"Being s-small isn't v-very fun.." Cross wanted to be big again.

"May I ask what it is that you don't like here?" Dream questioned. "Maybe we can do something to make you feel more welcome."

"We could do without Ink." Error hinted.

"You don't like Ink, do you?"

"No." We harmonized. 

"Well..maybe I can help! Maybe until you get used to Ink, you can sometimes have someone else watch you?"

"That..actually sounds nice." Error admitted.

"I only want what's best for you.."

"Um..th-thanks." Cross was relieved.

"No problem!" 

At this point, the positivity was getting to be a bit much for Nightmare; he was whimpering.

"Oh, I hope his illness isn't bad.." Dream sighed, pulling Nightmare closer. "I wish I could help.."

We sat in silence for a while, watching Dream hug his brother; they really did care for eachother, even when they were apart. Nightmare was probably enjoying his time with his brother, even if he couldn't say anything; it was really bad, but we couldn't say anything yet. It was a pleasant sight, but I remained negative, if only to help Nightmare; I wished we were home. If we were home, we could have done our job without Nightmare being on the verge of death. Instead, we were stuck in this prison, hoping that Nightmare would live. After a while, something unexpected happened; Dream began to..cry? The Guardian of Positivity was actually crying; we were in shock. It wasn't even pity crying, like he did for Cross; it was real. A few moments later, something else happened; Nightmare shifted, and he wrapped his small arms around his brother - it was heartwarming. It looked as if Dream's sudden burst of negativity actually helped Nightmare a lot; he didn't seem to be in pain anymore. I wondered how long that would have held him. After a while, Dream decided to leave us; he was needed somewhere else, even if he wanted to stay. Nightmare looked a lot better when he left.

"Are ya okay?" Killer worried.

"Actually, yes." Nightmare smiled. "I don't know how, but Dream..reset the balance; it's perfectly stable!"

"That's interesting." Error pondered. "I wonder how."

"He di' cry a lo.'" Horror pointed out. 

"Y-yep!" Cross confirmed.

"Perhaps an outburst of negativity from a positive being could do that?" I input.

"Perhaps." Nightmare stated. "In any case, we have more time to think of a plan."

"Wanna play?" Killer inquired. "All this sittin' around is makin' me stiff!"

"Sure." We replied.

"Yay!"

We played games for a few hours until bedtime hit, and we were lined up once again. Ink seemed to notice Nightmare's improved condition, but he didn't ask about it. After the hour and a half search, we were permitted to go to our soft beds and fall asleep, which we did. I wished I could see Papyrus; he's the best, and if I couldn't see him, I couldn't say good night to him. I said good night anyway, but I had no way of knowing if he heard me; I felt lonely. I was happy that Nightmare was healthy again, though; his being ill was unfortunate. As I slipped into my dusty nightmare, I had a happy feeling for the future; perhaps Dream was going to do something about Ink. I hoped so. I really wanted to see less of him. When I was woken up, I noticed that it wasn't as early as usual; I knew because I wasn't as tired as I usually was. The clock on the wall said it was past 7 A.M.; that meant that I had received my full ten hours of sleep! I shifted my eyelights to see the two swap brothers softly waking me up instead of Ink's usual rough treatment; I guess Dream did do something. Upon seeing that I was awake, the brothers smiled at me and moved on to wake up the others; that was much different than what I had been accustomed to. 

The others were woken up in the same soothing manner as I was, and this morning felt a lot more relaxed than usual; we liked that. When Cross woke up, he relayed a few things that Paps wanted to say to me, which I appreciated immensely; Paps is the best. After we were all awake, instead of being put in a line, we were asked what we wanted to play; that was interesting. The swap brothers were actually really nice, unlike Ink, and they played some games with us. Over the next few hours, we were actually having a lot of fun, which was probably a surprise for the swap brothers, who didn't think it was possible. When the day was half over, the swap brothers had been thoroughly introduced to our version of fun, which they found absolutely amazing; they didn't know that "murderers" liked to play hide and seek or backgammon. After a while, we were all lying on the floor; we were a bit tired out - we had more endurance when we were bigger for some reason. As we lay on the ground, we were happy; we didn't have to worry about the effects of that for a while, thankfully. Killer broke the silence first, as always.

"That was fun.." Killer smiled.

"Yep." Error agreed.

"Real excitin.'" Horror stretched; he was tired.

"I wish we could do that every day.." Killer stated. 

"That would be nice.." Nightmare was falling asleep.

"I never thought I'd ever hear you say that before today." The swapped Papyrus was starting to understand us.

Cross laughed. "M-maybe not!"

"You guys are really fun!" The swapped Sans giggled.

"Really?" Error was surprised.

"Yes! You're the best at games!"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that.." I was thinking of Paps; he was the best.

"I am! You're all super cool! Why'd you wanna make people sad when you could be their friends instead?"

"It's...complicated." Nightmare sighed. 

"It doesn't make sense.."

"Not everything makes sense." Error said.

"But..why?"

There was silence. We didn't want to talk about it. Nightmare didn't want Dream to find out about his plight, and Error didn't want anyone to find out about his. Things like that were just painful to talk about, and the rest of us respected that; respect was strong in our family. Respect: a specific feeling toward another individual that produced a feeling of duty or compassion. It was amazing how little respect the other beings in the multiverse had for eachother; some were simply cruel, others were ignorant, and still others seemed like they thought they were the center of everything. My family didn't think that way. We respected privacy - for the most part - and actually cared when someone was sad. Ink didn't have any respect; he wouldn't bother to save someone's life unless there was something in it for him, and he certainly wouldn't respect our privacy, which meant he probably wouldn't respect anyone else's. We hoped the swap brothers had enough respect to allow us to keep our thoughts to ourselves; we knew that if they knew, they would have told somebody. In our silence, most of us actually fell asleep; we were tired out from all that playing, and our endurance was much lower than it was before.

I was one of the few that managed to stay awake, although I was ridiculously tired. Killer and Error managed to keep themselves from falling asleep as well, but they were in much the same situation as I was. The swap brothers were also awake, but they had more endurance, which was to be expected; they were adults. When I finally felt ready to drift off to sleep, I shut my eyesockets and allowed myself to be surrounded with dust; I was happy. I hoped the balance wouldn't tilt again for a while; I really didn't want Nightmare to have to go through that again, but I knew it would probably eventually happen, unless we found a way to escape this prison. I really didn't want us to be here for longer than we had to be, but I couldn't really control that. All the escape attempts we had made so far were foiled swiftly and repaid with pain; we couldn't take too many more losses, especially after the last attempt. The last attempt was almost foolproof, but Ink found a way to stop us, unfortunately, and we suffered for it; Ink really was cruel. That was a fact. I enjoyed watching the dust of my nightmare float around, though; that was something good about this situation. I had my family, too, which was reassuring.

We could handle anything.

~~~chapter end woot~~~

Dust bean family meet swaps.

Thanks for reading my outlandish writing!

Bye!