Jerrick was grinning ear-to-ear as he approached the city gate. Today was a great day! He’d been able to personally watch that horrible woman, Ravina, get teleported to who-knows-where. He’d also come into a lot of money, and as for Ravina’s horrible little apprentice—well, he wasn’t sure what would become of her. He was sure he wouldn’t be seeing her again, though.

  That other party that was with them…well, that was unfortunate. He didn’t know them at all, so he didn’t particularly care what happened to them one way or the other. They shouldn’t have been associating with such wretched people like Ravina, as far as he was concerned.

  Jerrick sauntered through the gate, his pouch jingling. Time to hide most of these coins and use the rest for some fun. He needs to scrounge up the boys and head to the taverns—find some nice ladies to keep them company.

  He managed to find the other members of his party quickly and went out for a night of revelry the likes of which he hadn’t experienced in years—all paid for by Jerrick, of course.

  It was now early morning, though still far from sunrise. Jerrick was in post-coital bliss, fading in and out of consciousness as the cocktail of drugs and alcohol in his system couldn’t decide whether to keep him awake or put him to sleep.

  His dreams had been mostly peaceful or non-existent up to this point. However, things took a turn, and he had a particularly bad dream.

  He dreamed he was lying in his bed, enjoying the feeling of a warm body beside him, when the roof he was staring at suddenly disappeared. It was replaced by a starry sky with so many colors, he knew it had to be a dream. The normal night sky wasn’t that colorful.

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  Suddenly, the sky changed as two stars edged closer, growing brighter until they transformed into enormous eyes. The whites were missing, matching the starry backdrop rather than the normal white with veins.

  The iris was a vibrant violet, but it seemed to have holes. It was sort of like the iris had mini-pupils in a ring around the main pupil. It was disturbing in a visceral way that Jerrick couldn’t adequately describe. It gave him a feeling that said it shouldn’t be.

  The worst feeling was that he knew those eyes were looking at him.

  “Die slowly and in agony,” the voice said. It was horrible. It had a fuzz to it that hurt Jerrick’s ears. His eyes soon followed as a bright blue light flashed so intensely that he had to close them.

  The flash of light seemed to have been enough to awaken him, though, as when he opened his eyes again, he was back in his room. The ceiling was present and normal; the body beside him—warm and soft.

  He decided he’d potentially overdone it on the substances tonight and resolved to visit the bath house. He gathered his things and headed out immediately.

  An hour later, Jerrick ambled into his room, firmly resolved to pay more attention to what he was putting in his body. After the hallucination, things had started spiraling.

  At the bathhouse, he started getting progressively more dizzy and nauseous until he had to stumble his way back home.

  He lay back down in bed—now nice and clean—and decided he would have to sleep this drug-induced sickness off. When he woke up the next day, he would take stock of all the different substances he’d taken and figure out which was the culprit for this horrible experience.