"… Days," Haiba mumbled in his sleep, before his eyes snapped open. He looked around, and quickly became disoriented. "What? No. Yes. Sorry. What?"

He looked around the empty cave he was in, and soon spotted Simba and Nala in the corner, confused expressions on both their faces. They both looked like they had woken up from some kind of dream… Oddly enough, that's how Haiba just felt.

"Oh, you're okay," he said to the two. "I can't begin to tell you how happy I am! I had a terrible nightmare about you two."

He sighed, looking down at the ground. "That was scary." He waved a paw at Simba and Nala as they approached him.

"Don't ask, you don't want to know."

Haiba hugged Simba as tight as he could. "You're safe now. That's what counts," he told him.

"Oh, okay," Simba said, giving Haiba a confused look, pulling away from the hug. Just what was his problem…?

Simba, Nala and Haiba were stuck right in the middle of a dark, damp cave. They were trying to find the Lost Treasure of Njama Kifaa, but thanks to a gopher who gave them the wrong directions, they ended up here instead. Trapped. Never had they found themselves in such a claustrophobic situation before.

"I have never fallen asleep like that before," Haiba mumbled, slowly getting to his paws. "Never. It's really weird. I know how to control when I sleep. It's a Grand Lands trick."

"There are a lot of Grand Lands tricks, according to you," Simba told him. Haiba knew so many different things that it was hard to keep count. Simba lost him after the seventy-ninth trick, which involved Zazu, a sharp stick and an elephant… He shuddered at the thought of that incident. Never again… "Just how many are there, anyway?"

"Four thousand and seventy-two," Haiba replied, having memorised the exact number. His mother had passed down good memory skills to him. You had to be clever in a world like this. Especially when you were stuck inside a cave with very little room to move about in and barely any oxygen left. "What is wrong with me?" he asked, putting a paw to his head. He felt strange… Just like when he was in that dream a few minutes ago. "I think I must be getting old. Is this what growing up feels like?"

"How are we going to get out of here?" Nala asked, shivering a little. It was cold down here – too cold for her liking. She wished caves were a bit more… warmer. But then that would probably take away the tense atmosphere. "Looks like we're stuck. I mean, really, properly… stuck."

"Um, Haiba, I also had a kind of… dream thing," Simba confessed, looking a little puzzled.

Nala looked at her boyfriend. "Yeah, so did I," she said, sharing Simba's puzzled expression.

"Not a nightmare, though," he said to Nala quickly, nodding. "Just… We were married."

Nala nodded, her eyes widening. "Yeah. We were in the jungle, and…" She trailed off, finally beginning to get an idea of what was going on.

"We were in the jungle and…" Simba's eyes widened, before he put a paw to his mouth to keep himself from throwing up all over the floor. "Aw!" he exclaimed, disgusted. "Why was I dreaming about that?" he complained. "I'm not ready for… that yet!"

Nala grimaced, sharing his reaction. "I know," she agreed, nodding. "It's not exactly the first thing I think about every morning when I wake up. Until I woke up… just now, of course," she said with a little laugh.

Haiba – his eyes wide – slowly walked over to Simba and Nala, staring at them. A horrible realisation was occurring to him.

"So you had the same dream, then," Simba concluded, pointing at Nala with a claw. "Exactly the same dream?" He turned to Haiba. "Haiba, in the dream, you, you were visiting."

"Yeah." Nala nodded. "You were interrupting our…" She sighed. "Moment in the jungle."

"How can we have had exactly the same dream?" Simba wondered, completely confused and lost now. "It doesn't make any sense."

"And you had a nightmare about us," Nala said to Haiba. "What happened to us in the nightmare?" she asked him.

Haiba forced himself to smile a little. "It was a little bit similar in some aspects," he told them.

"Which aspects?" asked Simba.

"All of them," Haiba responded. Now all three of them knew what had happened – and it was something very, very, very strange indeed…

"You had the same dream," Nala realised, staring at Haiba with wide eyes. "The same dream as us."

"Basically," said Haiba, giving her a nod.

"You said it was a nightmare," Simba pointed out.

"Did I say nightmare?" Haiba asked, his eyes narrowed. "No. More of a really good… mare." He shook his head, grinning. "Look, it doesn't matter. We all had some kind of psychic, weird episode – probably caused by the stress of being trapped inside this cave."

The sound of loud birdsong was heard as he continued. "Forget it, we're back to reality now." He turned around, heading for one of the cave walls.

"Haiba, if we're back to reality, how come I can still here birds?" Nala wondered, a worried tone in her voice, looking up at the cave ceiling.

"Yeah, the same birds," Simba agreed, also hearing the birdsong. "The same ones we heard in the…"

Simba's eyes snapped open, finding himself once again in the jungle, looking like an adult. "… Dream," he finished, staring into Haiba's eyes.

He shook his head. "Oh. Sorry. Fell asleep," he said. "I'm stupid. I'm exhausting myself out here." He shot a glance at Nala, who was also an adult again. "And I haven't even started yet. I was dreaming we were stuck in a cave."

"You had the same dream, didn't you?" Haiba asked, pointing at Nala, a concerned look in his eyes.

Nala nodded. "Stuck in that cave," she confirmed. "Weren't we just saying the same thing?"

"But we thought this was the dream," said Simba, pointing to the ground. "Didn't we?" he asked, beginning to doubt himself on what was real and what wasn't.

"I think so," Nala replied, slowly getting to her paws, her eyes flickering. "Why do dreams have to fade away so quickly?"

"Haiba, what is going on?" Simba asked.

"Is this because of you?" Nala demanded. "Is this because of some… Grand Lands thing because you've shown up again to see us?"

"Listen to me," said Haiba, his voice low. "Trust nothing. From now on, trust nothing you see, hear or feel."

"But we're awake now," Simba insisted.

"Yeah, you thought you were awake in the cave, too," Haiba reminded him.

"But we're home," Nala said, looking around the jungle. "Sort of."

"Yeah. You're home, you're also dreaming." He circled the area, before turning to his two friends. "The problem is, Simba, Nala, which is which? Are we flashing forwards…" He narrowed his eyes. "Or backwards? Hold on tight…" He smiled. "This is gonna be a tricky one."