John Dranco was running. He was running through the dark, vaguely imagined horrors of Azkaban. He was running, chasing a big, fat rat, its fur the color of scorched charcoal. He was running to catch the rat to eat it, but the dementors were chasing him—they were hungry, too. John was running, only Jack wasn't John anymore. He was running. Running for a rat—he cannot remember why. The dementors are chasing him through vaguely imagined corridors the color of scorched charcoal. And then the dementors are running. Running, preposterously, awkwardly stumbling over each other in their frenzied panic. They scatter, chased by the protean rat, the artist of survival, now swelled beyond its healthy girth to ginormous size. Jack swerves aside, escaping the fray to slip into a small, abysmally dark hole in the wall.

Inside, the small cell is brightly lit and comfortably appointed. Sierra is sitting. She sits in the cozy, Azkaban apartment, brushing her long, fluid hair and chatting animatedly. She leans forward in her red velvet upholstered sitting chair and chats conspiratorially over her small, antique coffee table with Callie and the gum-chewing dementor who sits between them—a yellow bow perched shockingly, like a non sequitur found only in dreams or Professor Binn's lectures, upon its cowl. The bright, yellow bow reflects the golden light of Sierra's lamps, and the scorched charcoal form of the squatting dementor seems to Jack to mar the lovely scene—although Callie and Sierra don't seem to mind. Sierra smoothes her expensive, golden silk prisoner's gown which has her name, "sierra," and "property of azkaban" embroidered delicately upon her breast pocket. Sierra sits up straight, arching her back and reaching her arms back up behind her to brush out her long, flowing ponytail, and something falls out. Something falls out of Sierra's thick, silky ponytail, completely unnoticed by Sierra, or Callie, or the gum-smacking dementor giggling by their side, and scuttles, softly clattering across the cold, scorched charcoal floor of Sierra's receiving chambers.

Jack crouches down. Jack is crouching, feeling the layers of cold air thicken as he descends from Sierra's golden light into the murky bleakness of Azkaban. Jack swims through the heavy, cold fog, fighting his way toward the undeniable terra firma somewhere, inevitable, beneath Sierra's inexplicable-but-unquestioned firmament. He sees the scuttler, small and wretched, scratching along the unforgiving stone. Durious is scuttling, scuttling away. Durious sees Jack descending, and rushes forward. Durious' withered face juts impossibly from his infinitesimal, naked, hermit crab-sans-shell body. Durious opens his little crustacean mouth to scream at Jack, but no sound comes out. Jack panics. He is panicking, he doesn't know the right thing to say.

Jack is running. He is running through the dark, familiar expanse of the curfew-emptied Entrance Hall. He is running from Naked Hermit Crab Durious, now swelled to impossibly gargantuan proportions and dragging its useless, white organ sack behind. Jack's bare feet slap against the cold stone floor of the Entrance Hall as he runs for his life, his thin, white, St. Mungo robe pajamas flapping behind him. Crab Durious snaps undeniably large claws after Jack, his toothless maw opened in a hollow, inaudible scream, sucking all sound from Jack's consciousness. A thronging multitude of dark shapes emerge from behind every pillar, instantly filling the vaguely perceived space of the Entrance Hall—it's impossibly high ceiling far above through unreachable layers of cold, thick fog. Jack clings to his throat, unable to breathe. Everywhere familiar faces loom through the fog, draped in scorched charcoal cowls which mat down their bubble gum pink hair across their foreheads, their large, unwieldy wings thrusting up in back, their tails lashing furiously. The ring of horrifyingly familiar strangers close in on Jack. Jack's bare feet splash on the wet floor. A swirling vortex of cold, heavy fog erupts from the center of the Hall as the floor gapes open, swallowing Jack whole.

Jack is swimming. He is swimming in icy, black water, miles below the arching expanse of the Entrance Hall and its vaguely remembered horrors. With a sharp pain in his chest and in the center of his subconscious mind, Jack stops swimming. He sinks. He is sinking as a large, black shape, blacker than all the blackness rushes forth from the inky depths. A strong, curving arm ending in an undeniably large, sharply clawed paw grapples Jack and yanks him with a jerk from the inky blackness. Jack clings to the mammoth panther as it carries him, swimming like an icthyosaurian cuttlefish toward the cobalt gray of dreamless sleep.

// I think I just lost a couple sanity points.
This dream was brought to you by Cthulhu



// Feel free to delete this post. Just thought I would drop an ooc comment on how this dream made me feel.

[ Very nice, D Black. I am such a Lovecraft fan I can't delete it. -JB ]

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"Well, now, let's see here," the large, overstuffed man in the large, overstuffed chair in his very large, overstuffed office harrumphed. Jack scanned the undeniably large man's indefatigably well-organized desktop with subconsciously keen interest while the titular tyrant of carbonated sugar beverages pretended to scan Jack's letters of introduction for the first time.

"Mr. A. E. Oberhaus," followed by a series of finely inscribed acronyms which meant nothing to Jack adorned a plastic name plate mounted in a luxurious, marble name plate holder on the desk. Mr. Oberhaus had all the tools of the trade—all of the symbols of his station: his large, impressively ornate, walnut desk; his equally impressively large day planner covering the desk's surface; his fine, leather briefcase with gold latch and triggers; his neo-industrial pencil sharpener and his Swingline stapler; his large computer monitor on a swiveling stand; his expensive, kitschy desk lamp; and his assortment of increasingly abstract desktop toys; all framed by the most fantastic view of downtown London outside the expansive windows behind him. Mr. A. E. Oberhaus was the U. K. head of PepsiCo International, and one of the most powerful pop pushers in all of England.

Mr. Oberhaus looked up and across his imposing desk at Jack, who sat across from him in ill-fitting, semi-formal muggle attire, borrowed from his father. "Well," Mr. Oberhaus invested into the silence between them, "I have to be on a plane in half an hour, but I promised I'd meet with you. So what've you got?"

Jack blinked, realizing this was his moment, and pulled a small bottle of cherry-colored liquid from his muggle sport coat pocket and shook it gently to give it extra fizz, and slid it carefully onto Mr. Oberhaus' desk. "So this it, then, eh? What I've been hearing so much about lately?" Mr. Oberhaus asked rhetorically, as he pulled the small bottle to himself and, pausing at the curious bottle and the curiouser manner in which it was sealed, uncorked it very carefully—so as not to spill any on his undeniably expensive suit. Mr. Oberhaus tipped the bottle quickly to his lips with a practiced hand—this man had substantial experience drinking from a bottle.

"Not bad," Mr. Oberhaus nodded, but his expression was unreadable. "It's better than I had expected. I'm not a big fan of cherry soda normally, mind you, but this has something more to it, now, doesn't it?" Mr. Oberhaus drank from the bottle again, more thoughtfully. "Ginger? What is that, cardamom? ... Curry??" Mr. Oberhaus' bemused expression quickly slid from sight. "Is this made with expensive ingredients?" the deceptively ponderous man asked patronizingly.

"Err...." Jack hadn't really thought about that. Cherry soda, well, that wasn't going to be an issue, of course. It was quite simple enough for him to acquire the ingredients for his Euphoria Draught experiments from or around school. But this sort of venture would require massive amounts of potion without raising inconvenient questions from muggles and wizards alike. "Not going to be a problem," Jack bluffed, silently praying some divine intervention would prove him right.

"We're not in the business of making gourmet soda pop here, kid," Mr. Oberhaus continued, as though Jack's reassurance was meaningless. "We serve the masses!"

Jack looked at Mr. Overhaus' face, watching him curiously as the taut lines around his eyes faded and his tightly-clenched jaw slackened, the corners of his mouth curling ever so subtly into a pleasant hint of the smile yet to follow. Jack knew what to expect. He had already sat through interview after interview, meeting with customer service representatives, middle managers, and subordinate business executives, climbing his way up the soda pop corporate ladder to reach this man, the King of Pop. Mr. Overhaus suddenly extended his lower lip, letting out a quick raspberry-like breath which made his lips vibrate and his pedimental mustache bristle. "We'll market it as gourmet soda pop!" Mr. Oberhaus smiled.