"It didn't feel like a nightmare. It felt like an allusion - of sorts," Hope picked at her words, not exactly able to explain what she had witnessed inside of her. "Like one of those old black and white movies playing in my head, except I was in the movie and I was miserable."

"What happened?" Lucy asked. Faith called her first, which seemed odd. I didn't think head injuries needed oracles help.

"I hit my head," Hope answered.

"No - " Lucy sighed, putting her head in her hands. "What happened in your allusion?"

Hope looked around the library at everyone. She stared at the face of the truth she had been avoiding and there was nothing she could do about it now.

"I saw someone."

I glanced over to Jordan and Tucker. Her voice had been ridged and scared. She was shaking. In her own whispers "something is wrong".

"Who?" Lucy leaned closer, her eyes wider. "Someone you knew?"

"No!" Hope threw her hands up in the air, now getting frustrated. "It was some random fucking women!"

"Who?" Lucy echoed.

Hope rolled her eyes. She needed sleep or we wouldn't get anything out of her. "I told you I don't know-"

Liberty stood up. His face white. His sister biting his nails beside him as she sat on an oak chair, legs folded together.

"Yes Liberty?" Lucy asked. "What is it?"

"Uh," he laughed nervously, patting his hands against his legs. "Here's the deal-"

Lucy's sweet eyes went stern. "Dear god what did you do?"

"-nothing-" Liberty got out quickly, trying not to get his skin torn off. "It's just that Prudence, my girlfriend, said she saw a lady around the woods-"

"And you didn't think of mentioning this!" Lucy roared. Liberty pinned himself back against the oak chair out of fear.

"Why do you always have to mention that she's your girlfriend?" Faith hissed.

"Because she's hot!"

"I cannot believe you would allow this information to get past me!" Lucy yelled out. She marched over to loom over him.

Liberty leaned further against his chair, scrambling for words. "Well you just - it's for a different case - and I didn't think - Hey wait a minute! Don't you know everything already!"

He had this smirk on his face. This "aha gotcha" smirk on his face.

"I didn't," her voice was calmer, but still tense. "That's the problem Liberty."

"Do you monitor necromancy?" Wags voice peeped out from a table in the back. He had a book out in front of him even though he only walked in a few minutes ago.

Lucy shook her head. "Not even I know about such dangerous magic."

"Hm," Wag flipped through a few more pages, feeding his mind with more smart words that smart people read. "Could be what Sonja had encountered, except since Hope is nephilim it's weaker."

Hope slunk back into her chair, holding her arms. "Would that explain how real it felt?"

Wag nodded his head. "Yes because it was real. It was real mind control. Possession maybe is a better word-" he started to dose off into a banter in his head.

I snapped my fingers. "Wag! What the hell is wrong with our teammate?! We only got a few left!"

His attention grabbed onto the whole crowd and theirs back. "A parasite enters the body and takes over. The parasite could be disguising itself as this woman."

"Or the soul of the women is being used as the parasite," Jordan commented.

"Okay that's great!" Hope pounded on the sides of her chair. "Now get it out!"

Everyone shut up. The room grew silent. Mostly because none of knew how the hell to do that. Seems like Wag didn't even know how.

"Well, it's a parasite," Wag continued with a face that made it seem like he was just talking out of his ass, but Hope was willing to try anything. "So you have to remove it to get back to normal, but if the parasite is something more abstract like a soul-"

All the smart people immediately knew what to do, leaving Hope and I in the dust.

"What?" Hope asked, utterly worried. Utterly worried because it was her thoughts that were in jeopardy and not even Dianite could tell what went on up there.

"We need to find out where this parasite is first," Wag said, purposely making his words more quiet and delicate. "Which means, we need to intrude on something."

Hope's expression went flat. Her eyebrows arched and her arms crossed. "What?" She let out sternly.

The Library was still quiet. Liberty was whispering to Faith about something. It sounded mostly about how useless their uncle Claudius was, which pertained most of their conversation.

"What?!" Hope yelled out, not taking no for an answer anymore.

"We need to enter your thoughts!" Jordan blurted out. Wag hid under his own hair as Jordan was the only one with guts to explain. "Wether you like it or not, and I don't know how we're gonna, but we have to."

Hope crossed her arms, leaning against the chair and propping her dirty boots on the table. She was the actual definition of "raised in a barn" when she got pissed.

"Fine," she lulled out. "Go ahead and fuck up my brain too."

Hope laid flat on her bed, staring wide eyes up at the ceiling and resembling a very horrified Frankenstein.

"You have to be asleep when we enter your subconscious," Wag started to rub some sort of oil on her head. It smelled like rosemary. "This is very powerful magic, and the safest time to use it is when your in a dream like state-"

"Yeah, Yeah magic shit," Hope narrowed her eyes. "Just don't go anywhere you're not supposed to be!"

"Yeah Hope. Let me unfurl my map of your brain and avoid all the places that says 'do not enter'."

Hope shot a glare at me. Her forehead wrinkled up taking the beads of oil with it.

"I want a non disclosure agreement," She mumbled.

She wasn't getting that. Though, my lips would be sealed afterwards.

Wag sighed which was his version of "Okay". Everyone needed to pay close attention because he was going to say something important.

"We have to all be connected as I read out the mantra and - I know this will be weird - but, Hope, I have to hold your head."

"Cool," she let out casually.

Connected. We all stared at him clueless. Sonja usually understood what he was saying with her bizarre sixth sense and we followed after.

Another reason we needed to crack this code from Hope and get Sonja back.

"Hold hands," Wag said anxiously. "I have to be ready to say the spell exactly when the sleeping potion kicked in."

Hope started to shake her head. "I told you Wag you wouldn't need a potion. Just read me one of Jordan's math problems and I would be out so quickly-"

"-Hey!-"

"Prepare now, please!" Wag barked out orders, somehow still making it sound like an apology. He didn't have the time to deal with us as he read over the mantra.

Tucker, Tom, and I had trouble finding our order without the girls around. Tom's hand was really sweaty and Tucker's grip was way to strong. One of my hands was drowning and the other was being choked to death.

Tom grabbed Wag's hand as Wag mumbled the spell to himself.

Hope's head bobbed up and down as she struggled to stay up. Her hand scratched at the sheet nervously, and her fingers started to move slower and slower. Her eyes had trouble staying open. The became more heavy.

She stopped scratching at the sheets. She fell asleep.

"Now would be a great time to say the spell-"

Wag shushed Tucker.

"Somnium magno spiritus,

Concede nos inique cogitationes,

Frange in mundo tui,

Iter in absconditis tuis,

Aversis animis vestris intellegite,

auxilium."

The world fell apart around me.

Dazed, I stepped backwards into a peasant girl.

"Oh shit!" I accidentally let out. The old lady cursed back at me, hiking up her skirts and sauntering off with her whicker basket.

"Sorry," I called out to her. She continued to walk away.

"No need to apologize." Wags voice made me jump.

I turned around, clutching my chest. I still couldn't tell my head from my feet. I was standing, but in a different reality that seemed like air.

"This is a memory," Wag answered, his hands folded behind him. "No feelings to be hurt."

"Oh." I took in the view in front of me. It was Dagrun - mid fall - which is more like late spring for them. It smelled like sweet grass and straw, which reminded me of when we first landed there. Why were we in a memory from almost two years ago?

"What is this?" I asked.

Wag shrugged. "Something important to her it seems."

Tucker peeped out from behind a house, meeting our eyes. Tom could have given less of a shit. He grabbed an imaginary apple from an imaginary cart, and took a bite from it.

"That has to be damaging," Tucker commented.

Wag sighed. "That's why I put her to sleep. All it will do for Tom is trigger a sensor in his brain for whatever feeling biting into that apple would give to Hope."

"Hm," Tom nodded his head, throwing the apple in the air and catching it. "Tastes like an orange."

"Hope never eats apples. She doesn't like the taste," I said.

People were bustling around in front of us. Just like a normal day in Dagrun before everything went to shit. One thing was missing though, and that one thing was Hope.

"What are we looking for?" Tucker asked, the only one on task.

Wag's eyes glazed over the memory. He watched the people and the places they were going. "Little quirks," he explained. "Something off about this perfect picture. Something her subconscious would add to the dream."

"So like a flying monkey?" Tom asked, his mouth full of orange tasting apple.

Wag gave up. "Sure."

Tom smirked, throwing the apple behind his back. The evil grin made me a bit nervous. We might of all had the respect to keep Hope's secrets to ourselves, but Tom was different story.

"Don't go snooping," Wag warned. "Hope will know and you will regret it."

"Oh yeah." Tom leaned against the imaginary house. "What? Is she going to make more orange apples or have an a fake guard appear and take me to fake jail."

He stood up. His figure way to loose for the situation we were in. "Maybe I'll take this opportunity to do something I've always wanted to do and steal Andor's fancy old jewelry."

"That's necklace is his dead mom's. Please don't even try," I begged.

Tom tapped his head as if he had unlocked the secrets to being a douche without being a douche. "It's not real."

Tom started to saunter over to the old dock.

"Her subconscious will know before she even wakes up," Wag called after him, though the little smile on his face made me think that he didn't care if Tom witnessed consequences.

Tom scoffed. "I'm not scared of her in real life, and I'm not scared of her in the dream world - yEAAAK."

Tom, pale to the face, backed up against an old house for his dear life. An imaginary Hope strolled up beside him and right past him. She didn't notice Tom. She didn't notice any of us.

"The dream is starting," Wag whispered, though Hope probably couldn't hear us anyway. "We aren't a part of this premonition, so we can't hurt anything. Use that to your advantage. Search for as many clues as possible."

I started to scour for something different, strange. Something that Hope would never think of, but I couldn't help of being curious of what this moment was. I thought I knew everything about her, she was my best friend.

I wanted to witness her important moment even if it wasn't mine to keep.

She had her pink backpack slung over her shoulder. Even though she was only two years younger she was so much smaller and slighter. Her cheeks were bigger and puffier and her fingers less shapely.

Some kids were playing by a puddle, trying to get as cool as possible. It must have been a hot day. Hope didn't have her jacket on.

"You guys hot?" She asked, leaning against her bad side. The one shoulder with the long scar on it.

"Yeah!" They all cheered in unison, but out of order. They were all amazed by this wandering stranger who wore denim and her hair up.

"It's so hot out, and they won't let us play at the docks," a little boy with a dirty face whined out. He almost seemed like he was trying to impress her.

"They have important stuff to unload, but we wouldn't be in the way," a little girl chimed in.

Hope smirked, eyeing up a water pump beside her. It was green and meshed together with the high growing grass.

She kicked it, braking the pump. Water spritz out of it like a sprinkler. The kids cheered in amazement.

"Holy shit!" The little boy screamed.

And they all played, and threw mud at each other, and did stupid kid things that made Hope smile.

She walked away without asking for a thanks. She walked away to go on for another memory.

I felt pride swell up in my chest.

"I had to fix that damn thing," Tom sighed.

Though it shouldn't have, imaging Tom in the heat miserable having to fix the water pump made me more proud. I smiled.

"I hate you," Tom said, but he looked back at the cheering kids and smirked too.

Wag rushed past us like the summer breeze that shouldn't have been present. He had gone off by the edge of road, where the water from the sea lightly sloshed up onto the dirt.

He went to a tree - which I know used to be pine because I threw a bunch of old parts here before Andor caught me. Now the tree's leaves had abandoned it and the bark had dulled to a grey. It was dead - wasteland dead.

"This is it," he got out. An Eureka moment. I got those a lot.

Tucker slowly put down a blue shell crab that he had been observing. "Uh - yeah - that's totally what I was thinking."

"Just this way," Wag said, walking to the tree which was grey like a crappy eraser mark.

An eraser mark on the page of a brain. It stood out like a tear in cloth. A breeze swept out from it. Not a literal breeze, but a metaphorical breeze. A metaphorical breeze that put heavy weights on my shoulders instead of making my head feel fuzzy.

I was entering a new atmosphere.

I took a step forward. The world flipped. Upside was downside and rightside was leftside. That tree grew on the ceiling and the tiny eraser mark became a grey cloud overcasting on a blank day.

I stood in a colorful mix-mosh collage of "where the hell am I". Things were pink and grey and blue, but they weren't visibly those colors. You couldn't see colors, nothing was visible, but you could tell. You felt and sensed everything around you.

Against this stark un-visibility a bunch of animals ran around. Most were woodland creatures like you would see in the fairy tales. This weird mix of a squirrel and hedgehog almost tripped me and a blue bird the size of an insect tried to climb into my ear.

I hit my head, and as I tried to stop the invader I ran into Tucker.

He didn't seem phased. He was just taking the view.

"Now this is the shit I expected from Hope's brain," he said. His words echoed in my ears without hitting the outside walls, but he spoke like normal.

A discussion went a foot right on top of us. It spoke from the floors and walls.

"I swear to god his dimples have dimples."

Laughter: "you sound so angry about it."

It was Sonja and Hope, having some discussion from at least two years ago. Hope sounded eighteen.

"It's not possible for humans. It shouldn't exist. That's why I'm angry about it."

"What's happening?!" Tom clutched onto his head, fumbling back. It was all a lot to take in.

"We can still hear her memories," Wag said, thought at this point it sounded like he was guessing.

Another insect sized bird hit my head. "Ow," I sighed, trying not to get annoyed by own best friends subconscious. "What's with all the birds and things?"

"She likes animals," Wag stated, walking further ahead of us. I heard his footstep's echos lengthen. "Or it could be a type of prey for her mind. Might possibly prove which one of us she hates the most."

Tucker glared at the squirrels and then looked at Tom. "I think they represent you."

Tom flipped him off.

"This way!" Wag called out. His voice defiantly dragged us to another section. This one was cloudier. Not darker in any sense, but murkier. I couldn't think as clearly.

"Something could be hiding in here," He was commenting on the foggy aspect.

I couldn't tell him he was wrong, but it didn't seem like whatever was there was hiding. I think it wanted to be found.

We ducked our heads under the smog. It was thick - the type of thick you imagined clouds before your science teacher crushed your dreams.

I found myself in a black room. Not pitch black, there was no pitch. No noise at all. Just nothing and yet something. Nothing felt surprisingly dense. The weight I felt when I entered got stronger.

"This is bizarre," Wag commented.

Bizarre indeed, I thought to myself.

Suddenly something pressed against my chest like a clawed hand. My stomach became a bubbling ooze, and I was just - so sad. A sadness I could even comprehend into words. I felt like someone had died but no one had.

"Do you feel that?" Tucker asked. He looked to me. His eyes were wicked with worry.

Tom only shook his head in confusion.

"Yeah." My voice cracked as I tried to get it out. The heaviness moved to my eyelids, and I wanted to sit down.

Wag backed up, holding his hands out as if he was trying to protect us.

He shook his head nervously, backing up farther and farther. "This isn't any magic I have ever felt before."

"Um what?" Tom said. "What does that mean?"

This darkness continued surround me, and I felt heavier and sadder than I ever had. I almost couldn't walk. I felt

like I would soon be able to get out if I didn't escape this mist.

"We need to leave," Wag warned. His expression told me he wasn't to be messed with. "Now."

Even Tom, who was feeling non of the smog, understood this. "Yeah, Yeah, Alright," He could barely get it out.

Tucker and I both couldn't speak. It felt like I was continuously getting cotton shoved down my throat.

A flame appeared. In the middle of the abyss. A hot light. A hot, overwhelming light.