I dreamed.

I wandered the grounds of Chateau Falco in a slow, fast-forward, enough to notice everything without it being a blur. I saw Chateau Defiance, my old crumbled fort tucked away in the woods.

The dream shifted to show Othello working in my office, muttering under her breath.

Shift.

Yahn casting furtive looks down a hallway before a pair of scaled red hands yanked him into a room, giggling as the door slammed shut.

Shift.

The Huntress frowning as she shot her shining black bow, the string like a strand of spider silk coated with dew. Draw. Release. Draw. Release.

Shift.

Raego shouting into a phone.

Shift.

Tory shouting into a phone.

Shift.

Achilles laughing as he hoisted glasses with Leonidas at his bar.

Shift.

Pandora wandering the Armory with a wistful smile on her face as she hummed to herself. She stared at an empty stand that looked designed for a weapon, but now lay empty.

Shift.

Grimm chasing rainbow reflections on the ground, the treehouse in the distance. Pegasus lay sleeping nearby.

Shift.

Paradise and Lost lurking in a dark alley, stalking something unseen, eyes glinting in the moonlight.

With a gasp, my eyes shot open to see Talon staring down at me. I grabbed him by his scaled armor chest, panting. His eyes widened, and he pulled me to my feet. I scanned our surroundings anxiously, remembering the black trees. The blood rain. I was in Hell. Carl watched me, head cocked.

I spun to see Virgil patiently waiting, watching us. No one spoke.

“It has been an hour,” Talon said. I turned to him, regaining control. Dreams. I had been dreaming. Or remembering the last few days I had spent on earth. Or random memories from my past. As I tried to organize the flashes of memory, I nodded to myself. Yes, that was it. I was just having flashbacks. Like… my life flashing before my eyes before I died.

I glanced down at my palm with a sickening feeling in my stomach. It had been a warning. That I was slowly dying. My life had just flashed before my eyes like everyone said happened the moment before death. I recalled Virgil’s warning about growing weaker faster and not being aware of it. He was more right than he knew. We were dying.

“We need to hurry,” I said in a gruff voice. Virgil simply turned, continuing on down the path. Sensing my companions’ trepidation, I shook my head and gave them a look that demanded silence. I didn’t want to tell them why my face was etched with concern. We needed to hurry.

After a time – which I was having a hard time defining – we were out of the woods. I barely had a moment to enjoy it before the world suddenly changed between one corner and the next. A dull roar echoed in the sudden white tunnel before us. The roar of a crowd. I glanced back behind me to check the woods and stumbled to a stop. A white wall of polished glass stood a foot behind me. Not the path we had just taken. There was no path. Just the wall.

I rounded on Virgil, fingers clenching. “What is the meaning of this? A trap?” I demanded.

He turned to look at me. He slowly lifted a necklace from beneath his robe. A black circle on a black chain. “My key between… districts. You don’t expect us to leave the doors open, do you? No, that wouldn’t do at all.” He dropped the necklace back into the robes and continued walking. “We’ll be out of this spot soon. Hopefully before anyone notices you…” he added the last in a drier tone than usual. I didn’t see anyone in the tunnel, but the roars continued in the distance.

Not wanting to be left behind, I hurried after him. We soon rounded a bend, the roars growing louder, and then the area opened up entirely, no longer a tunnel, but an open path overlooking a vast cavern. A lip of stone to our left, about waist-height, lined our path on one side with a wall of white stone stretching to the high ceiling on our right. Beyond the lip, the ground dropped about ten feet into what looked like an ice-skating rink. Not that it was, but the blazing white stone – like salt flats at noon – made me instantly think of one.

Except… it was an arena. The roars pounded at my skull. The arena was full of fighting monsters. All types. Pools of blood from wounded warriors painted the floor in vibrant splotches, and more blood spatter marked many of the walls. I saw one dwarf-looking guy slice an elf in half – completely. Blood sprayed the wall and the dwarf howled triumphantly before running after a new foe – a thousand-pound boar with five eyes, antlers, and fiery hooves.

After a few seconds, the two halves of the elf slowly crawled back together, flashing with light as they fit back into place like a jigsaw puzzle. He wearily climbed to his feet, gripped his weapon, and sought out a new opponent. He was snarling murderously, ignoring the blood beneath his feet. Or maybe not aware that he had been two pieces only a moment ago.

I saw a hydra battling a handful of chimeras. A frost giant hammering a fire giant. Two robed bald figures staring at each other with snarls on their faces, their eyes glowing green. They didn’t move as battle raged around them, and judging by the looks they received, none of the monsters wanted to get too close to them. I spotted Candy Skulls hovering at various empty points around the arena, oddly devoid of any monsters, as if they hadn’t desired to get close to the Calaveras.

I realized something for the first time. Not all the Candy Skulls were humanoid. The ones I had seen so far had been, but apparently that wasn’t the case down here. A great four-legged creature, resembling a wooly mammoth complete with tusks wore a Candy Skull bone mask that fit his obviously much-larger head.

A four-armed winged creature sported a Candy Skull mask that looked like a bat skull.

A great serpent, easily fifty feet long slithered around the arena absently, purple crackling tongue flicking out through a Candy Skull mask with purple flowers dominating the design.

I shivered, counting them, and gave up at a dozen.

The arena was easily as large as a football field, and almost every foot of it was full of monsters. One massive free-for-all.

One figure in particular caught my eyes and I felt myself freeze.

His golden scales glowed in the reflected light from the white floor. Blood coated his face as his massive, horned head swept past me. Then he froze, slowly turning to stare at me in utter disbelief. His eyes flashed with fire, and then great golden wings flared out behind him and he roared.

“You’ve got to be shitting me…” I muttered as I heard Virgil actually curse.

Talon gripped my arm. “Who is that?”

“Alaric Slate. Raego’s dad. I, uh, sent him here, I guess.”

Talon yowled, his white spear whipping into existence. Carl let out a hungry chuckle.

The rest of the fighters had stilled, somehow differentiating that roar from the multitude of others filling the arena. Silence slowly ensued as every monster turned to stare at us.

Alaric pointed a golden claw, and every monster surged forward in a wave.

And the Candy Skull Wardens did absolutely nothing to stop the prison riot.