House Of Nightmares

Chapter Four: Claustrophobia

I dreamed I was back at my house, with Tante Aimee and Oncle Lucien, eating pizza. I heard a hissing sound and turned around to see a long green snake slithering into the room. Before I could cry out, it bit me, and I could feel venom coursing through my blood- like an angry fire.

I somehow shot fire out of my hands at it, but I missed, and I could only watch, dying, as the flames I created devoured my home.

I sat up in bed, screaming. I closed my eyes and whispered to myself what I always used to whisper when I had bad dreams after the fire that killed my parents. "Vous etes sauf. Vous êtes chez vous. Vous etes sauf." You are safe. You are home. You are safe.

I then opened my eyes again and had the opportunity to see that I was not home whatsoever. I was in a room, white walls, floor, and ceiling, the walls lined with beds and strange equipment. I seemed to be in an infirmary.

I looked around and saw, in the corner of the room, a girl, maybe twenty- or younger. She sat on the ground, leaning against the wall, staring at me. She had long, wavy blonde hair and wore a tight silver dress. She grinned. "Nightmares?" she asked in a hard voice with a British accent.

"What? Where-"

"You're fine, Edelie. I apologize, Haley can be a bit dramatic. Theater kid."

"What? Ms Saffron-"
"No, darling, simply a metathesiophobe. She became Ms Saffron."

"A meta- what?"

"Someone afraid of change. Just like how you're afraid of fire."

"I have my sources." She walked towards me, her heels clicking on the floor. "Also, you talk when you sleep."

I groan and fall back on the bed. "If I close my eyes and open them again, this will all disappear and I'll be home, right?"
"You can certainly try." Zyta sat on my bed, her back facing towards me so I could see a bit of a tattoo on her back. "Don't know how well it'll work."

"Wait- what- does this have anything to do with the-" I paused.

"The what, Edelie?"

"The, um..." I crossed my arms. "Magic."

"Yes." She stood up and gestured around. "Welcome to the House Of Nightmares!" She waved her hand towards a blank wall and a door appeared, then opened. "Shall we go on a little tour? I'm sure you'll love it here."

Outside the door, I found myself in an underground city- a deep hole, stretching maybe a hundred metres down. Round houses hung from the ceiling, and doors were carved into walls, connected by wooden pathways. Zyta started walking down a staircase towards the bottom of the pit, talking all the way. I followed her. "We had to hatch an elaborate plan to get you out, you know. First, we had Ms Saffron take... a little vacation. No need to worry about her. She's still mostly sane, we think. Then we got a metathesiophobe- a shapeshifter, in other words- and convinced them to do it. They needed quite a lot of convincing, but they were pretty brave. Then we sent her to your school with a quick speed enchantment and injected you with, ah... quite a few potions. One to make you sick, one to heal you fast, one to knock you out."

I couldn't really process what Zyta was saying. Shapeshifters? Enchantments? Potions? I was either crazy, or I had just been accepted to the Canadian version of Hogwarts- four years late. "So- magical powers?"

"Oh, right. I'll explain that once we get to your chambers. You're what we call a pyrophobe- someone who's afraid of fire."

"Well- wait, what are you?"

Her expression turned troubled. "I'm what we call a dementophobe. There are very few like me- ones that are willing to use their powers."

"Wait." Gears whirred in my brain, and I put two and two together. "Do... your magical powers come from your fears?"