That night, when Sirius had gone and the house was swallowed in silence, Sarah drifted into a sleep that was anything but peaceful.
She found herself standing in a field of withered grass, the air cold and unnaturally still. The sky above was not sky at all, but a heavy sheet of darkness that pressed down, suffocating. Her bare feet sank slightly into the soil, soft and damp, as if something beneath it was breathing.
In the distance, she saw him—her father. He stood stiff, shoulders tight, eyes wide as if he had seen something he couldn't name. His lips trembled but no sound came out.
"Father?" Sarah whispered, her voice too small in the vast emptiness. She ran toward him, heart pounding. "What's wrong? Please… tell me what's wrong."
But he didn't answer. His face was pale, almost waxy, his eyes glassy with fear. Slowly, as if compelled by some unseen force, he lifted his arm and pointed into the endless dark.
Sarah froze, following his trembling finger. The blackness seemed to shift, like it was alive. Yet she saw nothing.
Then another figure appeared—her mother. She stood beside her father, her expression equally haunted. Without speaking, she too raised a hand and pointed at the same void. Her eyes flicked to Sarah only once, and in them, Sarah saw something she had never seen before—pity.
Sarah's breath caught in her throat. She wanted to scream at them, to shake them, but her legs wouldn't move.
The darkness stirred.
From the depths of that nothingness, something began to take shape. A figure, tall and crooked, its steps slow and deliberate. A wide-brimmed hat shadowed its face until it was close enough for her to see the stitched smile, the sackcloth skin, and the button eyes glinting with unnatural light.
The Scarecrow.
It emerged from the darkness like it had always belonged to it, the whispers of dry straw brushing against the ground with each step. Its head tilted, and those button eyes fixed on her, glowing faintly.
"You're mine now," it rasped, voice low, as if the soil itself was speaking.
Sarah's chest tightened, her throat locking. She tried to move, to scream, but the world shifted around her. For a heartbeat she wasn't in the field anymore—she wasn't even sure she was in her own body. Everything blurred, twisted, as if she had stepped into another dimension.
And then—she woke.
The room was dark, but for a moment, it didn't feel like her room at all. The air was thick, foreign. The shadows seemed to lean closer. She sat frozen, listening to her own breath, until slowly the feeling ebbed away.
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