Nathaniel was almost certainly dreaming. He could feel his skin crawling, with scales appearing and disappearing in swirling patches over his arms and chest. He was naked, or close to it, with only loincloth on. He could see swirling colors, and heard distant voices, but he couldn’t move toward them. They each, one at a time, dove into and through him, leaving him with eight little sparks of… something inside him. The voices were clearer now, whispering to him of the way the world worked. Of the limitations of flesh. Of how he would be reborn, again and again, until they were satisfied. Then he was running through the halls of his old university, holding a baseball bat. Something flew at him out of an open classroom, and he swung at it, hard. It slid around his weapon, and clapped him across the head. He spun as he fell, and siphoned its life away. It dwindled, and died, and he got back to his feet and kept running. The end of the hallway loomed, and as he burst through the door he was scorched by fire. He instinctively threw himself back, and waited for Regeneration to cure his burns… but it didn’t. His scales flickered again, and he ran the other way, right into a massive boulder divided into eight equal wedges, each a different color. The stone rolled forward, and would grind him to a paste. He ran again, and fell into the arms of a naked woman. She clutched at his loincloth, and he kicked her away. She was beautiful, he had time to notice through the panic, but she was… wrong. She was too mammal. He ran past a dinosaur, that tried to bite at him, and breathed fire when it couldn’t reach. He saw a locked door ahead, and imbued the lock with life so that it would open when he arrived. It did, and it followed him, detaching from the door with a small sound like tearing muscle. Looked at his hands, and they had long talon-like fingernails, but no scales. He caught a glimpse of himself in a window as he ran past, and saw him mouth hanging open, reptilian forked tongue lolling out one side. No fangs, no snout, just the reptilian tongue…

Nathaniel woke up in pain. His head hurt, and the light from the window was too bright, and he’d slept like absolute shit. He’d had… some kind of weird dream? With lights and… something was chasing him? Whatever, it was gone. He got up got some water, trying to clear the cotton out of his mouth. Buh. Never drinking with Derek again, that’s for sure. The man was like a machine… although, on second thought, he probably hadn’t been drinking much if he planned Nathaniel home. It was Phyllis who was mixing the drinks.

It was possible, he admitted to himself, that he was simply a lightweight. He hadn’t really drunk alcohol since he graduated a few years ago.