Synopsis
Moon Knight (Marc Spector) returned from the dead in the Blood Hunt event and rejoined his Midnight Mission troop.
Colleen Wing gained the Mind Stone in the Incredible Hulk Annual to keep it from Thanos.
Now MK sees a human-headed pigeon getting injured in the New York traffic. He relates it to the Ancient Egyptian belief in the Ba, a part of the soul that could leave the body during sleep. He rescues it and then follows it to a hospital room where the Bas of other patients are flying around, all except 1 (costumed) patient who doesn't have a Ba. The nurse tells him that the woman collapsed on a bridge into Manhattan and won't wake up. MK tells her to leave the room and lock the door. He recognises the patient as Colleen Wing and the jewel on her chest as the Mind Stone, and asks if she sent the Bas to get his help.
A voiceover takes us inside CW's mind where she's experiencing a dream that is not her own. She's in front of a blackboard covered in equations facing desks full of laptops and open books but no students. And we see that the voice is that of Nightmare who's pursuing her from dream to dream. She runs out into another dream of a road full of moving cars with no drivers. NM follows. Colleen tries to escape again but all doors are bricked up and the villain has her trapped. But then a doorway with the look of an Egyptian temple appears with Moon Knight's crescent symbol on it. She runs through it ...
... into the hospital ward where MK lies asleep on the floor and the 'pigeons' are still flying around. She wakes him and he tells her that the 'pigeons' are the spirits of the other dreaming patients in the room who have been ejected from their bodies. Colleen realises that the Mind Stone had let her travel through their dreams to escape her pursuer, but she hadn't known what she was doing to them. She explains without any details that the Mind Stone very recently chose her as its bearer (in the wilds of Oregon). But when she returned home to NY the barrage of thoughts in the city overwhelmed her and she passed out and Nightmare started chasing her through the dreamscape. She thinks she's safe now that she's awake but Marc Spector points to her body still asleep in the hospital bed. He tells her she's now in *his* dream.
He opens a curtain to reveal that they are on the Moon in his dream and NM is outside. The villain explains that he wants the Mind Stone so he can keep all humanity in an unending nightmare of his making. MK responds that Colleen is dreaming and therefore a night-traveller which puts her under his protection (these are the rules of the Midnight Mission). NM contests his power in dreams. MK points out that *his* Ba wasn't ejected like the others. And he puts it down to his multiple personalities that have endured many mental attacks over the years. NM finds himself under attack by cabbie Jake Lockley and millionaire Steven Grant who eject *him* from the dream.
Marc suggests that their foe will enter the real world to take the Stone from her body. Colleen figures she'd better wake up, but doesn't know how to fight him. Marc suggests using the Mind Stone but she complains that she can't stop it from causing even more chaos. He suggests that chaos can be good, and ejects *her* from his dream.
In the real ward Moon Knight is still asleep in the floor and NM is hovering over Colleen about to take the Mind Stone. But her hand jerks up to grab his wrist. He backs away as she starts to get up. And he's attacked by all the dream pigeons (who of course bite rather than peck). She draws her (enhanced in the Hulk Annual) katana from its sheath and slices him in 2.
The villain vanishes. Moon Knight wakes up. The pigeon Bas re-enter the dreamers (through their mouths). Colleen tells Marc she's had a lifetime of discipled Samurai training, maybe it's time to embrace chaos as well, as he said. He leaves her with a warning to be careful. And we see the villain Star (with the Reality Stone) watching her.
Story 2:- The Death Stone Saga chapter 7
Script Derek Landy. Artist Valentina Pinti. Colours Mattia Iacono. Letters Travis Lanham. Editor Nick Lowe.
In a different ward (and possibly a different hospital) is a dying patient. A patch of darkness materialises into Phil Coulson (in a complete suit (with a skull lapel badge) instead of the grave-tatters he's been in for previous chapters) who doesn't know where he is or how he got here, or how he knows that the patient's name is David. David guesses that he's Death, although he was expecting a woman or a skeleton. His soul rises from his body saying he's ready to go to meet his dead wife Ann-Marie. Phil has to confess he doesn't really know what he's doing. And then he hears a voice calling him ...
... back to a room with injured Nick Fury Jr. and unconscious Nighthawk, who he blasted with 'death hands' in the previous chapter. He's still attacking the fallen villain and Nick has to tell him to stop or he'll kill him. Phil still looks like Death and he tells his friend that he's everywhere at once and he doesn't know how to cope with it. Phil tells him to pull himself together and they leave before NH wakes up.