"Skyla!" a voice echoed in the darkness. Try as she may, she was unable to respond. "C'mon, please get up!" the voice pleaded again through the ringing in her ears. She groaned and let the ringing in her ears die down.

"Skyla! Skyla!" the familiar voice was clear as day now. Skye's vision started to swim into focus as she felt herself get onto her knees from a supine position. She looked down at the dark, rocky ground as she tried to focus; this didn't look like her garage. Where was the car? As her mind reoriented itself, she started to look around.

The world around her was a barren, rocky wasteland with a violet colored sky as stormy clouds gathered at the horizon. The only other living soul around was a familiar face who knelt to make eye contact with her. "You okay? I was tending to you when I fell unconscious, too."

"Where are we?" Skye asked.

Klaus shrugged. "Beats me. It looks like we're in some sort of weird dream." He too looked around. He frowned at the world around them. "This place is giving me the creeps. Did we hit our heads and die? One would think the afterlife would've been a little more bright. Unless we-"

"Slow your roll." Skye sternly told him. "It doesn't really feel like a dream since we're here at the same time and aware of everything. Last time I checked, we've never lucid dreamed before." Skye slowly rose to her feet as her friend elevated beside her. "Then again there is a first time for everything."

Skye turned her back, then smirked. "Or, we could have very well died. I bet if we look around, I'll be reunited with that old mutt of mine." She could hear Klaus whimpering. As for that old mutt, he loved to bite. Not much to miss there.

"Oh come on, Skye! Don't scare me like that!" Klaus cried out. He closed his eyes. "Find your happy place, find your happy place." He worked to console himself. Breathing steadily now, he opened his eyes; the first thing they landed on was her scarf.

He gazed at her scarf to see that it still kept its faint glow from the garage, only this time there were none of the garage's lights to reflect off of it; there wasn't much light aside from a purple hued sunset anyway. "Hey, Skye?"

His voice didn't register with her; she started pacing back and forth on the plateau they stood on. "Now, how do we get out of here?" She murmured. Depending on the direction she took, the light in her scarf glowed and faded. Even when she went in a direction that encouraged the light, the light never shone brighter than just a faint glimmer.

"Skye, look!" He stopped her where the faint light was visible; he lifted her scarf just enough to get it in her line of sight.

Skye's eyebrow raised skeptically. "That's weird. Are you sure it's not just the light around here?" She held the scarf at every angle she could. She went as far as to remove it from her neck and block the light out with her body. Even in her shadow, it glowed as faint as a glowstick.

"I'm positive that it's just not a coincidence anymore. It's gotta lead to something if your scarf is acting like this world." Klaus gasped. "It might be leading us to an exit! Let's go!"

Klaus began to run off when his mentor grabbed the back of his shirt's collar. "Hold your horsepower. We don't know what lies beyond here nor where we ended up." Her protege began to pout in her grip strong enough to lift him off of the ground. His body turned to her showing that his arms were crossed. "Come on, don't you trust me? If we just rush on ahead without a plan we'll get hurt."

Her speech failed to get through to him as shown by a groan and the way he forced his shirt collar free. "But Skye, what if this is a dream? We can do whatever we want! For example, I want a box of pizza!" Klaus requested as he held out his hands, but when he opened one of his eyes, nothing happened.

"I don't think that's gonna work." She rested a hand on her face.

"Silly me, this must be your dream." He shot her a pleading look. Did he want her to wish a box of pizza into existence? Skye only rolled her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. "Come on! At least think of an exit!"

She hummed, closing her eyes to concentrate. She mirrored the look of this world in her mind the best she could with memory, but altered it to have a door leading her back to her warm, homely garage.

She opened her eyes to find nothing of the sort.

"Something tells me that it's a bit more than that." Skye crossed her arms. At least dreaming could be checked off the list of possible answers as to what this place was. In that case, how did they end up here?

"Dream or no dream, this place is giving me the creeps." Klaus shivered. "Let's get out of here already." He clung to her hip. Skye rolled her eyes and took her apprentice by the hand as they began their walk down the plateau.

The path looked as though it would just circle down the mountain; however, they entered a cave after a few minutes in their decline.

The darkness swallowed them with the only thing keeping it away was Skye's colorful scarf which lit up a small area. Klaus just couldn't unglue his eyes from such a bright display of color. "For a piece of clothing, it works better than a glowstick," the mechanic commented.

Still, she had to squint to focus on her surroundings, but the cave was so dark that Skye couldn't see anything beyond the boundary of light. "Careful!" She was yanked back by Klaus. She bent forwards; the light revealed a crevice just big enough to fit her frame. She couldn't even see the bottom.

She kicked a small rock into the crevice and they listened. It took fifteen seconds for it to hit the bottom. "How did you know that was there?" She turned to ask him.

Klaus shrugged. "My eyes are more acclimated to seeing in the dark. When your folks keep neglecting the electric bill your whole childhood, it's something you have to adapt to." Skye just gazed at him, speechless. How many times had she needed to get elbow deep in a car without a flashlight? Why couldn't she get that acclimated to darkness like her protege?

"One thing I have to ask is why it be glowing anyway?" He inquired as his eyes continued to imprint its image.

"I know just about as much as you do, but it won't matter once we find our way out." Skye sighed as she looked at the deathtrap before them. "Oh, and thanks for saving me."

"Don't mention it." Klaus took Skye by the hand and led her away from the hole. Even as the path they continued to travel lacked deep crevices like the one she nearly fell in, Klaus kept a tight grip on her hand. Though his eyesight was enough for safe travel, it wasn't a substitute for focus.

This led to a lot of near-trips on his part and giggles on her part.

The cave was a linear path, but it stretched forever to the travelers. At the end of the tunnel, they saw a bright light surrounding the exit. "Finally, we're free!" Skye shouted, elated. With high hopes, the mechanic sprinted towards the end of the cave.

"Skyla Rose you get back here right now! We don't know what's at the end of this tunnel!" His warnings fell on deaf ears; her running figure never slowed. He groaned at her. "Damn it, Skye, wait for me!"

He ran after her and found himself engulfed in light. It faded to reveal a sunlit, grassy field. "How did we get here?" he asked himself. Klaus looked around and saw Skye running up a hill. He shook his head and groaned. "Wait up!"

As the duo ran up the hill, roses started to litter the grassy surface. Roses ranging from a brilliant red to a faint yellow, from black as the night to as orange as the setting sun. As the peak of the hill got closer, they began to tightly pack themselves into groups.

At the top of the hill, the two of them looked around at a horizon packed with rounded, blue, foggy mountains. Klaus's voice was stitched together in huffs and puffs to accompany his staggering form. "I need a moment. Skye," he gasped, hunched over as he placed his hands on his knees. "Why are you so fast?"

Brushing off his exhaustion, she shrugged. "Why are you so slow?"

Her question fueled him with a brief bout of newfound vigor as he approached her, chest puffed with irritation alone. "Why are you so damn reck... less?" His body relaxed little by little as he took in the view that was laid out before them. "Whoa. Those look like the Rossfield Mountains."

They stayed silent for what felt like an eternity, catching their breaths and etching the horizon of ancient land forms capped by the clouds into memory. "They're as beautiful as the real deal." He hummed inquisitively. "But why would they be here of all places?"

Skye looked around for any sort of answer - a sign, at least. It didn't take long for her to discover a forest with a dirt path leading into it in the distance. As she got a few feet closer, her scarf began to glow again. "Well, that's our only lead. Come on!" Skye took Klaus's hand before running down the hill towards the forest's entrance.

Strangely enough, even from up there, most of the forest looked to be shrouded in fog; however, the glowing scarf proved that it may have been necessary to go through the forest.

As they finished descending and followed the dirt path to the forest, Klaus grew pale. A chill ran down his spine. "Skye, wait! I-I can't-!" The young man shouted as he fought to get away from her grip. She stopped to see her detached protege acting as though he saw a ghost. "We don't know what's in there! How do you know we won't get killed in there?!"

His fearful eyes stared at the forest and found themselves deep in Skye's as his head turned to her. Instead of reciprocating his unease, she flashed a smile. "Because we don't have a choice. C'mere you."

Her hand extended as though it sought to reunite with the young man's. Before he could pull away, she grabbed it and kept a tight grip. The rest of his body pulled away, so much so that she simply walked forward as his heels dug into the dirt with no avail. "No! No! Let me go! Just let me wait out here! Can't we at least find another way?!"

She ignored his protests. He even tried to pelt her wrist with his free fist, but to her his punches were like a breeze to a brick wall. She kept going, silent to his protests. Eventually, Klaus gave up and walked with her.

The sun warmed air that surrounding them became a cooling breeze as they neared the foggy area whose eeriness contrasted greatly with the calming grassland of roses. Skye found her body being squeezed by her apprentice now. She would've thrown him off had she not felt the tendrils of dread creeping all around her gut. Maybe they should turn back.

She looked over her shoulder for a moment. Fog. There was no turning back now.

The light darkened gradually as they continued to walk down the forest path. The only source of light was her scarf once again. Even so, the scarf never fully illuminated the area. The dirt path never wavered nor showed any hints of it about to end until another bright light once again showed itself in their path after several, long minutes that felt like eternity to the duo.

It was like the light at the end of the cave's tunnel, only the light was distorted heavily by the fog. Instead of running, they walked up to the exit of the forest which was covered in light. "I wonder where it'll take us next?"

"Only one way to find out, I guess." Skye answered before they proceeded to walk through it.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

~ ~ ~

The mentor and apprentice found themselves in the middle of a parking lot filled with cars of all sorts of models. The only similarity among them was that they all had one kind of badge stuck onto their bumpers. Skye immediately recognized that in place of the streamlined designs of the modern era, these cars were more rectangular around the edges.

The two of them heard an engine's lively roar as a vehicle was driven back to a young woman and another person who appeared to be a salesman. The two travelers took a moment to look around and noticed large price tags in the windshields of each car; some even had balloons tied around their side mirrors.

Emerging from the car's driver seat was a woman who appeared to be in her late forties. She had a similar hairstyle to the elderly woman who passed away in the accident reported just that morning, while the other woman was in her late twenties and looked a lot like her.

"Well?" the younger woman asked the eldest of the both of them. "What do you think of this beauty?"

The older woman took a moment to think, humming to herself in thought. "I really like this car better than the other one I test drove. It's definitely faster, has more power, and it's roomier too. I choose this one." The driver smiled at the sedan, half ready to pat the roof given by how much her arm was raised before she just sat her hand down on the bonnet.

The salesman's face glowed. "That's great! Come with me ladies, we'll have the payment sorted out and I'll hand you a title, and you'll be outta here with a new car." The salesman offered with jubilance. He carried his clipboard with him into the store as he wrote on it.

"Thank you, sir!" the driver yelled. She smiled warmly at the other woman, whom returned her gesture. Before long, the two of them followed the salesman into the store.

Skye scoffed. "Salespeople. I guess they were always that high energy."

The young travelers stayed behind and looked at the car that was about to be bought. "Whoa, check it out! It's a Kaunda CB7. These were made in what, 1993?" He looked to his mentor, face still aglow as he geeked over the older car, then looked back at the Seattle silver sedan.

His expression softened, becoming more and more focused with each passing second. "Skye, I think we're in that old lady's memories for whatever reason. What if everything we've seen was all about her?"

Skye scratched her chin as she too began to wonder the same thing. "That would make sense. Old people seem have a thing for gorgeous scenery and mystery, but how would that explain the barren wasteland?" Skye asked.

"Maybe it symbolizes her deepest fears about being alone?" he speculated as he shrugged. "That's usually the thing with old people. Loneliness. Sometimes because they're crabby." He chuckled lightly to himself. "I bet you'd be a crabby one, too."

As he chuckled, the mechanic shot daggers at him from aside. "Keep going and I'll be crabby before I even see my thirties."

Just as Klaus stifled his chuckling, Skye looked at the rest of the lot. Absolutely no one else was around save for them and the three they just saw. "I don't get it." She started. "Why would it be important for us to be here? How did we get into someone else's memories anyway?"

Skye thought of tracking down the old lady when they returned home. Unfortunately, the same old lady passed away in the accident that morning, presumably with anyone else they could have looked to for answers. "If only we could figure out just why and how we're here." Skye sat on the hood of the car, taking the time to relax for just a moment and think.

Upon touching it, the duo were suddenly whisked away to another location almost akin to teleportation.

The two of them suddenly found themselves in a house on a dark morning.

The living room had a gray carpet with a fireplace embedded in the wall just next to a backdoor. It was this backdoor that determined the dividing line between the dining room and the living room; where carpet and wood boundaries met. There was a wall lined with a couch and a chair whilst the opposite side had a giant cabinet with a flat screen perched on top.

In the corner was another chair next to a window. Each window, including the window in the backdoor, was draped in red with beads hanging off the ends. The curtains themselves were lengthy and in the same red color whilst the middle of the curtains were a pearly white.

The rest of the house was split into three different directions. When first coming into the house, there was a two by five foot foyer. The immediate right led into the living room, going straight led to the kitchen, and there was a hallway to the left.

"I really appreciate your help around the house, dear." commended the older voice that echoed from the left hallway.

"No problem, Mom!" happily replied a little girl's voice.

Skye and Klaus quietly made their way to the corner that let them see into the hallway. A hidden compartment was unveiled to reveal laundry machines. At an open dryer door was an older woman drawing clothes out of the machine, while sitting atop the closed washer was a little red haired girl. She folded the clothes the older woman gave her and placed them in small baskets.

The little girl stared at a dress small enough to fit her; she sighed as she folded the rose imprinted dress and placed it in her basket. "What's the matter, darling?" the older lady frowned slightly. "You usually like helping Mommy with the laundry."

"I do, I've just been bored. That's all." She replied. She drank from a sippy cup that had but a splash of bluish liquid inside that disappeared with one gulp. "Do you think we could go for a drive this afternoon, Mom?"

The girl's eyes lit up in anticipation, but the woman was mostly untouched by the brightness. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I'm afraid we can't." she replied once more with the same doting undertone. "You're just not well enough to go for a drive yet."

The mother gently put her hand against the little girl's forehead. She sighed; it was still hot to the touch. She gave her daughter a tight hug. "Don't worry, sweetheart, your next appointment is in just a few days to see the doctor. He'll have some strong medicine waiting for us."

She smiled at her as her little one smiled back. "For now, let's just stay home. Tell you what, your little friend's coming home from school soon. You two can still play together."

The child giggled and began to hug her mother again. "I knew you'd like the sound of that. Come along, let's get some dishes put away so we can have some lunch. How does pasta for you two sound?" the mother offered.

"Yeah! Pasta!" she cheered.

"My little Jade really does love her pasta, doesn't she?"

The duo's heads swiftly turned to each other so quick that they could've strained a muscle in that brief second. "Jade?!"

Light surrounded the travelers again, but it lasted a few moments longer. "What's even the point of all this?" Klaus began to wonder. It took on a tone of hysteria like he was losing grip on reality. "No, I gotta keep it together! That little girl is.. Jade?! Did we drink something weird before coming here?!"

"Hush!" Skye screeched. "I'm trying to think!"

The light faded to reveal a large track in the middle of a field with bleachers on both sides and a large building behind a row of said bleachers. "Oh, I've had these dreams," Klaus mumbled. "The ones where you're back in school and you have no clue what you're doing. You got any ideas?"

"Still thinking," Skye calmly responded.

Klaus had no chance to speak further before he heard malevolent laughter coming from behind of the bleachers. They were coming right towards them. Was he about to be picked on like usual? Were they about to confront them for being on high school property?

They were looking dead at them - all the apprentice could do was sink to the ground in the fetal position. "I'm sorry, ladies! I don't mean to be so ugly!"

Klaus felt a shiver run down his spine. Those teenagers' feet just phased through his body like they were ghosts passing through a wall. They were instead aiming to confront another teenager. "Hey look, it's the stupid girl." A brunette started. "Maybe lose a few pounds, you might have a guy one of these days." The trio started to laugh.

"Nah, even if she was skinny she'd still have a terrible attitude. We saw you mess with the a freshman. What a coward!" Another commented. Their victim looked like she wanted to speak, but the words just didn't come out. She just hung her head in a hopeless display.

Her scarf glowed again. "Uh, Skye?"

"Still thinking."

Klaus yanked on her arm, causing her to yelp, and immediately directed his mentor's attention to a student with long, red hair slowly approaching the teenagers from behind. She tapped on their shoulders one by one, each one turning their heads and shrinking under the redhead's gaze.

They quietly walked away back where they came from. "Jade!" the younger student rushed her and cried into her arms.

"At ease, Raina. Honestly, people at this school can be so rude." Jade pulled out of the hug and wiped the young lady's tears. "There's no use staying around long after school's ended. Let's get outta here."

"Sure, there's Jade, but where's the Kaunda CB7?" Skye whispered as the two students phased through them as if they were ghosts, leaving the travelers mortified at what they just witnessed. "I guess that means messing with memories are out of the question?" Klaus simply nodded at her.

A bright light enveloped Jade as her body changed shape whilst Raina held a peculiar object in her hand, but not even her body could be seen through the light either.

The light faded once again to reveal that they were in a long driveway in a cul-de-sac. "It looked like her body changed for some reason. What's even going on?" Klaus nervously looked around with dilated pupils and clammy hands.

"Hey, we're gonna figure it out. Nothing makes sense, but I'm sure everything will fall into place soon." Skye reassured. "My best guess is just plain optical illusion."

"No, we're not!" He shouted, nearly straining his vocal cords. "I can't take it anymore! I want this to end! I just want to wake up already! Maybe if I left you alone I could be back home right now not having to deal with any of this!"

"Listen here, we're in this together whether you like it or not!" Skye fired back. "Besides, what if I never came back? Then you'd be out of a job."

Just as they locked disdainful eyes, they heard another argument leak from a slightly cracked window. They put their argument aside and walked closer as her scarf glowed brighter. They peeked through the window near the corner of the house to see an older Jade, the old woman, an old man, and another woman younger than the redhead with platinum blond hair.

The elderly lady was in bed with a soft compress perched atop her forehead. Standing around her was a trio locked in a battle of words.

"You can't do this to us! Why in your right mind would you want a divorce?" Jade was the first they heard to interrogate.

"I just want to go home to the wilderness, but your mother's too stubborn to follow through on that. Besides, you wouldn't want to go with me. Your mother needs you and in a few years, so will Raina." he spoke as he rested his fingers under her chin.

"So what, you're just going to leave me and Mom because you want to go and see the stupid mountains in New Virginia so bad?" Jade spat.

"They might be stupid mountains to you, but they're home to me." The man said with ground teeth.

Jade fumbled over her words and stamped her foot. "You had all this time to move back up there, and you choose to move back when Mom is at the lowest point in her health?! What kind of husband are you anyway?!"

"That's enough!"

Jade looked away from her father, but the platinum blond figure's hand rested on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her. "Daddy, this place might just be a coastal town to you, but to us it's our home and it's been yours for even longer, too. It's all we've ever known and it's not home without you." she said on behalf of Jade. "You could've gone back earlier. Way earlier."

Their father crossed his arms and looked towards a wall. It was like he knew Skye and Klaus were there eavesdropping, but never made a peep about them or narrowed his eyes to let them know.

In the background, his daughter continued. "Besides, what would you find up there anyway? There'd be no one to take care of you when you're sick. Even when you're healthy, nobody's going to be around to keep you company at all. Stay with us, please!"

He shot a deadly glare at them. "Faith, Jade, this conversation's over. Nothing will change my mind." He stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him. The woman, now even older, wrapped her arms around the women when they leaned down for a hug.

"Your father is a stubborn man. If only I could change his hardheaded mind like his grandson could, but I don't think he can do it either."

"You've got to stop enabling his behavior, Mother." Faith said sternly. "Divorce is bad on its own, but he'd go so far as separate his family? You're the only one he'll listen to!" Faith ranted.

She shook her head. "I'd just be wasting precious lung power. He doesn't listen to me more than he listens to you two." Faith and Jade exchanged worried glances. "The only thing we can do is just accept what's going to happen and be grateful that he chose you, Faith, to take on those mountains. Y'know that Jade can't."

The redhead sighed and held tighter onto her family as she lamented. "Mountains or not, I only wanted us all to stay together."

The last word echoed faintly as the two travelers were swallowed by darkness this time and found themselves descending into a small field on a cloudy day. Small rain drops fell out onto the ground and onto what appeared to be gravestones covered in lilies, pink roses, orchids, hyacinths, and hydrangeas.

In addition to colorful blooms, solar powered lamps also lit up only a small area. Some gravestones even had miniature versions of the United States flag waving in the wind. One headstone in particular had a woman on her knees sitting in front of a combination of all the other flowers present.

The travelers looked over Jade's shoulders to read the text on the gravestone.

Here lies Faith Sanders.

2001 - 2013

She was a caring daughter and sister. May she rest in peace.

"Why didn't I stop him?" Jade asked Faith's headstone. She gripped the grass at her sides. "Why couldn't he just listen to us? He just had to adopt another with more vigor than you, didn't he?" She sniffed back tears. "He just abandoned us! Why couldn't he just get his head out of his ass when we warned him that you couldn't handled driving fast on rough terrain?!"

Jade stood up with tears streaming down her cheeks. "You didn't deserve this fate." She began to sob into her hands and sank onto her knees again. No matter how many times Skye and Klaus tried to put their hands on her back, they kept phasing through.

The sky darkened and before they could process what was happening, the travelers were enveloped in darkness. The world around them brightened enough for the travelers to see that they were at a dark entrance to a large cave.

The scarf on Skye's neck was glowing ever so brightly now; bright enough to light up the small space they had. There was no way to climb out of the pit, but the pit gave them cover from from the stormy skies above that were red in color while the blackened clouds swirled overhead.

"Is this about the old lady, too?" Klaus asked, now beginning to stutter. He shivered, getting close to Skye for the instinctive need for protection.

"I have a feeling this was never about her." Skye answered as she held him close protectively for a moment, then loosened her grip. She couldn't help but tighten it just a little more as they stared down the entrance of a cave that stretched into an endless darkness.