The bizarre dream filled with murmurs shattered instantly. A throb struck his head; his brain echoed, pushing the liquid surrounding it. The rushing hot water steamed his brain, flowing across his ears, which should be red at the tips by now.
He reached his head with his hands, but they stayed beside him. He opened his eyes; they didn't budge. He was still in the grips of this dream.
Desperate, he tried to grasp his will which felt as insubstantial as a wisp of fog—there one moment and gone the next. His thoughts came untamed: Random notions and images bubbling up unbidden, his focus slowly slipping away.
Was this a terrible hemorrhage? He must have been asleep for a while—and he needed to go to work! Was he in a coma; had he been struck by a drunkard?
BANG!
A sickening throb slammed him back into reality. His eyes shot up. He gasped. His vision blurred, masked by a faint crimson light.
The blurriness faded; his fists were on a table, a notebook with crisp pages between them. On it, with smeared ink, probably in English, were large dripping letters. Books were stacked in front of him. A fat dip pen lay idly in an ink bottle.
A groan then a throb, a splash of water landing on his head. He looked up. The ceiling was veined with washed-out-grey pipes. A blur of yellow to his left. Then a crack. Following the pipes, down to the walls, a wall lamp had been lit. Its glass panes wrapped around the flame and its black body was designed with old flowers.
A wink of light stabbed into his eyes. He blinked, then looked down. A revolver lay on the desk. Its barrel was a shimmering steel, its cylinder a glowing gold, the grip made of wood. The light from the lamp sliced across the steel, giving him a faint reflection of himself.
He just realized he could see perfectly, but his glasses were gone.
Thud!
The chair slammed on the floor. He stood, gasping. Beside a door, in this small room, was a cracked mirror, sheeted with dust, forgotten by time. Slowly, bracing himself from the shock, he walked towards it. His sleeves were white, his waist vest was brown, the blue veins slithered across his arms—he was much taller than he remembered…
And now, for his face…His lips parted. His eyes grew wide. He placed a hand on his cheeks. His nose was large—longer, and his eyes were as large as the monsters hung on houses at Halloween, its iris a faint brown.
His race changed…
A terrible, scary—but interesting dream. The pain shot up in his brain. He gripped his hair, closing his eyes, leaning on the glass.
Dreams don't hurt. His eyes crept open. He looked at himself—then saw it. Red smeared his palm and hair. He lifted his palm, lowered his hands, then turned, looking over his shoulders. A small hole was pulsing with blood, small entrails bulging out. Whipping his head back he collapsed on his knees, gagging, the bloody palm covering his mouth.
Eyes covered with a sheet of tear, his pupils shrank as he realized. Removing the hand—his lips covered with a faint smear of blood—he ran a sleeve below his nose.
A faint trail of crimson light bathed on the table, a red dot on the black glass of the ink bottle. The curtains shifted a bit, revealing a red moon.
He wasn't on Earth.