"Nimue sent us," I explained. "She wishes to release you from this place."

Lancelot frowned. "She's been here this whole time?" He looked away, pain in his eyes. "I'd heard rumours of what he did to her, but to send her here?"

"Who is this he?" Flare chimed in.

"Alas, he has cursed me to never speak his name," Lancelot looked sorrowfully at us. "He was jealous, wanted Guinevere for himself, and so he wanted her banished."

"Didn't you and Guinevere...," Flare enquired, "you know, get it on?"

Lancelot looked at her confused. "I do not know what that means," he said. "Guinevere and I rarely spoke at all, it's true she was lovely, but I did not want her the same way Arthur did."

"Well then," I started, "what did happen?"

"He happened," Lancelot said grimly. "His desires were too much for him, and he was not as wise as his older brother, Merlin. Merlin tried to convince him to abandon his plans, but it was far too late. There were many pieces to his sick games, I was only one, and not all that important.

"He convinced Sir Gwaine that if I were gone, he could become Arthur's second in command. Guinevere and I were banished as a result, and Arthur was left mistrusting. It became his downfall when Mordred betrayed us."

I gulped. It didn't sound horrible, but if this was only the tip of the ice burg, how much else did this man do that nearly destroyed the world? If he could singlehandedly scheme his way into weakening Camelot's forces, there was something else he wanted. Something more than just Guinevere's hand in marriage.

"What about you?" Flare asked. "Why does Nimue care so much about you?"

"She was the closest thing to a mother I ever had," Lancelot frowned. "My parents abandoned me at Lake Avalon, where Nimue often wondered. She found me, cared for me, taught me about her world, and what she was. I could not tell the other humans, for fear of what they might do to her.

"I was gifted with the ability to see these legends. I could see the creatures of myth for what they truly were. I saw creatures the knights didn't know existed. Nimue did not explain why I could see it all, but I am thankful for it. And thou, thee are like her?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"Very well," Lancelot held out his sword for me to take, and I looked at it in question.

"You want to die?" I asked.

"I already have," Lancelot explained.

Flare took the sword when I wouldn't, and Lancelot smiled remorsefully at her.

"I know ye have questions," Lancelot started, "but I do not have the answers. Thou must kill me."

Flare held the sword up tearfully, and it shook in her hands.

"You haven't done anything wrong though," I said. "We can't justify killing someone when they haven't done anything."

"Thee can," Lancelot nodded. "I died, and he wished to punish me, so he sent me here. Now that he is free, I do not wish to be part of his sick games."

Flare and I stood there for a few seconds, debating whether or not we should kill him. I could tell myself the others deserved it, after they hurt me first, but Lancelot was much like Bedivere. Someone who'd done nothing wrong. I couldn't bring myself to hurt him, but Flare seemed to think it was for the best. It probably was, but I couldn't watch. I turned away when she did it and looked back to find a pile of self-luminous red particles.

But the night was far from over, and he was not happy.

The castle shook with rage, and the red light appeared before us in a human shape. It was him, but he was not present.

"How dare thee kill Sir Lancelot!" It bellowed in a voice nothing like a normal voice. It was the light talking, being manipulated by him.

The figure dissolved into the wall, and it started to act like jelly. The wall was completely solid, but it split under our feet, and we sunk into it. The stone walls scratched at our legs as we continued to sink. I looked around the room, hoping to find something we could use to get out. Anything I could grab onto really. Unfortunately, every plan I came up with couldn't work because everything was out of my reach.

I would have to rely on Flare for this, and I didn't know if she could help us. She was smart, definitely, but I hadn't really seen her in action. Well, if you don't include the running, we did. I didn't know if she was at all agile or used to fighting, and she didn't seem like the kind of person to get into fights at school for any reason. Even if she had been assaulted, which she said she had.

Flare stretched out of the stone and grabbed onto the edge of a curtain. The weird thing about the curtain was how it was moving, like it was made of cardboard. Flare started climbing out and when she got far enough out, she held out a hand for me to grab.

"Flora!" She called. "We need to get out of here!"

I nodded and reached up for her. One teeny tiny problem. As she had climbed, I had continued to sink. So, I was up to my armpits in stone, my lower shins dangling on the other side of the wall. I stretched my arm as far as I could, and our fingers touched. It would have to do.

She began trying to pull me out by my fingers, but from everything that happened, we were both weak, tired, and sweaty. My hand slipped out of her grasp, and I continued to sink into the wall.

The stone may have been moving and acting like jelly, but I can assure you it in no way felt like jelly. It felt like I was being squashed in between stone walls as I sunk further down. Further to the side? With gravity out of whack, it was difficult to tell which way was up or down. Just a normal day in the Dreamscape.

I was shoulder deep, and my arms were stretched out above me. Comfortable, as you can imagine. I reached out for Flare, and she reached out for me, but there was a good few centimetres between our fingers, so there was a slim chance of her being able to pull me out.

"Go ahead!" I yelled.

"Are you insane!?" Flare had a look of horror on her face.

"Probably!" I shouted in response. "But there's no reason for both of us to die!"

"Flora!" She called back. "This is crazy! You're really gonna let that red thing kill you!?"

My eyes pricked. All that effort for nothing. Weeks of escaping and evading death for nothing. It seemed so bittersweet, but in the end, Flare had a chance of escaping. I wasn't going to let her risk her life for a murderer like myself.

"It was nice knowing you!" I exclaimed. "Even if only for a short while!"

The wall swallowed me whole, and I fell out through the other side.

Turns out, I didn't die. Instead, I crashed into a pillar, and held onto it as I started to slide off the side. I looked down, where the red light swirled to form a symbol. I glanced at the symbol on my hand, and then back at the red one below me. They were different. It was a circular shape mad of triangles, with circles and ovals making a circle around the roman numerals of twelve, three, six, and nine, and four U shapes in the centre, where the red light was most concentrated.

Something told me I'd be ripped apart if I fell into the symbol, and so I decided it would be best to find my way back to Flare. Wow, there has been a lot happening in this one dream. My guess was that it had something to do with the weird time arrangement, and that it was maybe four in the morning in the normal world.

I threw myself over the pillar, and though I was trembling from the lack of remaining energy, I knew better than to stay in one place for long. I got to my feet, feeling the urge to just close my eyes and lie down, but I needed to find Flare. No matter how little energy I had left.

The pillar began dipping like it was a pool noodle, strange choice for a man from the middle ages. I shook my head and started the graceful, delicate, agile, and elegant trek to the floor. No, I did not flail around like a car sale balloon man, I was doing a warning dance, to any nearby spirits. Trying to ward them off. And if anyone says otherwise, they're wrong.

It was lucky the floor was made of munted stone, otherwise I would have no way of escaping. I was beginning to be grateful that Ciara had invited Zak and I to go rock climbing a couple of weeks back, seems to be coming in handy. But I'd have to do some training of my own. I was beginning to wish I took the Outdoor Ed class. It wasn't too late to switch courses, was it?

That was beside the point, I latched onto the floor – or should I start calling it a wall? – and began climbing sideways to get to the doorway. I was in rough shape, and felt weak, so I was trembling and sweating as I tried to leave. Fun fact: that isn't helpful for when someone is trying to murder you. Shocker, I know.

I eventually managed to get to the doorway, and began pulling myself up, but the red symbol below me started to pull me down, as though it was increasing the amount of gravity it had. I noticed everything metal flew towards it at a faster rate, but that as anything got closer, it slowed down. I didn't want to know how that felt, so I continued to try and pull myself up, even as the gravity increased.

I managed to pull myself up, but everything was attracted to the gravity of the red light. The wall under my feet began to crack and crumble, pushing itself towards the light.

I sighed. "Shit."

All I really remember about the next few moments is that the force pulled me to the ground was intense, and it was difficult to lift my legs. I sped as fast as I could down the corridor, hoping to whatever god there was that I'd be able to find Flare. She was probably scared out of her mind, trying to escape whatever traps and obstacles the red light sent her way.

Eventually, the force got so intense that I was forced to crawl across the wall. My limbs were crying out in pain, but I persevered. It was rule number one about this place that I'd come up with. You rest for even a second, you die.

My limbs felt like lead, and I was struggling to move quickly. I noted that most objects around me were moving slowly. Somehow, I knew what was going on. Time was slowing.

"Come on, Flo," I said, "you can do this."

In honesty, I wasn't too sure about that. I was a nervous wreck, and wanted to just curl up and cry, because it felt like this would never end. I'd lost Flare, who thought I was dead, and I was energy zapped. I was alone and weak. There was going to be no end to this.

Suddenly, shaking me from my self-pitying, the gravity shifted. I fell upwards (downwards? Sideways?) and crashed onto a stained-glass window. It cracked under my back, and I could feel it shifting. I looked below me, seeing the red symbol. No way was I going anywhere near that. I rolled onto the wall and watched as the glass flew towards the symbol.

I got to my feet and looked ahead. The curtains stood perpendicular to the wall, and everything that had been on the other wall started raining down. The wall was crumbling beneath my feet, and I began running. Or rather, doing the motions of running at a very slow pace. I couldn't tell if it was time slowing down or my own fatigue, but I was thinking it was a combination of the two.

After a few moments, I heard clanking above my head, and I sighed in relief. Hopefully, it was Flare. I jumped up and grabbed onto the doorway, my grip weak and arms shaking. I was out of breath, my body wanted to give up, I had no adrenaline left to pump into my blood, but I needed to get in there. I pulled myself up and was shocked when I fell to the floor.

I yelped out and held my hip. Landing ass first on hard stone hurts.

"Flora!" I turned and smiled when Flare tackled me in a hug. "I thought you were dead!"

"Nope," I said panting. "Takes more than a wall to kill me."

Flare laughed softly in my ear and pulled away. "Good," she said. "Because I have no idea what I'm doing."

I smiled lightly and looked around. My jaw dropped.

"There's been food here this whole time!?" I exclaimed. "I could've eaten and not had to crawl around to escape the red light this whole time!?"

"Yeah...," Flare looked shocked. "Well, I managed to eat something, but that red light man really doesn't want us to be alive."

I huffed. "You think?"

"I found some food, and they seem to be focusing their energy elsewhere now," Flare said. "Maybe it's safe for a few minutes?"

I frowned, but when I thought about it, there had been moments where the red light wasn't as determined. I don't know if it's necessarily them focusing elsewhere, or just them wearing themselves out, but I decided to take this opportunity.

I looked through storage and found some food that looked freshly made for a feast. Did food here have an expiration date? I didn't want to find out, but I was tired and needed something to get energy back.

"I ate sugary foods," Flare admitted. "Figured it's better to have a lot of energy now, so that we don't have to wait long, and then we're probably going to wake up soon anyway."

"Yeah," I sighed. "It's probably something like half-past five."

Flare frowned. "It feels like it's been a whole day."

"It was probably a whole day here," I explained, taking a piece of cake. "Time works weird. Sometimes you're only here for a few minutes but it's been a whole night."

"And vice versa?" Flare asked, looking down.

"Yeah," I said, looking at her with empathy. "It's difficult to tell, but you get used to it."

"How long?" Flare asked.

I looked at her questioningly.

"How long have you been here?" She elaborated.

"About seven weeks," I said. "I was the only one until two days ago."

"So, we're the only ones here?" Flare pouted.

I looked down. "I left a boy behind in a hospital last night," I moved the dry and tasteless excuse of a cake around my plate. "Nimue said I'd doomed him to walk alone for months."

"God, I can't even imagine that," Flare said. "What's it like to face this alone?"

I felt like I was about to cry, but I pushed the tears back. "It's lonely," I said. "You vanished in my arms last night, and then I started screaming at the universe for forcing me to endure this place alone."

Flare got up and hugged me. She's a very affectionate person. I noted, but I wasn't complaining. I liked hugs, believe it or not, and it was nice to have someone there. She didn't fully understand what it had been like to be here alone, but she was good at listening.

"I'm really sorry," she said, "but you aren't alone anymore."

"That boy is," I said. "And he will be for a long time."

Flare shrugged. "There's nothing we can do now," she said. "But I promise, we will find him."

I smiled, and my eyes started to water.

"Now, onto more important matters," Flare stood up straight, "are you gonna finish that cake?"

I laughed a little at how she really thought I'd let anyone else eat my cake. They could try, but they would die. Well, look at that, I'm a poet and I didn't know it.

"Yes," I said, starting to eat the rest of it.

"It was worth a shot," Flare shrugged.

I finished and put the plate down.

"Well," I sighed, "the light hasn't attacked, which means they're either tired, attacking the boy in the hospital, or we're about to wake up."

"Please tell me it's the last one," Flare whined.

Before I could answer, I vanished from her sight, and woke up.