Music danced through the busy street. Happy families bustling around with their children in tow, it was so cheerful. She was standing in the middle of the crowd looking confused. Where was she? A soft snow started to fall softly from the sky. They clung to her eyelashes then melted into tiny crystal droplets that fell down onto her milky skin. She found herself watching a certain family, a couple and their baby.

The woman had long black hair that was pulled back into a bun on top of her head with two long tendrils in front. Her eyes seemed to gleam black like onyx while she cooed the baby in her arms. The man however had short brown hair that was ringlets all over his head. He gave the woman a cat-like smirk and took the baby from her arms swinging it into the air, its screams of delight echoing through the street eerily like there was nobody else there.

The beautiful night suddenly took on a sinister mood when the Man flinched, almost dropping the child. His look of pain burned into her eyes. Somehow she was attached to this man. The woman had also become very rigid. They both looked at their right arms with looks of torment.

" What were they doing?" They had bundled up the child and laid it on the bench. Then like they didn't even know it, turned their back to it ignoring its fussy cries. The beautiful woman and her Husband disappeared into the crowd leaving the baby lying on the bench.

How could they do that, she didn't know but she had to get to that kid. Trying to push through the crowd in a daze she was jostled to the side. The crowd of people were not strolling now but running in panic from something. jerking around she saw what they were running from. Suspended in the sky. a certain dark mark. It was the skull with the serpent through its mouth.

The inside of her arm burned red-hot making her double over in pain. Her vision blurred and the colors, scenery and anything else that had been was melting away, like a canvas being stripped of its color. Even though she couldn't see very well through the blur it was clear. She had the dark mark; all she could do was scream. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------

Nox woke up with a start still murmuring something. " What the hell?" She was entangled in her bed sheets and lying on the floor next to her bed. As her eyes adjusted to the light and her breathing calmed she noticed a soft tapping at the window. Untangling herself from her sheets (which were in fact printed with little witches on broomsticks n.n) Nox made her way to the window. Outside was a very large, very official looking owl.

Nox threw the window open and let the owl inside while still rubbing her arm where it had burned in her dream. It had a letter. little did she know that another boy very close by was getting a very similar letter.