Sasha knew he'd been here before.  The long, low hills seemed far too familiar for this to be completely uncharted territory.  The dried, brown grass flowed like waves in the cold, salty air, brushing around Sasha's knees.  The sky overhead was a clear, crystalline blue; along the horizon to his left, a small strip of sea, as blue as the sky overhead, could be seen. 

The landscape was, otherwise, vacant.  There was nothing.  Nothing moved except the sea of grass around him.  There was no sign of life.  There was also absolutely no sound - no whisper from the wind in the grass, no seagulls calling overhead, no relentless rush of sea waves crashing against the shoreline.  It was like being in a sound-proof room where the silence seemed to compress in around one's eardrums. 

Given the entirely vacant surroundings, there was no real reason for the chest-crushing sense of foreboding.  There were no threats, nothing that could do him harm.  But, there was no ignoring the dread building in his gut.  Slowly, Sasha turned on the spot he was standing, his eyes searching the landscape for any sign of threat or even a destination to pursue.  There was nothing but the sea to disrupt the otherwise monotonous landscape.  For the second time, Sasha rotated slowly until he was facing the sea. 

A man stood, no more than two yards away.  The man was tall, lean and wiry and it looked like he hadn't shaved in days.  He was motionless; for all Sasha could tell he could have been standing there for ages.  His eyes were fixed, unwaveringly, on Sasha; his expression void of any emotion.  Sasha had seen the man before, many many times.  Somehow, it now seemed the man was connected to these hills though Sasha knew he existed away from them, too.  As fear grabbed at boy's chest, sparks erupted from the wand Sasha hadn't even realized he'd been holding.  The sudden splash of light startled Sasha out of his frozen state and he turned to run.  Each time Sasha glanced over his shoulder, he found the man following him.  While Sasha was running as fast as he could, the man was moving at a slow, easy strut.  And, yet, Sasha never seemed to gain any ground. 

There seemed to be two other figures moving on the hills.  For some reason, though, this struck Sasha as being rather peculiar and entirely out of place.  More so than the deafening silence and empty hills.  But, he could only spare the anomalies a fleeting thought.  Several more strides and a blast of heat struck the boy in the back and he fell to the ground, immobile and helpless.

Peyton was on the Quidditch pitch, the roaring of the crowd was deafening and the elation he was feeling himself was overwhelming. Everyone was cheering for him. His friends and team mates were patting him on the back, hugging him, congratulating him. He had never been the center of attention before, never done anything that would cause people to notice him like this before. He was a Chaser, not a Seeker. He was part of a well oiled machine, no more important than any of the other cogs. Today however was obviously different.

Peyton turned to greet the next of his team mates to congratulate him and came face to face with Edmund Klint. The older Ravenclaw had never looked so happy or so handsome but something seemed off. They had just finished playing a game against Gryffindor, a game where Edmund had taken a terrible fall and no doubt would have been in pain and covered in dirt. Instead of dirty Quidditch robes he was wearing a very dashing tuxedo in brilliant Ravenclaw blue. The older man threw his arms around Peyton and pressed his smooth strong lips against his, "Wentworth, I love you!"

Peyton blinked several times before smirking like an idiot, "Yeah, love you too." Closing his eyes Peyton leaned in for another kiss but when his lips didn't meet Edmund's again he opened his eyes only to see his half brother standing where the beater had been. Xavier's bloody mangled fist flew towards Peyton's face. The Ravenclaw closed his eyes ready to accept the blow. Sparks flew under her eyes but there was no pain, no impact.

When Peyton opened his eyes again he found himself in the middle of a giant grassy field, the only other thing in sight was the ocean and . . . was that Sasha? What the hell was going on? Peyton looked to the frantic and fleeing Ravenclaw. He opened his mouth to call out to his best friend trying to warn him about the man that was still on his tail. Unfortunately no discernable sound came out. Defeated, Peyton looked around again and suddenly realized he wasn't standing alone. Percy, another one of his room mates, was by his side, "What the bloody hell is going on here?" Thankfully his question to Percy was actually audible.

It had been a difficult night, full of anxiety as per usual in Percy Dervish's dreamland.  As the bookish Ravenclaw slept, he tossed and turned, occasionally kicking, twitching, and murmuring.  Tonight, it was actually a flashback to the animation of the Humpbacked Witch Statue that had chased he and Erin Harper and nearly killed them both.  Yet this time, when the familiar scene replayed through his head...Percy's body seemed to spiral out of control, beyond the bounds of gravity until he collapsed...in his underwear in a classroom full of girls.  And tighty whities no less! 

Girls were everywhere!  Each and every one of them was attractive!  Ayla Collins, Erin Dark, Sophie Flickwick, Arielle Snark, Megan Ruiz, Astrid O' Malley, Fauna Blake, Abigail Reid, and even Eileen Reid was teaching the class!  Percy scrambled to his feet and quickly rushed to hide behind a desk to hide his nearly naked body.  Percy grasped at whatever books, posters, and other large objects he could to obscure his body.  Professor Reid was suddenly seated on the desk that he had chosen to hide behind, wearing an ever increasingly short skirt as she crossed her legs to flaunt her impossibly tall high heels.  Her neckline went to plunging lower and lower as she slid an ice cube along her skin.  Percy's brown eyes bulged as he watched the droplets slide down her chest.

"Mr.Dervish...is something wrong?"

Percy began to stutter and stammer, though no matter how hard he tried...he was mute!  His mouth moved...his tongue curled...air pushed out from his lips, but there was no sound!

"My my my, Mr.Dervish...it looks like someone's violating the school dress code.  Perhaps you need some company?"

Professor Reid's blouse's buttons began to snap off left and right.  Percy's jaw dropped as her skirt shrunk toward bikini bottom territory and her neckline plunged toward her naval.  Abby was now standing behind Percy, rubbing his shoulders sensually as she whispered into his ear.

"You don't really want my sister do you, Percy?  That would so hurt my feelings, you know?"

Percy whimpered, but once again...there were no words.  He tried to explain his boyish crush to no avail.  Suddenly Erin Dark and Ayla Collins tackled him from out of nowhere, kissing all over his face and rubbing their hands all over him.  Percy yelped his soundless yelp as he froze in a near paralytic state.  Just when he felt moisture in both of his ears from the girls' tongues...sparks went flying and Percy erupted into a new scene.  Percy looked down at the strange...completely different landscape all around him.  This place didn't look familiar at all, but...there was Peyton.  And...Percy was wearing clothes!  This had to be an improvement.  But...was that Sasha running in the distance?  Who was chasing him...and why?

"I-I don't know!  Is Sasha in trouble?"

Percy gestured into the distance with trepidation.

In the all encompassing silence, two voices echoed across the landscape.  The two voices had to belong to the figures he'd seen in the distance; there wasn't anyone else around.  And, somehow, Sasha knew no one else was supposed to be around.  It ... just wasn't how this world worked.  The voices were familiar though, without looking up, Sasha was finding it difficult to identify them. 

Looking up wasn't an option.  He was still lying on his back, trying to will his body to push him upright to his feet or, in some way, move.  He couldn't.  Every muscle in his body was rigid and immobile.  All he could do was stare up at the thin, gaunt, smirking face of the wizard that slowly approached him.  He knew what was coming.  He'd been here so many times before.  But that did little to decrease the fear that gripped his chest as the man reached down and grasped Sasha by the arm.  With more strength than one might assume the man had, the stranger pulled Sasha from the ground. 

"Lass mich!"  Sasha cried, shutting his eyes, knowing it was only a matter of moments before the air would be compressed from his lungs and he would find himself trapped, once again.

But, the compression never came.  It took a few moments for Sasha to realize his feet had reconnected with the ground and he was supporting himself entirely independently.  He opened his eyes.  He didn't question why the man's grasp had loosened, he simply seized the moment.  He scrambled back from the man and took off across the hill towards the two voices.  He was a few strides away when he recognized the two.  "Peyton!  Percy!"  He called out as he neared them.  "What are you doing here?"  For a brief moment, Sasha found himself profoundly perplexed by their appearance here.  For some inexplicable reason, they didn't fit. 

But, he quickly shook off that confusion.  That wasn't important.  "We have to go!"  He took hold of Peyton's sleeve and started tugging him as his pursuer sent several bright red flashes in their direction. 

Peyton shook his head, not knowing how to answer Percy's question in return. In a weird way he knew that his recap of the Ravenclaw versus Gryffindor Quidditch match had been a dream. It had to have been otherwise Edmund wouldn't have been in a tuxedo nor would his kiss have been more than just an ecstatic reaction to winning the game and even furthermore he wouldn't have turned into Xavier. However this place, though it had that fuzzy almost distant quality of a dream didn't seem like one, or at least like it was one of his. He had never seen this place before and wasn't sure his imagination could have created something like this. Somehow he felt more alert, more tangible something that seemed very out of place in this world.

All of these concerns however were washed away as Sasha approached. He couldn't remember having ever seen the tall German as scared and frantic as he was now, even in the face of bullies like Callum Knight. When his friend pulled his sleeve he didn't protest and in turn grabbed for Percy to start the trio's retreat.

"Sasha what the bloody hell is going on here?" He ducked as a jet of red flashed past his head nearly missing his ear, "Who is that guy? Why is he trying to kill us?"

It was good, if unexpected to see Sasha's escape.  Though the escape was still in the process.  Percy was the last to stumble into the fleeing trio.  This felt far too much like a flashback to that blasted humpbacked witch statue.  When it had come to life...things had not been pretty.  Was this being triggered by that unpleasant memory?  Where was Erin Harper?  And why wasn't their pursuer...remotely resembling the witch?

But this dream felt different.  He felt strangely lucid and aware of his surroundings.  He could distinguish the blurred details that escaped the mind of the dreamer.  It seemed a twisted reality.  Percy had no idea what to make of this...but he had studied up a bit on magical dream states.  Could this have been one such state?  And if it wasn't Percy's dream...whose was it?

"Are you alright, Sasha?"

Percy mentally scolded himself for asking the obvious.  If Sasha weren't okay, he couldn't have been fleeing very effectively now could he?  Ah well.  Nevertheless...he agreed in escaping this crazy wizard flinging blasts of red toward them.

"Stop it!"

Percy cried out back toward the peculiar pursuer.