The One in Which Benedict Cumberbatch Makes an Appearance

    My husband, let's still call him Marshall, and I had found our dream house; the only problem was that the property was owned by someone and rented out to multiple families at a time, because the house was so huge.  At the moment only one family of four lived there and they owned a couple of friendly, big dogs. The house was amazing and simply could not be passed up; it was a massive manor of stone with various carefully cultivated flowers and other plants lining the bases of the walls which sat in a clearing surrounded by woods.

The place? Downton Abbey...or Misselthwaite Manor.  

    So we moved into a bedroom on the first floor with windows that faced the front yard and drive.  The windows were door-sized  and every single room was beautifully and ornately decorated and furnished with the manor's original furnishings.  The house had more than two kitchens, countless bedrooms and bathrooms, at least three libraries, and a ludicrous amount of sitting rooms.  We were given our own kitchen, bathrooms, and guest bedrooms but the rest of the place was open to anyone, except of course the other tenants'  rooms.  You would think we'd run into the other family more often but the place was so massive we pretty much never ran into them.
    Each person had a special room assigned to them specifically as their own room, a private place to do whatever you wanted.  Marshall's room was a big library, which was very fitting for him and would have been for me too, but my room was different.  I had to follow a map the owner gave me to find my room and when I did finally find the place it was a huge disappointment.  First of all, I had to climb through a crawlspace to get to it; I found a light switch and flipped it on to reveal a tiny room.  When I say tiny, I mean tiny in every way possible.  It was like a small attic around 6 by 6 feet and the ceiling was about 4 feet high.  The floor was carpeted white and the walls were plain cream.  I sat back against the wall in disbelief.  What could I possibly do in this room?  Then I noticed the trapdoor in the ceiling; I pushed it open and climbed up.  It was a huge circular room completely empty and made entirely out of wood; the ceiling was high and cone shaped and there were large windows  in every section of the circular wall.  I stepped up to one of the windows and saw the front of the yard and beyond; I was at the highest point of the house.  This was pretty much the perfect room for a huge medieval geek who thinks trapdoors are the coolest things ever.

I blame you, Clive.

    Highly pleased, I eventually made my way back downstairs and went to bed.  I woke up earlier than usual; Marshall was still asleep and I got up and stood in front of one of the windows.  I peered out into the pale morning light and saw a big dog that was definitely not our housemates'.  I stared at it for a while before it starting barking, then it ran, right at my window.  As it ran it snarled and growled like it was going to eat me if it ever got inside.  I figured it would stop before it got to the window but it kept coming, it was going to smash into the window.  I moved my body into a defensive pose that would've made George Michael Bluth proud and flinched in advance for the impact on the window.  But it never came.  In an instant the dog disappeared from outside and appeared quite suddenly inside.

This is the first image that pops up when you Google image search "magic dog".
Surprisingly appropriate.

    Naturally, I screamed as the dog kept barking; Marshall woke up and asked me where that dog came from; the other family must have been nearby because they heard the commotion and ran in.  They had never seen the dog before either and nobody understood why I kept repeating that it came through the window which was obviously closed.  That was when the owner of the house silently appeared in the room and it would be the first time any of us had ever seen him in person.

Because his awesomeness almost made our eyes explode.

We all knew him and fell silent upon his sudden arrival.  Benedict reached out his hand to me and placed it on my shoulder; he gave it a gentle yet firm squeeze and said, "You're not making any sense.  Things don't just...go through walls.  You need to lie down."
    He looked at me knowingly but I didn't understand why.  He drew his hand back.  "Now, I believe this dog belongs to the new family.  I will be away for some time, by the by."
    He nodded toward the window and then looked at me again with a small smirk on his face.  We all looked out the window to see a man and a woman in their forties with a young boy carrying there things across the drive.  The man and the boy were dressed in black suits and the woman was in a black dress and hat; you would've thought they were just coming from a funeral, but they had smiles on their faces.  The others turned to go greet them and we noticed Benedict Cumberbatch had disappeared.    
    The new family, as expected, was downright creepy and they took liberties all over the place.  We would always find them in our rooms for no apparent reason and their dog was a menace.  One day I sought solace in my tower and was thinking about that crazy dog and that crazy Cumberbatch, as I was wont to do, when quite suddenly I heard a very loud crashing noise and my tower began to wobble violently.  I darted to a window and poked my head out.  The new family was standing around on the lawn watching someone with a wrecking ball take down my tower while I was still in it.  I would've screamed at them but the tower was so unstable now I had to leave immediately.  I ran to the trap door but for some reason it wouldn't open.  I pulled and pulled as the tower's state worsened.  Then I dropped through the floor and landed in the small room below.  I looked up to see the ceiling still intact and then took off through the crawlspace; I tore through the house and out the front door.
    "What do you think you're doing?!?" I screamed at them.
    Cumberbatch gave me the tower, they had no right.  Also, it was his property. I angrily informed them that I was in there and could have died.  The father's response?  "Why didn't you?"
    Just absolutely amazed I went to Marshall's and my bedroom and sat down.  My body felt like it was vibrating slightly then I fell right through the bed and onto the floor so that now I was lying underneath the bed.  Naturally, I began to panic.  Did Cumberbatch do this to me?  What did he know?  Did the dog do this?  What was "this"???  One thing was for sure: The new family was trying to kill me, or all of us.
    Suddenly, the dog's face appeared under the bed with a wild grimace.  I was vibrating again but I crawled out frantically on the other side right before blinking out of existence momentarily and falling onto the basement floor.  Then I started crying.  If I couldn't control this then where would I end up?  Probably trapped in sheets of rock somewhere in the Earth's crust and suffocating.  But if the dog could control it why couldn't I?  I ran for the stairs and felt the odd vibrations again.  I stopped and instead of ignoring the sensation I concentrated on it.  Cumberbatch was right, things don't just go through walls.  On some level I realized my atoms were separating just enough to be able to pass around other atoms, allowing me to pass through seemingly solid objects.

So, I had the more terrifying aspect of The Flash's superpowers.
And I didn't know how to use it.

But as it turned out as long as I concentrated and demanded that my molecules and things listen to me, because I'm the boss of me, I wouldn't disappear again.  So I very slowly, but solidly, made my way up the stairs where Benedict Cumberbatch awaited me.  His figure at the top of the stairs kept blinking like a bad VHS tape.

This is a VHS tape, kids.

"You're too late," he sadly said to me before completely disappearing.
    I didn't understand him but I felt like my organs all decided to twist themselves together in a fit of nervousness.  I passed through the doorway to find pretty much nothing.  There was no manor, no trees, no flowers, no Marshall, no nice housemates.  Everything was just grey rock as far as my eyes could see.  I heard a small, polite cough behind me.  And there stood that family of three, all in black, grinning at me.

And that's when I woke up.