It was surreal to follow his dragon back to land, his blood pouring out of a body that no longer contained him. Hiccup's heart, or whatever he had now, raced uncontrollably. His senses were still in perfect working order. He could hear every sound, see every detail clearer than he ever had before. His essence traveled without his consent, not even allowing him to close his eyes long enough to blink, as he descended upon a cliff face on Brawn.

"HICCUP!"

The voice tore through his ears like he had been stabbed yet again. Astrid rushed forward, knocking people out of the way as the body fell to the ground.

"Astrid!" he called. "I'm here! Astrid!"

His wife fell to her knees beside his body, oblivious to his frantic voice. She gently lifted the head, allowing the blood from his slack mouth to trickle onto her skirt as she placed it on her lap. Her shaking fingers began to stroke his thick brown hair.

"Hiccup?" she whimpered. "P-please talk to me."

"He's dead, you fool!" Dagur cackled, sliding expertly off of the Night Fury, who had begun to roar. "Just like you knew he would be!"

Tears poured out of Astrid's eyes as she cradled her husband's limp head in her lap. "No... no... no..." she wept.

"Astrid!" Hiccup cried as loudly as he could, his voice straining. "ASTRID!"

"That's enough blubbering." Dagur grabbed her upper arm and yanked her up, causing Hiccup's head to collide with the ground at their feet with a solid thud. "You are mine now."

Astrid spat in his face. Dagur lifted a hand and struck her with a reverberating slap. The Hooligans roared with anger and suddenly all Hel broke loose.

Swords clashed, blood splattered, Berserkers and Hooligans alike fell to the ground in death. Hiccup screamed in horror as he watched a Berserker solider plunge a sword into Snotlout's stomach. His friend gasped in shock. He stood, then wavered and fell to knees, blood pouring from his fatal wounds.

Toothless roared angrily, trying to take out as many Berserkers as he could, but Dagur ducked below him.

"TOOTHLESS!" Hiccup warned frantically.

But his dragon couldn't hear him. Hiccup watched helplessly as Dagur thrust his sword into the Night Fury's neck. His best friend cried out in immense pain, his vibrant green eyes wide and fading. He staggered for a moment before he fell limply to the ground. Blood seeped underneath the body.

"NOOOO!" Hiccup wailed, tears pouring out of his invisible eyes. "TOOTHLESS!"

Dagur let out a delighted cackle as he leered over his prize before turning to watch the battle before him. Hiccup followed his gaze just in time to witness Fishlegs fall to a Berserker. A familiar battle cry diverted his attention. Gobber was surrounded by three burly Berserker soldiers and was killed within seconds.

Hiccup turned to watch Ruffnut be slashed open from the shoulder to the waist, gutted like a hunted animal. Tuffnut died with a yell. Hiccup watched his childhood friend's head roll away from his body. The deceased chief scanned the battlefield and watched Hooligan after Hooligan brutally slaughtered. Soon the cliff was awash with the blood of Hiccup's people.

At the end of the battle, the entire Hooligan council, minus Astrid, was slain, and only three Berserker soldiers were left. Meatheads who fought alongside Berk were struck down as well. Sigrid, the two week old baby born to Kara and Frederik, became the youngest chief Brawn had ever seen.

"Well," Dagur said cheerfully, "Now that that's over with," in a sudden, harsh movement, he grabbed Astrid around the waist, "come, my bride, we have to make a quick stop to pick up your offspring before we sail back to Berserker Island."

"I won't go anywhere with you!" Astrid shrieked, pushing herself out of Dagur's grip. Her voice trembled and tears soaked her face.

"Oh you will!" Dagur grabbed the front of her shirt and lifted her so that she looked him straight in the eye. "Or the kids die. Got it?"

Astrid remained silent, her jaw clenched. Dagur brought her closer to his face.

"Got it?"

She nodded, squeezing her eyes shut so she didn't have to look at him anymore. Hiccup tried to run to her but found himself weighted to the spot. He watched helplessly as Dagur let out one last guffaw before waving her away. She was carried by two of the remaining Berserkers, still struggling and screaming, away from the body. Hiccup could still hear her cries even when she was out of sight. Dagur watched with satisfaction before turning around to face Toothless.

"Ahh, mine at last." he simpered. "What shall I take first? How about the head?"

He grabbed an axe and raised it over the Night Fury's head...

And then the cliff dissolved.

Hiccup was now standing in an unfamiliar house. Above the mantle was a large skull, its features immediately recognizable. Instinctively, he strode forward, finding himself mobile again, and inspected it.

"Toothless?" he whimpered.

The door behind them burst open. Dagur lead Astrid by the hair as he stomped into the house. He threw her to the ground. Her face and exposed arms were bruised. She gazed at him with such malice, hatred the likes of which Hiccup had never seen before.

"Think you can just bump me off?" Dagur kicked her in the stomach.

Hiccup lunged to punch him but was horrified when his hand went directly through Dagur's skull. He growled in rage. Both Dagur and Astrid still couldn't see him.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Astrid hissed through her teeth.

Dagur turned to a Berserker guard looming in the doorway. "Bring me the girl." he demanded before turning his hate filled gaze to his wife. Hiccup nearly vomited in his mouth at the thought. "If you didn't do anything to my food, you shouldn't have any problem with your precious little girl sampling it first."

Astrid's eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. Hiccup's heart stopped. His body began to tremble as a feeling of dread swept through him.

"Addie?" he whimpered, more tears falling from his eyes.

Moments later, his daughter was dragged in by a rough looking Berserker solider. Her arm was clasped around a bloody rag doll that Hiccup almost didn't recognize. The little girl was dressed in rags that barely covered her and did nothing to keep her warm. Every inch of her dirty body was covered in cuts and bruises. She was missing several teeth. Adrianna looked up at Dagur, her green eyes wide with terror.

Hiccup couldn't move. It was like weights had been attached to his feet, drawing him down and refusing to let up even for a second. He wanted to rip Dagur limb from limb. The most important people in his life, people he would die for in an instant, were suffering a fate worse than death. He didn't know where they had found his little girl but Dagur's horrific statement from mere days before rang in his ears. She looked like she had become the very thing she clutched in her arms.

Berserker soldiers suddenly lunged forward and grabbed Astrid's arms. She struggled against them as Dagur grabbed her little girl by the hair and forced her over to the table. He stuck her face in the hot soup and Hiccup heard a squeak from her throat as she tried to pull her head out before she drowned.

"Okay! I poisoned it!" Astrid screamed, struggling against the men holding her back. "I won't do it again, just let my daughter go!"

Hiccup's voice died in his throat or he would have been screaming with her. He couldn't move or speak or close his eyes. He had to helplessly watch from the sidelines.

"Oh Astrid, don't you know? You need to be punished!" Dagur simpered, a horrible smile distorting his face. "Come on, little girl, eat up! You look so hungry."

Adrianna shook her head, still too frightened to speak but retaining the stubbornness she had inherited from both her parents. Dagur lifted the girl's head from the bowl and was dismayed to see that she had kept her mouth squeezed shut. Hiccup's heart leaped for a moment. His little girl was strong. She had a chance, however remote.

Dagur threw her face in the soup again. "I SAID EAT IT!" he shouted over Astrid's cries.

He finally pulled Adrianna out of the soup again. Her mouth was full of the concoction. Hiccup's heart was pounding in his ears. If she swallowed, she would be dead in seconds.

"Fight him." he pleaded, his breathing labored as he felt his lungs shrink. "You can do this, baby."

Adrianna spat the soup out on the ground. Vegetables and broth hit it with a splatter.

Hiccup saw Astrid's look of triumph. He felt the pride of revenge swell in his chest. "That's my girl!"

Dagur growled and suddenly grasped Adrianna's head and twisted. Astrid's eyes widened.

SNAP!

The little body slumped to the ground, limp as the doll that tumbled from her arms. For a moment, all was silent except the echoes of the sickening snap reverberating in Hiccup's ears.

Within seconds, the spell was broken. Hiccup's mouth opened in a silent scream as his feet suddenly gained mobility. He rushed forward and fell to his knees in front of his little girl. Her beautiful green eyes were blank and unfocused. Her head was at a bizarre angle, her features oddly grotesque.

"NO!"

The scream pierced Hiccup's heart like a dagger. Astrid had been released and she immediately fell to her knees in the place Hiccup was sitting. She picked up the body and shook it.

"Anna... Addie... baby, please speak to me." she wept, cradling her little girl in her arms and rocking back and forth.

Hiccup's voice returned. Though his sobbing should have blurred his surroundings, his vision was perfectly clear as he wailed at the sight of his baby girl's still and unmoving face. The lips that would never break into a smile. The eyes that would never again widen when she was curious. The nose that would never again crinkle ever so much when she was feeling bashful. The throat that would never again emit another giggle, another hiccup... everything he had done to protect this little girl had been for nothing. He could feel his heart being ripped to shreds. The agony was unbearable. He wanted so badly to close his eyes, to sob and be heard, to hold his baby one more time... yet he could do nothing but stare at her pale face, watch Astrid rock her back and forth, tears falling onto Adrianna's face that the girl could never wipe away.

"Addie..." he sobbed, his throat hoarse. "My Addie..."

Dagur leaned down in front of Astrid, casting a shadow across the little body. "Now you know what will happen if you dare to defy me. Next time, it's your son." he hissed.

Astrid's head jerked up. "No! You said he would be the heir!"

Dagur began to cackle, shaking his head as if Astrid had told him a very funny joke. "Oh Astrid," he said, his voice infuriatingly condescending, "do you really think I need your son as my heir?"

Astrid's eyes widened. "What?"

Dagur smirked and straightened up, turning back to his guards. As he walked away, Hiccup's mind began to race. He wanted to decipher the meaning in Dagur's words but Adrianna's lifeless form kept flashing in his brain, completely interrupting his thoughts.

Without warning, his little girl's body disappeared and the room dissolved into an unfamiliar terrain. Hiccup's feet were weighted to the ground as he watched a large crowd of people in what appeared to be a celebration. It was hard to make out but it looked like a little boy was being tossed around from one person to another. A woman was being restrained from stepping in to rescue him. The laughter echoed through the trees and into the field.

Suddenly, there was a tussle. The boy had done something. He had gotten free.

"RUN!" shouted a woman's voice. Astrid's voice. So the little boy could only be...

Finn was running as fast as he could toward Hiccup. His father was invisible and rooted to the spot as the boy ran closer and closer. Hiccup got down on his knees to catch him. He was getting nearer, escaping his captors, running with just enough of a head start...

But even Finn, as fast as he was for his age, could not outrun a dozen arrows, hatchets and daggers. Hiccup heard the weapons whizzing past him, praying that none would strike his son. But the odds were stacked against him. A single hatchet seemed to soar in slow motion closer and closer to the boy's back.

"FINN!" Hiccup cried.

The force of the blade knocked the boy forward. He spat blood and tumbled through Hiccup. Blood poured all over the ground. Finn's eyes were wide with horror, his whole body trembling and choking noises coming from his throat.

Mobility returned to Hiccup's feet and he fell forward next to his son. "Finn, buddy, come on..." he mumbled through fresh tears. "You can do this, little man. Stay with me."

The grass was painted red from the boy's back and mouth. The wide blue eyes blinked over and over, tears falling to the ground and mixing with his blood. The thick, crimson liquid filled his lungs, cascaded down his back. The little body shook for a few seconds more and then went completely still.

Hiccup wanted to scream again. He wanted to fall to the ground, to tear out his hair, to release the howls of anguish bursting within him. But he couldn't stop staring into the lifeless face of his son. The eyes that had nearly glowed with excitement on Snoggletog morning or when he got to go on a flight with his Poppy were unfocused and still wide with terror. The freckly face that broke into wide smiles was frozen in the expression of agonized pain and abject fear. The body that ran around Berk with a zest for life would never move again.

Astrid was running across the field. Hiccup wanted to push her away, to prevent her from seeing her little boy dead on the ground. But he was powerless.

The moment her son's body came into focus, she was silent. Almost like she was in a trance, she walked up to it and got on her knees next to his head. Tears were raining down her face but it was like she had no energy left to scream. Like the torture of losing her husband and daughter had numbed her completely. She reached out a trembling hand and stroked Finn's hair, her sobs almost inaudible.

Hiccup wanted to hold her. He wanted to let her punch him until her energy was spent, until she could do nothing but collapse into his arms and cry her heart out. He wanted to cry with her. To go through this together. The look on her face was the most horrible thing Hiccup had ever seen, worse than the dead faces of his children. Astrid had lost the will to live. She was the living embodiment of the death that had just occurred. There was no hope in her eyes, not a single spark of life. She drew breath, her heart still beat, but she was not alive. She had died the second she lost the last member of her family.

There seemed to be no transition at all this time. Hiccup was thrown into yet another unfamiliar room. It was night time, probably just before dawn. Dagur was lying on a double bed but Astrid was not lying next to him. There was a rope attached the the bedpost that appeared to have been used to tie Astrid down so that she could not escape. Except that she had. Hiccup's eyes frantically scanned the room and finally found her at the doorway, staring at Dagur with dead eyes. There was a knife in her hand, one designed for cutting meat.

Suddenly, Hiccup knew what was about to happen. His eyes widened. "Astrid..." he whispered, stepping forward. "You don't have to do this."

Astrid's eyes remained focused on Dagur's sleeping form. She breathed through her teeth, making strange hissing noises with both inhales and exhales. She took a step forward.

"Astrid!" Hiccup said in a much louder voice. "Think about what you're doing!"

His words had absolutely no impact on his young wife. Her hands shook but her expression was determined. She soon reached the bed and raised the knife.

"Astrid!"

The woman slammed the blade into Dagur's chest. Dagur awoke with a scream as his blood poured from his wound and then from his mouth.

"YOU KILLED THEM!" Astrid screamed, raising the knife and plunging it into his stomach. "YOU KILLED MY FAMILY, YOU SICK SON OF A BITCH!"

Dagur tried to say something but his blood choked him. His eyes were wide with horror.

"HOW DOES IT FEEL?" Astrid howled. "HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LOSE EVERYTHING?"

She viciously slammed the blade into his belly. Blood gushed from the body, which was now completely still. But Astrid wasn't finished. She held the knife in both her hands and stabbed him over and over, her fingers now coated in his blood and slipping up and down the hilt. She let out an enraged scream the likes of which Hiccup had never heard come from anyone. He didn't know a human being could make a sound so haunting.

At long last, Dagur's body was unrecognizable and Astrid was covered from head to toe in his blood. She let the knife slip from her fingers and drop with a clatter to the ground. Then she turned toward the door and walked, as if in a trance, out of it and down the stairs. Hiccup followed her as she emerged from the house, walking into the slowly rising sun. The blood seemed to shine in its light. They walked for a minute, finally reaching a cliff. Hiccup's heart clenched as Astrid walked to the edge and looked down.

"Astrid..." he whined, reaching out his arms. "Astrid... NO!"

She couldn't hear him. A look of complete serenity crossed over her face, still smudged with blood.

"I'm sorry." she breathed, looking into the sky. "But there's nothing left."

"Astrid!" Hiccup sobbed, his vision clear but his eyes streaming tears that he could feel dripping off his face.

A tiny smile brightened Astrid's features. "You always did like free falling." she said, winking to the sky.

"ASTRID!"

Hiccup's feet were once again weighted to the ground as he watched his wife fall forward and disappear off the edge. He let out a scream so loud and long, he knew his voice would be destroyed were he alive. His whole family was dead. Everyone he had ever cared about.

All because he hadn't killed one man.

Hiccup fell to his knees by the cliff, sobbing like he had never sobbed before. He didn't care that his voice echoed in his ears. He didn't care that his tears completely soaked the front of whatever garment he was wearing. He didn't care that he was pulling out fistfuls of his hair.

"I'm sorry!" he wailed, looking up at the sky. "I take it back! I'll kill him! DO YOU HEAR ME? I'LL KILL HIM!"

Aside from his voice, there was absolute silence. It was as if all the noise, the waves of the ocean below, the trees blowing in the wind, the birds singing, everything was muted completely. As if Hiccup had gone deaf to everything except for his own voice.

He could finally shut his eyes, only to open them a moment later. Adrianna's dead, blank eyes stared at him. Finn's blood splattered over his vision. He could see them. They surrounded him, followed him. He couldn't escape for even a second.

"I'll make it right." he wept. "Please... please give me another chance."

A hand suddenly gripped his shoulder. With a scream of terror Hiccup bolted upright and nearly slammed into an unknown force looming over him. His fists swung instinctively before his eyes landed on the terrified green eyes of his Night Fury, who was very much alive, and Fishlegs, who stared at him with a look of shock, terror and distress.