The Morning After
The first thing he did was try to blink away the stabbing behind his eyes.
It was like an Irish dance was being done directly onto the backs of each of his eyeballs.
His mouth was dry, yet absolutely repugnant while his stomach was in another kind of pain.
One that threatened to appear in liquid, and possibly chunky form if he wasn't careful.
The worst part was that his ability meant he had total awareness.
It was like his ability to resist the effects of alcohol. Both stemmed from his ability which forced him to properly process the information from his senses.
The problem here was that his senses all hated him.
He also noticed a sharp pain emanating from the left side of his chest.
As he lay there, staring at the ceiling and cursing god for the creation of the world itself, he realised something.
He wasn't alone in the bed.
A light grunt followed by steady but soft breathing alerted him that he had a guest.
Or maybe he was the guest.
Again, he had no idea where he was.
He was just thankful that he was in a double bed, otherwise, things could have been really awkward.
He turned his head to look at his bedmate. Both hoping it was one of his male friends, while also slightly horrified at the idea.
He wasn't gay after all, so spending the night naked in bed with a dude was a little, no, a lot, out of his comfort zone.
On the other hand, the opposite would have its own set of problems.
He couldn't lie that the idea that he had spent the night with one of the girls didn't somewhat appeal to him.
He was a guy after all, and he didn't have any sort of condition that prevented such things.
Not to mention that due to his social disinterest, he had never had a girlfriend.
But overall, he would still prefer to have awoken alone. The complications for if he did have a one-night stand alone were enough to exasperate him.
Turning over both betrayed his expectations and relieved him.
The person he was in bed with had their back turned, but he could tell by their hair and frame that it was Stephanie.
More importantly, she was on top of the bed, while he was under the covers.
And she was still fully clothed.
He also realised something else, he wasn't naked.
Only his shirt was off, thank God.
Thankfully his hangover seemed to be easing up, at least the headache and nausea were not so bad he found it hard to move anymore.
Seemed his ability was putting in some work, finally.
His mouth on the other hand, still reminded him of a combination of urinal cakes and cobwebs.
Jacob carefully slipped out of the covers and swung his legs off the beg.
To his delight, his phone was still in his pocket.
He was slightly less thankful for its lack of charge.
Looking into the mirror on the wall he realised the source of the pain coming from his chest.
He had a tattoo.
Holy crap he had a tattoo.
And not just a small, hard-to-see, simple tattoo either.
It was a large and detailed depiction of a door.
Clearly made of sturdy oak-type wood with an elegant style.
Above it were words that appeared to be carved into yet the same magnetic slab he had seen back then.
'Knowledge is Power'.
It was the same door to the library from the haunted mansion.
Apparently, he had decided to get it tattooed onto him.
Seemed like a totally normal thing to do.
More importantly, what the hell had he been drinking?
Because clearly, it had the power to REDIFINE THE WORD NORMAL.
What kind of maniac was he that he decided he needed a daily reminder of that place whenever he looked in the mirror?!
Sure, it was pretty much the only place in the mansion that hadn't actively tried to kill him but that didn't mean he wanted to permanently mark his body in gratitude!
Jacob's eye twitched as he internally retorted to the absurdity of his drunken actions.
After taking a few seconds to calm down he decided to exit the room and try and figure out where he was.
He quietly slipped out of the bedroom he was in and into the main area of the apartment.
It was small, from what he could tell of the layout it was a two-bedroom apartment with a single bathroom and a combination of living room and kitchen.
On the couch, watching TV was Ressana, sitting in casual wear.
By casual wear, he meant what appeared to be nothing but underwear and a guy's shirt.
It left little to the imagination, Jacob assumed her body's… athletic proportions were due to her upbringing and constant activity.
He himself had been more active lately, but only to the extent that he no longer could be considered unfit, more on the verge of being healthy.
'Out of the frying pan and into the fire huh?' Jacob thought to himself in minor shock.
"Hey sleeping beauty, took you a while to wake up. Though I'm not surprised after last night" She said as she noticed him.
Memories flashed in his mind.
He got vague images of him dancing on top of the bar with Erwin.
Well, dancing was perhaps a generous word to describe what many would call an epileptic fit to the rhythm of music, but still.
He remembered smashing back shots in a competition with Ress.
Then throwing them up about two meters from the toilet after he had stumbled into the bathroom.
"Hey, Jax the rockstar! Glad to see you're alive." Sully said.
He was standing in the kitchen portion of the room, cooking something on a frying pan.
More memories assaulted him.
Screaming the song 'Dancing in the Moonlight' into a mic with Erwin and Sully by his side.
Attempting to play pool with his feet.
Not a good idea by the way.
And attempting to climb out the window so that he could… find the roof reservoir?
He vaguely remembered seeing the sprinklers and coming to the conclusion that they required a water tank above the roof to function.
He then further decided that the water within that tank would be delicious and attempted to seek it out.
"Ahhh, please tell me no one recorded any of anything last night" he pleaded.
"Can't" Shin said, revealing himself to be lying face down on the other couch, clearly taking the hangover harder he was.
Another wave of memories came along.
Him playing darts.
With his eyes closed.
He had a legendary intuition when it came to the game, he could hit the bullseye from any distance.
At least that's what he believed at the time.
The large man several meters away from the dart board who he had hit in the cheek with a dart disagreed.
Thankfully, Shin was sober enough to help him barely avoid getting his ass beat straight away.
And Sully was nice enough to pay for the guy's next drink, so all was eventually forgiven.
"You bastard" Jacob resigned himself.
"Blackmail is always useful" Shin responded as he once again rolled back over.
"Well it looks like you two had fun" he turned to Ress and Sully.
"Us, well it was a fantastically exciting night" Ress answered, sending a wink Sully's way, confirming Jacob's suspicions.
"Yeah right, you barged in here, stole my shirt and pushed me out of my own bed!" Sully retorted.
Which of course had Ressana laughing her ass off at his expense.
"Awww, couldn't you have let me have a little fun with it?" She mock pouted.
At that moment the bedroom door that Jacob had entered from opened again.
And out stepped a groggy Stephanie, both her hair and clothing dishevelled from the blackout sleep she had just woken from.
"Looks like you had an exciting night yourself…" Ress insinuated at the sight of her.
"Huh? Didn't you put her-" Jacob started, only to remember a little more.
Turns out that Stephanie had regained consciousness during the night before they left.
Afterwards, a multitude of things had happened.
Her being hit on by a few men and eventually having her potential suitors walk away with a sour look.
Only for her to walk up to him and complain that they asked her what she was doing here and when she explained they walked away after making an excuse.
Turns out she had explained the exact situation of her coming from the university to the bar, every turn and street name they had come down and the conversation topics along the way as well as her personal thoughts on each of them.
He also remembered joking around about getting tattooed with Ressana and Sully when Stephanie suggested getting a book tattoo.
Eventually, he had agreed under the premise that everyone else got one as well.
And it seemed that they had actually done it.
The difference between them was that he had decided to show it off to the world by streaking with nothing but his underwear afterwards.
Not his finest moment.
Luckily after a quick bath in a nearby fountain, his friends had gotten his pants back on and they made their way to Sully's place.
He had gone to bed with a level of rationality thanks to the shock from jumping in the fountain.
The others, not so much.
At some point in the night, he had been awoken by the door opening and Steph coming into the room to pass out on the other side of the bed fully clothed.
"What?" Stephanie said, her head slightly tilting as she asked the question before looking back and forth between the group and Jacob.
After a few seconds she looked down, then at Jacob, before going red in the face.
"NO. Nothing like that you pervert!" She shouted, mainly at Ress.
Which of course only made the wild girl go from suppressed giggles to straight laughter.
Jacob shook his head in resignation as a small smile formed on his lips.
It was just so… peaceful, even with the chaos of last night.
So normal, and mundane compared to the world of dreamers.
"Alright kiddos, bacon and pancakes for everyone! Come and get 'em!" Sully announced heartily from the kitchen.
That was how they spent the morning.
Sharing stories from the night before, trying to remember what had happened.
And laughing at the videos Shin had taken on his phone.
Jacob even found out what each of them had gotten as tattoos.
Erwin had gotten a cane, top hat, and monocle combination. The pinnacle of the English if you asked him.
Ressana had gotten a skull and crossbones where the bones were replaced with a cutlass and flintlock pistol, like her ability. For here it was added around her already existing tattoos that shined when she used her ability.
Shin had gotten a simple dagger with an open eye engraved onto the centre of the blade, right near its hilt.
Sully had gotten an almost runic symbol which he said meant water, ice, and fulfilment.
Steph had gotten something simpler, a leatherbound fantasy book that was partway open so that the cover could not be seen. It had a distinctly magical look to it.
Thanks to Jacob's ability he could recreate the images of what they wanted perfectly, so each was of high quality.
As far as mornings go, it was peaceful, chaotic, and fun.
The next few weeks of Jacob's life were similar, he had deepened his friendship with everyone in the group.
They spent the time studying, training and occasionally hanging out.
A typical ideal lifestyle for a university student.
When Jacob looked back in a few years he would wish he had savoured these days more.
Since all good things inevitably come to an end.