Makun opened his eyes.
Cold tile pressed against his cheek. His body ached. Everything ached.
But he was alive.
He pushed himself up on his elbows, head spinning. The movement sent waves of nausea through him, but his stomach was empty now.
He looked down at himself.
Vomit covered his shirt, his pants, pooled around him on the bathroom floor. But mixed in with the bile and stomach acid were the pills. All of them. White and half dissolved, scattered across the tiles like broken teeth.
Every single pill he'd swallowed was there on the floor.
His body had rejected them completely.
Makun stared at the mess, the reality sinking in.
He was here. Back. Alive.
That meant everything had happened.
The drift through layers of reality. The chains wrapped around his soul. The presence in the absolute darkness. Her voice resonating through his consciousness.
Your poor luck is a result of people feeding from you.
Get powerful. Dive deep into the Mystic.
It was all real.
There was more to life than the normal nine to five. More than the everyday grind of survival and failure. Were religions correct after all? Were those cultists he'd read about online actually telling the truth about hidden realities and spiritual forces?
He'd think about that later.
First, he had to clean this mess up.
Makun braced his hands on the floor, preparing to stand. The moment he shifted his weight, he felt it.
Different.
He couldn't explain it, but it was as if he had more control over his life. Even if it was tiny, he could still feel it. Like a weight had been lifted from his chest. Like he was breathing freely for the first time in twenty three years.
He definitely gained something from the chain link breaking.
He had to uncover what it was.
Makun looked around the small bathroom for something he could use to clean the floor. Paper towels. Bleach. Anything to deal with the mess in this old apartment.
That's when he screamed.
"AAH!"
Dense, translucent masses of particles hung near the bathroom door. Swirling. Moving. Like smoke made of light, or light made of smoke.
What the hell were those things?
He turned his head, blinking hard, trying to focus.
They were everywhere.
Not just by the door. Particles floating around the entire bathroom. Not many, but they were definitely there. Drifting through the air like spiritual dust motes.
Then the pain hit.
Sharp, stabbing agony in his frontal lobe. Like someone was drilling into his skull from the inside. He pressed his palms against his forehead, gasping.
Something was opening.
A third eye. That's what it felt like. But it seemed to have opened at maybe one eighth of what it should have been. Partial. Incomplete. Like trying to see through a keyhole.
Makun squeezed his eyes shut, hoping darkness would calm the pain.
It didn't help.
Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the energy. The particles. The strange translucent masses moving around him. The sensation was overwhelming, alien.
His head throbbed.
Makun was confused. More than confused.
He needed answers. Now.
These changes were too sudden, too dramatic. He couldn't just stumble around blind while his vision showed him impossible things. The presence had warned him about people coming after him. About getting strong. But he knew nothing about what was going on.
Information. He needed that more than anything.
With his eyes still closed, he started thinking.
The internet was definitely a good source of knowledge. But how could he filter right from wrong? How could he tell real mystical information from fantasy and fraud?
Then a thought came to mind.
Zuri.
Yes. Her.
She'd seen something in those shells that had terrified her. Something about him that made her throw him out in panic. If anyone might know something about what was happening to him, it would be her.
He decided that after cleaning up this mess, he was going back there.
Whether she wanted to see him or not.
---
Makun cleaned the bathroom floor with paper towels and whatever cleaning supplies he could find under the sink. The whole time, particles drifted through his peripheral vision. Translucent masses that shouldn't exist.
He tried not to look directly at them. The pain in his frontal lobe was still there, throbbing with each heartbeat.
After cleaning up, he stripped off his vomit stained clothes and threw them in a garbage bag. Everything went. Shirt, pants, underwear. He'd rather go naked than wear anything touched by that mess.
He grabbed clean clothes from his drawer. Jeans. A black t shirt. His only decent jacket.
Makun checked his phone.
12:17 PM.
That was impossible.
He'd left Zuri's place around 10:30 AM. The pills, the astral drift, the conversation with the presence... all of that had felt like hours. Like an eternity suspended in darkness.
But less than two hours had passed in the real world.
Time during the drift hadn't really impacted time in real life. It was like a dream where you lived through days of experience but woke up having only napped for minutes.
Makun pocketed his phone, grabbed his keys, and headed for the door.
The bus ride to the lower city took twenty five minutes. He sat in the back, trying not to stare at the particles floating through the air. They were everywhere now. Drifting between passengers. Swirling around windows. Moving with purpose he couldn't understand.
His head still ached.
By the time he reached 47 Osapa Street, it was just past 1:00 PM.
The yellow building looked the same. Peeling paint. Rusty stairs. Nothing had changed except him.
Makun climbed to the third floor. Apartment 3B.
He raised his fist and knocked.
"Zuri. Open up."
Footsteps inside. Rapid. Angry.
The door cracked open, chain still attached.
Her eye appeared in the gap. Sharp. Furious.
"Are you fucking serious right now?"
"We need to talk."
"No. We don't." Her voice was ice cold. "Why the hell are you bothering me? If it's the money, I was gonna send it back to you anyway. So stop pestering me and leave."
"This isn't about money."
"I don't care what it's about." The door started to close.
Makun slammed his palm against it. "Wait."
"GET YOUR HAND OFF MY DOOR!"
"I need your help." The desperation leaked into his voice despite himself. "Something's wrong with me. Something's been wrong my whole life, and it's getting worse."
"I can't help you."
"You saw something in that reading. Something that scared you." Makun pressed closer to the gap. "I don't need you to fix whatever's wrong with me. I just need you to point me in a direction. Tell me where I can find knowledge. Information. Anything."
"I told you to leave."
"My entire life has been shit. Twenty three years of bad luck, accidents, failures. You looked at those shells and you saw why. I know you did."
Silence.
"I don't know what's happening to me, but I know you have some idea. I'm not asking you to solve my problems. Just tell me where to start looking. How do I learn to take care of myself?"
"I don't know anything."
"Bullshit." His voice hardened. "You wouldn't have panicked like that if you didn't know exactly what you were looking at. I'm begging you. Just point me in the right direction."
More silence.
Makun leaned his forehead against the door. "Please. I've got nowhere else to go. No one else to ask. I'm drowning here."
He heard her breathing on the other side. Shallow. Quick.
"I can't..." she started.
"You don't have to do anything. Just tell me where people like you learn this stuff. Books. Places. People. Something."
A long pause.
Then the sound of chains sliding.
The door opened.