Natalie awoke, heart pounding. Her breath coming in gasps.

  She leaned up on her elbows, scanning the dark bedroom.

  She could make out Pete, sleeping beside her. She heard the whirl of the small box fan by the dresser.

  "What's going on?" she wondered. "Did I have a nightmare?"

  Her bodily instincts signaled a threat, but there was nothing connecting her panic to anything tangible.

  She blinked, straining to define the room amidst the shadows. “What time is it?" she wondered. "It can't be any later than ..."

  But she couldn't find the alarm clock sitting in front of the T.V.

  ...

  And she couldn't find the T.V...

  ...

  A flash of heat across her arms. Lightning up and down her spine. "There's something in the way!"

  Natalie's breath stopped (along with the world) as she beheld a shape looming, silent, at the foot of the bed.

  "Oh my God!" she tried to cry out. "What the hell is that?!" but her lips wouldn't move. Her body, too frozen by fear to reach for her husband. She was a prisoner of paralysis, watching as the shape became a living figure standing over them.

  It was tall (taller than Natalie anyway). "A ghost?" she panicked. "A serial killer? What –"

  Then, as if waiting for the perfect moment of tension, the darkness receded just enough to allow the figure to come into focus.

  Standing there, revealed by what little light struggled through the blinds, was a woman. She was clothed in tattered gray robes that spilled down to the floor. Her arms were bare, smooth, and strong. She had dark hair that was tied behind her in a braid, which did nothing to hide its impossible thickness.

  Her face was angled and striking. Beauty that was partially masked by a cloth bandage wrapped around her head, covering her eyes. Natalie immediately recalled the statues of "Lady Justice" in her high school textbooks.

  "Can she see me?" she wondered, panic pushed aside by her curiosity. She tried to speak: "Who..."

  The woman raised her hand, silencing Natalie mid-sentence. Then, opening her arm, she extended an invitation for the confused girl to join her. Natalie glanced at Pete once more, shocked that he was still asleep. "How is he not . . .?"

  But the thought didn't matter, and Natalie returned her focus to the visitor. The mysterious woman had an aura about her. Natalie could sense it. “Power.” She thought to herself. And the realization moved her. She pushed her fear aside and slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  Rising, she managed to summon the courage to take a step toward the stranger, who tracked Natalie's approach. The woman smiled politely, indicating both patience and expectation. Natalie was expected to follow direction. That much was clear.

  But stepping again, she was suddenly overcome by a sensation of great movement, the bedroom vanishing, leaving the two women standing alone in an infinite blackness.

  Natalie nearly fell over, disoriented, but she steadied herself when her eye caught a tiny point of light appearing from far away. Only a spark at first, but it held her fascination. Then, from its distance, the light began to change and grow, rushing them at speed, the sound of a great wind roaring louder as it came. Natalie, at the last second, lifted her arms to shield herself.

  Then all became still.

  A moment later, she opened her eyes, and much to her amazement, found herself standing on a beach. Her toes in the sand, hair shifting in an ocean breeze. She could smell the sea salt in the air.

  She beheld a sky filled with stars and a moon bathing the coastal tree line in a silvery glow. The mystery woman was there as well, looking out into the ocean, her hands clasped comfortably in front of her waist.

  "Okay," Natalie was surprisingly calm, "so this is obviously a dream."

  The woman didn't respond. Didn't even turn. She simply stood there, staring out into the ocean.

  Natalie was annoyed. "Hello?" she called out, waving her arms. "What are you even looking..." But gazing across the "water," she stopped. Her words caught in her throat as she tried to process something... impossible.

  What should have been a visible sea, with waves and foam illuminated by that bright moon, was somehow not perceptible at all. It was void of color. Void of definition. Other than where the sand appeared and disappeared with the waves, there was nothing. It was the absence of all light. A perfection of darkness. Natalie had to turn away, as it made her physically sick just to look at it.

  She could feel the sweat of panic on her back. Her feet started to tingle. "I'm gonna pass out," she said, preparing for the fall. But just as she was certain she was losing consciousness, a hand landed gently on her shoulder, and a voice spoke.

  "Steady yourself, girl. You are safe with me."

  Natalie snapped back from the brink, shocked at the voice of the woman.

  She looked up at the stranger, who removed her hand as she smiled.

  "Where are we?" Natalie asked, catching her breath. "Who are you?"

  The woman pursed her lips at the questions and started to walk away, speaking as she did so. "Where are we?" she echoed. "That is somewhat... complicated."

  Natalie hesitated, noticing her companion's back as she turned. She spotted two identical scars, long, and jagged, underneath her shifting braid.

  "Wait," she said, recognizing that she was meant to follow. "What do you mean, 'complicated'?"

  She caught up, and the two continued along the beach, the lunar light joining the sound of the waves. A peaceful, ethereal setting.

  "You see," the woman began. "We are here, yet at the same time, not here." She stopped and gestured to the island. "We are in your mind, Mrs. Bishop. Your dreamscape. And what you are manifesting is a representation of certain things that are, in fact, very real. Although," she observed, "I am at a loss for how you have become aware of the Void."

  "The Void?" Natalie asked.

  The woman waved at the ocean of black. Still oppressive, sill suffocating. "The Void." She continued. "The space between realms. In this case, yours and mine. It is not possible for one such as you to experience its awareness. It is why many of my kind are tasked with guiding mortals through that danger, to what lies beyond."

  Natalie tried to shake off the discomfort she felt from looking at it. "What lies beyond?" she finally managed.

  "That," the woman replied, "is not a matter of import for you right now, or . . . for him."

  The woman pointed along the coast, and Natalie's eyes followed until she spotted a figure further down the beach.

  It moved slow. A strange mass emerging from the ocean pitch. A pile of . . . something that first seemed to slide, then slink, and then crawl onto dry land. Its amorphous shape evolving several parts that branched from the center.

  But Natalie gasped as the blob grew into a human form. A naked man, pulling his body with great effort away from the waves. She watched him clear the surf by a comfortable distance before collapsing onto the sand. And with his face turned toward the two observers, they saw him clearly. Pete Bishop, eyes closed, breathing heavy in exhaustion.

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  "Pete," Natalie mouthed in disbelief. "No!" and she took off sprinting toward her husband. As she closed the distance between them, she could see that his body was thin and his face haggard. "He's hurt!" she called back, hoping the woman might be able to help them. After a few strides, she was within a body length, and she reached out to him. "Honey. It's--"

  --"Oof!" she collided with an invisible force. A barrier that seemed to hum briefly with an unseen power. She landed hard on her back, several feet from where Pete lay. And with the wind knocked completely out of her, she hugged her body, rolling to her side.

  By the time she was able to breathe again, the woman was kneeling in the sand beside her. Her hand offered in assistance. Natalie took it and climbed back to her feet. The woman waited as she brushed the sand off as best she could.

  Close by, Pete remained, unconscious but alive. His body, pale in the moonlight. Natalie stepped cautiously toward him until she heard the low hum of the force field. She reached out and watched in wonder as her hand stopped midair. The barrier itself had no texture, no real feeling to describe, but it resisted her as though it were a brick wall. "Pete!" she called out, hitting the field with her fist. He gave no response. She yelled again. "Pete! Wake up! Please!"

  The woman also turned toward Pete Bishop, appearing to process something that seemed not entirely unexpected. "So," she said, "this is the man who lives with no Light." Then, addressing Natalie, she added, "But who are you in all this?"

  Natalie barely registered the question. "What?" She looked briefly at the woman and then back at Pete, more and more frustrated. "What does that even mean? I'm his wife!" she asserted. She went back to hammering the invisible field with her fist. "How is this even here? It's my dream, isn't it? Get him out of there!" she yelled. "And for the love of God, just tell me what is going on!"

  Tears started to well in her eyes.

  "Love and God," the woman replied solemnly. "It has been my experience that those two are often mutually exclusive. So, tell me, girl. Which is it?" she posed. "For which of the two do you seek answers from me? Is it for Love...

  ...or for God?"

  "What does that even mean?" Natalie demanded, confused. Her mind raced as she watched Pete lying in the sand, just beyond her reach. "I love him. Okay?" she shouted. "I want you to answer me because I love him!”

  At that, the woman lowered her head. "Thank you, girl," she replied, satisfied. "I am also one who chose love, long ago, and it cost me ... so much." She stood tall next to Natalie, her dirty grey robes now, somehow, a shimmering silver. "My name is Lilith."

  "Great," Natalie replied quickly, too concerned for her husband to care. "Lilith. Fine. Awesome. Now, please, Lilith, will you help me?"

  "There is nothing to be helped," Lilith answered. "He is not here in the traditional sense. None of this is materially real."

  Natalie took her fist from the field, looking bewildered. "But you said that these are 'very real' things. You just said that a few minutes ago!"

  Lilith stepped closer to Pete, stopping just outside the invisible field. "What you see here, Natalie Bishop, is a representation of what has happened to your husband. Of what . . . is happening to him."

  Natalie's eyes shifted, trying to process. "You mean his . . . mind . . . stuff?"

  Lilith smiled, amused at the crude way Natalie described her husband's condition. "His 'mind stuff'?" she repeated. "Yes. I suppose that is as good a way to say it as any. Your husband has been Mind-broken. Do you have any idea what that might mean?"

  Natalie stood staring, blank. In her memory, she recounted everything that Pete confessed to her in the apartment: His disturbing thoughts, the existential panic. It had been intense at the time, but none of it could've made her picture a half-drowned man exposed on a beach. "No," she answered. "I don't know what it means to be Mind-broken."

  Lilith nodded, not surprised.

  "His reality is shattered," She explained. "He does not... feel the world. At least, not the way others do. Your husband is severely damaged, and the very thing that is meant to protect his sanity has been destroyed." She paused, waiting to see if Natalie had followed.

  "Are you saying he's crazy?" Natalie asked, her fear obvious.

  "I am saying that he was meant to descend into madness." Lilith gestured toward that awful black ocean. "When one is broken, they drown out there, in that Void you cannot stand to look at. All of them losing their ability to process existence, collapsing, mind, body, and soul."

  Natalie could feel the tears stinging her eyes again. "How—," she tried to speak. "How long does he have?"

  "That is the question, most immediate." Lilith answered. "You see, he should not have survived those waters, and he never should have made it to your shore." She pointed to Natalie. "He is functioning out there in the world because he has found an 'island' in his life. Something that you can also sense."

  A glimmer of hope emerged inside Natalie's heart. "But then that's good, isn't it?" she asked. "He'll get better if he stays here?"

  Lilith raised a hand to her lips, thinking. "I believe that on this island, he can survive, but I do not believe that if he stays, he will ever be truly healed."

  Natalie, her brief hopefulness evaporated, considered the words for a moment before replying. "Surviving...not the same as living."

  "Exactly," Lilith confirmed.

  There was a silence between the two as Natalie did her best to decipher anything from Lilith's eyeless face. There were so many questions still unanswered, not the least of which being...

  "Are you real?" she asked. "I mean, you already told me that this is a dream."

  Lilith didn't immediately respond. And so, Natalie continued.

  "And that's fine. I get it. I'm supposed to get some kind of message from all this, right? Something from my subconscious? I've got to help him? Protect him? Be there for him? I mean, of course I will. But when I wake up, I'm still going to be wondering who you are."

  Lilith smiled, stepping toward Natalie, putting her hands on her shoulders. "True. You are going to be wondering, so let us just say that in this place, I am as real as you need me to be, but out there in the world, it will be up to you to try and keep your husband 'connected.' He is going to be hurting on the inside, even if he does not show it. And unfortunately, it is going to get worse."

  "Why worse?" Natalie asked, suddenly frightened again.

  "Well," Lilith started, "I believe that this moment, this island… it is not the climax of your struggle. He is going to have to leave this place eventually." Lilith nodded back toward the Void. "He is going to return to that ocean and fight his way to whatever destiny fate has planned. Only then can this all end."

  Natalie's heart sank. The idea of anyone having to go back into that blackness was unthinkable. She meant to say so, but before she could respond, from the corner of her eye, she noticed movement. She looked, and much to her relief, Pete was waking up, making an effort to stand. She watched him slowly climb to his feet. His naked form looking fragile and frail. But the expression on his face wasn't weakness. It was resolve. He glanced once back at the ocean from where he had come, and then, taking a deep breath, walked toward the foliage, disappearing into the trees. Never seeming to notice the two women close by.

  "What is he doing?" Natalie asked.

  "Do not be worried, Lilith comforted her. "In the forest he will grow stronger. He is gathering the tools he needs to complete the journey."

  "What exactly is he journeying to, again?"

  But at that, Lilith's voice became serious. The air growing cooler around them. "Listen to me very carefully, Natalie Bishop. Whatever is happening to the two of you, I believe it is meant to occur. There is a revelation waiting out there somewhere. I have my own suspicions of what that might be. But what is most important right now is that your husband might be the only one capable of making it to that place, and he absolutely cannot do it without you."

  Natalie said nothing. The weight of Lilith's words hung around her neck like a millstone.

  "There's no way out of this, is there?" she finally asked.

  Lilith smiled again, empathetic. "No, there is not. Though, with all my heart, I wish that there was. I feel for you both, but even my sympathy cannot erase what has already been written."

  Natalie sighed, accepting the words as truth. She started to ask another question, but was cut off.

  Abruptly, Lilith raised her head as if on alert. Nervous energy radiating as she slowly turned toward the ocean. She gazed along the horizon, silently, and then, "Look, girl!" she called out. "The Fallen!"

  Natalie didn't want to face the blackness, but she did so for Lilith's sake. And as she strained her eyes, two shapes appeared, far out, floating just above the water. "What is . . ."

  They were motionless, lifeless forms birthed from shadow. Menacing figures hovering.

  Waiting…

  On the left was what looked like an impossibly tall man. He wore a long blood-red cloak with a hood that hid much of his face in shadow. Thin black lips and pale white skin. He carried something. Natalie could almost see it. And as she squinted, the object became clear. It was a large black hammer.

  To the right was . . . "a little girl?" Natalie asked.

  No older than a child, a yellow shirt and bib overalls. Her blonde hair in pigtails. She had mismatched socks and tennis shoes decorated like unicorns, and under her arm, she carried a red ball.

  Of the two, it was the little girl that frightened Natalie the most. Something unsettling in the eyes. A wildness inside dark circles, burning like embers in a cave.

  Fear washed over her. The sound of the waves grew loud, and clouds raced across the moon. The two new arrivals remained frozen on the water, their eyes locked eerily on Natalie. Their faces giving no expression. Like frightening, living statues. "Who are they?" Natalie whispered, barely audible.

  "They are my brother, and my sister," Lilith answered. "Devastation and madness personified. But be not afraid. They are apparitions only. They pose no threat here."

  Natalie wasn't sure she agreed with Lilith's assessment. "They look dangerous enough to me."

  "They are not here in a physical way," Lilith explained. "Merely representations. You have conjured them in your dreamscape which can only mean one thing: they are now pieces on the board."

  Natalie's fear didn't ebb, but her faith in Lilith was growing. "Can you stop them?" she asked, knowing full well it couldn't possibly be that simple.

  "I cannot," Lilith stated plainly. "They are too powerful for me. But there are others who can, and I will help you find them when the time comes. However, on the matter of time . . . I am afraid ours is up."

  "Wait," Natalie asserted. "You can't. I'm not ready. How will I find you again?" But even as she spoke, the dream was already beginning to recede. That feeling of a great rush, now in reverse as the island pulled away from her, the darkness of sleep soon to give way to wakeful haze.

  Yet as Lilith too was drifting outward, she looked at Natalie a final time, smiling. Her beautiful face, confident and warm. "I'll be there, girl," she said, her voice growing faint. "I found you once. I can do it again."

  And then, all was darkness.