Jack lay alone behind a tombstone, cold and listening to the sound of the bats above. Oogie had abandoned him after he'd bumped into his father and he found himself quite alone.
He shivered as a ghost passed through him. He'd decided the graveyard wasn't a nice place to be at night, perfect.
"Ruff!" barked a familiar sounding ghost pup from behind him.
"Zero?" Jack called, getting up from behind the tombstone.
Zero smiled and yapped happily, nuzzling him and licking him.
"Hey! I'm happy to see you too, boy!" Jack laughed.
"Ruff!" Zero barked, floating ahead a little and looking behind him.
"I can't go back home, Zero. Not until my father treats me like a little boy, and not an adult"
Zero rolled his eyes and pulled on his tuxedo.
"Hey! Stop it, you're going to rip it!" Jack snapped, but Zero ignored him.
They'd been going for a while when Zero stopped in front of a gate.
"Is it locked?" Jack asked.
Although Zero didn't have shoulders, he appeared to shrug.
Jack frowned and touched it with his hands, and to his surprise they swung open, carrying a quick breeze with it.
"Well, now what?"
Zero smiled and zoomed off into the mist.
"Hey! Wait!" Jack shouted, watching as Zero disappeared completely, he huffed and ran after him, occasionally bumping into things he couldn't see.
Then he heard his barking up ahead. "Zero! What are you-?"
Jack stopped in mid-sentence. In front of him was the most beautiful hill he'd ever seen that curled downwards and was slender and silky, and on the top was a thin figure, obviously his father.
Jack cursed Zero and walked up the hill, his feet padding on the squishy ground.
He sat next to his father, who didn't say a word.
So Jack looked to the distance, he could see the whole town and from where he was sitting. To his left was where he had just come from, and his right was a dark, thick forest.
His father still said nothing. He sat there with his index finger and his thumb on his chin and his elbow rested on his right knee. His eye-sockets were narrow, as though deep in thought and his legs dangled off the edge of the hill.
"Father..." Jack said quietly. "I-I'm really sorry about earlier" he lied. His father said nothing.
"You know Jack" he finally said softly. "I've never told you this, but Kings must know their people well, and Pumpkin Kings aquire a special power to read minds, seems you do not have that power."
Jack looked at his feet, they hardly even went over the edge of the hill.
His father looked directly at him, Jack didn't look back.
"I understand" Rexus began, resuming his first position. "That you do not wish to be taught how to run a kingdom. You want to be like the other children, you want them to like you and be friends with you..."
"It seems I have been forcing too much on you, my boy."
He put a hand on Jack's shoulder. "And I'm sorry, friends are hard to come by, and it seems someone wanted very much to play with you, don't let him go. Go and find him."
Jack sighed and half smiled. "Thanks, dad" he said, getting up and running back down the hill.
"Just, be wary Jacky..." Rexus began. "Not everyone is friend around here..."
