A Rude Awakening

Later that evening, after returning to his dorm, James sat alone in his room staring up at the ceiling with his hands behind his head; he'd done a fair bit of work today - he left his room for a start and did some exercise, and even had a friend over for a coffee whilst he helped them work through a question on a tutorial sheet - at least in his current eyes that was enough; but he'd always dreamed of more, making a difference and all that nonsense used to appeal to him but life seemed to have progressed differently. 'Ah well, I'll do some work after I get back from the club tonight, my ban would've been around this time last year huh…' he pondered to himself.

Drifting off for a power nap, he noticed a dark shadow in the corner of the room - darker than black, like a void of nothing, like he was being sucked into a black hole. "Weird dream" he thought to himself, as he closed his eyes again expecting this lucid dream to continue, trying to ignore the figure away; assuming if he stops thinking about it then it'll leave, but it's presence only grew closer to him against his own volition.

"Let me wake up", but he realises quickly that's only wishful thinking - nightmares don't work that way. Unable to wake and painfully aware of this fact, James sat up in a cold sweat, panic setting in, his shorts and black T-shirt clinging to his body from the moisture as the blackness enveloped him. His consciousness slipped against his will, feeling a sharp pain shoot through his heart before a soothing numbness radiated through his body a split second later - "Is this what death feels like?" runs through his mind as his final thought flashes through his consciousness: "You know, this isn't so bad".

His eyes dart open as he expects to have woken from a very weird dream but instead he sees a beautiful woman angrily staring down at him as he lays there on the floor, her fiery red hair fluttering from the slight disturbance in the air caused by his sudden appearance.

A thought crossed James' mind, "She looks kinda familiar? Wait! That's -" but before he could continue his train of thought, James felt a heavy sensation impact his ribs, being kicked and sent flying, bouncing off the marble floors into a seemingly unending marble pillar - his glasses breaking in the process. "Use your legs and get up, we've all been waiting for days for you!" yelled the unfamiliar girl's voice.

A basilica surrounded him, constructed entirely of marble, surrounded James. 49 colossal pillars, each the thickness of 3 trees, stretching hundreds of metres into the air to meet the circumference of a giant, ribbed dome. Underneath the dome stood 7 multicoloured statues adorned on silk-draped altars, surrounding a humongous, gray crystal spire, at least 30 metres in diameter and twice as tall.

"What's your deal, you better be damn good after all this waiting we've done!" yelled a man from one of the irregular sides of the crystal spire, breaking James' stupored state, the aggressive man's biceps nearly tearing through his messily tucked tuxedo shirt as he raised his hands behind his head nonchalantly, the other 4 people in the room seemingly ignoring him. "The black dragon bestows the gift of the Analyst to the one known as James." boomed a voice from the heavens, deep, thick, and gruff - "Maybe God or whatever should stop smoking" thought James to himself, chuckling and getting up off the floor to try and find the remnants of his glasses. The same woman charged at James with another kick, aiming a roundhouse to the left side of his body. As it arced towards him, time seemed to slow very slightly and he was somehow able to perceive a faint dashed trajectory line for the kick in his vision, James being more worried about the foot flying towards his head naturally didn't notice this.

James' feet slid across the floor as his knees bent, taking the impact of the kick, the girl in front of him smirked with enjoyment at the slight grimace on his face. "What's so funny! That hurt..", James' words trailed off as he realised that didn't actually hurt that much at all, in fact his shoulder only had a slight red mark at the point of contact of the kick - instantly voicing the first thought that popped into his head. "Holy shit I'm strong!"

"You've figured out something so revolutionary, wow, it isn't as if we've been waiting here for you to appear for 2 days!" yelled the annoying girl, still angry at James for seemingly nothing. "Let's hope 'Analyst' or whatever can give you a brain, you seem like you need it after that dumb comment you just made.", was her final comment before huffing and storming off towards a red statue of a phoenix; the others stared at her, before casting a glance of slight embarrassment and pity towards James.

James looked up at the 6 others, who all turned away and walked to their own individual seats, the colour of which matched the colours of the small crests, all the shape of regular seven-sided polygons, visible on the back of their necks. "Wow, it looks kinda like a satanic version of the Power Rangers..." thought James to himself.

Looking around, James saw seven statues: the aforementioned red phoenix, flames seemingly dancing in and out of existence around its unfurled wings as it cawed to the heavens; a blue serpent, water flowing down its scales in an uninterrupted flow as it slowly coiled around itself; a green tortoise, trees and flowers sprouting on its shell, and a beard of moss draping from its wizened chin; a giant gray eagle with a visible vortex of rushing wind obscuring its wings, both tucked into its body; a golden unicorn, arcs of bright yellow lightning streaming around its body; a white-scaled Eastern dragon - a long serpent with wings floating in mid air and coiled into a figure-of-eight - it shone with pure white radiance as it froze, soaring into the sky; and a black-scaled Western dragon, neck craned to the sky with its mouth wide open in a perpetual roar, its entire body enveloped in a pitch black mist.

"Wait, I can see?! My glasses clearly look broken, but clearly is the key word here!". "Well, looks like I can finally drop the moniker of speccy nerd in this weird fever dream at least…" he thought, walking away from his glasses towards the only empty seat remaining - the black seat in front of a gigantic statue of an imposing black dragon.