The huge yellow eye just happened to belong to a dragon. A big, red, angry dragon who came smashing through the wall a few moments later with an almighty crash, bricks flying through the air and cracking against the floor and the wall that Dan and Ciara were standing against.

"Haben…" Ciara breathed when she saw the dragon in all his glory. It was Haben: the dragon who lived in the fire in the cave where Dan found himself after he lost Phil the first time.

"What are you doing here?" Ciara growled as the wall behind her fell away, backwards into nothingness.

It was then that Dan realised that they were standing on a ledge, floating in space, surrounded by stars and other floating islands: buildings, forests, houses… everything.

This was the Nightmare Dimension in all its glory.

Dan got onto his knees to peer over the edge, staring out into space, taking it all in. There were islands as far as the eye could see, glimmering like stars. He spied the forest where he lost Phil, the lava cave where Haben lived (he couldn't see inside it but he knew what it was from the fiery glow it was emitting and the silver dome attached to the side of it – the safe room), he saw the desert where Phil had been sent, the mine cart track he had sped down, the abandoned city, the Lion's Den, the medieval town with the blazing fields, the house with the basement – it was all there along with other places he had never seen before and some places he was glad he hadn't visited.

"Phil could be anywhere…" he mumbled to himself.

"He have bigger problems right now, Dan," Ciara told him, impatiently. She was referring, of course, to Haben, who was making a strange gargling noise in is throat and glaring at Ciara with a look that could only be described as loathing.

"You know why I'm here," he snapped, his voice deep and rich with a rumble in the background, just like you would imagine a dragon to sound, but louder than Dan had expected.

"If I did, I wouldn't be asking," Ciara retorted.

Haben glowered,

"I'm tired of being restricted by you, Ciara," he growled, "Every day all you tell me is that whatever I do, I mustn't leave the cave. You know very well that you are not my master: you have no power over me and you will never have any power over me. I can do whatever I like and now that you aren't the only human in the Nightmare Dimension anymore, I think it's about time I had some fun…"

Dan had turned around by this point and was feeling very sick, dizzy and tired as he looked upwards to the towering reptile. He knew that if Phil had been there at that moment, he wouldn't have irritated the dragon further like Ciara was doing. They would be gone by now. But Phil wasn't here, of course.

"Fun?" Ciara urged.

"You and your little friends have been struggling through this dimension for so long. It's been so fun to watch, really it has. I know where any of you are at any time. I decided to play a game with you: I would wait until you were nearly at the end of your journey and then destroy you all. It's been a fun game to play. It's ended up very well for me: after you're gone, I can exit through the wormhole and wreak havoc on the world above, no longer restricted by the orders of a tiny winged human. Why did you even bother trying to escape? You're all going to die one day, anyway – even you, Ciara, who can repair minor injuries and heal others' wounds – all things, in the end, are fruitless when your life spans are so short. I have set my heart on escaping to the world above and now my dreams are becoming a reality like how the nightmares of others became real. How ironic that you're going to die in a world of dreams as mine come true…"

Ciara narrowed her eyes but didn't reply.

"What do we do?" Dan asked, his heart beating out of his ribcage. His death seemed imminent and he was still sure that his friend was out there somewhere. He could feel it. Ciara, who had earlier convinced him there was hope, didn't seem too sure, but the fuzzy feeling had returned. Not all was lost.

Ciara didn't say anything in reply to him, only spread her grey wings out and gave them a few beats as she flew up to speak to Haben face-to-face.

"I was going to make it quick," he said, a smirk on his face, "I sent Tau the lion to kill you but he was too much of a coward to do his job and he let you live."

"You'll never get away with your silly little game, Haben," Ciara hissed at him, "And even if you did get up to the real world, there are so many people up there that you would be dead before you knew it. That planet is protected – and not only by me," and she batted her wings and flew into space.

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" Dan yelled after her, angrily.

"I'M GOING TO FIND THE END," Ciara yelled back as she disappeared. Dan didn't know what she meant by this but he didn't really care. All he cared about was not dying, which seemed very unlikely, seeing as he was trapped with a giant, man-eating dragon.

Haben snarled at Ciara as she disappeared and turned to Dan, reaching out a clawed hand to pick him up and hold him up to his face,

"So…" he growled, "How does it feel to be helpless?"

Dan didn't reply.

"There's nothing Ciara can do to save you: she's abandoned you. I could throw you into the abyss right now if I so wished. Would you like that… Dan?"

Dan still refused to respond.

"Seeing as you're about to die… I'll grant you one last request. Anything. Anything at all: you pick!"

"Anything?"

"Anything."

Dan swallowed. He could pick anything at all right then: his dying wish.

"Please... Make sure Phil gets home."