"Dormio~"

That fucking sleep spell became a thorn in my side about eight months ago.

The first time it was used on me, I'd been dozing off during Spell Casting class. My eyes had felt especially heavy that day, as the night before, Shayna and I had spent a little bit too much time writing minor spells. We'd been warned earlier about the risks. . . 'too much minor magicking can have major effects' and we didn't exactly grasp the warning until the next day. My body was heavy, it was hard to focus, and the pages of spells I'd written and practiced had had adverse effects on me. My tiny hairs on my fingers would catch fire, making little poofs of smoke as they fizzled out. All those symptoms built up meant I couldn't decipher a vision from a teleportation or an astral projection.

In other words, I was unreliable and dangerous.

I remember suddenly feeling very cold, but as my teeth clattered, and I looked up to ask Harrison, our Spell Casting instructor, to be excused, I was no longer in the classroom.

A heavy white mist engulfed me where I sat, blocking out my sight and distorting the room I'd been in. Gone were the other students and Harrison, and what replaced them was a low growl; the sound a frightened mother dog makes as she unconfrontationally tries to protect her pups.

In A History of Dangerous Creatures, we read a chapter on about the Deleons. They were a race of moutaintop-dwelling creatures that breathed icy mist, not too different than an Ice discipline witch or warlock. The largest difference between the two was that witches and warlocks were human. The Deleon's, on the other hand, were shapeshifters. They shifted not to fit in, but to stand out, making themselves much larger and more dangerous that their native forms.

They also possessed the ability to transform into a thick mist and kill from the inside out. The text says that they sucked the oxygen from the lungs and froze the water within the blood. It was apparently a slow death, but quick enough to render a witch powerless in their presence.

My breath slowed as the mist penetrated me. I could feel the ice piercing my inner nostrils as I breathed, however, something about the encounter was strange.

I heard the sound of someone whimpering and I tried to brush the mist away with my hands. Through the mist, I could barely make out the silhouette of a young women, her fingers clutching her neck as the sound of something wet plopped to the floor.

The low growling grew louder. My eyes stung from the freeze and I lifted my left arm, covering the side of my face just as someone grabbed my arm.

I immediately began coughing, choking on the mist that remained as I was dragged back into the room. Harrison stared at me. The other students gawked and whispered amongst themselves about the Blood Stealer, and I shivered.

I looked down at my hands. Ice had covered the edge of my fingertips and nails, making them purple and tender to the touch.

Harrison immediately called for help, but it would've been better if he hadn't.

When Ignatius arrived, followed by Shayna as she heard the whispers and came to see what as happening, and Eric who thought they'd found another Ice disciplined witch, my body was beginning to shut down. I was tasting the ashiness of my blood as my cheeks and gums bled.

Ignatius was quick to blast me with some warm energy. He tried getting me to warm myself up with my fire, but I still had zero confidence in my abilities and wasn't willing to risk it. Still the ash in my blood felt like I was burning from the inside; freezing yet on fire at the same time.

After a few minutes, the Head Mistress, Abigail Shaw arrived. A talented witch in her own discipline she was old, well over 100, but used magic to keep herself young. She didn't look any older than 40 with her few strands of grey hairs lingering scarcely through her fiery red hair, and her carefully drawn wrinkles angled at the edges of her almond-like eyes.

Abigail was the first to use Dormio on me. She was fierce about it. Her eyes insisted that it must be done and she gave me only a second to gather myself and clear the last of the blood from mouth. Then she was inside my memory, strolling through the most recent; a terrifying Dream Walker that bore a crescent moon on her chest - the mark of a shifter, and the descendant of someone dangerous.

Trey's fingers were cold against forehead as they faded distantly. We were running somewhere, back to the hallway where I'd seen the Wraith attack.

Trey led the way inside the memory, almost knowing where to go before I could say anything.

The sleep spell was some sort of lucid dreaming, only others could walk around inside your head and they were the only ones who could wake you up.

I tried to keep up with him, and soon, we were at the place where I saw the Wraith. I couldn't tell exactly where we were, I only knew that it was somewhere at the school. 

Trey stood at the edge of the room, hands lifted and ready as I took big steps over to him.

The Wraith was active, writhing back and forth as if it were being squeezed. I stared at it, trying to remember if I had seen this earlier, but the memory was hazy and unreliable, even if I was watching it unfold in front of me.

Trey leaned his head toward me. "Do you remember any of this?" he asked.

I shook my head. "This is my first time seeing this. Everything seems more real than it did earlier, too."

I craned my head around Trey's shoulder, watching the Wraith as it seemed to break free of whatever was squeezing it. It's body grew, lashing out like large black vulture wings that had been spread. It was going on the defensive, spewing an icy mist from it's jaws.

It rolled out, thick and heavy and crawling toward Trey and I where we stood.

I could feel the cold and I quickly touched Trey's arm. "Can you feel that?"

He scowled, looking down at me. "Of course, not. Now, let me focus.  I still can't tell who's in there."

I whispered back as the pinch from the icy fog climbed my legs. "In where? What part of the school are we in?"

Confusion grew on Trey's face. "You don't know where we are?" I shook my head again, tapping my right foot as the fog grew higher, stinging me more intensely. "We're near the library, where Shayna was last seen."

The tapping stopped as I searched Trey's face for any form of trickery. There was none. Just the confusion that I was beginning to feel. I looked ahead of me, trying to see the walls, the shelves filled with books, the florescent lights that decorated the halls. I tried making sense of why I was there, and why the Wraith was there, but it was empty. Only the icy fog digging into my skin and the monster that created it existed.

"Take me out, Trey." My voice was shaking. Partially from the unease I felt of losing Shayna, but also from the fog.

Trey firmly nodded his head, "I need to know who's here. Something or someone is strong enough to restrain a Wraith. And you were the one who walked into it. We can't close until I have something to give to the Head Mistress especially after you burned your room to that extent."

I didn't care how many fucking points he had. I needed to get out of there.

I turned to leave, my eyes beginning to sting as the fog further filled the space we were in, but I couldn't. I was frozen. My hands reached down to my legs, pushing away the thick fog. I was actually frozen, caught there like a stick in a pond in the middle of January. 

I panicked, sucking in the icy fog in a gulp. I couldn't help but scream. Dream walking wasn't supposed to be like this. You aren't supposed to be affected by the dream. It should be like watching a movie, experiencing it without any of the side effects.

The fog choked me, sending sharps pains into my lungs. Rattled, I tried screaming. "Trey, help me!" It was raspy, but loud enough that he should hear me, but he didn't respond. He didn't even move.

I heard growling instead, looking back up at the scene, the Wraith looked right at me, coming toward me in two swift fluid movements.

My eyes quickly glanced at Trey. He hadn't moved. His eyes were fixed on the scene ahead of him still while somehow the Wraith was upon me. It lifted it's wing, the blackness writhing and contorting. I could see it well now, this wasn't a Wraith. It was a Deleon but what the fuck was it doing here?

I put my right hand up, covering my face from the attack and yelled what felt like a blood curdling screech. It felt foreign, but my body warmed, and I felt a blast of heat in my palm.

I opened my eyes, screaming as the ceiling of the infirmary came into view and feeling the weight of several pairs of hands holding me in place.

"Kayla, calm down. You're in the infirmary!" Iggy's voice rang out loudly.

It took me a moment, my body shaking, the feeling of ice still gripping my legs. I wiggled my toes as I calmed myself knowing that there wasn't anymore ice, but kept my eyes fixed on the little square vent on the ceiling. The hands that held me in place slowly retreated but nobody said anything.

And the sudden realization that Trey hadn't made any remarks rubbed me the wrong way.

"Trey?" I asked, understanding the possible issues that could arise with Dream Walking. Death is the biggest one if something goes wrong.

Ignatius tapped my arm, "He's fine. Went to get the Head Mistress. Your other watcher is here, though I'm not sure I like the look on his face."

I gently sat up, meeting Eric's eyes as the worry set in. "When was I?"

He sighed deeply, "Shayna's disappearance, apparently. Trey didn't say what he saw, but it seemed pretty bad."

I swallowed hard, the icy fog still penetrating my lungs. I couldn't even tell where we were. "That doesn't make sense, I was off campus when she disappeared. I haven't even been there."

"Like I said, I don't know what Trey saw," Eric pulled his hands away from the bed, folding them across his chest, "but whatever it was, it's not looking good."

Judging from the fact that we hadn't seen the same thing, and I still couldn't picture the room we were in, it meant that there was a blocker there. One that I couldn't get past even inside my own head. Furthermore, things haven't gone as planned. Dream Walking is supposed to be safe. Getting attacked like that, feeling the fog, the scene changing?

My blood felt like it was on fire.

The Wraith was never a Wraith. It was a Deleon. Disguised, somehow. Shifted? I sighed and dropped my head back down on the less than comfortable infirmary bed.

I wouldn't mind putting myself to sleep, without the dreams, or possible astral projection.