I was somehow supposed to find a way to sleep naturally while four other people stood around me in the middle of a pitch black sewer room.

Believe it or not, this was hard.

Even after I suggested everyone lets me try to go to sleep alone and come back in to check on me every ten minutes to see if I was asleep, Holly insisted on being there the entire time. Aurora was also there, but much less of a mental roadblock than a whole theater room.

Eventually, though, I must've drifted away, because before long, I'm standing in the middle of an open cornfield. It's moderately similar to a few I've seen before in East California, but with one key difference: the sun is black.

I wander around, trying to see if there are any landmarks. The corn makes for a veritable maze, but eventually, I come across an open field of grass with a farmhouse smack in the center.

Something about this place feels somehow familiar, but not to me. It doesn't make sense, but that's exactly how it feels.

I continue to approach, and a dirty-looking person about my age appears from the front doorstep. I can't make out any of its features, because the dream blurs them all, but I can tell they're confused.

"Who are you?" he asks. "What are you doing here? Are you with Atl—"

Before he can finish his thought, I am whisked away to a wooden room. It seems like that of an airship, but I have no clue which. Certainly not the Hindenburg, unless it's at a time before it was fractured.

"I can't believe we failed," a girl's voice says in another room.

"We'll get this figured out," another girl's voice says. "Ike said—"

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"How? It would've been fine if this was a slight loss. This was London. All of it."

I step into the hallway and see a sizable group of people my age at a kitchen table. One of them, a guy, looks up and sees me, then just stares. Without being able to see his face, I have no clue what he's thinking, but I feel panic spiking in my chest.

"You alright?" someone at the table asks him, right as I'm once again warped into another setting.

This time, I'm in an alleyway between two burning buildings. The buildings and ground are cobblestone. The rubble is splintered wood and rocks. The sound of sobbing echoes down the alley. I follow it all the way to the end. A figure is hunched over a robotic cat, similar to Aurora. Her hair is up in two Afro puffs. I know who it is before she even fully looks up at me.

A younger Luna's eyes meet mine, her face unblurred. She stops crying long enough to process me being there.

"Who the hell are—"

Suddenly, I'm back on that rock on the edge of the universe. A single shadowy figure stands before me.

"You're entangled, Tesla Simms," the Lurker says, stepping forward. "You can try to deflect all you want, but you can't outrun your fate."

I have no idea what he's talking about. Entangled? Deflect?

I want to ask him more, but the words that come out of my mouth aren't mine. "I make my own fate."

"Not anymore."

He reaches his arms out, and arcs of lightning trail from both palms. I barely dodge them, doing some sort of sick somersault, and land on my feet. Then, I pull out my materia wall, which he travels right through.

No use hiding. I run away, the floor of the rock forming beneath me as I do. He trails behind me, sending out another bolt of lightning. It's a strange sensation to watch in the near vacuum, traveling much slower than normal lightning, but still a force to be reckoned with.

I will die if one of those touches me.

What was I doing here again? Oh, right, trying to get him to Maxima Park.

"Maxima Park?" he calls out. He seems almost shocked, as if he didn't expect me to talk back. Which, to be fair, I didn't. I thought it.

Two in the afternoon. Meet me there.

He stops, and so do I, although I don't feel totally in control of that. "You have my word, Tesla Simms."

I wake to Holly and Luna trying to shake me awake.

"Are you alright?" Holly asks. "You were doing lots of moving."

"He accepted."

A solemn but excited look ignites in the crowd around me.

It's time to take the Lurker down.