As the bright sun shined over Adventure Bay, a shadow was cast over a tall island with a large building on it that you had to cross a bridge to get to. That being the Paw Patrol lookout.
The Paw Patrol are the protectors, guardians even of Adventure Bay, and they have been for multiple years. At first, the town resisted the Paw Patrol, not wanting help from some puppies and a teenager, but over time the team proved themselves capable to not only protect and save Adventure Bay, but help it flourish as a vibrant town on Adventure Island alongside Adventure City and other parts of the world, including Barkingburg.
As the clock struck 7:30 in the morning, a young German Shepherd by the name of Chase, the police pup of the Paw Patrol woke up. It was his job to wake up the team on time for breakfast, there were some days he wished he could sleep in more, but he has never let that stop him from doing everything that has to be done to get the job done. Today, as always is no different.
As he stood up and shook his fur, the young pup left his pup house, the automatic door opening in front of him and then closing behind him. If one of the pups wanted to, they could lock it from the inside, but Rocky, the team's recycling and inventor pup has a lock pick that can open it up, and Ryder, the team's leader has a master key that can open anything that the Paw Patrol has. After all, with the help of his grandfather and the pet shelter Ryder's grandfather ran, he built everything the Paw Patrol uses to this day. The pups in the team, with the exception of Everest, Tracker and Marshall all had known backstories about how they got to where they are today.
Ryder knew pieces of what happened in their lives. Marshall was found on the Adventure Bay beach by him and Chase around four years ago, Everest was found in the South Pole with Jake, a good friend of Ryder, and Tracker was found in the Adventure Bay jungle by Carlos, another good friend of Ryder.
Now of course, just because not everything in their past is clear cut to the team doesn't mean they're untrustworthy. Time and time again every single pup on the Paw Patrol has proven themselves with what they specialize in, whether it's police and spy work, firefighting and being an EMT, construction, aquatic rescues, aerial rescues, recycling and inventing, mountain rescues or jungle exploration, and even a pup like Chase, who was Ryder's first addition to the team, doesn't want to talk about everything in his past. The past does matter of course, but out of the three pups who have a more clouded past compared to the other pups, Marshall and Everest concern Ryder the most. Every so often in the middle of the night, one or both of the pups snap awake due to horrific nightmares, and when Ryder or one of the pups go to them to ask them what happened, they never seem to be able to say anything, even if they try to.
In any case, Chase came up to the first pup house. It was a green recycling truck that Rocky slept in. Walking up to the transformed vehicle, Chase knocked on the closed door and began to speak.
"Hey Rocky? It's time to get up for breakfast." As Chase said this, he stopped knocking and backed away from the door as it began to open.
As Rocky walked out of the door, he looked towards Chase as he began walking towards the lookout.
"Good morning Chase. How are you and Skye doing?" The young Mixed breed asked, knowing questions like that get Chase all flustered, Rocky wanted to poke fun at Chase in the morning, not out of malice or hatred, but just to see how the German Shepherd would react.
Immediately, Chase began to get flustered and spoke frantically, wanting to move on to waking the other pups up.
"I-I'm sure she's doing good Rocky. I'll see you and the others at breakfast," Chase said, trying to get Rocky to just go into the lookout, that way Chase didn't have to worry about how much he's blushing because of Skye in front of the others.
"Alright Chase, see you and Skye there," Rocky replied, knowing exactly what he was doing as he just walked into the lookout, looking behind himself and leaning his head towards Skye's pup house.
As Chase shook off the feelings that Rocky's antics left him with, he walked towards the next pup house. Skye's transformed helicopter, to be specific. He may have shaken the feelings of being flustered that Rocky left him with, at least mostly, but now the German shepherd actually had to speak to Skye; this was absolutely nothing he couldn't handle, but he had recently been finding out about these feelings that thinking about Skye in nearly any capacity left him with.
As the German Shepherd swallowed these feelings for now, he put them to the back of his head, no matter what he tried, his feelings toward Skye always crept in, in a good way. But thankfully, these feelings had never gotten in the way of his duties as a Paw Patrol member or just being a friend in general. Chase hoped it stayed that way, no matter what ended up coming of his feelings towards Skye and the feelings she may have towards him.
As Chase shook his head at this thought, he knocked on Skye's pup house just like he did with Rocky's, hoping the Cockapoo was waking up around now so he wouldn't need to tickle her to wake her up today, the last time he had to so that Skye would make it to breakfast before Rubble ate all the food, the Cockapoo accidentally smacked Chase on his nose as a response to the tickling, causing the German Shepherd to see stars for a few minutes.
But this time as the German Shepherd knocked on the aviator's pup house, Skye walked out of the house herself without needing to be woken up, Skye then turned to face Chase, revealing the dark circles under her pink eyes to the Shepherd.
"Skye are you feeling okay? You look exhausted," Chase pointed out, concerned for not just the pup he had feelings for, but a close friend and teammate of his and the other members of the Paw Patrol. The team always helped each other when they were down, Chase figured this would be no different.
"I'm feeling fine Chase, I couldn't sleep at all last night. Marshall had a nightmare last night which woke me up, I ended up going to his pup house and we watched the stars a bit together," Skye explained, remembering what had happened last night.
As Skye closed her eyes and recalled what happened, she found herself in her own mind, visually recreating what had happened through memory alone.
The recreation started with Skye waking up in her pup house due to a loud scream that sounded like someone was in pain; running out of her pup house, she found that the sound came from Marshall's pup house.
"Marshall, are you oka-" Skye began to ask as the door to Marshall's pup house opened once again in Skye's memory of the situation. Like what actually happened, Marshall was on his side in his pup house, tears rolling down his face and snout as he whimpered softly, not immediately recognizing Skye's presence as he was too caught up in the horrors plaguing his own mind.
As Marshall ran out of the building, he jumped into the creek, feeling himself begin to sink under the raging tide. It was over, he had escaped the situation he and Everest were trapped in, but here he was. Jumping into a creek to drown himself. Ending it all instead of continuing to go wherever Everest went, after all, before Marshall jumped into the creek and presumably sealed his own fate, he and Everest were all the two of them had in their lives supporting each other in the current situation.
Marshall's instincts told him to fight this raging current, to escape it and live his life, but as Marshall neared a big rock in the creek, he braced for impact, even though it was just a nightmare he could still feel the water drenching his fur, and the wind moving past his fur, once his body made contact with the rock, Marshall shot awake, his normally light blue eyes having black rings underneath them and being bloodshot. "Marshall, hey, it's me Skye. Are you feeling okay?" Skye asked, sitting down next to the crying Marshall as she rubbed one of her paws against his spotted stomach, feeling the light fur move around with her touch as Marshall slowly breathed in and out, trying to calm himself down after that nightmarish memory of some kind.
"No I'm not Skye, these have been happening for a while now. I'm sorry I woke you up," Marshall said as Skye removed her paw from his chest and gave Marshall the ability to stand back up. It wasn't her intention to pin him down and force him to talk about what he was struggling with, but why did he feel sorry about waking her up because of a nightmare? This wasn't the first time the team had helped one of their friends through a nightmare, and sentiments remained the same.
"Marshall, listen. You don't have to be sorry for waking me up, you're struggling right now, and we want to help you. But please remember, take things at your own pace, okay?" Skye assured Marshall, allowing the dally to calm down a bit.
"Thank you, Skye. I'm going to go outside for a bit to sit and watch the stars, feel free to join me for a bit if you want to," Marshall said with a nearly monotone voice, surprising Skye. The team may know Marshall as an energetic and brave fire pup, and even though no one is perfect, it was still eye opening to Skye to see how much Marshall was struggling with whatever was on his mind.
"I'll come join you Marshall, I was planning on doing something similar anyway. I need to get something off of my chest," Skye said as Marshall and her walked out of the red pup house and sat near the cliff's edge of where the lookout is. The teams favorite bush was also nearby with a familiar tire swing that was the subject of many good memories, the pup's and Ryder had so many good memories everywhere in not only Adventure Bay, but everywhere they went. Sure there were rough patches in the team's friendships and time as teammates, but who doesn't in any relationship?
And as the light from the stars shined down through the pitch black night sky, Marshall and Skye found themselves sitting next to each other and looking up to the sky as the tide from the ocean crashed against the lookout island.
As much as Marshall wanted to vent about what was going on in his life, when he tried to open his mouth, no words or sounds came out, it felt like whenever he tried to speak, the quicksand he was trapped in dragged him deeper while the ground he was trying to escape to went higher and higher in the sky.
Skye recognized that Marshall was trying to speak, clearly he didn't want to keep what he was going through from the team, but it was painfully obvious to Skye that whatever this was, it had been affecting Marshall for a long time and there were locks in his conscious that prevented him from talking about it. And as one of Marshall's friends and teammates, Skye didn't want to take a hammer and smash these locks open, that could easily cause far more harm than good and drag Marshall deeper into despair.
But Skye knew she wanted to at least say something, so Marshall wasn't trying to fall asleep, feeling the exact same way that he did from whatever nightmare was plaguing his mind for one reason or another.
"So Marshall, how are you feeling right now?" The aviator pup asked the dally as Marshall took a step back, his bloodshot eyes wide open as he found himself sitting down on the ground and looking down to the ocean tide below.
"Honestly Skye, I'm not feeling great. I'm not sick physically, I can say that for sure as an EMT. But outside of that, I..." Marshall was about to reveal what had happened in the nightmare before another brief memory flashed in his head.
Two hooded figures were standing over Marshall and Everest in some kind of an observation room, each pup was on one side of the room below the figure's observation desk as they very slowly explored the rooms that they were in. Recently spilled blood and dried stains of blood alike were on the walls, floors, Marshall and Everest, even the clothing the two human's were wearing. Pictures of the dogs that had either escaped or been killed were all over the wall while two flat screen's replayed what had happened to either Marshall's or Everest's parents were in each respective room, with so many screens on the walls, the two pups couldn't find a spot to look at that didn't have something deeply traumatizing to them.
And only when the two pup's fell over and began crying into their front paws did the two human observers nod to each other and go into each room to bring Marshall and Everest back to the cages that they currently called home once more.
While Marshall was replaying this in his head, Skye was watching Marshall while rubbing one of her paws down his back, feeling his fur go down slightly, as if he was slightly less on edge thanks to her doing this.
After a few seconds that felt like hours to Marshall, he was able to open his eyes, feeling one of Skye's paw go up and down his back in a slow motion. The dalmatian certainly appreciated Skye for doing this, he wouldn't have been surprised if Skye decided not to do something like this for him, sure the entire Paw Patrol had each other's back, but how could someone have Marshall's back if he didn't even have his own?
"S-Sorry about that, Skye. I had another brief nightmare," Marshall apologized as Skye continued to run her paw down his back, slowly but gently.
"It's okay Marshall, you're struggling. Take things at your own pace, you can't rush healing from something in your past, traumatic or not," Skye said calmly as she continued the motion of her paw running down the dalmatian's back, purely to help him stay calm and not stressed, as much as was possible, at least.
With that said, Marshall and Skye found themselves yawning under the starry sky. It was extremely late and even though Marshall knew he wouldn't be able to sleep at all tonight, he decided that would be a problem for him to deal with tomorrow.
But before Marshall entered his pup house, he looked back towards Skye and smiled lightly, it was the first time he had genuinely been able to smile in a while without putting on a mask. The last time he was able to was when he met Everest, not only because she was a sweet Husky, but also because it was direct confirmation that after all these years since Marshall washed up in Adventure Bay, Everest was still alive. Marshall was sure Everest felt a similar way back then too.
That light smile was a good sign to Skye, it showed her that things were looking up for the dally, but there was still a lot of work to do. And with that, Skye opened her eyes once more and saw Chase still standing there, his head leaned to the side in confusion as he spoke.
"Skye are you feeling okay? You spaced out on me there," Chase asked, he had been asking Skye if she was feeling okay, as the German Shepherd had noticed the dark rings underneath her eyes, but the Cockapoo only responded once before spacing out.
"S-Sorry about that Chase. I'll see you and the others at breakfast," Skye said as she began to walk to the automatic doors on the lookout while Chase walked the other way.
He was still concerned about Skye, and now Marshall, as Skye had mentioned Marshall having some kind of a nightmare before she spaced out. "I hope Marshall and Skye are doing good, I'll let Ryder know about what's going on so we can monitor the situation and help our friends after we get breakfast," Chase thought to himself as he began walking to the next house.