The shadows were ebbing away but the swirling of the environment was, if anything, getting worse. The surroundings were breaking down: Here a scrap of taffeta from a party dress was flying by, there a tile stained black with blood shattering on a wall. Glass and pieces of sky (both day and night) and broken pipes rained down on him. He screamed, cowering into himself --

-- inside a snarl of blankets, lips pressed tightly against each other.

In moments he was out of his bed, bent over a sink, retching with nothing in his stomach to throw up.

"Just once," he said to nothing in particular, "I'd like to wake up without having to run to the bathroom. Is that so much to ask?" His voice barely shook at all.