"Nightmares"

**"Nightmares"** is the sixth episode of KOllOK. It premiered on March 21st, 2022.

## Synopsis

The Ascended battle against despair while looking for AJ. Is the person they run into an ally?

## Plot

### **Sleep**

Clarity wakes up not in the farmhouse she fell asleep in, but an unknown location. She wonders if she’s died. She calls out but no one responds and in her fear she keeps whispering to herself “You’re not just a Clarity”.

She realizes she can’t feel Phobos and that scares her more. The hole in her chest is gone and she feels nothing.

Suddenly she hears someone calling for help and sees Sid, C-Dubs and Jude. The three reunite with Clarity. Jude and Clarity assume they are dreaming, but Clarity has never dreamed. The four of them remember going to bed in Charise’s house but are unaware how they ended up wherever they are. Jude also realizes that his injuries from the past days are gone as if they never happened. Clarity asks C-Dubs where Davina is, C-Dubs has no idea and none of them know where Ro or AJ are.

Clarity then feels a pull and tells the group they have to go in the direction of it.

### Succumb

After walking for an unknown amount of time, the group starts to feel something dark and cold  inside of them. Clarity says they shouldn’t be here and Jude agrees. Doubt begins to creep into everyone in the group. Clarity says she has the power to save them but she’s scared and that everyone hates her. She says she’s not a good person because she’s practically not a person. C-Dubs reassures Clarity that she is not a bad person and that she(C-Dubs) also does bad things. Jude thinks that them being in this place is what they get for all the people they’ve killed and the justifications they tried to make.

C-Dubs says she’s done terrible things. Clarity asks what she’s done and C-Dubs tells her that as the leader, she had to make decisions. She then feels this urge take over her as she tells the story of how she betrayed Sid: After the hospital, C-Dubs was so mad all those people died for nothing because of Sid’s false intel. C-dubs took her anger out on Sid. Sid and C-Dubs start to spiral into bouts of self blame as a shadow looms over them. Sid says that she deserves to feel pain, that she should be punished and this feeling overwhelms her and C-Dubs as the shadow takes over.

### Shock

A voice calls out to the group as a man steps out from the darkness. The man recognizes Clarity but Clarity does not recognize the man. The man says that he told Clarity’s story and that it wasn’t his intention to put her in this place. Clarity says that she doesn’t have a story, that she is just Clarity. The man asks her which Clarity she is. When Clarity tells him that she is Clarity Seven, the man starts to laugh. The man says that “they told your story without me” and that time works differently in this place. The man thinks that it is 2019, or that 2019 was the year he sent Tibby to this place. He says that Clarity shouldn’t be here, that she was never supposed to come to a place like this. This place is the Prison of Doubt and that it brings out the doubt in people. Clarity asks where Tibby is and the man says that Tibby is no longer here because the man thought he finished that story. This starts to bring doubt into Sid and C-Dubs as they question if they are even real. Clarity demands that the man sends them back, he says he can’t. Clarity tries to use her powers on the man, but it doesn’t work. The man says that when he told the story, he made sure someone couldn’t use their powers here. The man says that they are trapped in the Prison of Doubt, a limbo of sorts.

The man says that when he was telling the story, he was more like a vessel that was making stuff up in the moment. But now that someone else is telling the story, he can’t make up a way for them to get out of the Prison. The Prison is some sort of staging area, and “the doctor” is going to be cutting away at their most vulnerable parts. Clarity tries to take them out of the Prison but it doesn’t work.

The man says that lying is a valuable tool that he’s been using to keep himself from seeing the doctor, that the Prison is better than whatever it is they have been walking towards. The man tells a lie: He is a storyteller. But when he says the truth, that he is a fraud, he starts to see “him” in the corner of his eye. The storyteller explains that someone must have pulled Clarity and the others to this place and mentions that when Tibby was pulled here, his friends should have been pulled with him but “Mickey” kept them out. The storyteller asks if there was anyone with them that has been “a real baby bitch lately.” Clarity immediately says Jude but C-Dubs says AJ. The man asks if AJ is from Kollok, Clarity tells him she doesn’t know.

Sid starts to get angry, saying that AJ put them here, that he doesn’t care about them. The storyteller says that AJ’s feelings of doubt pulled the gang into The Prison with him, that he didn’t do it on purpose and that AJ is in the Heart. The Heart is where The Prison feeds. Clarity asks if the storyteller can take them there, but the man says that he never got to that part of the story. Clarity says that they’re going to The Heart and the storyteller tells them that the closer they get, the harder The Doctor is going to work on them and once they’re in The Heart, there is nothing. Clarity says again that The Heart is where they are going to go and the storyteller explains that where they are now is the last place their mind can be tethered and going to The Heart will severe that. The storyteller says that he can’t go with them to The Heart and traveling in groups amplifies the doubt. The storyteller says that “he” has made what is up ahead his home. When asked who “he” is, the storyteller answers: “My biggest mistake.” before leaving the group as the gang heads towards The Heart.

### Swell

The group reaches The Heart, a literal floating heart in the sky. The doubt becomes ever stronger and Jude says he feels like someone is bringing his energy down.

Suddenly a young man with a bandage around his head appears, startling the group. He asks if he knows Clarity and Clarity is surprised that the man is real. The young man doesn’t think the group is real. Clarity says he knows the man. The man says his name is Mallory Jankins. He’s surprised the group doesn’t know that because everything here knows his name.

Jude asks Mallory when he is from, Mallory says 1991(In the background a male and female lurk in the shadows). Mallory calls Clarity Ben, this angers her. Clarity says that she and Mallory are acquaintances. Mallory explains that he entered a portal to Clarity’s time and took Clarity back to his time and that he only knew her for a week.

Mallory says he doesn’t know how long he’s been here but that his best friends, Bizzaro Billy and Bizzaro Laura, are with him(The shadows that lurk). Bizzaro Billy and Bizzaro Laura insult Mallory. Clarity asks where Tibby is and says that Tibby is messing with her power. Mallory says that Tibby got out of The Prison and that's the whole reason Mallory is in The Prison.

Mallory tries to remember what happened, but he’s been in The Prison too long to remember exactly what happens. He remembers there was a plan to rescue Tibby: to use Mickey to locate him, Em to open a path and Tibby to keep them all alive once he was located. Laura said that to rescue Tibby, someone had to replace him. Mallory explains to the group that everyone except him has powers and they were going to use Tibby to later rescue whoever swapped with him. Mallory was the swap.

Jude questions why he can hear Bizzaro Laura and Billy in his head, Mallory says that they are his doubts.  Jude tells Mallory that they were warned to stay away from him since his doubts are powerful. Mallory says that he tried walking towards The Heart but The Heart doesn’t want him. Clarity asks if Mallory is here to condemn her and is asked again how she knows Mallory. Mallory explains that Clarity sent one of his friends away somewhere and killed a man. The group is not surprised by this. Clarity says that she killed the man because she is just Clarity and that is all she is good for and that Mallory came to tell the group how horrible she is. Mallory tells them that he was always meant to swap out Tibby, that it was his power.

Jude asks if Mallory can help them get inside The Heart. Mallory says every time he tries he’s met with resistance. Jude then wonders if they’ll take him since he has plenty of doubt. He tells the group that he was never good enough to be a leader, but he’s good enough to doubt himself and can help the Ascended.

### Swim

As they stand in the valley of The Heart, the group feels this pressure encompassing them. Bizzaro Laura and Bizzaro Billy continue to insult Mallory but the group reassures him of the insults. This then gives C-Dubs the idea to continue to compliment the group as it may diminish the voices and doubt. Mallory feels the compliments working and realizes they are stronger together. “Together we can break the Black Rock.”

In the midst of all the compliments, The Prison hones in on Mallory, seeing him as the weakest link and tries to take him but Mallory proves himself capable, believing that he saved Tibby. Mallory’s insecurities go away as the sky clears and a crack begins to form in The Prison. As the crack forms, Clarity sees the hole begin to form again in her chest. Clarity concentrates and opens a portal, allowing the group a way out of The Prison.

### Sink

Aj wakes up in an unknown location. His thoughts wonder where everyone is and if he’s dead while repeating the phrase “I’m a fraud” before finally saying that he deserves this.

## Cast

### Main Cast

#### Ascended

* Danielle Radford as C-Dubbs

* Ethan Nestor as AJ Greer

* YellowSpoonGirl as Sydney Muldoon

* Xu Mason as Rosemary Liang

#### Additional

* Elyse Willems as Clarity Seven

* Matt Sohinki as Mallory Jenkins

* Zac Lim Eubank as The Driver