A chill had set in and all weight started to lift as the day's blue sky faded. Disembodied, Jak paid no mind to this fact as he came face to face with Dark in a skewed Haven Forest. Resembling that of a fantasy with its obscure looming trees paired with massive jutting rocks. Along with a sudden drop off into darkness like a floating island. Taking in his surroundings, cerulean eyes scanned the ground, dragging down to his own bare feet.

No wait, that wasn't right.

Taking in a shallow breath, he shut those eyes tight. He wasn't touching grass, and his legs felt confined. Lifting one lid at a time the correct vision had come to be. Familiar rough and worn boots came into view.

"Pretty boy, are you ever going to look at me?"

Almost as if he hadn't expected the voice, the elf looked up to set his sights on a paler clone. Jak didn't have nightmares without Dark being involved some way or another. The beast practically fed off the darkness in his head, obviously excluding the literal sense.

"Ooh. That bites…"

Briefly he thought Dark had been talking to him, but, it didn't quite make sense. For starters, talking to yourself didn't make much sense. That is until the ashen beast brought a hand to his right clothed shoulder. With raising brow's the other's action peaked his curiosity. There had not been a single mark on the creature, but yet he acted like he had been shot.

"This hurts, you've gotten us into a real mess here."

"Wha-" The hero's voice terribly faint, surprising even himself. "What did I do?"

"Whatever that was that infected me is eating this part away Jak. It's taking everything."

Quickly before his eyes the dark self crumpled closer to the grey toned blades. Blood begun to flow from the wound. Its ashen hand seemed to make a poor bandage as it sprayed from between his fingers. Jak quick checked his own wound to see if it were in a similar state. Not only did it no longer bleed but he did not feel it.

"Erah- fuck. This hurts." The gravel like voice of the dark creature seemed to crack with its pain. "Wake up, stop this-" a sudden burst of dark thick flow of vomit burst forth from the twisted fragment of thought.

"I don't understand, what's eating me?" The elf began to feel the anxiety rise again. Pain bubbling to the surface, his own shoulder sizzling with that fresh feeling.

"Whatever that was. Think about it! Come on!" Dark fluids dripped between bright teeth. "Just go into that dark part of your head, you'll figure it ouW!" All too suddenly the darkness once flowing into the grass curled back up into the clone's gut and plowed through. There 'dark' hunched skewered over a flowing spike. "Wake- wake up. Wake UP!" Ebony eyes glanced up to the only full color figure that just stood paralyzed. "GO!" The word coming out as a roar, another living stream of darkness forced its way into the clone's mouth. Immediately in retaliation he tore at it was large bites. Devouring the strange substance. A strength came back to him and in a moment's notice everything seemed to fall into an extreme battle.

Both confused and horrified Jak took an uneasy step back as the flowing darkness seemed to take notice of him. Twisting to run boots dug into dirt, shifting to the feel of sand. Glancing down it was nothing more than hot bubbling mud. Thrashing wildly the only thought filling his mind was that of survival. Panic pour from his lungs as the goopy planet filled its place.

Just as everything went dark once more feelings became strange. Particular hard pulls of mud at his shoulders and ankles. Taking in a sudden breath it came. Eyes shot open, lungs reinflated, stillness came and reality came rushing back in. Pain imminently kicked in as extremely fast needles shot in and out of the wound.

Faces in the dim room looked half there with the single light. It had begun to swing, screams starting. Sound fading back in. Scanning from one barren corner over came the scene. Daxter and Tess at the foot of the bed horrified. Paper in the background. It was fluttering. Scanning further was Torn. Flailing back from the elf for an unknown reason. Blood sprayed over Jak's face in a quick splatter as the older man slipped back on the papers floating about. Soon the ringing came to a full halt and with a slight dizziness Jak sat up to take this mess in.

"What's goin' on here?" Came the question with an unusual quietness.

"What the hell was that?!" Daxter's high voice pierced the air as he gestured widely at Torn.

"How am I supposed to know?!" Torn's quick bite back came as he sat up. "Damnit all."

"It's okay Torn." Tess summed up lightly. "What happened to your hand? Is it okay?" Delicately the blond woman tried to get close to the snarly man to inspect the cause of red now smearing spots of contact.

"I don't know." In a quick motion he pulled the wound away from Tess to look at it himself. There in his palm a hole now splayed open wide. Like a spoon took all the contents down to the bone. Twitching with pulses of pain the eldest elf hissed.

"I'll go get a med pack." With that Tess took out of the room.

Confused Jak stared between the remaining two. Daxter had this sort of disbelief plastered across his face while Torn nursed the wound now on his hand. 'Where did it even come from?' the disoriented elf wondered as the pair took notice to his consciousness finally. Despite the commotion there was a softness filling the other's features at Jak's apparent wellness now.

"How ya feelin' buddy?" Daxter questioned looking away from Torn and hopping to the bed.

"Fine, what just happened? Why is there a hole in your hand?" Grumpily the elder stood and didn't bother to respond as Tess returned, immediately wrapping up the sizable divot.

"Tell me what happened in the forest?" Torn cut the small talk and dug right in. Everything was back to normal just like that. Great.