Colin McCoire wrote: 9 Feb 2025, 01:17

Ava wasn't helping! She was all on about --- Lucian? What did he have to do with anything? He wasn't even here! But Colin couldn't be bothered with that! The shadow creatures kept shifting shape as the blended in and out of the shadows! They'd set the curtains on fire as they died from Colin's spell casting. Some looked like wraiths, others hideous creatures, and still others like misshapen wolves! All were dark, red eyed, shades of black and grey.

Colin turned towards the far end of the room. The shadows were dragging people away! Colin's eyes widened in horror! He leapt to action! "LIAM!!! NOOOO!" Colin screamed! He clearly saw his twin's white hair being dragged away. And there were others! "Lorcan! Ci! AOIFE!!! LET THEM GO!!! LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!"

Colin tore across the dorm, scattering pillows and cushions and any kids unlucky enough to get in his way! His feet pounded across the floor, forgetting everything about Ava and Claire and Aamon. The ones he most feared for were in peril! Liam was about to disappear into the very stone of the castle walls! If only he could get there in time! He had to save them!

Somewhere behind him, someone cast a spell. Finally! Someone was trying to help him save Liam! "Anethema Daphnis!" It was Prat's voice. Some part of Colin's brain registered that he was a duellist. He could use the help! Colin took another step --- and then ---

"Urk!"

Colin stopped in his tracks! He couldn't move his feet! Blackgreen slime began climbing up his feet and legs, fixing him to the floor! Colin's eyes widened! What had that idiot done!? He cast a quick glance back towards where he thought Prat had been and he caught sight of Ava tackling him! His wand went clattering! Colin turned back towards the stone wall at the far end of the dorm. All the shadow creatures were now gone! The last of their sinewy tendrils faded into the seams of the stone work.

Laim was gone!

Lorcan was gone!

Ciarán was gone!

Their voices faded into the walls.

Only little Aoife remained. Her beautiful eyes stared at Colin, pleading. A last tendril of the darkness reached out, its long wavering fingers seemingly caressing his little sister's face. Colin cried out in despair. He had to do something! He looked down. The black crud crept up his legs. He could only think of one thing! He jabbed his wand between his legs with a slight semicircular motion and shouted: "REPARIFARGE!"

Hoping beyond hope that Prat's ill conceived transfiguration would release him quickly, Colin looked back up towards his sister.

Aoife.

Her body was gone. Taken into the walls. Her arms were outstretched. She cried out to Colin. She begged him to help free her! He could do nothing more than look into her eyes. Until even her face was taken by the darkness. And at the very last, dark whisps reached out, taking her hands with mock tenderness.

And then she was gone. They were all gone.

Colin moaned softly.

"Aoife..."

Action: Colin casts the untransfiguration spell on himself. But he's too late to save his brothers and sisters...

@Ava Winchect | @Matthew Campbell || Everyone else: please feel free to notice Greebo, Colin's black cat. He's friendly, and he likes treats! He's used to chaos, but probably won't appreciate Colin's wild outburst!

***Unless you're named Ulysses, I will hunt you down if you steal my code or images. You do not have permission to use.***

Aamon swallowed hard, forcing down the burning sensation clawing its way up his throat. The pre-teen's stomach twisted violently, a roiling storm that he was desperately trying to suppress. Not here. Not in front of everyone he silently begged. He had tried to hard to appear 'normal', like his peers. He struggled to fit in and to feel normal, always looking from the perimeter and briefly he felt like he was 'winning.' Like he was like the rest of the guys. The problems from earlier in the year seemed temporarily like a distant memory.

It was all over over.

Aamon could already hear what would follow him for the rest of his time in Hogwarts. The laughter, the mocking grins, the way the boys would nudge each other and say 'remember when Athanatos couldn’t hold his drink?' For years to come. The girls would wrinkle their noses, disgusted. 'Gross,' they’d whisper. 'Pathetic.'

He tried to suppress it but his biology betrayed him anyway.

Aamon clenched his fists, eyes darting wildly around the room for a means of egress. The young snake held his breath, the awful pressure mounting until it was unbearable. The moment the bile surged past the point of no return, he bolted. He could feel it fill his mouth, he squeezed his lips together stubbornly.

He didn’t care where he was going, didn’t care about the confused glances or the chaos he left behind—he had to get out. His vision of the room and his escape blurred as Aamon shoved past the others, staggering into the hallway, the cool air hitting his face like a slap. The poor cat he startled (if one was in his path), as he stumbled over the unfortunate, potentially angry feline. Nothing could stop the fleeing Athanatos, not even the cat that beat up Pratt.

The burn was unrelenting. A horrid, putrid torrent of gastric juice and the vile contents of Matthew's shared flask would escape the Slytherin. It escaped his nose and his mouth at the same time. Once it had breeched his sinus' his mouth opened instinctively.

Aamon had barely made it past the door before doubling over, wracked with violent heaves. The terrible, demonic sound of vomiting. The scent of whatever Aamon had drank on this horrid evening. The taste of bile and betrayal burned his throat, his stomach emptying itself with an unforgiving brutality that left him trembling. The lightweight's knees quivered as Aamon braced himself against the wall. Ragged gasps escaped his mouth between streams of regret. What had he done to himself.

And then, through the haze of his misery, he heard it.

"Someone must have slipped something in the vials over the last month, I swear it wasn't me."

Aamon’s blood ran cold.

Or rather what did he let Matthew do!

Matthew’s voice, so casual, so innocent. A feigned obliviousness that made Aamon’s gut churn with something far worse than nausea.

His head snapped up, barely comprehending anything beyond those words. He had already been tricked into drinking something he had no business drinking. The heat, the dizziness, the sheer humiliation of losing control—it had been bad enough. But this? This was a lie.

Barely an hour ago Matthew had assured him that the cider wasn’t tampered with. That it was fine. That he wasn’t trying to poison him. Aamon explained the caution his family demanded, that it was nothing again Matt but rather it was something he did regardless of the source. Guilt. The wand to extend an olive branch. To prove he was not prejudging the muggleborn. A token of good faith.

He regret that choice now.

Funny that despite all these assurances they were here. Someone else 'happened upon' Matt's secret stash of adult cider that was likely hidden, without Matthew's notice and tampered with them. Convenient, wasn’t it? That inexplicably someone else must have done it? That the blame conveniently shifted away from the one who had handed him the flask in the first place?

Aamon’s grip on the wall tightened. His head swam, but it wasn’t just the cider anymore. It was the sickening, gut-wrenching realization that Matthew had lied to him and he had fallen for it. His hand balled into a fist. He was in no state to confront Matthew now. His plantlegs splashed with the same vile regret. He wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth. Eww...

He felt hollow, as if he had vomited his intestines and potentially something vital onto the floor.

Aamon staggered away, a puddle of shame just outside the dormitory door, Aamon would shuffle away towards his room. He needed a shower, a change of clothes and a cold drink. He tracked a trail of vomit down the hall. He was not going to clean it up, that was going to be Matt's problem he silently declared his vengeance. His roommate was gone. Weird, he was not at the S.N.O.G. event either. When was the last time he had seen him? He briefly wondered but was not in a state to think about it any deeper.

He staggered off to the showered fully clothed.

Saturday
February 1st, 2025
Afternoon

Outfit: (but darker green!)

Reducio

Claire had had alcohol before, of course, but only a sip or two of wine. This.... was different. It was Colin's alcohol, and she didn't know what he'd put in it. In fact, she didn't know what magical families did to their alcohol under normal circumstances, let alone someone as peculiar as Colin. Was it normal for alcohol to do magical things to the senses?

She'd seen her aunt Summer coming home drunk before, and it always ranged from mildly entertaining as she laughed at everything that existed around her to concerning as she staggered into the door, falling asleep on the floor. But somehow, what she was seeing now didn't quite match up with what she'd thought it was like.

The ground was gone. She could still feel it, of course, but the floor wasn't quite the floor. There was a luminescence in its place, a cloud-like swirling of colors of every hue. Colors broke off from the prismatic formation, rising into the air like a lava lamp. It was mesmerizing, the way the colors clung to the people in the room. She could see and almost feel the pink that was bound to her. She'd never paid much heed to talk of 'souls,' but if they did exist, then this had to be what they looked like.

Colin's own soul was as bright as a beacon, shimmering between green and a peculiar shade of red, and, for some reason, Claire could see her own soul reaching out toward is. A small hand of pink extended from her own body and, in response, her actual hand joined it in reaching toward Colin. Her cheeks were burning, and her eyes were on him like orange on pumpkin.

Claire gasped and turned to face @Aamon Athanatos as he spoke to her, and she could feel the pink hand of her soul retract back to her form. She stared at the royal purple energy enveloping the boy as he spoke to her.

"Should I try again?” he asked.

"Try again?" Claire asked, having forgotten all about the failed kiss just moments ago. But the sight of the pink that swallowed her whole bubbling around her reminded her of Colin, of the connection she'd almost had with him just now - even if he hadn't known about it - and, of course, that train of thought led her back to kissing.

What kind of spell was this? Would she learn it one day, when she was older? What possible kind of magic was capable of making souls tangible?

She stood, forgetting all about the game, and nodded.

"Yes. Let's try again," she said softly, but before she could try to lean in and kiss Aamon, all sense of peace, security, and calm was shattered in an instant.

Manic laughter and heavy breathing possessed @Ava Winchect, and the previously soft aquamarine color enveloping her darkened until it became a gray, almost black, but that was the last chance Claire had to truly admire the colors in the room.

All colors blended and merged as the room exploded into action.

Colin began shouting and running about, casting this spell and that. Furniture and cushions flew everywhere, and jets of flame escaped his wand along with severing charms that seemed prepped to kill.

Prat tried to stop Colin with a well-timed Take-Root spell, but Ava collided with Prat and began dragging him desperately. What was even going on, at this point?

She barely caught Aamon leaving the room, after overhearing @Matthew Campbell's words. Claire hadn't quite made them out in the chaos of what she was seeing.

She couldn't even see people anymore. At this point, her vision was filled with floods of color swirling in and overtaking her senses, leaving her blind from overstimulation of her sight, but she could still smell, and the smell of smoke alerted her to the fires in the edges of the dorm.

She tried to remember the spell to extinguish the flames, but she couldn't quite remember it. The incantation escaped her mind, possibly because of the cider she'd been drinking. Claire ran to the fire at the curtains and, without thinking, splashed the liquid in the flask onto it, forgetting it was alcoholic.

The fire intensified and Claire stumbled backward, onto her butt, her eyes wide as she was lost in a sea of colors and the heat of the flame felt far too close for comfort.

ACTION: trying to kiss Aamon, but then all heck breaks loose, interrupting it! Claire looks around, overwhelmed by the hallucinatory colors, and, in a panic, splashes the fire on the curtain with Colin's alcoholic cider, trying to put the flame out with booze!

Zeno. "Nice." The name sounded familiar, but Astra couldn't tell from where. His one word answers were not terse, though Astra had a sneaking suspicion he was not pleased to be engaging in small talk. And really, neither would she be, but both she and he were at the mercy of her curiosity.

He was a duellist. Didn't necessarily help her to know his name, but it at least confirmed that he was likely either Archer or Matthew, since he definitely wasn't Hanako or Pyxis or Prat. Given the other nameless one had called him Arch, she took a gander it was the former. She watched as the game moved on, Greebo and Hermes and Zeno fraternizing like the little felons at least two of them were.

His apology caught her off guard. Astra looked over at him. "Oh, no, it's quite alright. I'm sorry for your loss." That explained his melancholy. Astra was not familiar yet with the sort of loss he described, though many in her family were. Her mother, for instance, lost her own mother as a teenager, and her uncle's mother had died young for wizarding world standards. "If it helps, my conversation skills are mediocre on the best of days." A slight laugh.

Her response to his hopeful promise to try died on her tongue as she heard an angry growl. She knew this one well, it was Hermes. She caught sight of he and Greebo prowling, ears flat and tails bushed. She shared Archer's glance as Zeno joined the hunting party.

And then all hell broke loose. Archer seemed to power off like Nico's computer after he pressed and held the power button. She'd never seen something like that. The familiar feeling of a block in her airway became obvious, painful, as she leaned in a little. "Hey, hey, are you-"

"SNAPS!" Her head snapped up.

"Colin?" Spells. Spells everywhere. Spells at everything and nothing all at the same time. Liam, that was his brother. Shadow creatures? Astra covered her head, staying very still to not get caught in the crossfire till fire ceased. The snakelet rushed to her teammate, standing, or rather slumping, in the middle of the room, and shook him by the shoulders. His distress was obvious, but Liam wasn't here, Liam was a Ravenclaw. Colin was seeing things that weren't there. "Colin, your siblings aren't here, and there's no shadow creatures. Snap out of it, Colin," she pleaded, he needed to calm down- there was a little girl in ducky pajamas by the curtains. The curtains were on fire. Ducky girl was just staring. "Bloody- Extinguo!" Astra rushed over, hooking her arms underneath the younger girl's and dragging her to somewhere safer than the smoldering curtain. She waited a moment to ensure ducky girl was breathing and mostly alright before angry hissing reached her ears and her attention was torn back to the cats. Right. Get Hermes, get Zeno, get back to Archer, get out. Find calming draught? Go get Professor Wickham-Deakin? No, no, no. Mission first. Then figure it out. Things would work better that way- should work better that way.

Alright. Cats. Yes. Astra approached them, attempting to see what in the world they were growling at as a collective, and attempting to figure out how best to execute the extraction of the definitely violent thrasher mau and the most likely violent thrasher tabby at the same time. Wand still held ready, of course.

Matt's answer to Mellani's question was enough to scare her. She had drunk the cider, and it probably would not take much time for it to affect her. Maybe she should just make the most of her sanity while she can. First things first, she was going to get answers from Matt. She felt bad from him, and his expressions and words made it clear that he was really scared too, but Mellani still did not believe that he hadn't been involved in the cider being tampered with.

"What do you mean someone might have slipped something in the vials? Did you just keep them out in the open on display for people to do whatever they wished to do with it? Also, if you kept them locked or hidden, I'm sure you would realize they had been tampered with or actually know who had access to them, wouldn't you?" His next statement about it not exactly being poison was enough to anger Mellani, though she still kept her calm while speaking. "Yeah, because hallucinogens are definitely much better than poison, and they're totally not making people go mad."

That was when she noticed Ava dragging Prat, who had cleverly casted the Take Root spell on Colin and paused whatever was happening for a while, and saying something about someone not being dead. It only served to bring back memories of the time Mellani thought that Olive's death was merely an evil joke, but she pushed down her feelings. She did not have time for the past.

She quickly rushed to Ava and tried to make her leave Prat. "Ava, no one's dead, it's all a halucination", she said calmly, really hoping she could get through to Ava, and she wouldn't just be another victim of the dragging.

Colin seemed to have set the curtains on fire and a girl in ducky pajamas was throwing alcohol at the fire. Did the hallucinations really make them lose their mind that bad? Thankfully, another girl was quick enough to extinguish the fire.

Mell also heard Matt ask himself what he had done, which might mean that he was actually sorry for whatever was going on and genuinely did not know what was going on, but Mell wasn't in a good mood today, and she was definitely not going to fall for that explanation this easily. Three years at Hogwarts had taught her nothing but to never trust someone, no matter how real their acting felt.

Slowly though, Matt actually had a smile on his face, and he looked lost. "Seriously Matt, you drank your own poison?", she asked. The smile suggested that maybe some of these hallucinations were actually good and didn't make the person go mad, but that wasn't really a calming thought. Not when most of the hallucinations were making people go mad.

Remedy, a fellow quidditch player soon asked if they should get help. If they did get help, they would all get into huge trouble, especially because of the alcohol, but how would they deal with this if they didn't? "Maybe we should... If there's no other way to get out of this" Mellani really hoped that there was another way, and she just wasn't smart enough to figure it out. She wondered how much more time she had before she went mad like the rest of the dorm.

WIS: 8 ACC: 12 STA: 6 EVA: 8 ARC: 6 STR: 9
Fearless | Muggle Condition

Date: 2025.02.01 | Note: Thoughts, Speech |

What...

Nabi's eyes were still wide in confusion, the S.N.O.G. event had spiraled out of control. She had been kissed...

Was that fire?

She had forgotten of the three older boys who had been conspiring to cause a fire. The sight had not fully registered in her mind and her control was slipping. She wanted to leave. As if in a daze, she looked around for a familiar face.

Anyone.

Her emotions were stirring, she had never felt this way. It was new, it was different.

It was bad.

Nabi's heart was still racing.

She watched a blurred image of Aamon appear to be sick. Did she cause that? Before she could say anything, she watched him leave. The lump in her throat was getting harder to suppress, the chaos around her tuned out into a soft whistle. The threat of a small tear in her eye began to emerge.

She had to leave.

Someone was yelling, it was distorted. All she heard was her voice inside her head, Get out, now. Do not be foolish. Without a word she began to walk to the door, wanting to be in her dormitory.

Alone.

Stepping into the hallway, a small tear would escape from her and be quickly wiped away. The kiss had made her heart flutter and her mask crack simultaneously; that was dangerous.

AEIOUSA
As the spell's energy dissipated and Colin's body merged with the ground in the form of a root , Prat's own world tilted on its axis.

Before he could even revel in the momentary victory or understand what was happening, a sudden force yanked him back to reality, or rather, to the cold, hard floor. He looked up, blinking rapidly to clear the stars from his vision, only to find himself staring into Ava, who now had blood-red eyes and hair, as if glossed over by some unseen torment.

Her grip on his shirt was like the jaws of a steel trap. The room was spinning around him as she dragged him away.

"Woah, slow down!" Prat slurred, his voice thick with the lingering effects of the drink he'd consumed earlier. "At least dinner first," he managed to jest, a feeble attempt to get out of the situation, hoping ava's weird self would laugh and ditch him.

But Ava was beyond reason, beyond the quips and banter, as she continued to pull him with a strength that defied her frame.

With a grunt, Prat managed to land a firm smack on Ava's wrist, forcing her to loosen her grip enough for him to be able to scramble to his own two feet. He knew he had to act quickly, he was not gonna have a burnt dorm right after a flooded one

He flicked his wand at Colin, casting a precise Blindfold Charm on the older boy, an attempt to shield the Slytherin Dorms from further chaos.

The burning pillow was next, an Extinguo!, to extinguish the flames before they could spread further.

Once all this was wrapped up, with a quick inhale and a silent prayer to the gods of luck, Prat mustered his own strength and threw a solid punch at Colin. The world seemed to slow as he watched his fist approach Colin's head.

He hoped with every fiber of his being that it would be enough to knock the other boy out and halt his dazed rampage.

The consequences of his actions weighed heavily on Prat's mind. He knew Colin would demand answers, possibly retribution, once he awoke from this forced slumber.

Ava gripped Lucian tightly, doing her best to drag him across a bloodstained floor. All evidence to what she had done--there would be no way to cover this up, to hide it. The floor told the story her mind refused to believe, a bloody history.

And even worse, his lips were forming some long lost words, probably cursing her name for her crimes. And she couldn’t help but admit that she deserved it, and that whatever he was trying to say was probably true. Her grip didn’t loosen until he struck her with a blow, managing to break loose from her grip.

But now that wasn’t Lucian, that was her shadowed self punching…Colin! Was she trying to kill Colin? What was she doing? She could see the blow land, and didn’t hear the protests from Mell at her side, just the irrational side of her urging Ava to defend Colin.


“Get away from him! You’ve done enough damage!” She told shadow self (aka Prat), stumbling to her feet and rushing towards herself, fumbling to grab her wand from her pocket.

What could she do to stop this? “Don’t kill him! I forgave both of them! We’re friends now!” It was the ramblings of a madwoman, thoughtless additions to her already hopeless speech. “Was Lucian not enough? Look what happened the first time, it’s not worth it! Please.”

She stumbled to a stop in front of them, eyes narrowed against the more evil, daring version of herself. Whatever intentions she had arrived with were long gone, replaced with the selfish desire to erase the past. A shiver racked down her spine as she swayed on her feet, room shifting from shades of black to crimson.

TLDR: feeling guilty and yelling
Action: nada

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MODERATION

With impressively quick thinking given his sate @Colin McCoire managed to untransfigure himself to freedom dark biled roots untangling themselves from his skin. Misfortune would befall him still though as the process was unforgiving and took time to release him preventing him from saving his sister Aoife in time. Staring blankly at the wall his entire world began to spin at the gravity of his loss but n more suddenly was a blindfold conjured over his head by captain @Prat Pass followed further with a solid punch bringing him to the ground. Prat may have successfully subdued the boy but the next thing he knew he was being harassed once more by @Ava Winchect who was shouting wildly lost in the mist of her delusions. Recovering from the surprise blow to the face Colin groggily picked himself up to his knees removing the blindfold to reveal that the shadows were gone. A reassuring voice piercing through the chaos Colin heard Snaps call upon him, "Colin, your siblings aren't here, and there's no shadow creatures. Snap out of it, Colin!" With all the exertion he had just put his body through paired with the emotional and physical distress rather abruptly forced the boy into clarity. Logic began to prevail as he realised there was no way his siblings could have been here, they weren't even in attendance mere moments before. The whole thing had been some kind of sick, twisted aberration of his subconscious fears.

As Prat stood brawling with Ava he managed to grab her arms stopping her from thrashing upon him while witnessing the tear filled crimson eyes void of any clarity suddenly begin to grow lighter more akin to their natural colour. The girl started to hear the calming words of Mellani from moments before break through the delusions and suddenly found herself in the grip of the younger student she had attacked. Gone was the visage of herself and frantic eyes desperately seeking the floor she would find no trace of Lucian at all. Much like Colin her brain began to process the fact that he had never been here in the first place, that all of this was a haunting from her past. What the hell had just happened? It was possible that Prat's hallucinations themselves had simply stopped with time but the truth was that his Grandfather had appeared to tell him of the disappointment and shame he brought and he had disproved it. While the others had succumb to their demons he had relinquished them. Whether this reality would come to the young boy was up to him but he had proven himself worthy on this night and prevented tragedy in spite of his families disregard. A true hero.

As the chaos overtook the room @Remedy Norden used her raid athleticism to protect @Atlas Anderson from the crazed firing of Colin's spells but soon after found herself overcome with guilt for she had accidentally assisted in the spiking of the boy. Listening to @Mellani Miller the only other seemingly functioning student they pondered over what to do. They would get in trouble if it came to light they were drinking but if the bottles were spiked with something dangerous an even worse fate could befall them. Lost in anxiety over what the best course was they began to notice that Astra's words had stopped Colin who was now showing a level of clarity from the ground. Mellani's own interjection was next, her words seemingly began to sink into Ava's mind as she searched the floor and refocused to reality. It seemed that the visions while potent didn't last long, leading them to believe they could wait them out yet the worries of what they would see would still leave a chill to linger in the air.

Beneath the pair Matthew Campbell remained motionless below them crying inconsolably and collapsing to the floor in the foetal position if they attempted to move him. Whatever small comfort had settled in the boys expression was now gone leaving him cold to the touch and broken under an unimaginable weight.

While the rest of the dorm fell to madness two firsties had grown tired of the ridiculous event. @Aamon Athanatos would be the first to flee, betrayed and furious throwing up along the corridor as he made his way fully clothed to the showers to wash off the filth of the evening. Shortly followed by @Nabi Park who, watching Aamon leave was suffering from the first pangs of heartache and the somewhat rejection. Drabs of humiliation caught in her throat from the evening enough for her to internally combust emotionally. No she had to get out right now and go to bed, never again could she let herself be so foolish. So she found herself wrapped up in bed a stray tear forming briefly but wiped away before it could adhere to its course. Both broken completely oblivious to the truths.

@Claire Lewis had lost herself in her swirling visions and being unable to properly tether herself to reality threw alcohol over the fire causing it to become even worse, an explosion of fire rupturing on impact. It was with excellent technique and miraculous reactive instincts that the girl had been saved by @Astra Norrick who extinguished the flames that licked out towards her and rescued her dragging her to safety. The room now longer on fire and unharmed Claire took in the room again where her vision would start to darken overpowered by a corrupting energy that swallowed all else. The source seemed immaterial as there was no human form surrounding it but there were three cats hissing at the same location. Once Astra was sure that ducky was fine she investigated the cats and felt a strange invisible brush of a silk like material before hearing hurried footsteps race from the room yet would see nothing at all. Claire however would notice the darkened soul began to flee under the brightness of Asa's glow and rush to the door yet it's presence still lingered in trace amounts around Matthew's bed. Following this Claire's visions would start to dissipate, colours blending back into mundane scenery, blurs solidifying into objects and the world dimming a little under the lifeless glow. Seemingly there were more mysteries to the night than met the eye.

@Archer Duncan would remain oblivious to the well of chaos that the world devolved into around him as he collapsed into the comfy sheets of Matthew's bed. World blurring as his feelings numbed out everything and he sunk into the warmth of the firewhisky. The boy would feel his ears began to fill with light white noise blocking out the screaming, spells and fire roaring throughout the place fading until he was alone with his thoughts. In such dark times it was a scary place to be but with the assistance of the light buzz alcohol provided he found his memory only conjured dreams not nightmares. Simple treasures of his memories with Maman. They were nothing particularly meaningful in their time but in the light of her passing every moment was now cherished history. In his haze and distraction he wouldn't notice the presence of another enter his space nor hear the sound of the knife stabbing into wood above him. In the end it would be Zeno who anchored him back to the world brought over by Astra. Together the two students and cats would find a note stabbed into the boys bedpost with a pocketknife. Upon it written in elegant calligraphy:

'I’m hidden below, but not far from sight,
In shadows I wait, where it's out of the light.
I hold what you need, tucked away tight,
If you yearn for knowledge, seek me by night.'

Then signed below in harsher, more rough script than the riddle, 'This is just the beginning'.