Ellie found herself in the dark again. An endless sea of nothing but darkness. She sighed and walked forward; at some point she would simply wake up before doing anything interesting anyway, she was sure of it. Couldn't she have more adventurous dreams? Her feet splashed in the black water as she wandered around, faces staring at her from the water. There was an eerie silence, only broken by the splashes made by her feet.

She stopped. 

A different splashing sound, not from her, someone else walking. Her eyes dashed around, noticing ripples forming in the water.

This was new. 

"Ellie." She heard Skully's voice through the dark. 

"Skully? Is that you?" She turned around. 

Another person. She was face to face with another person.

"Ellie," he said. "There you are." 

She stared at his deep green eyes, his short black, messy hair, and soft, kind face. "Skully?" 

He nodded. "Yeah. Of course it's me. Who else would I fudging be?" 

Ellie smiled at him. "You have a face… and a body." 

Skully looked down. "Oh. I didn't even realise. Here I am walking around and not even aware that I'm walking around," he chuckled, staring at his own hands. "Wait, how is this possible?" 

"We're in my dream. I think… I guess this is how I imagine you look?" Ellie said softly, still staring at Skully. 

Skully appeared deep in thought. "I'm not sure. If this is your dream, then why am I here? Am I sharing your dream? Or is this actually my dream? And now I'm confusing myself." 

"I wish this wasn't a dream," Ellie smiled, "Because then I would know what you look like." 

Skully's eyes shifted from side to side, was it truly a dream? Something didn't feel quite right… Where did all these faces in the water come from? 

He stepped back. A loud splash from his black canvas boots. 

Arms extended from the black water, grasping for his legs, for him. He wanted to scream. 

"Free us." The faces wailed from beneath. 

Ellie grabbed Skully's hand and pulled him away, running in the opposite direction. Skully followed, eyes wide with confusion, something inside of him nudging to be seen and heard. It had to be a dream —a disjointed illusion. 

Ellie swiftly let go, she felt the water open up beneath her as it usually did before she would wake up. "I'm waking up," she said softly before disappearing under, into the nothingness. 

"Don't-" Skully stared into the water, seeing only distorted faces staring back at him. "I wanna wake up too…" 

"Help us." The faces sounded out in shrill voices. 

He stumbled back against the ruins of a building, swallowing hard. Something compelled him to turn around and look deeper into the eerie, dismal landscape of darkness. There was something there which he had seen before. A tall building tipped over on its side; the glass windows all shattered and parts of it were missing, it was as if the building had simply lied down to sleep.

"I know this…" His fingers covered his lips as his bright green eyes widened.

There was a large oversized V on what seemed to be the top of the long, sleek building. His fingers traced the V and a brief memory of seeing the building in the Dawn skyline flooded his mind. 

"Valentine…" His whisper echoed in the darkness before he realised something. "This is not a dream is it? What is this place?" 

Faces stared at him from the water as he glanced down yet again. Skully decided to keep moving. There was something here —he could feel it— something he didn't want to run into. The darkness was not pitch black, yet somehow he knew that if he moved too much toward a certain direction, he would eventually run into absolute darkness. How did he know? That was not something he could explain. 

"Wake the fudge up," he muttered to himself, "Don't look back. Keep moving. Don't look back." 

No sooner than he had said those words did he fall into the sea as well. Engulfed by the darkness, he felt himself sink down toward the bright light that called to him and summoned him far away from the void.