It's so dark, I can't see anything. Where am I? It's so cold and whatever I'm on is really tough and hard. I'm not in another nightmare am I? Or would being aware I'm in a nightmare stop the nightmare?

I realize it's dark since have my eyes closed. Strange, I don't think I've ever had closed eyes in a dream before. Blinking my eyes open in confusion, which grows when I see the dream. So vivid, almost as if I was actually awake. But that's impossible, I've never been to this place.

Black, dark gray, super dark gray that looks almost black, another dark gray that looks light because of the few comparison choices. It's almost as if someone forgot to add color to a drawing, leaving it dead and dark.

I look around and see someone sleeping beside me. She's pretty old, a lifetime of work on the crinkles of her face. I don't recognize her though, how did my mind come up with this? I bet I'll fail to save her sometime later in the dream.

Wherever I am, I can't tell if I'm outside or inside. There isn't one star above me, yet I can't see any walls or anything. There are even these mounds scattered around. At least I think they're mounds, it's really hard to tell with this lighting.

Bringing my hand up to scratch my head, I pause and look at my hand. It's not my hand, this one is old and crinkly. Not too mention extremely pale, kinda like that woman. Seeing how it's only semi-light gray here, I bet this place doesn't get a whole lot of sun... ever.

Anyway, I shrug and dismiss it as part of the dream. But then a burning shooting pain fires from both my shoulders. I hiss in pain, bringing my hand up to massage one.

My gosh! I don't think there are even muscles here! Just a bunch of knots! If I wake up with these, I'm giving Lukas full permission to be acting leader of the Order of the Stone. What in the Nether am I? I know I'm dreaming, but most of my dreams don't involve possessing bodies who should be dead.

A growl comes from behind me, I whip around and every single part of my back screams at me for doing such a horrendous act against it. But I mostly ignore that as I stare at a demon, the same creatures that attacked Beacontown.

"Know place. Back down."

I blink, did it just talk to me? Either way, if it means staying alive then okay. I lay back down, despite the agony that causes, and close my eyes. Thoughts running madly in my head though.

Is this one of those symbolic dreams? That one day these demons are going to take over... wait, is this Beacontown? If Beacontown gets attacked and I fail, will the color be ripped away from my bright city?

Where are all the citizens? Do the mounds represent gravestones or amazing builds torn down? And what happened to the sky? Did so much dust and ash and smoke rise up and block out the sky?

Is that why my body is old and frail and weak and in a lot of pain? That when I faced the attack, I faced it like this, instead of being my strong self. Is this dream trying to tell me to open up or bad things will happen?

But bad things are happening regardless! And everything would go even worse if the others knew. Lukas is one thing, he understands enough not to judge. But the others? We haven't spent so much time together since the Admin Battle! They can't even empathize as much, I would be surprised if they could, as Lukas.

It could be the opposite then. That I did tell the others and this is what happened? I didn't get better, everything started getting worse, I kept failing, and then this is where we end up?

I feel a flicker in me, strengthening me. It's definitely not my fire... is it the yellow flames? Can it possess me in my dreams? Is it a warning I'm possessed and need to wake up? Are the yellow flames actually something else? Or just a repressed part of me?

If this is a dream then I'll just wake myself up. I push the world back and everything starts getting heavy... dull even. My mind slows down as it retreats away from this creepy dream.

Maybe I can talk to Lukas about this dream when I wake up? I'm sure he'll have some good insights, he usually does. But even if he doesn't.... I probably should talk about. Unless it turns out to be nothing, maybe I'll keep it to myself.

I close my eyes, feeling as if I'm falling asleep. But that's strange... I already am asleep.

~~~~~~~~

I open my eyes, and sighing in relief that I'm in my bedroom. I suppose I have been all along, but I refuse to think about it. Instead, I'm going to do something productive. And I'm definitely not going to be an emotional sap who only screws up more things.

Part of me wants to see how Ivor and Olivia are doing running the town. Mostly to make sure Ivor isn't randomly pouring lava onto the streets again. But I'm sure it's going fine, Olivia is the Governor of Redstonia after all. I'm wouldn't be surprised if the citizens have all been educated on this new threat.

So I'll go help Petra and Axel research, if they're even researching that is. Once they get healed and Olivia tells me the town is going back to normal, I'm giving everyone more appropriate jobs.

I yawn and sit up, my mouth settling into a smirk when I see Lukas asleep on my desk. This is great! Not only do I get to tease him, but now he can't be such a stickler on me working when he has done the exact same thing.

Rolling out of bed and stretching, I walk very lightly over to Lukas. He could be in a light phase of sleep and he's never has been much of a deep sleeper like Axel. I wouldn't want to ruin this by being too impatient.

Once I get right behind him, I hover over his back. I must look like some psychopathic stalker right now. Dangling my fingers right over his shoulders, I hold back some of my chuckles as I fill my lungs to their max capacity.

"BOOO!" I violent shake his shoulders and jump back.

Lukas yelps and throws himself backwards, tumbling out of the chair. His eyes are bulging out of his head as he gapes like a fish. And then Lukas goes bright red when he sees me trying to contain my snickers behind my hand.

His eyes narrow. "It's not that funny."

My laughter escapes me and I throw my head back. My shoulders shaking as Lukas glares at me with his bright red face. I bend over trying to catch my breath, chuckling at the curses Lukas mutters.

"It is though!" Another fit of laughter bursts forth, my face hurting slightly as my smile expands. "You shoulda seen your face!"

Lukas just bitterly stares at me. It must be so much worse from him since he can feel my pure joy from watching him get so scared and my giddiness to see him so embarrassed. Today's going to be a great day, I can feel it... in my stomach.

Lukas raises an eyebrow. "You done yet?"

I inhale, hold it for a few seconds, before exhaling. That manages to calm my laughter, but it'll take awhile to wipe the smile off my face. Besides, now's the best part. The teasing.

"Yes, but did you finish your work? It looks like you stopped midway." I chuckle and Lukas face palms.

"No! Stop it Jesse! Please don't-"

"My my my Lukas, I never thought you would ever sleep on the job. Tsk, tsk, tsk, such behavior is for those who are still immature! I guess I have no choice but to fire you. You have been demoted to a guard. Have fun standing around."

Lukas crosses his arms. "I'm immature?"

"Yes, didn't I just say that?"

Lukas whacks me on the top of the head, pushing a few more chuckles out of me. I smile at him, nudging him with my elbow. I get through to him, and a magnificent smile break across his face. Lukas shakes his head at me, eyes glimmering with joy though.

"What am I ever going to do with you Jesse?"

I chortle and ruffle his bedhead hair. "If it's anything like the last few days, there's going to be a whole lot of you inflating my ego."

"It needs to be there for me to inflate it. I swear, you are the most humblest person to ever walk."

I scoff. "Not with all this praise you keep showering upon me. And let's go do something, I'm already restless as it is."

"Oh no," Lukas rolls his eyes. "I wouldn't want to deal with an even more restless Jesse. I just might be scared out of my skin."

I grin mischievously. "Don't jinx yourself Lukas..."

He blinks and starts to go to the door, just flat out walking away from me. I sigh and shake my head before catching up to him. Perhaps today will be my break day. Wouldn't that be nice?

"How long was I out?"

He smiles. "You have successfully gotten to the third day of the mouth. Congratulations."

"Yippee... So how's the town going? Obviously there's a lot of paperwork."

"Hey! I did actually get almost all of it done, it had piled up over the day and there were so many reports on safety. There was even one asking if you were still you and not an 'acid scale' in disguise."

"Acid scale?" I recall fighting vicious demons, acid scale doesn't quite fit that.

"That's what the citizens have taken to calling it. A traveler came in, spreading the news about these things. He said he that it was so still he walked into thinking it was a bush. Claiming that once he saw it look at him he never ran so fast in his life."

Lukas sighs and stops in the Treasure Hall, shaking his head. "Jesse... that man, he lost the arm he touched it with. Just by touching those things, his skin got so badly burned that it had to be amputated."

The blood drains from my face, those things were in Beacontown. "That's... horrible."

"And it's causing a stir. He's still in the hospital, kinda off now, but people are scared. They're beginning to suspect these creatures were involved in the fight a few nights ago. They're worried yes, but they still have every confidence you'll be there to protect them."

Fools, I can't even sleep right... much less fight demons.

I shake my head, these thoughts are helping. "How's Olivia and Ivor taking it?"

"Pfft..." Lukas gives a small smile, and continues to walk. "Olivia is calming down the citizens and assuring them new securities will be put in place. And she also chased Ivor back in here while swearing oaths to never let Ivor lead a group of people no matter how small. It was... pretty amusing to watch."

"So what's Ivor doing?"

"Well, I think he's in here..." Lukas walks into the workshop room. "Yep, hey Ivor."

I follow him into the workshop and see that Ivor is fixing my armor sets. He's already done with the one I wore against the demons, but still working on the other.

"JESSE!" Ivor looks up from the anvil. "It's good to see you wake and not on fire."

"I can agree with that. Those armor sets aren't giving you any trouble are they?"

Ivor rolls his eyes. "Of course not, I'll be done in a hour or so. But..."

Ivor sighs and looks down at the still broken armor set. Uncertainty flashes across his face and he rubs his neck. He probably wants to say something about that night, but is too uncomfortable to talk about it.

"I know it's bad, but hey, I'm still standing aren't I?"

I hear Lukas huff and Ivor shakes his head. "It's not that... I'm just glad you're still alive. Obviously this fire of yours is giving you a hard time, but I would devastated if you didn't have it."

'Obviously'? I need to work harder on that then. "Thanks Ivor, always new you had a soft side."

"Pft." He waves us off and looks back down. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do and none of this sappy stuff is helping."

Lukas and I smile and walk out. Ivor is just... well, Ivor. I don't think anyone fully understands him, including himself.

"Come on," I turn to the library's stairs. "Let's go see Axel and Petra. Y'know, just to make sure they haven't nodded off while reading."

"You can't exactly tease them though, you've done it yourself a few times."

"I know, but I still reserve rights to scare them. Especially for Petra."

"Yeah... you have fun with that. I'm pretty sure Axel still has a scar from when he did that to her."

"Hmm, maybe it's a good idea to hold off that for awhile then."

"No kidding." I open up the library door, and immediately my two friends jump up and excitiedly greet me.

"Jesse!" I narrow my eyes at Axel, he's never this energetic about reading. "Guess what? We're healed now! Can we do something else?"

I raise an eyebrow at them. "And you're healed how?"

Petra steps up to me. "We wouldn't stop pestering Ivor until he gave us healing potions. He says he didn't have much left, but we still convinced him."

I look at Lukas and he just shrugs. Petra and Axel are clearly restless and it might be good to have them out in Beacontown. It'll be nice to know my friends are watching out for the demons and will probably ease the citizens. However, they could be stretching the truth a bit so they can get out.

"Okay, you guys can go out. But I want to make sure you really are healed. So could-"

"I know a better way!" Petra deviously smiles, and I sigh. Why do I have a bad feeling about this?

"Well," Lukas has the same uneasiness in his voice. "What is it?"

Petra pulls out her sword, the golden blade glimmering. "How about a little fight?"