Work Text:
Lyra's nightmare starts in the building where she and her parents were getting the asylum application processed. She had been nervous, being on a new planet, surrounded by strangers, a world which her own people had tried to subjugate when her own parents were children. The office gets invaded by Drar'ek troopers, demanding the Catalina family's return, and the agent grabbed Lyra's mother's arm, to keep her from running away. The troopers were huge in the nightmare, and loud, and the human agent morphed into a Drar wodehl (the third reproductive type), demanding the family return.
Lyra and her father flee down the labyrinthine halls of the federal office building, being chased by the troopers. Bartoz (her father) is captured, but Lyra keeps running. She finds herself running into the Claremont gym, and tries to get aid from her gym teacher, and is kindly told, yes, they'll help. They reach for Lyra, morphing into one of the troopers, growing even larger than the ones who captured her parents. Lyra runs again, and the hallways are filled with students, who turn into more Drar, and she grows smaller, weaker, and they laugh at her, pointing, because she's so useless, such a coward. The floor opens under her feet, and she starts falling, while the laughter and jeering follow her into the darkness, where she knows that teeth and pain are waiting for her.