(A/N: slight body horror if you squint.)

"That was it?"

Sebastian asked as he walked with Piper, leaving the headmaster's office.

"Yeah." she said with a nod. "Weird, right?"

"Absolutely." Sebastian agreed.

"But he said that he was following Professor Onai's words?" Ominis asked and Piper nodded. "She's a good professor. If it's her words, I trust them. "

"That's it?" Sebastian asked his friend.

"There is some sort of unspeakable danger coming and you just simply trust Professor Onai to know how to get us out of it?"

Ominis shrugged.

"I didn't say all of that."

"Onai is just a teacher. Besides, if I'm placing bets on any of them to get us out of some kind of horribly legendary evil it would be Professor Rownin, the defense against the dark arts teacher. Certainly not the divination teacher. What's she going to do? Read the evil's fortune?"

"Okay, Sebastian." Ominis said with a sigh and faced Piper.

"Have you been given sleeping arrangements for tonight?" He asked, his voice softer and kinder when speaking to her. Piper nodded.

"I was told I would be taking up some kind of guest suite in faculty tower? Hell if I know where that is." Ominis hummed with a smile.

"We can show you." He informed her kindly. "Come along, this way." He added as he made his way through the hallways of the castle which were now dimly lit as night had fallen and the moon hung high in the sky.

"How long did it take you two to learn your way around the castle?" Piper asked as they walked.

"Not long at all." Sebastian said with a grin.

"A few weeks." "Don't lie to her, Sebastian. You got lost last week on your way to potions class." Piper giggled and Sebastian rolled his eyes.

" That's not true! That's just the excuse that I gave Professor Sharp! I really did not want to sit next to Garreth Weasley again after he tried to poison me!"

"He did not try to poison you. You drank his polyjuice potion before it was finished."

"Same difference."

Piper broke out into a laugh so violent and loud it startled both boys. She snorted as she laughed and Sebastian cleared his throat.

"I- I didn't think it was that funny..."

"No it's not- it's not that..."

Piper said in between laughs.

"It's just- I have no idea what the two of you are talking about. I'm so far from home. I have no idea why I'm here and the whole situation- being trapped in an enchanted wizard school in eighteenth century Europe years before woman's suffrage is just so bizarre to me... I can only laugh about it because if I don't laugh I'll cry!" She said with another roll of laughter.

"Lets...." Ominis began as he put a hand on one of her shoulders and continued to guide her down the hallway.

"Lets get you to bed."

⋆｡°✩

Going to bed didn't help. Sleep didn't come easy to Piper and when it did come, it didn't come nicely.

She had been tossing and turning for hours. She thought she might never fall asleep. The moonlight was so bright. She stood and pulled the curtains over the window of the guest suite which shrouded the room into darkness.

"There."

She mumbled to herself and returned to her bed and rolled back over onto her right side.

A small breeze blew across her face. She opened her eyes and screamed. She scrambled out of bed as fast as possible, tripping over herself in the process.

There, in her bed, facing her, was her brother's corpse. His eyes were completely pale and sunken in. his skin was thin and white like paper. His hair had thinned and his mouth was agape, breathing dead breathes upon her skin. But worst of all, he had wounds that bled out onto the white sheets of her bed.

"Tyler..."

She mumbled, completely awestruck of what she saw. There was no way it was real. She reached out a trembling hand to touch it, feel it, make sure it was real, which she hoped it wasn't. Just before her shaking fingers made contact with the cadaver, it spoke.

"PIPER?! PIPER!"

The voice was distant, like it was coming through the overhead speaker at Walmart during the busiest shopping hour, or like the fuzzy AM radio stations compared to the FM ones most people listen to now, considering people still listen to the radio at all.

But even still, she could make out who it belonged to and it wasn't her brother. Hailey.

"PIPER WHERE ARE YOU?!"

She cried out again.

"Hailey?"

Piper muttered and recoiled her hand. The voice vanished as soon as she spoke and Tyler's body sat straight up in her bed. His eyes began to glow a sickly green, a green that matched the glow of the cracks she had been falling through. He lurched forward and grabbed her hand, Piper yelped and flinched from the cold feeling of his dead skin on hers. He looked right into her eyes, his glowing that emerald color, bore into hers.

"You think you know, who you are... what's to come."

It wasn't his voice but it wasn't Haley's either. It was like the mix of a thousand voices in one. It boomed around her and demanded fear. Piper's body shook with terror.

"You haven't even begun."

And he let her go. Piper felt herself fall backwards, falling...

falling..

F

a

l

l

i

n

g ... .

She shot straight up in her bed.

She was drenched in sweat. It was a dream. It was all a horrible dream.

She got up out of bed. Her curtains were still open and moonlight shined into her room, this time she did not close the curtains. She welcomed the light. Her body glistened with sweat in the moonlight.

Thankfully the guest suite had a bathroom for her, and her alone. She took a shower and looked for something else to wear other than her sweat soaked clothes.

The clothes the school had provided... well.. They were period accurate and not something a girl from 2022 would find herself wearing on the regular day to day basis.

She pushed through the clothes and looked for something that was a little less... ruffle-y. She hated ruffles and lace and half of these clothes were ruffles and lace.

There were also cloaks, like the ones Sebastian and Ominis wore... she would not be wearing that either. She wasn't a witch.

She settled on a blousy top, a corset that went around her waist, and a pair of pants (skirts were so not her thing). With that she looked back at her room one last time, her bed. It was empty. Her brother's body was not there, and there was no blood staining it.

She had dreamt it all. It was just a dream. Still, she didn't like the idea of staying in this room alone for the rest of the night. She headed towards the door of her room and left.