They finish picking her stuff up and she looks at Eva. "My, you certainly do look tired. School overworking you, love?"

"Ah, not too badly, I just didn't get much sleep," says Eva in response, smiling.

"Hmm, yes, you wouldn't. Not today."

Eva continues smiling but looks a bit confused at that. "I'm sorry? I don't get what you mean."

"Oh, it's the nightmares, isn't it?"

She continues to look confused. "I… still don't get what you mean, I'm afraid?"

"Never you mind, dearie, just the ramblings of an old lady." She wouldn't believe her, anyway. Not this early. She pats Eva's hand and says, "Thank you for your help. It'll be over soon, you'll see."

And on she continues.

Eva frowns a little, but also continues on her way.

She decides that, ultimately, she'd probably rather get some extra sleep tonight over going to the Bronze, so she texts a few people to say that she doesn't think she'll make it tonight.

Hopefully they won't be too disappointed.

And then, after an early dinner and a quick shower, she brushes her teeth, gets changed, and gets into bed.

She'll be asleep soon enough.

That she will!

It is night, and the stars are shining bright. There is absolutely no air polution to occlude them, a sight most people never get to see.

Oh, that's lovely.

This is way better than last night's dream already.

She thinks she'll just stay in the precise position she currently is, and will not look around to see if there are any horrific monsters, at all. She would rather not tempt the dream to do a repeat of last night, and this one seems like it might be trying to making up for the night before.

Yeah no. Her body seems to be moving without her conscious command and forcing her to see where she is. It's a desert, and there's a campfire over there, with a few tents, and a few people wearing very little around the fire.

Are you serious?

Can she just… bite herself and try to wake up? Or is her body going to continue to move despite how she would like to react were she awake?

Her body allows her reactions that don't involve refusing to do what the dream wants her to do, apparently. She can bite herself, to no effect other than this causing her pain.

Ugh, are you serious?

What the hell kind of a dream is this.

The kind that's starting to nudge her towards the campfire, that's what.

Well fine. She'll be nudged to go towards the campfire, but she will not be happy.

Stupid dream.

The dream slowly starts getting more dreamlike qualities like her moving places without much conscious desire to move her legs one after the other, or hazy visuals that don't quite make sense. By the time she has reached the campfire, she can no longer reliably count how many men—and they are all men—are gathered around the campfire. They're chanting, and there's a drawing around the fire.

Well that's weird, but fine.

What does the drawing look like? Is it easy to get an idea of the overall shape and size of it, or will she have to make do with the little information that she gets from what is presumably coming next?

It's a circle. There are symbols on it. It's not much clearer than that.

The chanting reaches a crescendo, but she isn't there anymore to listen to it. She's inside one of the tents, looking at—

—herself—

—except no, the girl lying there on the ground writhing in pain doesn't look like her at all. Her body is painted, and she looks to be hurting terribly, and unable to do anything about it.

But in some very real sense, that girl is her.

She's–

– why the fuck is she being tortured, what the hell.

… Does she feel any pain? Please tell her she feels no pain right now, please.

She doesn't—

—lies, she does. Except she also doesn't because she's not—herself—that girl—

Double vision is an understatement.

The girl stops writhing and looks at her. She senses movement behind herself, but she can't look, all she can see is the girl, looking directly into her eyes.

Exc-fucking-scuse me?

She is not up to feeling double, especially with all the fucking pain.

And… what. Is she… looking at herself…

What is behind her!?

Who knows. The girl says something, and Eva knows it's not in any language she knows.

But she also understands with perfect clarity that the word the girl just uttered was 'run.'

And she's running.

She is.

She is running so fucking hard, she does not want to be anywhere near this– this whatever.

At least the dream is actually aligning with what she now wants.

Yep, exactly, she's—

—wait, she's not running away, she's running toward something. She... she really wants to catch it, whatever it is.