"A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality."

- Yoko Ono

7:16 a.m

2 days earlier

Matilda Barber set the cup of hot chocolate down on the coffee table. Laid out before Tim was the photograph of Vashmir Commons, the notes from Stella, and the revolver he took from the police station. He stared at the exhibition, his mind blank from fatigue. Exhausted from the long week. He had mourned Stella, washed up, showered, ate, and changed into one of Clay's slightly oversized white shirt and a brown cargo pants he had left there on one of his stay.

“Are you sure about this?” Gordon Barber asked from behind him.

The morning sun was rising over the water, its light shining through the glass patio doors, bathing the room in a soothing orange.

Slowly, Tim picked up the gun and checked the cylinder. The chambers were all still loaded. “I have to stop this. I think I'm the only one who can.”

Matilda said, “I don't understand.”

“Me neither,” Tim replied truthfully, reclining into the couch.

She asked, “Tired?”

“Yeah. I think I'll take a nap.”

Gordon asked, “You want some of those medicines? Somnidin?”

“No,” he replied curtly. “Those things are almost as bad as the dreams.”

He could feel the tension in his shoulders gave way. His eyelids refused to stay open. He could hear Matilda and Gordon saying something to him, but his beaten brain refused to make sense of the words. The sun felt warm on his skin, and all the aches in his body evaporated as he was numbed by slumber.

XXX

Fluorescent lights lid the corridor in hospital white. The floor carpeted in white fur. As far as his eyes could see, the passageway lead on forever before and behind him. Countless doors lined the walls on his left and right, from which some echoed screams of pain and others whispered hushed laughter.

“Don't worry,” Sister said, appearing beside him. He wasn't shocked though, having grown accustomed to her sudden appearances. “This place isn't that dangerous once you get used to it?”

“Where are we?” he asked, staring around.

“Corridor of some sort. This is a shady corner of the dream world. Nobody ever comes here.”

“What about you?”

“I was looking for you. Specifically. I just followed your scent here.”

He stared at her oddly, “Are you a bloodhound now?” she laughed daintily, and he smiled. Then, a thought crossed his mind and he asked seriously, “Can The Father track me?”

“Yes. But he has to do it consciously. And it's easier when your personality suits his powers better. And I don't think he's hunting you right now. He's busy with that whole, 'ripping a hole into your universe' thing,” she explained, taking a seat on the floor, leaning against the wall. “It's all very complicated.”

“I know,” he replied, pacing up and down the corridor, trying to drown out the disturbing noises with his own footsteps. “I have a question though. If he's trying to get into our world from here, there must be, like, a gateway or something, right? A place where he's pushing through?”

“Of course. I'm guessing you want to see it?”

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation.

She jumped to her feet excitedly, clapping in joyous anticipation like a child about to go on an adventure. “Alright, follow me,” she opened the door closest to them, where laughter was emitting.

But instead of a room, or a person, or anything resembling a place where sound could come from, they were faced with a literal wall of black. It did not reflect nor shimmered. No glow emitted nor any sign of movement shown. Just black.

Without missing a beat, Sister stepped into the wall, disappearing into it as easily as a one would jump into water. Even then, the aftermath broke Tim's expectation. No ripples followed her, and the wall remained as seemingly solid as it did before.

Gathering a breath for courage, he placed one feet through. The air did not feel any different on the other side. Though he tried not to close his eyes as his leg passed through, by the time his face was close enough to touch it, he blinked, and opened his eyes to a space impossibly emptier than the last.

He wanted to call the place a room, but there were no walls. He wanted to describe it as an outdoor plain, but there was a ceiling above. He wanted to call what he stood on 'ground', but his legs were soaked shin deep in clear water. The ceiling was also impossibly made from the same liquid. Colourless and clear, yet he was unable to see his own two feet nor a reflection. Below the liquid, below where his feet should be standing on, was an empty white that stretched infinitely in all direction.

Tim exclaimed, “What the hell is that?” and pointed towards a white, whirling tube that spiralled up from the ground to the 'ceiling', hundreds of feet top to bottom. Hundreds of meters away, the whirlwind still looked imposingly huge. From what he could see, it stretched at least half a kilometres across.

Sister explained, “We're in The World Between. One of them at least,” she stepped forward towards the whirlwind. Despite how ferocious the phenomenon looked, there was not even a slight breeze from it. “This is one of the places where the space between two universes are at its thinnest.”

“I thought you said the dream worlds were of different universes?” Tim asked, confused.

“Sort of. They are like after images. A world a little bit forward and back in time, out of synch with the present. You're sort of there, and not,” she bent over, scooping up a handful of the liquid below. The liquid stayed connected like slime, never completely breaking apart. “What you're standing on is pure energy. It's what we manipulate to give us our powers. When the universes are apart, these are mixed together, creating the dream world. But when they are close enough, they stabilize, and we get a place like this.”

Tim looked to the top of the whirlwind. “You're saying that the ceiling is another universe?”

“Yeah. And the ground is yours. Specifically, the bottom of that whirlwind is Ridge Valley.”

Tim was left speechless. He had questions, but did not know what those were. He was both confused and clear-headed at the same time, and that conflicting feeling was making his head spin.

He then thought, “Wait, so that whirlwind is the portal thing in Ridge Valley? Does that mean it's a gateway to another universe?”

She nodded hesitantly, an unsure look on her face. “Sort of. I'm not sure how to say this, but that thing hasn't fully connected to your universe yet. That whirlwind is like a drain. It's sucking energy in from the other universe.”

“The blue Mist,” he thought out loud. “There's this blue gas that's been spewing out from the portal.”

“That could be it. But it's not completely connected to your world yet. That's what The Father is doing. He's withholding all the souls, the energy of the people he's killed so that they'd try to return to your universe. It's like he's holding a super magnet against a balloon,” she walked back to him, a worried look in her eyes. “You said you have a way to close the portal. How?”

“I'm...not sure,” he said. “I'm still trying to get a hang of it.”

“Of what?” she was flustered, confused. He thought that she looked cute like that. “That thing is made of pure energy. You can't just cut it off. Believe me, I've tried. The only way is to close it is to cut of the end. The portal in your world. Even then, you have to be able to manipulate energy to do so, otherwise, it's just a solid thing. You can't even really touch it. It'll be as hard as concrete.”

Reassuringly, Tim tried to stop her, “Sister.”

“What?!” she yelled, though not meaning to. Realizing how tense she was getting, she calmed herself down and tried again. “What?”

“My feet is in the water.”

“What?”

“My feet. Is in the water.”

She looked down, and sure enough, Tim was submerged in the liquid just as she was.

Her eyes widened, surprise etched across her face clearer than the stains on a homeless man's coat. “That's not possible. It should be like stone to you. You shouldn't be able to even break the surface!” she grabbed his shoulder tightly. “How are you doing this?”

“The singing. I've been hearing these hymns since I started coming here. And I could also travel between dreams. You said it wasn't normal, so I did some deduction. I figured it must be me, reacting to something in the dream world,” he looked around him, the pure energy that flowed beneath him swirled around his legs. “Now that I know all this energy thing, it makes sense. I can manipulate energy here. Which means I can also close the portal from the other end.”

She looked distressed. More so than he had ever seen her. “No. You can't do that. We don't know what will happen if you close the portal from the real world. You could really die.”

“I know.”

“No. No! You...you have what Stella left you?” she asked frantically. “You have my real name! You can just call me to your world, and I'll close it from there! I'm already dead, so it's okay.”

Tim took her in his arms, her small body settled into his chest. For the first time, he felt like her equal. She was not helping him with her knowledge, nor overwhelming him with her powers. She was as worried, unsure, and capable as he was.

Gently, he said, “I need you here.”

She couldn't think straight, her mind racing faster than she could focus. “Why?” she asked.

“I'm going to the portal. Then, I'm going to drag The Father out and kill him so he can't do this again,” he wondered when it was that he started saying 'kill' with such ease. “When he dies, I need you to find my father. Joshua. He's one of the souls that are trapped. And I need you to tell him to take over The Father's duty so that that monster can never revive again.”

Softly, regretfully, she muttered, “And then you'll close the portal?”

His steady breathing was all that they could hear. “Yes,” he replied, unbent.

Slowly, she pulled away from him. With a calm but sad smile across her face, she said, “Once the portal close, all this thing that you've been doing, you might not be able to do them again. The only reason we can even talk now is because of the portal. Time between our worlds need to synchronize. But once that closes...”

“I know,” he spoke for her. “I'll stop remembering my dreams. Everything will go back to normal.”

“So this will be the last time we get to talk.”

“Probably,” he replied, staring down to his feet, not in shame, but disappointment. “Until the day I die at least.”

She bit her lower lips nervously, her eyes not daring to meet his. “I guess I should say everything I want to say then.”

Sister extended a piece of cloth from her dress, gently wrapping it around Tim's head before it covered his mouth. His eyes bolted wide in confusion at the act. However, the cloth had muted him, and he could only look at Sister in disarray as the later smiled lovingly.

Without any of her seductive poses or powers, nor any of her fond bodily contacts, she professed, “I love you, Timothy Kleve,” leaning in to kiss his lips over the cloth.

XXX

10:39 p.m

24 hours earlier

The sun had long since risen and set. The Barbers had laid one of Clay's old blanket over him as he slept. He breathed heavily, and though his body felt refreshed, his mind still felt like it was breaking down from all the after hours activity he had done in the dream world. He needed to put an end to the ordeal before he mentally crumbled.

10:39 blinked on the television set-top box, signalling the end of his 15 hours long sleep. He looked to the right where Matilda laid in a sleeping Gordon's shoulder, both snoring gently away.

Tim got to his feet, taking the blanket and returning their care by gently laying it across the couple.

From the coffee table, he picked up the revolver, but left Stella's note and photograph. He could feel it. The last chapter was coming. And he finally had a plan to finish it.