Darkness, pitch black darkness. It surrounded her like a heavy fog and showed no signs of dispersing. Eve could barely even see her hand in front of her face. In fact, she was not even sure that she was even sitting on something, her mind switching to whether she was sitting on some kind of floor she just could not see because of the darkness or if she was on some kind of invisible floor that would disappear and make her fall into forever into darkness.

"Where am I?" she whispered anxiously, her blue eyes frantically going from left to right and looking over her shoulder, trying to visualize where she was.

All of a sudden, it happened. One minute, she was in pitch blackness, the next it all turned into a kind of grey fog that enveloped her. Eve slowly got up, her eyes still scanning the scene around her. Not really much of an improvement, but at least now she could now see where she was.

How did I get here? She mentally asked herself, taking a step forward gingerly as if fearing that she would suddenly fall through some hole or off the edge of this invisible floor she was standing up on.

"E…E…" a voice croaked from somewhere.

She stopped dead. That voice! Where was it coming from? More importantly, who was saying it? Even though she could see who was saying it, somewhere she did recognize it. It had some kind of familiarity to her, but what exactly she just could not remember.

"He…Help!"

Eve began to look around her frantically upon hearing the voice once more, though this time it sounded closer, much closer. In fact, to her, with her good hearing, it sounded like it was only just a few feet behind her but when she looked over her shoulder, there was nothing, or nobody there, except fog. Was her mind playing tricks on her?

As she turned her head back ahead of her, she screamed and jumped backwards, landing on the ground or floor or whatever it was she was on, eyeing the figure standing in front of her nervously. Because of the thickness of the fog, she could not see it clearly but she could make out that this figure was a Human, or at least she thought it was, and looked to be a man. By the way he had his arms jutted out sideways, with the parts of the arms from the elbow onwards dangling down like rotting limbs, his head cocked partly to one side and knees slightly bent, he looked as though he was being held prisoner. Who was he, and why was he, if that was what was happening to him, being held prisoner?

"E…E…Eve!" the figure began to gasp out through heavy breaths His voice was deep, definitely a male. "Help! Please!"

Eve stared at him with a mixture of anxiousness and curiosity. This figure knew her name? How? How did he know her name? Who was he?

"Wh-who are you?" she asked him, getting up from the ground.

As if in reply to her question, the fog around the figure suddenly began to disperse, backing away as if it were a small predator backing away from It's kill and leaving it to a larger predator. Eve watched as the figure began to take a more noticeable form. She could see that the man was in a kind of bodysuit that was…a dark blue/grey colour with stranger markings all over it. Those markings were familiar to her somehow. Looking up at the arms, she saw there was a large bulge on the figure's right arm just a few inches from where the hand was. Her eyes followed the figure's body up past the neck where the bodysuit ended and saw the facial features becoming noticeable as the fog cleared around it. When it had cleared, Eve went wide-eyed, her mouth dropping open in shock, her hearth almost stopping It's beating.

She-she knew the man standing in front of her very well. He had short, messy brown hair, hazel coloured eyes, a small scar down the side of his chin and several tiny scars across his cheeks near his eyes. It was a face she had seen many times before, the only difference being the extra scars around the eyes, and it had been one she loved.

It was 343 Guilty Spark, or his real name: Wally.

"W-Wally?" Eve breathed aghast, staring at him in utter shock, completely speechless.

The hazel eyes that were looking down at the ground/floor turned to look up at her blue eyes, allowing Eve to see the pain and anguish that raged inside them like an inferno.

"Eve!" he croaked. "Please! H-help me!"

Eve stepped towards him, a feeling inside her telling her that she had to help him. Well, she wanted to anyway because she…well, he was her friend and her lover. She would do anything to help him, but what was wrong with him though? Her eyes searched his body but there just did not seem to be anything, or anyone for that matter, that was holding him in place. No guards, no nails, no metallic ropes, no force fields or anything. Another voice in her head began to tell her that something was not right, but she did not listen to it. She had to, and wanted to help him.

As she reached out her hand towards him, looking sympathetically into his eyes, his hazel eyes suddenly turned a brown/dark green colour and the look of pain that filled them quickly changed into a glare, pointing directly at Eve. At once, his body seemed to somehow free itself from…whatever it was that had been holding him where he was and stood at It's full height. Eve withdrew and tensed herself. Even though Wally was still only about six foot, a few inches shorter than her tall height, she had been up against his strength, or at least a replica of his strength before and that had been when she had fought him on the new Halo Installation 04B ring five years ago, which had resulted in John and an old friend, and then an enemy of Wally and her, being killed. That was something she really did not want to go through again, but as she watched his hand clench tightly into fists, she felt like she was going to have to.

This can't be happening! her mind cried fearfully. He can't be like this!

"Wally, It's me!" Eve said to, backing away from him as he began to step towards her. "It's Eve! D-don't you remember me?!"

He opened his mouth to speak but just as he did the fog suddenly enveloped him once more, quickly surrounding him as if it were trying to protect Eve. She watched, after backing away a few more feet, as the figure began to change It's form. Wally seemed to grow and his hands released their clenched fists and dangled by his side. As he grew, a kind of dark cloak began to form around him, covering his entire body. A hood followed, which enveloped his head, leaving a small gap at the front for the face to look through, though Eve could not see it. She stared at him curiously, but with a sense of fear as well. What was happening to him?

The figure stepped forward out of the fog, which dispersed around him as if it were afraid of him, towards Eve, the hood having to bend forward a little to look down on her as the figure was probably now about eight feet tall. She backed away in fear, raising her hands to try and protect herself, but she had little doubt that this thing would be put off by her defensive gesture, which only raised the level of fear inside her.

"Save him, Evelyn!" another voice suddenly growled aggressively at her, coming from the figure.

She stopped dead where she was, her eyes still trained on him. The figure stopped where it was.

"W-what?" she whispered anxiously.

"He's in danger! Go! He needs you!"

At first, Eve was too overcome with what had just happened to her to realise what he meant, but after a second she realised what he was trying to say. Her eyes widened. Wally! He was in danger, but how did this thing know!

"Who are you?" she asked him.

"Go and save him, Evelyn!" the figure almost barked at her, making her jump. "343 needs you! Go!"

All of a sudden, Eve felt her heart beating madly against her chest, getting faster and faster as if it were running marathon. Her breathing went hysterical and her vision began to go blurry. She felt her head spin, almost like she was going to be sick. By the looks of it, it was another blackout episode. What was going on with her? Where was she, who was this figure and why was he telling her that someone needed help?!

The blackness surrounded Eve once more, the greyness of the fog disappearing into thin air along with the figure. She felt her knees get weaker and collapsed onto them, her breaths now becoming much more spaced and ragged. Her arm thrust out in front of her to stop her from falling flat on her face but just like her legs, she felt the strength from her arm gradually fade. It was as if the life within her body was being drained out entirely. Her eyes started to flicker, easily surpassing her attempts to try and keep them open.

Finally, she gave in and collapsed into uncertainty…

…Only to awaken by shooting upright in a bed, her heart now hammering against her chest, sweat dripping down her forehead. Eve gazed at her surroundings. It was still dark, but she could feel blankets and that she was resting on a bed. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she could just make out a door, a bedside cabinet next to her bed and the drawn curtains on the window next to her. She was still in her hospital room.

Just a bad dream she thought with relief, only for it to be replaced with curiosity when she began to break it down in her mind.

It just did not make any sense though when she tried processing it in her mind. Wally appears in front of her calling for help, then turns on her and almost attacks her. Then that figure appears and tells her that she has to rescue him. Who was this figure? Why did he come to her like that and how did he come to even know, if this was true, that Wally had to be rescued? Why did he have to be rescued any-hold on a minute.

Like a switch flicking on in her head, Eve began to think of the worst case scenario. What if…what if Wally did need to be rescued? What if he really was in danger? Even though it was a dream, it just felt so real and plus with what had happened to her five years ago in the war, she had told herself that anything that was to suddenly appear to you like this, which in films would likely be displaced as just pure fiction or hysteria by other people, then it had to be real, or at least have one aspect of it real.

"If he's in danger," Eve muttered to herself, her eyes quickly growing wide with the possibility of this situation. "Then… Oh, God! I-I have to save him!"

She almost leapt out of her bed when she stopped. How was she going to get to him in the first place? From what she could remember, Wally was on Sanghelios, the Elite home world and she could not run there. She was going to need a ship, but the problem was they were in the UNSC military base outside the city and there was much doubt in her mind whether the guards would let her in, them probably having been ordered to shoot intruders. Plus there were the security cameras and alarms that were scattered throughout the base and getting through them was in no way going to be easy.

Unless… Eve looked over at the data cord on the bedside cabinet. "Well, there's one person here who can help me," she muttered and reached over and picked up the data cord between her fingers. Quickly, she glanced around to make sure she was alone, though she doubted anyone would be up at this time of night and decided to eavesdrop on her. "Auto?" she whispered, giving the data cord a little shake as if to wake him up. "Auto, wake up!" she hissed at the object.

Just as she finished her whispering, her seven inch high avatar shot up out of the data cord, rubbing his head with his hand.

"Alright, alright, calm down! I'm awake!" he replied, easing her. He lowered his hand from his head and looked at her with a confused expression. "Why are you awake at this time of night, Eve?" he asked. "Don't you know what time it is?"

"Yes. It's time we got out of here," she replied abruptly. She sighed. "Look, Auto, we have to go,"

"Why?" he asked her and Eve explained everything to him about her dream, who, and what, she had seen in it and the possible message it was trying to give her. Auto listened with mixed expressions from surprise, particularly when she mentioned Wally, to anxiety when Eve had decided to go and help him.

"Alright, Eve, let me get this straight: You want to go out into space to Sanghelios and try and find Wally?" he repeated and she nodded. Almost at once, she saw how this managed to overwhelm him because he sighed and shook his head. "Eve, you literally are crazy! I said this many times to you in the war and-"

"And I always told you that sometimes being crazy is the only way you can get somewhere," she interrupted him.

Auto sighed again. "Eve, have you even thought about hard this is? Y'know, how can you be sure this dream of yours of true? And even if it is, It's going to be virtually impossible getting to Sanghelios and you heard what Wally told you five years ago and what Vadumee said when they came here the other day: there's a war going on that planet and I know very well from past experience that you don't want to get involved in anything like that again,"

"Well…we won't then," she replied. "I'm only going there to find Wally, not to fight a war,"

Auto heaved another heavy sigh. "Eve, that's not the point! Neither of us have ever been to Sanghelios and with a war going on, who's to say we might run head long into a battlefield and be torn apart? This is literally a suicide mission,"

"Well, it can't be any worse than when we were on Halo," a pause hung between them as Eve waited for his response, which was him rubbing his hand down his face but stopping it over his mouth, a look of anxiety lingering in his eyes. This was a completely mad idea of hers and he was sure that she knew it as well as he did. "Look, Auto, I have to know if he's alive!" Eve continued. "And as I've told you, we're not going to war. We're going to get Wally,"

"Eve! Be serious!" Auto's voice suddenly lowered to being stern. "I mean, can we even get to Sanghelios? Look at you," he nodded to her hospital gown. "I really doubt they're just going to let you wonder in like that,"

"I'll find something at the base to change into. Now,"

She got up from the bed and walked over to the window and opened the curtains, the moonlight that only just lit up the ground outside flooded into the room. A small locked handle was on the bottom of the window. She grasped it and, pushing in the lock, lifted the handle, unlocking it and pushed the window open.

"We'll head over there quickly before the night ends," she told Auto, walking back over to the bedside cabinet and picking up the data cord in her hand.

Auto walked up her arm to her shoulder and sat down on it, grasping her shoulder tightly as Eve walked over to the window and climbed out, her feet touching the grass around the hospital, and quietly shut the window so as not to wake anyone up. Then, keeping low, she began to creep across the path near the wing of the clinic where her room was, the cool air of the night rushing through her.

"Really is refreshing being out here this late at night," she commented in a kind of loving manner as she briefly glanced up at the stars shining overhead in the ever-stretching blackness of the night sky.

"Can I just quickly ask you something, Eve?" Auto inquired.

"Go ahead," she answered.

"Do you even have a plan of getting to the base?"

She stopped dead on another batch of grass next to the path and, just through the light emanating from his avatar form onto her face, he saw her give him an annoyed look.

"You always have to bring little details up, don't you!" she told him, frustration seeping into her.

"Hey, I'm just trying to make sure that you don't run into a problem and then get arrested,"

She sighed and gave a little nod. "Right, sorry," she replied apologetically, her head turning left and right. "We just need to find a way to…the…" she trailed off, her eyes set on a large cylindrical shape about fifty feet from her near a small car park. "And I think I've found it," she muttered.

Before Auto could ask what it was, Eve was running towards it. As they neared it, Auto's outward sensor scanners registered it to be a bike shed. There was only door in and that was on the left end of the shed, which was the end facing them. Eve stopped outside the door and, from the light emanating from Auto, swore angrily under her breath. There was a lock on the door and no way to get it open.

"Damn it!" Eve hissed to herself. "We'll have to find another way to the base,"

"No need," Auto piped up and slid down Eve's arm to the lock and placed his hand on it. Eve watched him with a confused expression until the lock suddenly unlocked itself. She was amazed! "A new update they've given me," Auto told her when he saw the look of surprise on her face as he walked back up her arm and sat down on her shoulder.

"Impressive," Eve commented approvingly and pushed open the door into the bike shed.

There were only a few bikes locked here but Eve just wanted to pick one and get out of here. She rushed over to a BMX near her and Auto managed to unlock the lock on the chain wrapped around it and connected to the stand next to the bike. Eve pulled it off and threw it onto the ground and wheeled the bike outside. She boarded it and took a deep breath.

"Hold on, Auto," she warned him.

"Just don't go too fast, we're not doing a race here," he replied, a little tense with the coming ride, grasping her shoulder just to make sure he had a firm grip.

A second later, Eve was speeding off down the road away from the hospital in the direction of the base, the dim light from Auto's avatar lighting the way as she went like a will o' wisp as it travels over a lake.