Samuel instantly woke up with cold sweat and panic, after a few heavy breaths he realized he was in his room and everything was quiet, except for the little light that tried peeking in from the door frame, nothing seemed out of shape. The nice smell of his mothers breakfast made his mouth water and he got up from his bed and opened the door, quickly running down the stairs to join his mom and dad in breakfast.
'Stop it!'
His dad came in from early morning work and gave his son a friendly pat on the back as he walked behind him, while his mother turned around from the stove with some breakfast recently cooked. Only when she turned around all he could see was her maimed corpse, making his eyes wide and suddenly she was back to her regular shape.
'Stop it now!'
Samuel felt a tear streak down his cheek, his kind mother saw it and quickly put her thumb and brushed it away with a smile, then she placed all the breakfast for the family so they could eat their morning fill. She watched with pride as her two boys ate their breakfast. Samuel turned to his father and saw his body filled with stab holes and blood overflowing from every orifice - he wanted to scream again, but a smile from his parents returned everything to normal.
'I said stop!'
After finishing breakfast he walked outside with his father to help with daily chores, 'Huh thats funny' he inwardly thought to himself as he walked out to see fire and smoke from all the surrounding lands, all the farm animals lay dead on the field and nothing but a ruin of fire remained, but a few blinks and it all returned to normal.
'What even is normal anymore?'
Samuel after finishing chores walked over to the water barrel to take a nice drink. When he opened the lid he saw his own face with blood running out of his nose and mouth, choking him. The area around his heart became dark red and he felt great pain.
He suddenly woke up in the academy bed again and realized he was surrounded by a black aura that was extending from him, he tried to scream in pain as his heart felt like it was shattering like glass, but only darkness came out of his mouth and silenced pretty much all noise, he found himself getting dragged down into a pool of tar like substance and felt that he was drowning in his own blood or maybe it was the black substance, he wasn't even sure himself anymore.
All of a sudden the deep sea of blackness faded and he felt like he had sank through it and he landed on a cobbled road in the middle of nowhere, but everything was wrong, everything was dark and there were red pulsating lights everywhere, shadows flickered and screamed at him.
It felt like every shadow was alive and his stomach twisted in a knot, and he finally puked out a lot of black tar like substance that tasted like shit. He must have puked out a stomach fulls worth, because when he was finally done he collapsed on his side barely staying awake without losing consciousness.
After what felt like hours he finally sat up with cold sweat and a world that spun with every movement. Suddenly he heard galloping from horse hoves (or something similar at least) so he slowly turned toward the direction the sound was coming from, and tried to see into the distance by squinting. After a short while, what looked like a horse rounded a corner with heavy thuds in a full gallop.
Samuel felt like running but he could barely stand from exhaustion so he slowly rose to his feet so as to not faint or fall on the ground. The horse suddenly came to a screeching halt on the old cobble, stopping right next to him - it turned its head to him.
He felt like he was pierced by the red eyes, it looked like a large horse that was completely black but it was like it was covered in living shadows instead, the horse quickly cast its mane and trampled the ground in impatience, Samuel could swear it wanted him to do something. But he heard a guttural shriek come from the same direction the horse had come running from, suddenly it was like a hundred living shadows came running around the corner.
The horse gently bumped its head into Samuel's and trotted impatiently on the ground in front of him as the shadows were rushing towards them. Samuel took the hint and quickly grabbed the mane of the horse and it almost threw him over its back making him almost lie still and hold onto it as it started running away from the horde of shadows.
It was warm and comfortable and he felt safe on its back... on her back, his Night Mare. The thoughts didn't make sense to him but currently he was preoccupied with surviving the nightmare situation as the horse sped up even more easily outrunning the shadows that seemed to stop and wail in a horrible tone. Samuel sighed and embraced the horse even harder and whispered. "Thank you!"
The next moment over he woke up once again in the academy bed to someone bashing his door. "Kid I do not know what the problem is for you, but I swear I will kill you personally if you dont get up!" Bregane shouted and finally broke into the room.
Samuel had woken up only a matter of seconds before he broke in, so the moment Bregane barged in was the moment Samuel pulled himself off the bed and landed on the floor on all fours and started puking out the same black substance, thankfully not as much of it but still enough to make Bregane instantly go from angry to worried.
"Kid are you alright?" He quickly walked forward and put his hand on Samuels back and almost recoiled in shock, he was ice cold. Bregane quickly helped Samuel sit back up on the bed when he had stopped gagging, and he quickly put several blankets around Samuel who was visibly shaking and clattering his teeth from the sudden cold he was experiencing.
"I do not know whats going on kid, but you seriously need to see a healer. There are plenty of healers here at the college, so you stay here and I will go fetch one!" Bregane said as a command, even if Samuel had wanted to leave he had no strength to do anything. Bregane quickly cleansed the tar substance with magical fire and left to find a healer.
After a few minutes had lasted and Samuel was regaining some heat, he felt a voice in his mind go "Just call me whenever you need me master!" Was this another hallucination? Was his mind playing more pranks on him? Was this his... Night? Night! Night he repeated the word a few times.
A few more minutes passed and Bregane came back with a younger man who was wearing a healer robe and had a small bag with him. Samuel barely noticed anything or anyone because he was so exhausted, so the healer took his tests mostly in silence and asked him basic questions about his health.
After a while the healer shrugged and walked outside with Bregane following suit. "So whats wrong with him doc?" Bregane quickly asked when out of earshot, "I do not know Bregane, he shows symptoms common to those who walk between the planes but that should be impossible for a new student, I will send my findings to his personal healer and she will decide what to do from there. So just give him a day to recover and if he isn't better by then just come find me!" The healer said and took his things and with them his leave after a quick nod from Bregane.
Seeing as how it was already lunch, Bregane spent the afternoon by giving Samuel something to eat and plenty to drink and spent his time fixing the door while giving Samuel some time to rest. By the time Bregane had fixed the door and was leaving, Samuel's roommates just returned although they were all a bit shocked to see Samuels mentor leaving they found no Samuel and asumed he was in his room resting or something.
Samuel heard their laughing from the bottom floor after a while and groaned, wishing that Bregane would have fixed the enchantment on the door that reduced noises that he had so kindly broken when barging in. It worked for all kinds of noises except those that were directly on or next to the door, but now he had to listen to the girls talking about all kinds of magic things while he lay there miserable and tired.
He was tired enough that sleep claimed him anyway after a short while, thankfully he had no nightmares this time and slept well for the entire evening and night, waking up feeling extremely refreshed, it was like he had slept for an entire week in one go. He felt in top shape and everything came clear to his mind.