"No. No no no no--"

The sky was going dark, the walls were going static, the air was going heavy heavy too heavy to breath, too light to stay here--

"No, you need to answer me! I need to know! How do I make it stop? Hey!"

But the hawk wasn't listening to him anymore, he couldn't even see the lioness, the only thing still clear was the boy on the bed, and Alex was growing dimmer, the light around him tucking in like a blanket at bedtime.

Jiri tried shouting again, tried reaching out, but he couldn't even hear himself.

----

Jiri jerked awake. Nothing around him was familiar, this wasn't the house in the desert and it wasn't his bedroom--

The Mansion. Xavier's. It was still night outside, still dark. The school was quiet. Just the occasional creak he couldn't place, and his heart in his ears. The sheets still had that freshly laundered feel to them. The bed next to his was still empty: no roommate yet. The whole room was empty, except for a backpack he'd opened to dig out his toothbrush, and a suitcase he'd put on top of the dresser without unpacking.

It was his first night here. His new boarding school, for mutants. Like him.

He slipped his feet over the edge. The carpet felt weird under his feet-a little shorter, a little more prickly than the one at his house. He'd taken the bed closer to the window--the privilege of being first in the room. It was only a step or two, and then he was leaning on the windowsill, looking out.

It was his first night in the Mansion, and he'd had a dream. It was a dream. It had to have been. If it wasn't--

There had been more stars, in the dream.

--if it wasn't, he might have gotten a kid killed. Someone his own age, someone with whole worlds in his head.

Alex woke up some time later to the faithful beating of his own heart, steady and alive. God, he was alive. He tried to call on his constructs, assure himself that they were alright. But all he got was silence, all the lights had gone dim and his head fell strange. Like he was underwater.

He recognized this sensation, Miss T felt much the same way when he was within her aura. A pressure that cut out his powers. But there was no one in the room with him, no recognizable source. Until he found his neck felt strange. Something was wrapped around it, thick and heavy. The beeping spiked with his heart rate.

"What's going on?" He attempted to reach up and touch the collar, but found his hands cuffed to the bed. "What's going on?! Get it off! Get it off!"he screamed panic coursing through his body.

Why was his cuffed to the bed? Why was he collared?! What was going on?!

People come in, they don't speak, instead sticking a needle into one of the tubes attached to his arm. The panic dims and the world becomes fuzzy, he begins to relax and relax and relax...but no sleep came...