ZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzZzzzzz...

It was the sound they noticed first, even before the darkness fully registered. It was like the hum of a thousand lawnmowers, or perhaps a million fans rotating at full speed. But, then again, it was a noise uncomparable to any other sound. Helicopters, thunder, maybe even the roar of a fleet of jet engines might have qualified. Whatever it was, it filled the room just as the darkness fell. It was suffocating; as if it were an actual substance. It fell so quickly, so violently, that the three Bones gave a startled yell, which was lost in the surrounding thrum that seemed to vibrate the very floor beneath their feet. Fone Bone felt his cousins, and even Bartleby, press up against him in the inky blackness. The feeling of an unwelcome presence seemed even more pronounced now; making fear run up and down all their spines.

Fone Bone's mind was racing, his heart beating so hard in his chest it hurt. He tried to match up the sound with a familiar answer he knew that he possessed. Why did it all sound and feel so recognizable? He had felt this terror before; knew the thrum that rumbled all around them. A breeze seemed to have come up, swirling about the room, which made no sense, since all the windows were closed. His mind struggled to put into words what that meant exactly. They were standing in utter darkness, and yet it was only around three in the afternoon. It was summer; the sun normally didn't set until much later...So what was going on?

"We need to get to the window," Fone shouted, even though he was pretty sure that the others would never be able to hear him through the din. He needed to see something. He needed to get out of this darkness; let in the light. Feeling around and trying to reorient himself within the room, he reached out a hand in front of him, only to draw it back with a start.

He had felt movement.

Not a strong encounter, like a bump or something against a solid object; it was more of a brush. A whisper of a movement, like the fluttering of a moth's wings against his fingertips. Many, many moths.

Fone Bone froze, uncertain as to what he should do. His imagination could be just giving him a hard time. This was their home after all, run-down though it may be. They were safe here. Nothing could get in. His mind must be playing tricks on him. But, when he had held his arm out once again, the feeling returned, a little more solidly. Fone's muscles stiffened as he tried to resist the urge to freak out and run. Something was inside their apartment, and it was making him very, very uneasy. Something about it was familiar, the sound, the feeling that sort of made him sick to his stomach; and yet he couldn't quite place it. Yet...

But right now, he needed to see. A threat always seemed scarier when in darkness. But he wouldn't give...whatever it was, the satisfaction of seeing him panic. He was going to make his way quickly, but steadily, toward the window. Light had a habit of chasing away the darkness, and that was certainly what he wanted now. He wanted to see if this darkness was outside, or just there within their home.

Fone Bone extricated himself from the mess of arms, legs, and fur that was his cousins and Bartleby, suddenly feeling very exposed the minute he stepped away from them. That threatening presence was still strong, and as he separated himself, he could almost feel its gaze upon him. Slowly, but with growing panic, Fone crossed the room; all the time expecting to feel something reach out and grab him. Hurt him. With a sudden desperation, Fone Bone raced forward, throwing all previous thoughts of dignity to the wind. Something crunched beneath his foot, before he hit the wall a moment later, gasping softly as he made his way along it. He had changed direction, aiming for the light-switch rather than the window, feeling that the need for light outweighed his curiosity and need for answers. He fumbled frantically for a second, but then he felt the smooth tab of plastic that he knew was the switch and, with a quick jab, flicked it on.

The room lit up in beautiful, golden light; shining down from the bare bulb in the ceiling. Fone Bone gave a start, his breath catching painfully in his throat. Instead of the light descending on the room in a usual manner, it spread, like molasses; or maybe it was that the darkness was slowly melting away from it. Tiny specks; a blanket of churning, black organisms, fleeing the light. Just as quickly as Fone Bone noticed them, they were gone, leaving a doubt in his mind as to whether they were ever there to begin with. The sound their movement made, however, had become even more familiar. The darkness lifted, and light burst back in through the window, as though something that had been obscuring it had suddenly moved aside. The abruptness of it all was frightening, and felt very surreal in the sudden quiet. The only noise audible was the Bone cousins ragged breathing and the sound of Bartleby's soft, nervous hissing.

After several moments of uncomfortable silence, Phoney shifted nervously from his place among the other two. "What...What was that?" He shifted his gaze to Smiley, who, eyes wide, was tightly clinging to Bartleby's fur. The shortest Bone's face changed with sudden concern; a still rare emotion to be seen in him. "Smiley...? You Okay?"

Smiley nodded a little dazedly, shaking slightly, though considerably more calm than before the blackout. Fone Bone, however, didn't like the look of him. Crossing swiftly, Fone made his way toward his taller cousin...before the crunch of something beneath his feet made him halt. Looking down, he stepped backward, gazing in fascination at a dark, crumpled lump on the floor. Crouching, he gave it a light poke with his finger. It didn't move...But, as he looked at it, it began to look more and more familiar...More significant. It appeared to be a bug. Well, that was odd. How had that gotten in? Being summertime, all manner of insects would sometimes find their way indoors; but there was something more sinister about this one. Almost...meaningful.

A locust.

The realization slammed home so suddenly that Fone Bone felt his heart give an unexpected jolt. It was a locust. One, solitary locust; smushed into the gray rug of their apartment. Under any normal circumstance, he would have shrugged, grabbed the dustpan and disposed of the thing without any further thought. But a nagging feeling at the back of his mind caused an alarm to go off in his head. Memories of the Valley; of the Enemy filled his thoughts, and mixed with all that had just transpired. The blanket of teaming black...he had stepped on it...it had left a locust. A coincidence? Maybe.

But unlikely.

Shifting his gaze upward from the floor, his eyes met those of his cousins. They looked ruffled, and frightened. Even Phoney seemed distinctly rattled. They too had noticed the insect on the rug, and by their expression Fone could tell they had come to the same conclusion as he had. With a sense of reluctance, he looked down at the bug with foreboding and an almost pained expression.

"This is...from the Valley." It was all he needed to say; and, oddly enough, all he could bring himself to say, at least for a moment. He swallowed. He wanted to believe otherwise, but that was impossible. The markings on the locust were very pronounced. They didn't have bugs like this in Boneville, nor anywhere else that Fone Bone was aware of...other than the Valley. He kept silent a moment, fighting the urge to say what was truly on his mind. Come to find out, he didn't need to.

"But...But he was defeated...We saw it." Phoney's tone held a hint of denial. Fone Bone couldn't blame him. He felt it himself. Phoney glanced out the window, at the perfectly normal day going on beyond it. "We all saw it. The dragons defeated him. Thorn and you defeated him...He couldn't have..." His voice trailed off.

Fone Bone himself found it hard to believe. The Lord of the Locust, to whom Phoney was namelessly referring, was a nightmare that each of the cousins had purposefully tucked into the backs of their memory. He was an evil spirit of darkness and evil; a demonic force that thrived on fear and terror; most of which he generated himself. He was a disruption to the Dreaming, a power that the Bones had come to respect during their adventures, even if they didn't fully understand it. They also understood that the Dark Lord needed a physical host to control to manifest himself in the Waking World...Which was were the locusts had always come in. And now, out of the blue, after so long, circumstances were rising in ways that Fone Bone felt rip at his soul uneasily.

Turning abruptly, a look of determination suddenly masking his fear, Fone Bone marched forward to stand in front of his tallest cousin. His height barely came to Smiley's chest, but the urgency in his stance made him feel much taller. "Smiley, have you been having dreams? Nightmares?"

Smiley was still greatly upset; standing with his fingers deeply intertwined with Bartleby's fur. He was shivering again, noticeably, but he managed to answer. "Y-yes."

"For how long?"

"Since...Since just before I left for the camping trip." He took a deep breath. "It wasn't so bad then. Just little jolts where I'd wake up feeling a little scared. Nightmares aren't that unusual; that's why I didn't tell you guys."

Fone Bone nodded, agreeing. Nightmares weren't unusual for them. They had seen so much in the Valley, and not nearly all of it pleasant. It only stood to reason that some of what they had witnessed would come back to them at night from time to time.

"It wasn't really a problem then, and didn't happen every night; just once in a while. But this is different," Smiley insisted shakily. "It...It kept getting...more disturbing. Now..." He closed his eyes tightly, as if the very mention of his experience hurt. "Now I can't sleep ten minutes before them starting. And they're so much worse."

Phoney was rubbing his arms, as if he were cold. He did that when he was worried, a habit he had not had before their journey in the Valley. Fone often wondered where the nervous motion had come from. "What're they about?"

Smiley flinched at the question. "I...I-I can never remember..." His eyes closed harder as he tried to fish that information out of his memory. "...There's darkness...I remember that much. Lots of...voices? Too many; I can't understand them..." Fone Bone and Phoney grew concerned. As Smiley spoke, his breathing grew heavier; almost labored. But Smiley, himself, seemed not to notice. "...One voice..." Smiley flinched again, eyes still held shut. "...Fone Bone...One voice, I think it's..." Smiley's eyes snapped open. "I think it's Thorn's!"

"What?!"

Fone's heart gave a violent jump, whether from joy or terror he couldn't tell. Probably both. His love for Thorn had not died in their absence from the Valley. In fact, sometimes it felt as though it had grown. But the fact that Smiley had dreamed her voice was worrying. Especially since Smiley's reaction was one of distress. Something was terribly wrong. Fone Bone gripped Smiley's hands, taking them away from Bartleby's soft, purple fur, which Smiley had been gripping very tightly. Bartleby, so kind-hearted as he was, had refused to mention the discomfort it was causing him. "What did she say?!" Fone asked, his voice strained. Something registered in his mind and he added, "Smiley, can you hear them now?" He had only asked because of his cousin's choice of phrasing. The way that Smiley seemed to be listening to something they couldn't hear.

Smiley's breath hitched when he realized that he could. He might have panicked at that moment if not for Fone Bone's comforting grip on his hands. It was the only thing at the moment that was keeping him grounded in reality. The room, in his eyes, had faded to a dark, almost gray hue. He could still hear his cousins, but they sounded far off, new voices taking the foreground. Loud voices. Smiley winced. Too loud. They were all jumbled. Once in a while he thought he caught a sentence or two he recognized. He snatched up words like 'Barrelhaven' and 'Atheia', but only because they were among the louder ones. There were also whispers; so soft that he could barely hear them at all, drowned under the cascade of the stronger voices. It was one of these that Smiley was sure was Thorn's. He didn't know how he was so sure, but he was. She was warning him of something. Something important.

"I...I don't know..." And suddenly it ended. The voices were all at once silenced and the room and his cousins returned to the foreground. Smiley slumped, suddenly exhausted, and he found that Fone Bone had to ease him onto the couch. Smiley gave a sigh, tired far beyond his limit. "Fone Bone...Something's wrong," he repeated.

"I'll say there is," Phoney added breathlessly. His voice might have been mistaken as gruff, but Fone and Smiley knew better. He was just as frightened as they were. Maybe more so. But the thing about Phoney was that he always thought it was his job to protect his younger cousins. Ever since they had been children, Phoney had tried his best to keep them out of harm's way, even though his unorthodox ways seemed more often than not to get them in trouble, more than anything else. But he always meant well. Now, his defenses were up, shielding as much of his true worry as possible.

Fone Bone returned his gaze to the crushed locust. "Something is going on in the Valley. Thorn's a Veni-Yan Cari*...Maybe she's trying to reach us."

Phoney looked doubtful. "Can she...do that?" It was a rather creepy thought; that their friend could somehow reach them from so far away. "And if so, why didn't she contact you, Fone Bone? You and her were closest. Why Smiley?"

Fone Bone would have liked to have the same question answered himself. He felt a little hurt that Thorn hadn't tried to reach him, if what they were thinking was true; if Thorn could truly contact them through dreams. He had seen her do some pretty crazy stuff, stuff that was completely unexpected and, under any normal circumstance, unbelievable. But she had done it. Thorn was really an amazing person...

"I...I don't know." Fone turned to look at Smiley. The taller cousin looked terribly unsteady, even sitting, and Fone Bone wondered just how long it had been since Smiley had gotten any sleep at all. Thorn would never do that to Smiley. Heck, she'd never do that to anyone. Even if the situation was dire, Fone Bone found it hard to believe that Thorn would cause Smiley any pain, physical or mental, as the case certainly seemed to be. Fone had never seen Smiley like this. He'd never seen anyone like this...except Thorn. There had been a time, back in their journey, when things had started getting real bad, Thorn had resorted to not sleeping at all. Then she had held the same, far-away stare that now occupied Smiley's face. He was still present, not zombie-like; just...exhausted, and terribly distracted. No, whatever might be causing this wasn't Thorn, and Fone Bone had a bad feeling it was something far worse than anything he wanted to imagine.

"I...think we should..." Fone Bone could feel the familiar pump of adrenaline coursing through his system. It had been so long since he had had the sensation. So long since he had felt the need to use his mind to figure out the mysteries of the Valley. Even now, in the midst of this sudden chaos, he realized he had missed it. It had been so hard to go back to a life as a 'normal' Bone. Especially when he lived in a world that rejected what he had to say. A world that didn't believe in monsters, and spirits, and powers they couldn't even begin to fathom. A world that insisted on the norm, rather than the unnatural. After the thrills and responsibilities of being a hero, how could anyone expect him to go back to a simple nobody. Which was why none of the Bone cousins had managed to fit back in. "I think we need to figure out more about what's happening."

Phoney rolled his eyes. "Great," he growled sarcastically, "A stroke of genius. So tell us, Einstein Bone, just how are we supposed to get anywhere with the jumbled mess of chaos we already have?!"

Fone Bone flinched, knowing that, though Phoney's words might be a little dramatic, they were perfectly true. "We have clues. One:" he pointed to the imperfection on the carpet, "a locust, and two: Smiley Bone's dreams. Both point to the Valley. That's a start."

"Are...are you going to go back?"

Smiley's voice was unexpected, seeing as he had become so quiet in the last several minutes. There was almost a trace of hope in his words, hope that Fone was very reluctant to crush. But they couldn't leave Boneville just like that. People would want to know where they were going. Even though the cousins had never sported any actual proof, they were pretty sure that they were being almost constantly watched. To act unusual in any way would just complicate matters to an even greater extent.

"No...No, we can't even consider that yet, Smiley," Fone Bone said comfortingly. "We have to see if...if it's worth the risk of making the trip. It might just be some really bad nightmares."

Phoney snorted. He pointed down at the crushed locust. "And this?"

The nervous smile on Fone's face disappeared completely. "I don't know." His voice grew stern. "But we can't just leave, not without just cause. We'll have to figure out how much of this is real. We've been so wrapped up in the Valley since we got back, who knows what it might be doing to our mental states."

"Oh, so now you're thinking we're crazy too?!" Phoney exploded angrily. "Just like everyone else?!"

Fone threw his hands above his head. "That's not what I'm saying at all!"

"Well, it certainly sounds like it!"

"Please, guys...stop..."

Both quieted at Smiley's request. The tallest Bone was still sitting on the couch, slumped and shivering, but now his head had lowered into his hands and his trembling had definitely increased. Feeling guilty, Phoney and Fone Bone nodded and discontinued the argument. Smiley didn't like it when they fought. He used to, way back before the Valley. But the Valley had changed that; how, neither Bone knew.

After a moment of silence, Fone Bone spoke again, much calmer now. "We should sleep on it."

Smiley's head raised with a start, fear very evident in his expression. "Sleep?! Fone Bone...I can't..." He looked like he was about to head into another emotional collapse.

"I know," Fone said quickly and as soothingly as he could, trying to explain himself before he lost his chance. "But we need to see what this is. Phoney and I will stay up and watch over you; see if we can figure out whether this is just a dream or...something else. But in order to do that, we'll need you to fall asleep." He felt like such a monster asking that of Smiley. His cousin was obviously terrified. Terrified of even blinking, if the constant stare was anything to go by. He only blinked when it was absolutely necessary. But it was their only lead. They couldn't very well ask the dead locust what was going on. And no one in Boneville would be of any help. The Valley, though a tempting idea was...out of the question. At least, for the moment. Fone Bone locked concerned eyes with his cousin. "Do you think you can do that, Smiley?"

Phoney opened his mouth to object, but quickly snapped it shut when he received a glare from Fone Bone. Neither of them liked the idea in the slightest, but what else could they do? Smiley needed sleep. Badly. And they needed answers.

This was their only option.

Smiley breathed deeply, trying to push back the fear and confusion that had been steadily building for a good three days or so. He knew that Fone Bone was right, and backed his cousin's decision completely...Then why was he so frightened? His friends and family had always been the anchors that had chained his life to safety. He had always felt comforted by their presence; before, during, and even after their adventures in the Valley. It had kept out everything that had frightened him then. Why was this different? Why wasn't their comfort helping?

Because, unlike before, the fear had no physical form. It couldn't be fought. Could it even be defeated?

"Please, Smiley," Fone pressed gently. "We've got to figure this out."

Slowly, Smiley nodded. "A-alright...Let's try it."

He smiled shakily. It was the hardest thing he had done in a long time.

*Veni-Yan Cari = In case someone has forgotten, a Veni-Yan Cari, or Awakened One, is someone who has a dreaming eye which is more opened than most. :)

Hi again! Sorry it's been so long. I was working at a camp for a month, and I just got back the night before last. Whew! Feels good to be back to writing. Thank you all for your awesome reviews and I am so happy to find that everyone has liked it so far. :) I will continue to do my best!

Thank you!