A woman running for her life. She looks exhausted, but her fear keeps her running.

“Sebastian?”

A child hiding underneath their bed; ironic considering most fear a monster being there. This kid though knows the monster is outside.

“Sebastian?”

A man trapped in smoke. He looks familiar but his face is obscured.

“Sebastian!”

Lovers embracing with tears in their eyes. Holding each other with all their strength they have.

“Sebastian Maple.”

The sudden use of his full name caught Seb’s attention so that he finally looked at his teacher. “Sorry, what?”

Miss Green sighed but didn’t seem too mad. “I asked if you were paying attention. Is that my answer?”

A couple of the other students chuckled and Sebastian felt himself getting hot with embarrassment. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“You can make it up to me by paying attention now,” the teacher said before continuing her lesson on– child development? What page was that on?

Sebastian tried to figure it out for himself by leafing through the book before his deskmate softly tapped his shoulder. Seb glanced over to Luke, who gestured to the page number he was searching for. Sebastian mouthed thanks and quickly corrected his textbook.

Home Economics was the most relaxed class that Seb took. Miss Green, unlike every other teacher in school, used the students' first names and treated them like the young adults that they were. And the other kids were all more mature as a result, in Sebastian’s opinion.

Even Luke, who was three years below Seb, was kind, understanding and professional. Although that also had to do with the lad’s personality really. He’d been much more reserved when Seb first met him of course, but the two had gotten along great as the year progressed.

When the bell finally rang, Miss Green sighed. “Well, guess we can continue this on Monday. Enjoy your weekends everyone!”

Some of the students cheered but most simply rushed to pack their things up to leave. Sebastian decided to rather just lean back in his seat and wait for Edmund. He’d promised to come here after class and Seb was too tired to consider meeting him halfway.

“Are you okay, Seb?”

Sebastian turned his head to Luke. “Hmm, why?”

Luke shrugged. “You seem really distracted in class lately.”

“Oh. Yeah, I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Studying?”

“No. Nightmares.”

“Oh.”

‘For almost three weeks now,’ Sebastian mentally added.

Well, technically it was only a few days. The first two weeks had been fairly calm. Some nights Seb would wake up a bit less refreshed than others, but the dreamcatcher seemed to be doing its job. Then Sebastian had woken up screaming after the same nightmare form before replayed. Even his mom, the heaviest of heavy sleepers, had woken up and come running with Nick to see what happened. Even Edmund, who was sleeping at his own house, had woken up sensing something wrong and called Sebastian.

It wasn’t until the morning that he found the dreamcatcher. It was in absolute shreds. He thought Bruce had gotten to it or something but Persephone later explained that it had been the nightmare. Obviously, whatever this dream was had been too strong to hold back.

So, for the past five days, Sebastian had been dealing with that dream haunting his subconscious. It was exhausting to deal with and really starting to affect the people in his life. His parents tried talking to him about it but he couldn’t without revealing a whole mess of things. Edmund was able to just comfort him and listen, but Seb was scared of giving all the details to even him.

“Are they recurring?” Luke asked.

Sebastian nodded. “It's pretty much the same thing every night.”

“It could be a message then. Or, warning, if it’s really disturbing you that much.”

“A warning?”

“Yeah. I- you don’t need to listen to me. I only know some stuff from- well, my mom kept a couple books,” Luke explained nervously looking away.

“I think you might be right. Do those books tell you meanings of stuff?”

“For some reoccurring signs and themes, yes. I- I could look up some stuff for you?”

Sebastian smiled. “Really?”

Luke nodded.

“That would be great. Thanks, Luke.”

Luke smiled too. “My pleasure. If you can just write down the things that stand out most then I’ll find out their meanings and text you those.”

“Sure.” Sebastian quickly took out one of his notebooks to jot down the things he felt were relevant.

Once he finished and handed the note to Luke, they exchanged goodbyes and the younger teen left through the door just as Edmund arrived.

“Sorry for taking so long. I made a bit of a mess in class and the teacher wouldn’t let me leave until it was cleaned up.”

“No worries. I got to talk to Luke and apparently, his mom has some dream interpreting books.”

Edmund raised an eyebrow. “Is his mom...”

“I don’t know, but it’s something.”

“I thought you didn’t feel a need to interpret anything.”

“Well, after the past few nights, I think we can both agree something needs to be done,” Sebastian said with a shrug. “Anyway, it can’t hurt anything.”

“I guess not. Well, let’s go. I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry.”

Edmund childishly stuck his tongue out at that and Seb just laughed.

Since the last full moon, everything and nothing seemed to change for the boys. With the neutralizers at hand, Edmund was able to evade notice from the Wiker Pack so far, and they came up with a few ways to deal with his powers too. Minty mouthwash under the nose helped with strong smells, earplugs helped to dim the millions of background sounds and matching Sebastian’s stamina in PT kept him from standing out.

After school is a bit different. The boys still had their respective jobs at the coffee shop and emporium, but now they were far more aware of the supernatural happenings that occurred at Persephone’s. For example, customers seemed to either buy the ‘ingredients’ needed for their potions or the enchanted items like spell journals. They weren’t sure what the divide between potion makers and spell casters was, but there seemed to be some kind of conflict there.

It became a sort of game to guess which category each customer fell into. Though they could only play it on the days that Sebastian was working at the register. Other days, after Edmund finished with his work, he’d come over and use the back room to privately practice his shifting. He’d gotten good at it but still wasn’t confident enough for their confession/explanation plan.

“Does Luke ever seem... Jumpy, to you?” Edmund asked when they were in the truck.

Seb frowned. “Not really. He used to be rather reserved but he’s decently confident with me now.”

He always seems to shrink away from everyone. “Whenever I come by near the tail-end of your conversations, he acts... scared.”

“Maybe he’s intimidated by your senior-ness.”

“That's not a word. And you’re a senior too.”

“Then maybe it’s because he’s unfamiliar with you. I’ve done a handful of class projects with him and we share notes pretty often. He knows me well enough that I’d call us friends.”

“Does he have any other friends?”

“I... I don’t know. I’ve never seen him interact with anyone else, now that I think about it,” Sebastian said with a thoughtful frown. “Maybe I should start paying closer attention.”

Edmund nodded. “Do you want anything from the drive-thru?”

“No thanks. Not all of us have incredible metabolisms to keep us eating, you know.”

“Okay. But don’t steal from my fries.”

“Steal? Me?” Sebastian asked with feigned innocence.

Edmund narrowed his eyes. “I mean it.”

“Sure, you do.”

“Jerk.”

“You love me.”

“That doesn’t change anything.”

“I love you too, Stingy.”