***

A lot has happened since the elections had taken place. When Vienna says a lot then she definitely means a lot. On the twins' birthday, their biological mother came back to life and buried Josie alive then she died once more. Rafael's deceased girlfriend was brought back to life by a man calling himself the Necromancer. Landon had left the school for what felt like the millionth time and Hope and Dr. Saltzman left to bring him back. So you can imagine the kind of stress that the school had been under lately.

After all of that had happened, there had been yet another assembly. Assemblies were something that Vienna was beginning to grow tired of. She felt like if she attended one more after this then she would lose her mind. This time, the assembly took place at night. Everyone was wearing their sleep clothes as Dr. Saltzman spoke to them as he stood on the last few steps of the staircase, "Yesterday, I came into possession of another Malivore artifact. It was my hope to find a method of containment before it signaled another monster, but given the emergency meeting I've just called, I'm sure you can guess how well that went," The students started to murmur and talk with each other after he said this. "But rest assured we are taking every precaution. Sheriff Donovan has been kind enough to open the doors of the Lockwood Mansion to us, so Mr. Williams and Ms. Tig are now in the process of evacuating our students from the lower grades."

"Why don't we just evacuate the damn artifact?" Kaleb asked.

"We are much more well-equipped than the world at large to handle the arrival of a monster," Dr. Saltzman responded. Vienna hated how right she was. She hated that they were the main line of defense when a monster showed up. Why couldn't they just be normal kids? "Once we know what we're dealing with and the problem is contained, then we can reassess what to do with the artifact. If any of you would like to evacuate, please talk to Dorian or Emma. However, exam week will continue as scheduled, wherever you are," The students started to voice their negative opinions about this. "I know. I'm sorry. I can't exactly call the state accreditation board and tell them that we're canceling the exams because of monsters," Dr. Saltzman took a deep breath, "We'll get through this, I promise. Try and get some rest, okay? Good night." After the speech, everyone made their way back to their dorms.

When Vienna returned to her dorm, she saw Hope was nowhere in sight. Her bed was perfectly made up and it was clear that she hadn't made it back in tonight. Vienna assumed that she was probably talking with Dr. Saltzman about something. The girl had been pretty hands-on whenever it came to all of this monster stuff. Growing up with her family being who they were probably made her that way. Hoping for a night of no dreams, Vienna got comfortable in her bed.

She should've known. Vienna should've known that a night with no dreams was not in the cards for her. As soon as Vienna laid her head down to sleep, she opened her eyes to a sight that she had never seen before. She let out a sigh, "Great," Wait. Hold on. She just talked. Vienna blinked in confusion. She was never able to talk in the dreams. That must mean that this was a regular dream. Vienna took a look around to see that she was in a dark room. She was barely able to see a foot in front of her. Vienna tried to squint her eyes to see if she could get a good look at her surroundings, "Where am I?"

"Finally, you're awake." A sudden voice spoke.

Jumping, Vienna whirled her head to face the direction that the voice came from, "Was it you who put me in here?" The question might've been stupid. A stupid question was something that Vienna rarely ever asked. But she could feel that the room was cramped and tight spaces were something that she hated. The fear had scrambled her mind and it made it hard to focus.

The voice had come from in front of her. There was a hatch in what looked like a door. The hatch was open and a woman with her hair tied up and an eye patch stared back at her. The light from the hatch was the only light that lit up the room. The eye patch woman narrowed one eye at her, "Who else would it be, child?" British. The voice was British. "Use your head. I taught you to be smarter than that."

If Vienna hadn't been scared to death of the tight room she was in, she would've probably snapped at the woman for basically calling her stupid. Instead, Vienna seemed to curl in on herself as she said, "Let me out."

The tone of voice was something the woman took offense to. She raised her eyebrow at the girl, "And who do you think you are to talk to me like that?"

"A very angry person," Vienna growled out. "Now, let me out!" She was panicking. She could feel it. She tried her best to not let the woman know how terrified she was. She instead hid her fear with anger. She had a feeling that if the woman knew how scared she was then she would use that against her.

The woman spoke with a calm and collected voice. It had a bit of a scolding tone as well like how a parent would scold their child when they were doing something wrong, "We discussed this already. I'm not letting you out until you agree to do your mission. The mission you were raised to do. You need to kill him."

What did she just say? Mission? Kill... Vienna stared at the woman with a look of confusion, "Mission? I don't..," Vienna trailed off, shaking her head at the words she had just heard the woman say. She was in disbelief that this woman thought that she was going to kill someone for her. But, there was a better question, "Kill who?" The eye patch woman narrowed her eye at Vienna before finally closing the hatch. Vienna's eyes widened and she was no longer able to hide her fear, "No, wait! Come back!" She tried to get up and run to the door but fell to the floor. There was something on her ankle. She winced at the pain that shot up her leg and looked at her ankle. There was a chain attached to her foot. Before she could begin to question it, she felt eyes on her. "Who's there?" Slowly, Vienna turned her head. She saw a woman wearing a black dress and veil. She stood not far from Vienna which caused the girl to quickly move back, "Who are you? Are you with that woman?"

"You know what I want." Was all the woman said.

As soon as Vienna woke up, there were tears in her eyes. It was morning by now. It all felt so real. The girl winced. The pain in her ankle felt so real. Almost like it was still hurting her now. Wait- It was hurting her now. Vienna sat up and pulled the blanket back to get a look at her ankle. Her eyes widened when she saw angry red marks on her ankle where the chain had been in her dream. No way... No way. She had to speak to someone about this.

Dr. Saltzman. He would know something about this. The girl jumped out of bed and headed straight to the man's office to talk with him about the dream. What she didn't expect was for someone to already be in his office. Upon closer inspection, she saw that Rafael was speaking to Dr. Saltzman, "There was this woman there, too. She was wearing an- An old, black dress and- And a veil. And she told me, 'You know what I want.' But..." He trailed off.

That was exactly what the woman said to Vienna in her dream. She looked like he described as well. Vienna watched as Dr. Saltzman shared a look with Hope. Hope only said one thing, "The urn." The artifact that they had brought back.

"Sounds like our next monster showed up." Dr. Saltzman stated.

Deciding it was time to make her presence known, Vienna stepped into the office. She hugged herself as she got flashes of the dream she experienced. Finally, she had the strength to speak up and get their attention, "She showed up in my dream too," The three of them turned to her when they heard her voice. "She looked exactly like Raf described and said exactly the same thing."

"What happened in your dream?" Hope furrowed her brow.

Now that was a question that Vienna was hoping to avoid. Even just mentioning the dream sent shivers down her spine. Straightening up, Vienna took a deep breath as she tried to explain, "Honestly... I don't even know. I mean," She sighed. This was hard. "I know what happened, but it's hard to explain. I was in a dark room, it was pretty cramped. There was this metal door in front of me and there was a woman looking at me through a hatch in the door."

"The woman in the black dress?" Rafael inquired.

"No," Vienna shook her head. It was a different woman. I don't remember seeing her before..," Vienna had a look on her face as she thought. She thought about the woman's face. Now that she really thought about it, a thought had suddenly occurred to her, "She felt and looked so familiar for some reason though. She had an eye patch, that's one of the first things I noticed. I was begging her to let me out because, as we all know, besides maybe Rafael, I despise cramped spaces. She said that she wouldn't until I did something. The woman closed the hatch and I felt someone looking at me. When I looked over, it was the woman Raf saw. That's when she told me what she told him."

The explanation seemed to confuse Hope even more. She stared at Vienna with a puzzled look, "But, hold on, Raf had a dream that had to do with his past..," She cast a small glance at the said werewolf before turning back to Vienna, "Why would you dream about a woman you haven't met before?" All Vienna could do was shrug.

There was a moment of silence. It was clear that Vienna's dream had probably made things even more complicated. Thankfully, someone seemed to have an answer, "Vienna," Dr. Saltzman addressed her. She turned to him. "You said that she felt familiar, right? The woman with the eye patch?" Vienna nodded. "What if she's connected to your past somehow?"

This caused Vienna to raise an eyebrow at him, "You mean the past that I can't remember?"

"Yeah," He sounded so sure of himself. Like there wasn't any other explanation. "Somewhere in your mind, those memories are still there, you just aren't able to access them. The veiled woman must have been able to look into those locked memories somehow and she made you dream about it. You said that the eye patch woman asked you to do something?" Vienna confirmed what he said. "What did she ask you to do?"

Frozen. Vienna felt herself freeze completely. The woman told her to kill someone. She didn't say who, she just said to kill him. There wasn't a bone in her body that made her want to tell them that. What would they think about her? What would they do? How would they react? She couldn't tell them the truth. So, Vienna played dumb, "I don't remember."

Taking a look around, Vienna could see that they had been slightly disappointed that she didn't remember. Hope had a certain look on her face but Vienna wasn't able to pinpoint exactly what she was thinking about. Eventually, Dr. Saltzman broke the silence, "Try to see if you can remember," Vienna nodded. Dr. Saltzman thought to himself for a moment before saying, "You know, every culture on Earth has legends about creatures that only appear in dreams," He made his way over to his shelf and started to look through all of the books that were on it, "They're in our dreams," He picked out one specific book and opened it, "But a woman in a black dress and a veil is pretty specific." He started to flip through the pages of the book, leaning back against his desk.

"So," Rafael started. "Does that mean she can, like, control what we see in our dreams? That she can put stuff in our, in our heads, right?" Vienna stared at Rafael with slight confusion. Why did he seem so worried? What exactly did he see in his dream?

The question made Dr. Saltzman glance up from the book at him, "It's possible," Rafael nodded. Dr. Saltzman stopped on a page and showed it to the three students, "Does that look familiar?" The image he showed was of the same woman that Vienna had seen in her dream. She was floating above a person laying in a bed in the image. Both Rafael and Vienna nodded in response to his question.

***

If you guessed that there would be another assembly then you were exactly right. For obvious reasons, Vienna skipped. She was not in the best mental state after the dream to attend the assembly. And as she had said before, she would lose her mind if she attended one more assembly. Besides, she already knew that Dr. Saltzman would explain to them about the woman in her and Rafael's dream.

The marks on her ankle had been healed by magic which Vienna was thankful for. She couldn't handle to stinging pain that had resonated throughout that leg. The blonde girl currently sat in her room as she thought about the revelation that Dr. Saltzman had. The woman in the dream, not the eye patch woman, was known as a night hag from what he had said. The name definitely fit.

"Why do you still continue to disobey me?" Vienna stiffed from her place on her bed. It was the same voice as the woman with the eye patch. "He is the enemy, don't you remember?"

Upon hearing the familiar voice, Vienna gasped and shot up in her bed. She winced at the newfound pain in her ankle. She glanced down to see that a chain had been connected to her ankle once more. Looking up, Vienna saw the eye patch woman once more. This time she was looking at her from a hatch in Vienna's own bedroom door. Vienna's eyes widened, "Who are you? Why do I keep dreaming about you?"

"Who am I?" The woman seemed offended by the question. "Don't tell me you forgot the woman who practically raised you!"

Raised her... But, that couldn't be. She disappeared when she was a year old. This woman didn't look like her mother. Vienna had seen pictures of her mother in photo albums that her Aunt Caroline had. Her mother had been Caroline's adopted sister, but you never would've guessed with how similar they looked. Her mother had blonde hair, and blue eyes like Vienna had. Vienna spoke with a breathy voice, "But I don't... I don't remember you."

No response came from the eye patch woman. She only stared at Vienna with a stern glare. A sigh escaped the woman after a few moments of silence, "Looks like you'll have to spend longer in here." The hatch closed.

After the woman had said that, the room got dark. Vienna froze. The room then started to get smaller and smaller. With the chain on her ankle, Vienna wasn't able to run to the door. She was stuck. The girl started to breathe heavily, shaking her head wildly with tears in her eyes, "No, no, no. Wait, I'm sorry! Don't leave me here!" Moving her hair out of her face, Vienna tried to remember what was actually going on, "Wait... This isn't happening. It's just a dream."

"Bring home what I asked of you, Half Breed." A new voice said.

Turning, Vienna saw that the Night Hag had shown up once more. She didn't have time to deal with the monster. She needed to find some way to wake herself up. Vienna cast a glance down at the chain around her ankle and got an idea. She looked back up at the Night Hag, "No." She pulled on the chain as hard as she could and it quickly woke her up.

The first thing that Vienna noticed when she woke up from the dream was how badly her ankle hurt. She let out a wince as the pain resonated even more than last time. This pain was much worse than how it hurt last time. Looking down, Vienna saw that the ankle was bleeding. At that moment, Hope walked into the room, "Hey, Vienna. I've been meaning to ask you about something," Hope noticed that Vienna was looking at something and followed her gaze. Once she saw the bloody ankle, she rushed over, "What happened?"

"I had another dream again," Vienna replied. "Hurting myself was the only way to wake up."

The brunette got up and sifted through her drawers. She grabbed an old shirt and came back over to Vienna. She tied the old shirt around the girl's ankle to stop the bleeding and tried her best to help the girl stand, "Come on, let's get you some help."

The two girls ended up in Dr. Saltzman's office. Surprisingly, Landon was there too. From the look of his hand, it looked like Vienna wasn't the only one who had been hurt recently. Hope had set Vienna down in a chair and pulled another one toward her so she could rest her hurt ankle on it. Vienna pressed the old shirt tighter onto her wound to stop the bleeding while Hope focused on treating Landon's hand.

Standing near his desk, Dr. Saltzman spoke into a microphone and his voice sounded over the PA system, "The senior witch faculty has mixed together a batch of energy herbs to help you stay awake. So, for those of you who are not getting on the evacuation bus, for lack of a better term, please dose yourselves responsibly," He stopped the announcement and he had an exhausted expression on his face, "I'm gonna get sued," He placed the microphone back down on his desk, "Or hexed, at the very least."

"Oh, you're definitely getting hexed," Vienna said with a grin. The grin fell slightly as she tightened her grip a bit too tight on her ankle, making it hurt even worse.

"You don't have to be so hard on yourself," Landon stated. "At my last school, the gym teacher was dealing coke under the bleachers."

A look was shot at him by Hope. Dr. Saltzman didn't seem like what he said made him feel even better than before, "Oh, yeah, that only makes me feel marginally better."

While Hope applied something to Landon's wound, he let out an 'Ow.' He moved his hand and the girl tightened her grip on it so she could continue to treat it, "Hey, uh, hold still. I'm almost done, okay?"

"Okay," Landon responded. "What do you think she meant when she said 'bring it home'?"

"I'm guessing she means Malivore," Dr. Saltzman said. Hope looked up at Dr. Saltzman after he said this. "It seems her plan is to torment us until we produce the urn."

A snort came from Vienna, "Hate to say it, but it's definitely working." She seemed to know all the right buttons to push. At least, that was the case for Vienna. She wasn't sure about anyone else.

A thoughtful look was on Landon's face. After a moment, he spoke up, "If the Night Hag is a monster that's trapped on the astral plane then how can she even physically take the urn anywhere?"

"Yeah," Dr. Saltzman cast a glance at the book that had information about the Night Hag in it. He looked back at Landon, "The book also says the Night Hag can't affect our reality, but... Rafael's welt, your hand, and Vienna's ankle seemed to prove that wrong," Suddenly, Vienna felt her ankle heat up. She felt this one other time before. When her broken leg had healed itself. Vienna couldn't have that happening here. She hadn't told Landon or Dr. Saltzman about it. Vienna tried to cover her ankle with the shirt completely so no one would see the glowing that was starting to show. "When your research consists of fairy tales and urban legends, sometimes the stories get twisted."

Unfortunately, someone seemed to notice Vienna's behavior. Landon sent a concerned glance to Vienna, "Vienna, are you okay?" Oh, so now is the time he chose to be observant? Really?

Not really knowing what to say, Vienna froze. She said the first thing that she could think of, "Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Nothing wrong here. Just the hurt ankle, nothing else-"

She was cut off as Hope said, "Your ankle is glowing." Her eyes were wide as she stared at Vienna's ankle.

Looking down as well, Vienna saw that the shirt wasn't hiding the glow anymore. It was practically useless at this point. Along with the glow had been the wispy energy that she had seen last time. Dr. Saltzman took a step back since he was standing right beside her. Vienna let out a groan, "Goddammit."

"Uh, is this normal?" Landon's voice sounded shaky.

"No, it's not," Dr. Saltzman replied. "Vienna, what's going on?"

The girl wasn't able to respond. She was too in shock to say anything. The glowing and the energy had disappeared after a moment. Vienna sighed as she felt the pain in her ankle disappear. Pulling back the old shirt, she saw that the injury was now completely gone. Now it was time for damage control. Vienna looked to the others with a nervous smile, "Um... Surprise!" They only stared at her with shock. "No?"