-Summary: It's the end of the world and they've got one last card to play. Castiel sends Dean back: back before everything. Now he has time to stop what's coming, but no friggin' clue how to do it. Time travel should really come with a manual. TIMELINE AU

-A/Ns: Thank you to everyone who read last chapter, and special thanks to everyone who dropped a line. Sooo many people fan-freaked out with me about the dream stuff :) It was awesome, and I loved reading everything you had to say.

-Chapter Warnings: Dream Act II! Let's see, who didn't we sneak in last time? Oh yeah, how about a little Mary and Castiel? Not to mention more Baku action, John trying to kill his sons, and whatever else kinda fuckery we can throw at our poor boys.

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The Road So Far (this Time Around)

Chapter 20

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Dean stared at the face of his father down the barrel of a Colt M1911A1. John looked the same as the last time he had seen him alive, leaning over him in the hospital bed in Sioux Falls. Greying. Maybe a little tired around the eyes. But very much alive, full of vitality and near-righteous anger.

"I said drop it."

"Dad, it's me." Dean didn't drop the rifle, but he did hold it clearly out to the side. It was no longer a threat to John, but he wasn't letting it go when the Baku could be nearby.

"Yeah, it always is." His father's finger tightened on the trigger and Dean had time to wonder what a bullet through the brain in dreamland would do to his real self before the gun fired with an explosive crack that damn near blew out his ear drums.

The bullet slammed into the stonework over his shoulder as Sam slammed into his father with the entire weight of his body and the velocity of a full-tilt run. The two went down hard. Dean dropped the rifle to draw his handgun as his family grappled on the floor. John had intended to kill him – or what he likely thought was the demon's illusion of him. Which meant he would be just as willing to kill Sam.

While Sammy was a hell of a hunter and more than proficient at hand-to-hand combat, no one got the upper hand on John Winchester easily.

John pinned Sam to the floor, straddling his chest. He had relinquished the gun during the scuffle in exchange for his Muela Bowie knife, which he pressed against Sam's throat in a backhanded grip. The kid grasped at his father's wrist, using his forearm to leverage the blade as far from his skin as he could in a losing fight.

Dean didn't hesitate to press his gun to the back of his father's head.

"Drop it." He said in a parody of John's own command.

The hunter tilted his head sharply to the side, eyeing his oldest boy and the weapon that stayed flush against his skull with his every movement. Good boy. He'd almost be proud if Dean wasn't just a construct of his mind.

Green eyes narrowed when the blade remained against his brother's neck. "You gonna kill your own son?"

The words were spat, hurtful and angry and bitter, in a way that made John's heart ache. They only further proved to him that this was a dream of the demon's cruel design. His Dean – the real Dean – couldn't know that these days his darkest thoughts, his worst nightmares, were about having to take the life of his youngest boy with his own hands.

"You're not my sons," he bit out as he kept his eyes on the Dean and his blade pressed to Sam's throat.

"Yes. We are."

"We- We took African Dream Root," Sammy gasped out, straining against his father's strength. "Bobby called us."

John glanced down at his youngest, the first inkling of possibility filtering in. This was the first time a dream construct had suggested where he was, rather than asked. But no. The demon was clever, and anything he could come up with could be used against him here, including spell components and an old friend.

"Good try, but I'm not falling for it."

He moved to swipe the blade across his son's throat when Dean's arm encircled his neck from behind, pulling back his head to expose his throat. The muzzle of his gun jammed under his jaw as his son caught him in a headlock.

"I will risk killing you before I risk you killing him," Dean snarled and John's eyes darted up into the murderous face of his oldest son.

"Dean!"

Confusion curled across the firing neurons in his brain. If this was a construct of his mind, it was off. It might look just like him, but that wasn't his Dean, that wasn't his good soldier and oldest son. So who – or what – was it?

"Prove it." He didn't lift the blade from Sam's throat, though he knew he no longer had the leverage at this angle to use it against his younger boy's strength. "If you're my son and we're in my head, prove it."

Dean growled low in his throat at the near impossible request. What kind of solution was that? Anything John already knew, a dream walker could just as easily answer. So Dean couldn't prove he was real that way. Anything he came up with that John didn't know would be written off as a lie if their stubborn-ass dad didn't like it as the truth.

How the hell was he supposed to come up with something John Winchester would believe, but didn't already know about?

An idea popped into his mind before he was done internally ranting about how unlikely he was to ever think up something useable and why did his dad have to be such a paranoid, heartless bastard who didn't even flinch at the prospect of taking out his own son, real or not.

Dean tossed the daddy issues to the side, tapping his finger against the side of the gun as he swallowed around the lump in his throat. Damn it. Threatening to kill his father had been easier than confessing something he knew would disappoint the man.

"That time you left me at the boy's home in upstate New York, after I got caught stealing food." Despite the lump in his throat and the telling burn behind his eyeballs, Dean didn't dare take his gaze off his father for a second, despite every emotional instinct to do so. The ex-marine would only need half of that to get the upper hand, and they were lucky he hadn't killed them the first chance he had. "I didn't want to leave. It was the best damn two months of my life. And when you came and got me-"

He choked past the emotion that clogged his throat at the memory. Of Sonny telling him he could stay, being the father he'd never really had, offering the life he hadn't thought he needed.

"I didn't want to go with you." Dean's hand tightened on the gun, his palm sweaty against the warm metal. John just stared at him, unblinking in the face of his oldest son. "I never told you because it wouldn't have mattered. You'd have hauled my ass out of there either way. So I left with you and Sammy."

On the floor, Sam stared past his father with wide eyes. He remembered Dean disappearing for a couple months back when they were kids. Lost on a hunt, they'd told him. He'd had no idea his older brother had spent the time safe in a home. Apparently, a home he'd liked better than his nomadic life.

If it wasn't so eye-opening and if the pain in his brother's eyes wasn't so real, he'd be giving Dean shit for harking on him all the times he'd ran away or expressed his disinterest in the life. He had always assumed Dean didn't understand – could never understand – and yet here he was. He understood perfectly, he was just able to tuck it all away like it hadn't happened and didn't matter.

The knife slowly pulled away from his throat as John, still staring at his eldest son, relaxed the his murderous stance. Dean kept the gun trained on him as the hunter climbed to his feet and stepped away from the youngest Winchester.

Sam rolled to the side and clambered to his feet to stand beside his brother. Only then did Dean lower his gun and release the hammer.

John stared at his boys and let himself believe it could be them, there in his head to stave off the demon. His boys, who he hadn't seen since Lawrence, and who he hadn't properly seen for almost a year now.

He reached forward, wrapped his arms around the both of them and tugged them to his side.

Dean stiffened under his touch – another oddity that kept John just ever so slightly on edge. But Sam wrapped an arm around him willingly, and soon enough Dean did as well.

"What are you boys doing here?" The soldier asked as he pulled away, father-mode tucked away and game face on.

Sam was blinking away watery eyes as their search for their dad finally came to an end. John didn't make mention of that, for which he was thankful. He really didn't want to start this reunion off with more of a fight than the standoff already had been. "You weren't waking up, so we had to come get you."

"It's not the demon, Dad," Dean added, looking uncomfortably caught between emotion and aloofness. Well, at least that was still true to the Dean he knew. "It's a Baku. Yellow Eyes is using it to track you."

John frowned, his naturally-inclined hunter's brain rapidly adapting the new information. As loathe as he was to admit he had been wrong, the boys' theory made more sense, and things that hadn't fit before fell into place. Like how persistent and all-encompassing the dreams had been.

"Shit," he finally groused. "Guess that explains why the panic room didn't work."

"We've got to figure out how to break its hold on you." Sam picked up Dean's abandoned rifle, handing it back to his brother. "We were looking for a way to do that when you showed up."

John followed his youngest as he moved over to a table full of books. He chanced a glance around. He hadn't cared much for his surroundings before other than to keep a constant eye out for danger. But he didn't recognize this place, and figured it must be one of his boys generating it. "What is this, anyway?"

"Uh…" Sam glanced at Dean, then back to their dad. "It's a library…of sorts."

John flipped open the cover of a book atop the nearest stack with a non-committal noise. Sam raised his eyebrows at Dean, who subtly shook his head with a grateful look.

"How long do you boys have before the root wears off?"

John closed the book and went back to scanning their surroundings. Beside him, Dean fell in step and re-checked the integrity of the rifle in his hands, given that he had dropped it rather hastily. A jam in their line of work could get you killed.

"It's hard to say." Sam sent another glance at his brother, who was being oddly quiet in the presence of their father. Dean usually chomped at the bit to offer information and suggestions to John. Anything to impress or please the man. "Time isn't easy to keep track of down here. Probably not much longer: an hour at most."

The walls started to tremble again, and all three hunters' heads shot up at the disturbance. Dean met his brother's gaze but shook his head. It wasn't the Baku; it wasn't feeding on him.

Tiles started to rattle on the walls and fall to the floor as the shaking worsened.

"Okay, times up." Dean cocked the rifle even as Sam slammed shut the book he was holding and grabbed two more. "Let's move!"

The three hunters took off across the trembling floor as the walls began to collapse in on themselves. The lights fell from the deteriorating ceiling, crashing to the ground and creating a dangerous game of Frogger for the three men.

"Where do we go?" Sam yelled even as Dean overtook their father for the lead. He headed back to the black and white tiled room with the table map, and booked it straight for the metal staircase leading to the second story.

Given that this was Dean's construct, Sam followed without question. Luckily, so did John.

Dean made it to the second floor, scrambling through a short hallway that quickly ended at a heavy metal door Sam hadn't seen from below. His older brother was pulling at a large lever and Sam slammed into the door, grabbing at the mechanism and heaving with his brother. Together, with a grunt, they managed to slide it up and over the locking mechanism.

Ceiling rained down around them. They were out of time. John grabbed both boys by the bicep and hurled himself and his sons through the door.

-o-o-o-

Sam landed hard and groaned at the multiple, painful points of pressure along his body from the uneven, pokey surface he had landed on.

"Get off me, you're friggin' heavy."

The youngest Winchester rolled with a groan, sliding off of his brother who struggled up with a gasp of air now that all two hundred and twenty pounds of moose brother wasn't compressing his rib cage and diaphragm.

"Don't be a baby," Sam groused, rolling to his knees and climbing to his feet from there. He offered Dean a hand, which is brother took with a mock glare.

"Where are we?" He muttered instead, dusting off his jeans and glancing around.

"Home."

The two boys turned to their father, who was standing a few feet away, looking as if he hadn't taken a dive with them moments before. The older hunter was staring at the quaint house around them. The white walls, tinted blue in the moonlight filtering through the kitchen just behind them. The wooden staircase near the front door, inlaid glass showing the quiet yard and no sign of damage from the ax Dean had taken to it a month ago.

"This is Jenny's house," Sam realized as he turned around, inspecting the surroundings. Jenny and her children were nowhere to be seen, nor was any evidence that they had lived in this rendition of their childhood home. The furniture and arrangement was unfamiliar to him. The child's drawing on the fridge and the pictures held by magnets were too far to identify, but Sam didn't recognize any of them as the pictures Sari had been drawing.

"No, Sammy." John was staring at him with a mix of emotions darting across his face. "This is our house."

"Uh…right. I know." Sam shrugged one shoulder. "The woman that lives there now is named Jenny. We were there a couple months ago. There was a poltergeist…."

He trailed off uncertainly, suddenly feeling both awkward and irritated at his own explanation. John would have known all this if he ever checked his messages or showed up when his sons needed him.

"We called you," he ended up adding defensively, and with no little amount of hurt in his voice.

"Shit," Dean swore, breaking up the possible fight before it could begin, as well as any sentimental reunion, however unlikely one was in this family. He patted down his jacket and waistline. "The weapons are gone."

Sam searched the floor for the books he'd grabbed on Asian lore and mythological beasts. Neither were in sight, and he knew he'd made it through the bunker door with them.

"Can you make more?" he found himself asking his brother, even though Dean already had his eyes closed in concentration, trying to do just that.

Green eyes opened, filled with annoyance. "Not working for me."

"Maybe because it's not your dream?" Sam turned to face John. The house they were in was clue enough as to whose construct this was and whose nightmare the Baku had pulled from.

Their dad looked between the two of them for a moment, before he gave a 'what the hell' shrug and closed his eyes. After a moment of nothing, he opened one, then followed with the other. No such luck.

"The Baku must have taken back control," Dean muttered, making the entire thing sound like one long curse.

"That can't be good."

The words weren't even out of Sam's mouth before light sprung into existence around them, orange and hot and flickering. Crackles broke the air and smoke hung heavy in the room that had been clear seconds ago. Dean swore as he stumbled back from the walls suddenly engulfed in hot, angry flames. Sam grabbed at his shoulder in an effort to pull him back and steady him all in one. Beside them, John's military-trained instincts kicked in and he sought the nearest exit among the fire.

The front door was blocked by the growing flames, as was the kitchen. That only left upstairs. Of course.

He grabbed his boys and hollered for them to make it to the second story. Sammy's old nursery was above the garage. They'd be able to climb onto the roof from his window and hopefully jump to the ground, assuming the fire hadn't consumed too much of that part of the house.

Dean led the charge, scrambling up the stairs even as flames licked at the railings as the fire climbed higher. He knew what he would see when he made it to Sam's old room, so he didn't look up and he didn't stop moving.

But his brother did.

John slammed bodily into his youngest son as Sam skidded to a halt, eyes locked on the ceiling. There were no flames in this room, but the body pinned to the plaster, red spreading across her white nightgown, was hard to miss.

"Mom," he whispered, and the resemblance to his dream of Jess, pinned to the ceiling and bleeding to death, had him rooted to the floor of his old room.

"Sammy." She smiled down at him with tears in her eyes. Blood dripped from her stomach and hit his cheek.

He was shaking as John grabbed him by the arms and spun him around, forcing his eyes away from the visage of his mother's death. Unlike the other two men in the room, Sam had never seen it. And while he'd dreamt of the exact scenario with Jess, so much so that he felt physically sick at the mirror image, he still hadn't been prepared for the way the real thing stole his breath or burned achingly deep in his soul.

"It isn't her, Sam!" John was yelling, and the voice sounded like it came from a thousand miles away, through an ocean of noise. His father was shaking him, refusing to look up at the image of his wife, who was now asking him why he had left her, where he was, why he hadn't saved her. But he ignored each and every sobbed question. He'd been plagued by them for weeks now, and he knew it wasn't his wife who was asking.

Sam finally centered himself, reaching up to grab his dad's wrists as the world came back into focus and the image of his girlfriend pinned to the ceiling was replaced by his dad's worried face. He nodded numbly, keeping his head down as he turned back into the room and made for the window. Dean had one leg out, the other still dangling inside, ready to leap back into the nightmare to save his family.

The younger Winchester hit the windowsill hard, but he didn't stop. He scrambled up and through the small portal as his brother began sliding across the roof. Bright light ignited behind them, and Sam couldn't help the instinctual turn of his head. But John was directly behind him, blocking his view of the fire flaring along the ceiling.

"Keep going, son. None of it's real."

He knew that. He did. So the hunter nodded and slid his way down the shingled roof. Dean landed on the ground below, rolling out of momentum. Sam dropped heavy beside him, his extra half foot of height keeping him on his feet. John landed beside them with a grunt and the three boys moved away from the fully engulfed house as it crackled and burned.

John finally let something flit across his features as he watched his family's house, the little fixer-upper he had worked tirelessly to buy, had spent years making into a home with his wife, crackle and give to the hungry flames.

And within, the love of his life. Again.

"We gotta keep moving." Dean gave his father's arm a tug and John nodded. It wasn't smart to stay in one place. He turned after his boys but stumbled at the sudden, unnatural pull deep within his body. He gasped, falling to one knee to brace himself against the suddenly tilting world.

"Shit," his eldest was swearing, trying to steady him. "It's feeding off of him!"

Sam dropped to a knee, grabbing John's head to steady him. Brown eyes darted between his own, thoughts racing across that quick mind that had gotten him a free ride to Stanford.

"It hasn't fed on you before," Sam said as realization settled in his stomach like lead. He looked up to his brother. "Why would it start now?"

Dean reached down and hauled their father to his feet, slinging one arm over his shoulder to support him. "We know what it is now. Game's up; either it doesn't need dad anymore, or it's given up on getting his location. Either way, we gotta get out of here now."

It became obvious as they made their way down their old childhood street, that the small bites the Baku had taken out of Sam and Dean had been a meager snack at best. John, being the host of the dream, was the salad, entrée, whole bottle of wine, after dinner aperitif, and a heaping dessert all put together. If the way he was listing to the side and gasping through shallow, pained breaths was any indication, the Baku was tucking in for a hasty, gluttonous meal.

They stumbled together across the lawns of several houses before Sam took the lead, changing directions to slip between two homes. He pulled open the wooden gate that closed off the side of the house, holding it for his brother and father to struggle through. They hobbled past trashcans and recycling, into the fenced yard. There was a door between bushes, probably leading to a laneway or another yard. Unlike the side gate, this one was locked.

Sam climbed up the five foot wooden structure, straddling the top and leaning back over for his brother to heft John up. The older hunter grumbled at the treatment, but it was obvious he was having difficulty standing on his own. Every pull of the Baku sent him staggering in a different direction, like being tossed back and forth on the deck of a very small boat on very rough seas.

Dean managed to haul John up enough for Sam to get a sturdy grip around his middle, and together they were able to push-slash-pull their father up and over the gate. As soon as Dean knew they'd cleared the other side and started moving through the next yard they'd landed in, Dean hopped up and over the fence.

And came face to face with Castiel.

"Jesus!" Dean's back slammed into the fence in a purely instinctual reaction to having another person's face appear out of nowhere, inches from his own. He dug his fingers into his chest, where his heart was racing and lungs struggling to find the air he'd tried to swallow instead of inhale a minute ago. "What the hell, Cas!"

The hunter straightened up as his mind moved much faster than his body. "Wait, why are you here?"

"You need to wake up, Dean. Right now." Cas took a step toward him and the hunter immediately raised an arm to stop him from doing the Jedi, two finger mind trick.

"No, wait a minute. Dad-"

"Bobby Singer is in danger. You must wake up."

Cas pressed his hand to his forehead before he could reply.

-o-o-o-

They made it through the yard, down the side of yet another house, down the drive and onto the sidewalk before Sam paused. He was panting from the exertion of pulling his father's weight alongside him, and now he was faced with a street he didn't know in a town he hadn't been old enough to remember. Sam stared down the road in both directions. The street was poorly lit, with trees and cars lining the road, and yellow street lights flickering through the leaves to illuminate unfriendly looking houses. He didn't see the Baku, or spot any dangers in particular, but he didn't feel great about either choice.

"Which way?" he asked John, though he didn't expect a very coherent answer given that all his dad seemed capable of doing was focusing on breathing. The older hunter groaned, and Sam physically felt the pull of the Baku that time as John was seemingly yanked to the side. He grunted as his father tilted to the side, nearly sliding from his grip before he managed to tighten his hold and right the hunter.

"Dean, we have to find a different way to get out of here." Sam turned his head to see if his brother had of those miraculous, last minute ideas he was so good at. The younger Winchester frowned at the lack of response, and the lack of Dean in general. "Dean?"

He turned them around, and his heart spiked at the empty driveway behind them. "Dean!"

Sam was about to set John down and go back for his brother when the ground started shaking. No, no no. The nightmare couldn't change now, not when they'd been separated. He dropped his dad a little harder than he'd meant to and broke into a run back the way they'd come.

He only made it a few feet towards the side of the house before the earth pitched and rolled, and Sam slammed into the ground and kept sliding as up became sideways.

He slid clear off the sidewalk and across the street and straight into darkness. The floor came up hard, jarring the bones in his legs all the way up to his hips. He was upright, though, as disjointing as the landing experience had been in a sudden ninety degree tilt to reality. John hit next to him, stumbling but able to catch himself before he completely face-planted.

Sam offered a steadying hand on impulse, but it was obvious from his dad's newfound balance that the Baku had, at least temporarily, stopped feeding.

"Dad?"

John nodded at his son, looking pale and shaken, but steady on his feet. "I'm alright. What happened?"

"The dream shifted again." Sam looked around them, hoping to spot his brother who could have gotten kicked out of the last world and into this one with them. But as Sam spun in a circle, he quickly realized the dream had done more than change. The world was slowly building around them, walls lined with pipes, catwalks stretching over their heads, and large vent pipes in the distance, all sliding into existence like a bad movie fade-to-black, only in reverse. Unlike the last shift, this world was slow to form and not yet complete.

Sam didn't know if that was good or bad. The Baku wasn't feeding on John, and it felt like it had been interrupted doing so. But if the Baku wasn't feeding on John, and Dean was now missing…. The last shift had been a clear offensive move to separate them. Maybe Dean was fighting back, taking up the beast's concentration away from building the world around them.

"Your brother can take care of himself," John spoke up, as if reading Sam's mind. "He'll find his way."

Sam nodded, trying to absorb his dad's confidence as his own. He didn't like the idea of Dean facing that thing alone.

What was forming around them was an old factory of some sort. Chemical, if Sam knew his factories (and given how monsters tended to like the abandoned ones, he was pretty rehearsed in them). He didn't recognize this one, but then again, he wasn't sure he'd be able to pick out ones he'd visited in the past. They tended to blur together.

"Do you know where we are?" Sam asked even as he tried to summon a weapon like he had the first time they'd faced the Baku. But slow to bounce back or not, it looked like the beast still had control of the dream; his hands remained frustratingly empty.

"No." John was staring at the world around them as it finally settled into place with a clarity that echoed reality. "Looks familiar, though. Probably a hunt."

His youngest nodded beside him and they started in a random direction. Even with Dean lost, staying in one place was always a bad idea when a supernatural baddie was on your tail. Sam hoped to find Dean somewhere in the maze of equipment and metal. But more importantly, and their primary concern now, was finding a way out of the dream world. The African Dream Root wouldn't last much longer, and John wouldn't shake this on his own.

"Can you think of any other way to wake up?" Nosie to their left had both hunters turning, going for weapons at their hips that weren't there. John gave a toss of his head and they changed direction, away from the clang of a fallen pipe that suggested they weren't alone.

"No. Been trying for weeks, every time this bastard traps me."

"What happened those other times?"

John shrugged as they ducked under some low-hanging pipes. The Baku was large, about the size of a cougar, so hopefully it would have trouble navigating the smaller areas they were fitting themselves through. Of course, it also limited their range of movement in a fight and their escape options as well.

Not that there was much escape in a dream, as they were quickly learning.

"I woke up eventually. Like you said, it never fed on me. Sounds like the damn thing was only meant to get my location."

Sam nodded, as that seemed to fit with everything they assumed before. But with the Baku after them now, it was unlikely it would let John go this time.

"Can you wake yourself up?" his dad asked. Sam had a feeling he knew the answer, given the lack of weapon or books on him, but he gave it a shot anyway. Had he any confidence it might work, he probably wouldn't have tried. Leaving his dad here alone wasn't exactly part of the plan.

He opened his eyes to the factory and the waiting face of his father.

John nodded, having expected as much. The root hadn't worn off yet, and neither of them were going anywhere until it did or the Baku let them.

His dad pulled ahead as Sam checked behind them to make sure the Baku wasn't approaching from the rear. He didn't see anything in the dark lighting but the walls and pipes around them. When he turned back, something immediately niggled the back of his mind.

John was a dozen or so feet ahead, but it felt infinitely further. Unreachable. The world around them faded slightly, turning darker than a moment ago.

There was movement to his left, the slide of paws across hard-packed dirt, and Sam suddenly realized he had seen this all before, in a vision in a dirty bus station.

John glanced at him over his shoulder.

The young hunter was moving before his dad could tell him to run. But run he did, straight into John, tackling him to the ground as the Baku soared over their heads in a lunge. It hit the ground and slid to a stop, letting out a terrifying cry that was both a roar and a trumpet.

Sam threw himself to his feet, hauling his father up after him and the two took off running.

They did not make it far before John stumbled. His youngest tried to catch him and keep him upright as they kept moving, but his hands went right through him.

Sam pulled back, freaked out at the suddenly wispy quality around the edges of his father. He tried to grab him again, and his hand sunk a good inch into the fuzzy, incorporeal bicep before he found solidity. He stared, horrified, at his half-buried hand on his father's arm.

"Run, Sammy." It was a whisper even as John swayed and Sam had to grip his shoulders to keep him from falling. They sunk to the ground and the young hunter watched as wisps of his father were tugged away from him like smoke through a vent.

He turned to face the Baku, standing twenty feet from them. His paws were spread wide on the ground, back arched low in a predatory stance. He flicked his trunk back and forth, like the twitchy tail of a cat about to pounce. Beneath him, the ground looked like viscous paint, being greedily sucked into the monster's open mouth. The edges of the walls that hemmed them in were starting to waiver where they met the floor, bleeding out and towards the Baku as the dream liquefied into nothing more than food for the beast.

They were out of time.