Click, clack, click, clack. The high-heels tapped on the shining metallic linoleum every step of the way, and the small part of Scully's mind that wasn't completely alert, on guard, bemoaned the fact that she had, for whatever unknown reason, decided to wear such conspicuous shoes today. Why hadn't she thought to put on flats, which would not only prevent her position from being given away, but would also make it easier to run from the danger she was heading straight towards? She contemplated taking them off, and the thought was appealing to her, but at the same time a voice inside her whispered that she couldn't stop for anything. She was on a mission here. She had to find Mulder and free him.

With hurried steps, her gun pointed straight out in front of her and her fingers steel on the trigger, Scully traveled down the long, endless corridor without so much as a glance into the rooms she passed by. The open doors beckoned to her, and yet she couldn't afford to stop in any of them, because a strange pulse in her heart told her that Mulder wasn't in any of those rooms. Pick a door, any door, her mind hummed, and she sighed with the folly of her memory. This place was almost like a carnival funhouse. How had Mulder ended up in here, and what exactly was he doing?

Finally the urge to continue searching ebbed, and Scully sank back against a wall, though without relaxing her grip on the pistol in her hand. The echoes of her footsteps died away, to be replaced by what sounded like soft murmurs, voices speaking too quietly for Scully to discern their words. She stiffened her back and inched away from the wall, raising her gun ever so slightly and listening intently- but there was no one in sight. Perhaps the whisperings were coming from the room nearest to her. Scully slipped as quietly as possible down the hall, making her slow and steady way towards the open doorframe with all senses trained on the whispers that seemed to waft from it. At last, she came close enough to fling herself in front of the doorframe, pointing the gun out in front of her as a threat and starting to shout "FBI-"

The word died in Scully's throat as she realized that there was only one person in the room, and it was the person she had been looking for. Fox Mulder lay on a makeshift cot, dressed in his work clothes, his head lifted a bit to gaze at Scully in joyful surprise. "Scully!" Lowering her weapon, Scully rushed over to Mulder, feeling a thick wave of relief threatening to choke her. "Are you all right, Mulder?" she asked, bending over to run her hands over his body automatically, searching for wounds of any sort. Mulder shook his head, and Scully, dazed with the thought of Mulder being unharmed, committed an act of intimacy that she rarely would have done and kissed Mulder's cheek with hasty lips. After pulling away, Scully found herself moving towards a large nearby window, while Mulder pulled himself up on the cot into a sitting position.

"How long have you been here?" Scully asked, gazing into the frosted glass. There were several other windows cut into the dark wood walls of the room- and several doorframes on the other side, leading Scully to believe that most of the doors she had passed on her trip down the hall had led to the same enormous place. All of the windows, however, were coated with glass frosted too thickly for her to gauge her surroundings. She couldn't remember how she had gotten to this building or where she had gone to find it, which worried her a bit, and so she pushed the troubling details out of her mind. Mulder was here and that was all that mattered.

"I'm not sure," Mulder responded to Scully's query, sounding just as confused as she was on the details of his own arrival to the building. "It feels like I've been locked up here for hours."

"Why didn't you leave?" Scully asked as she turned around, indicating the open doorway.

Mulder blinked, his eyes shifting away from her. "I… I can't leave this room, Scully. They'll get me."

They? "Who's 'they?'" Scully asked, walking forward towards Mulder. He glanced up at her, and his eyes revealed a terrified paranoia.

"Them, Scully. Them. They won't let me leave," he murmured. "They won't let me leave…"

"I heard voices on my way in," Scully said, flashing back to the moment in the hall outside before she'd entered the room, how the low, spidery voices spoke in velvet tongues too soft for her to understand. "But if there are other people in here, they can't do anything to us, unless you mean to suggest they're paranormal."

"That's exactly what I mean," Mulder insisted, suddenly grabbing Scully's hand. She almost tore it away in shock, but stopped herself at the last minute. "These people you heard aren't human, and they're forbidding me to leave the room."

At once Scully did remove her hand from Mulder's grip. "Mulder, you're being ridiculous. We have to go." She made for the door, and behind her Mulder called out. "No! Scully, don't leave this room!" Ignoring Mulder's plea, Scully stepped out the door, and it was then that she heard the sound of Mulder bounding up from the cot and following her. Soon he was by her side, grimacing and fingering his gun's holster.

"They won't like that we left," he told Scully in a tone that sounded oddly possessed. Scully tried not to show that she was frightened by this and murmured instead, "Come on." She crept forward stealthily, raising her gun again, while Mulder did the same, his eyes far away. Blinking and straining her eyes to see what was in front of her, Scully felt a chill travel down her back. Was it just her, or had the light in the hallway gotten darker since she had last been in it? And why did the air feel cold, clammy, as if saturated with mist?

It's nothing, Scully told herself, her scientific mind coming up with a hundred rational explanations at once to explain the temperature and lighting change in the hall. Poor insulation, faulty electricity… Beside her, Mulder suddenly stopped walking, and Scully came to a halt as well, gazing at him questioningly. He was sighing and shaking his head. "It's too dark," Mulder said in a frustrated tone. "I lost my flashlight. Scully, do you have yours?"

"Yes," Scully answered, reaching down to draw the flashlight from the pocket of her flowing coat. She turned it on and aimed it into the darkness, illuminating the way with a weak bulb. Together they moved on, silently, until they came face to face with a wall. Scully's hopes of a way out plummeted.

"How do we get out?" she whispered, without knowing why she was whispering. Mulder took Scully's hand again, this time gently, and guided the flashlight over to the wall on her right, where they found a gaping, yawning maw of another hallway. They moved on, their breath stirring the chill air, and stepped through into the hallway, where it was pitch black and too dark to see. Scully ventured a glance over her shoulder, and saw to her surprise that the darkened hallway they had just left was now lit up with streaming sunlight. A window that had been unseen to her before was filled in with clear glass, showing a tall yellow flower waving in a breeze. Scully's breath caught in her throat, and she would have turned back towards the light had Mulder not touched her shoulder. When she looked back at the sight in front of her, she could see a closed door, standing in the middle of nowhere like an offering. Its doorknob was begging to be turned. Mulder drifted over to check if the door was locked, and the knob turned easily in his hands. He and Scully entered the room beyond the door, and were at once flooded with light.

The room that Scully and Mulder had stumbled upon was relatively bright compared to the hallway they had just left, although the lights remained off, but there were two large, curtain-less windows that let in light from the outside. The only piece of furniture available in the room was a baby's crib, which neither Mulder nor Scully paid any mind to. Mulder went over to the window at once, and then drew in a breath. "Scully, come look at this."

Scully went to stand by Mulder's side at the window, and she herself could hardly keep back a gasp. The outer world was a foreign landscape, a serene heaven of nothing but sunflowers. The beautiful plants crawled over every surface, spiraling off into the distance under a clear blue sky. There were no trees, nor any other form of wildlife. No sounds but the whistling wind drifted in from outside. Scully had never seen anything so beautiful, or so terribly alien.

She and Mulder were lost in rapture over the gorgeous sight for so long that when a noise finally startled them out of the stupor, Scully's legs were sore from standing up for so long. Her heels began to hurt, and so she cast them off of her feet at last and turned around, searching with her eyes for the cause of the noise. Instead, what she saw sent shock spinning through her heart. The door that she and Mulder had entered through to get to the room was gone.

"Mulder…" Scully murmured, and Mulder turned around, rubbing the back of his neck with a pained expression. "What is it?" Scully did nothing but gesture to the invisible door, and Mulder's eyes widened. Together they took in the new sight- instead of a door, there was a wall, and instead of a wall, there was another hallway on the left side of the room, leading presumably into another bedchamber. Turning her eyes to the right, Scully caught sight of yet another door, this one smaller and thinner than the one they had entered into, and rushed to it without another thought. More than likely, her mind told her, it was probably just a closet, but Scully had no time for rationality at the moment.

"We have to get out of here," Mulder said, his voice strangled, before following Scully to the door and the right and stepping back as she opened it. Instead of a closet, the doorway revealed yet another long stretch of corridor, with individual doors attached. The bizarre architecture of the building suddenly caught up to Scully, and she backed away from the door in fear as if it were a poisonous snake. "We could jump out the window…" she said, her voice thankfully not shaking and showing no signs of hysteria. However terrible the flowers outside looked, at least they were outside. At least overwhelming pleasure was better than this stifling fear.

"No," Mulder said, oddly calm. "We're going down the hall." He was the first to leave, and Scully reluctantly followed him, never looking back. She let him take the lead and shone her flashlight on his back, hearing all around the ghostly sound of whispers, the words clearer than before. If she listened closely, she could almost make out whole sentences…

Then Mulder stopped dead in front of Scully, and she came to, staring at him. "What's wrong?"

"Samantha," he whispered, and Scully froze. "What?"

"I hear her voice…" Mulder shook his head and looked down at Scully, his eyes suddenly blazing. "Can't you hear it too?"

Scully could only shake her head, as the sounds of whispers had died away as soon as Mulder stopped. At once Mulder began to run, and Scully took after him, her heart pounding and threatening to jump into her throat. "Mulder!" She caught up to him and wrapped her arms around him while he struggled in her grasp, his ears hearing only Samantha's voice and his eyes fixed on something invisible in the distance. "Let me GO!" At once Mulder had fought his way out of Scully's fierce embrace and fled, leaving her all by herself in the middle of the corridor, with darkness closing in.

"Mulder?" Trying not to show how badly his abandonment had rattled her, Scully forced herself to keep padding down the black hallway in bare feet, the flashlight flickering. "Mulder! Where are you?" Her heart was beating quickly, and Scully took a few deep breaths to steady herself. Everything was going to be all right. She would find Mulder and they would find an exit, and she would go home and rest in her apartment and by the next day it would all seem like a nightmare, nothing more… "Mulder!" Suddenly, Scully heard footsteps behind her, and she stopped walking, listening intently as the person gained on her without turning around. "Mulder, is that you?"

A soft, feminine laugh filled Scully's ears, and her guard dropped immediately, to be replaced by shock. "No, Dana, it's me." The footsteps traveled closer, and Scully was torn between turning around and staying in place.

She knew that voice. She would know it anywhere. But the owner of the voice had been dead for several months now.

"Melissa?" Scully murmured, and her sister laughed again. "Of course it's me! Turn around, Dana, so I can greet you properly."

If the situation hadn't already been so disturbing, Scully would have gladly turned around and greeted her resurrected sister with open arms. But the memory of Mulder's disappearance stopped her from doing just that. He had run off in search of Samantha, chasing a voice that only he could hear. If Mulder were here right now, would he be able to hear Melissa's voice? What if this was a cruel trick, a mere apparition of Scully's sister, nothing more? Scully shook her head, hating herself even as she did it. "I'm sorry, Melissa. I can't do that."

"Why not?" Melissa pleaded, her voice loaded with sadness. "Do you not trust me? You know me, Dana. You know who I am!"

But you're not supposed to be here, Scully thought, just as a scream jolted her from mulling over the problem any further. Instantly Scully was alert again, whipping her gun up in front of her and calling, "Who's there?"

"It's only me," Melissa answered, despondency remaining in her voice, while the screaming continued. Chilled, Scully listened to the shouts with mounting fear. The owner of the screams was a male, and he sounded disturbingly like Mulder.

"I'm sorry," Scully cried as she rushed forward, following the sounds of pain and fear. "I have to go now!"

"Don't leave me!" Melissa shouted, her voice reaching anger now. "Don't leave me to die again! You can't be more loyal to your partner than to me!"

However, Scully was long gone by that point, as she ran quickly, at top speed, trying to find Mulder before it was too late. Whatever fate was about to befall him, she didn't want to know. She just had to find him and get out… had to find him and get out…

Finally, Scully had to stop running and catch her breath. She leaned against the wall, coughing and panting, wishing desperately that she still had the strength to call Mulder's name. Her fingers, sliding against the strangely slimy wall of the corridor, met with thin air. She pulled herself inside of the doorway and turned around, to come face to face with the very man she was looking for.

Mulder was standing in front of two windows with their blinds pulled down, which caused a shadowy, gray light to seep through and illuminate everything with a dusky feel. For a moment Scully was confused- the last window she had seen had revealed a warm summer's day. Could it be that it was twilight already, and she and Mulder had spent an entire day in this cursed house? Or, for that matter, what if they had spent an entire week in it? As soon as Scully caught her breath, she lunged forward, grabbing hold on Mulder and embracing him.

"Are you all right?" she asked once again, automatically, and Mulder nodded. Scully pulled away to gaze into Mulder's eyes, noticing the odd grin on his face. He seemed to be just on the verge of mad laughter. Scully took a step back, not trusting the joy in Mulder's expression. What was there to be so happy about? They had to escape now, for God's sake.

"Are you sure?" she followed her question up with, and Mulder smiled and nodded. "Yes, Scully, I'm absolutely sure. Come on, let's go. I've found a way out."

Maybe that was all he was smiling about… Still, Scully hung back, reluctant to come along. Mulder laughed and came towards Scully, placing his firm hands on her shoulders. "What's the matter? Don't you recognize your own partner?" There was an unwanted familiarity in his playful tone and in his squeezing hands. Scully shivered and placed her hands on top of Mulder's hands. "Get off me." She didn't like the sparkle in his eye.

Mulder, however, was amused and did not obey. "Oh, so you think you're going to order me around?" He pulled Scully's hands off of his with force and bent down to wrap his arms around her waist, rubbing her hips. Scully tried vainly to disentangle herself from Mulder's clutches. "Mulder, what do you think you're doing?" He never gave an answer, instead, angling his head downward to kiss her on the lips.

At that forbidden touch, Scully tried to force Mulder off of her, but he was too strong. She tried to yell for help or at least make him stop, but his mouth muffled the sounds of her terror. She was powerless to do anything as Mulder's lips grew hungrier and his touch more suggestive, her fight growing weaker and weaker…

Scully blinked her eyes open, her hands tightening around the gun at her hip that had suddenly disappeared, to be replaced by bedsheets. It took a few moments of staring at the ceiling, her frantic breathing slowing and the panicked beat of her heart faltering, to finally realize that she was at home. She was safe, and the frightening events that had just occurred had all been a dream. Yet Scully could still hear Melissa's golden voice and feel Mulder's fingers on her unwilling body…

She rolled over on her side and glanced at the digital clock on her bedside. Four-thirty. In several more hours she would have wake up and go to work. Might as well try to catch some more sleep and forget the disturbing dream. Scully tried to lie back down, but her hand disobeyed her, moving out to reach the nearby phone receiver. She found herself dialing a familiar number, one that had become ingrained in her memory after at least three years working with its owner.

"Mulder."

"Mulder, hi… it's me." Her voice came out breathless over the wire.

"Scully?" His sleep-muddled voice grew more alert. "Is anything wrong?"

"No," she answered, sitting up and patting the covers over her knees. "I… I just wanted to… talk to you." Before he could say anything, she asked the same question she had asked twice in her dream. "Are you all right?"

There was a pause, and then he replied in a bemused tone. "I'm okay. Listen, Scully, I just had this dream…"

Her breath stopped.

"I know, Mulder. I know."