Road to Nowhere [Open]

It was a dark and narrow corridor, candlelit, with no windows. Completely bare walls stood on both sides, and the slight curve of the hallway made it impossible to perceive its end. James started treading carefully, the sound of his footsteps breaking the sacred silence of the place. Somehow he knew that he needed to follow the path, that it would lead him to what he was yearning for. It was the key, the answer to all his questions.

He walked for minutes, or was it hours, but the world around him did not change. The same stone cage surrounded him, and his goal remained ever unreachable. Uneasy, he paced up. However, before long, he needed to stop in order to catch his breath. The floor suddenly shivered beneath his feet and he watched in horror as the walls began to move, closing in on him.

His heart pounding, he dashed forward. He sprinted tirelessly, ignoring the pain in his side, yet the passageway was more and more narrow every moment. Soon, he was forced to stop again. Not knowing what else to do, he desperately tried to keep the walls from joining. Turning sideways, he pushed, with his hands, legs, his entire body, yet his effort was in vain. "HELP!" he screamed, feeling the cold touch of stone on his back. Only utter silence responded.

His eyes wide open, James drew long breaths, trying to calm down. Cold sweat ran down his temples and his back. He felt a weakness in his legs, and leaned against the wall to avoid falling. When his heart had returned to a nearly normal rate and his hands had stopped trembling, he gazed around. The corridor was bathed in moonlight that filtered from a set of high windows. A collection of portraits lined the walls, all peacefully sleeping in their frames. James failed to recognize the place, yet there were so many similar hallways in the giant castle that it didn't surprise him.

The soft touch of the carpet covering the floor made him realize he was barefoot, and still clad in his blue pyjamas. Sighing, he was about to head back to his common room, when footsteps suddenly echoed faintly in the distance.

The sound grew louder and louder. Starting to panic, James glanced around, yet there was nowhere to hide. He thought about running the other way, but his legs were too feeble and he probably wouldn't get very far. Perhaps it was Professor Umbranox. The teacher had already found him once in the same situation and had been kind enough to escort him back to Ravenclaw Tower. Yet not all of them shared the same benevolence.

A silhouette suddenly appeared from behind the corner. He couldn't recognize it in the ambient obscurity, until it walked in front of a window. "Morgana" James breathed, relieved. "What... what are you doing here?" he added in a whisper.

Dangerous habit. James couldn't help thinking after listening to Morgana's reply. Yet before he could say anything, another figure emerged from the darkness. Aylee looked like she had just woken up.

He nodded at her while Morgana explained the reason for her presence. When she asked the same of James, his face turned even paler, if that was possible. "I..." he began, staring at the floor. He couldn't think of a witty response, so he decided to tell the truth. "I was sleepwalking."

"I guess..." he muttered to Morgana's remark upon flashing a polite smile at Aylee. However, cool was certainly not the word he would choose to qualify it. Waking up in the middle of nowhere without any idea of how he got there or what he had been doing during his absence was far from pleasant. Not to mention the nightmares. They weren't always there, but when they were, it could get fairly exhausting.

"I have no idea." he admitted, looking around. "I was sleeping, remember?" he added with a tired grin. "Don't any of you recall how you got here?"

Scream? He thought that had only happened in his dream, but it was apparently not so, even though Aylee stated that the sound had been but a fruit of her imagination. "Perhaps you went though a secret passage." he tried to make sense of Morgana's disorienting explanation. He knew only of one, upon which he had stumbled by accident during his second year. Yet he was certain several more were concealed all over the giant castle.

"We just need to find the Grand Staircase." Easier said than done, James realized, as he had no clue about which way to go. "And preferably before someone finds us." he whispered.

"Let's go then." James sighed, seeing no other solution than to follow the path Morgana had used. "And if we stumble on a professor... well, we'll just have to think of something to say."

Morgana led the way, the two other Ravenclaws following her closely. The corridor suddenly grew darker as thick clouds concealed the moon, blocking the light it emitted. Reaching for his pocket, James realized it was empty. He had left his wand in his school robe. Cursing himself interiorly, he glanced at Aylee. She was in her nightgown as well. "Do you have your wands on you?" he asked the two girls.

"Impressive." James said admiringly, witnessing her spotless execution of the Wand Lighting Charm. "Good thing you paid attention in Professor Umbranox's class, otherwise this would have been a pretty scary walk." He still remembered the story of the Chamber of Secrets, and the giant snake that had attacked students all over the castle. The monster was dead now, yet he didn't dare imagine what other horrors roamed the hallways at night.

Why does she always have to be so curious? James wondered. "It was more of a nightmare." he replied, still shivering at the thought of it. He weighed stopping at that, concerned that they could think him crazy if he told them. But then again, it was only a dream. "I was in a corridor, similar to this one, except with no windows, no doors, no anything actually. And I walked and walked but the end was never in sight. Then the walls started closing on me. They were just about to crush me when I woke up." he told the whole story without stopping, as if to be rid of it. He was thankful for the ambient obscurity, which prevented Aylee and Morgana from seeing his expression. His mind tried to make sense of the nightmare, yet he was shortly forced to admit he had no idea what it could mean, if it held any significance in the first place.

Haribo? He hadn't eaten those in months. "Thanks, Aylee." he whispered, taking a random sweet from the pack. It was a tiny red bear. He smiled when he remembered the way his sister used to decapitate them with her teeth before eating the rest of their body. "Yes, they're something like Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, only with less bold flavours." he explained, turning to Morgana. "The one you took is Coke." He was usually the one demanding explanations to his wizard friends, it was amusing to be on the other end for once.

They turned right, then left but similar corridors just followed one another. James still had no idea where they were, but Morgana seemed to know the way. Just as they were passing by a suit of armour, she laid out her plan in case they were caught. "It could work." James replied, unconvinced. "But how do you explain the fact that Aylee heard you scream all the way from our common room when the professors patrolling the hallways didn't?"

James nodded. It might not be a perfect excuse, but they had no better option. In the end, it all depended on who would find them. Professors Umbranox or Vega would probably not prove very harsh. The caretaker, Andre, also seemed like a kind man, even though James had only briefly talked to him a few times. But he wasn't sure the same could be said about the strict Ashton Clark, or some of the new teachers he still didn't know that well.

As they emerged into yet another dark hallway, something suddenly materialized in front of them. Startled, the three students halted and Morgana's light even shimmered for a moment. When it was steady again, it revealed a little man hovering in mid air before them. He was clad in loud, outlandish clothes including an odd orange bow tie, and a bell-covered hat topped his head. He squinted at them with his mischievous eyes, and a radiant smile illuminated his face when he recognized them.

"Peeves, please..." James begged. Yet he knew his words were in vain when the poltergeist responded only with a malicious smirk.