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'You're too eager, Johnny. Too quick into the five-bar-gate jumping.' said Leman softly. 'I think, I mean, you know...' He paused, aware that he was talking gibberish. 'Take off your crushed velvet, man, you're giving me a headache. Can you dig it?'

Gavin Hyde seemed to find this the funniest thing that had ever been said by anyone in the history of the world, but no one else was laughing. Fay stared at the crazy-eyed philosophy lecturer angrily. 'What you got, Tony? Speedballs?

Twenty-Five?'

Leman fished in his pocket and pulled out a small red and yellow capsule which he held up to the light. 'Dymoxyl Lybegen Amphetamine-Sulphate. "909" to the trade.

Synthetic, odourless, colourless, tasteless...'

'What's it do?' asked Fay.

'Do? It does your bloody head in, that's what it does.'

John reached out for the capsule but Leman snatched his hand away.

'Careful, sonny. This isn't weed. It's a possible cure for cancer, but it's said to really open the mind. I'm talking floodgates, baby. I'm talking about other realities. Turn on, tune in, freak out'

'Yeah?' said Fay, quickly. 'I'll have some of that'

Leman shook his head. 'It's twenty times stronger than anything you'll have ever had before'

'Big deal.' said Fay, and grabbed the drug from Leman's upturned palm. 'Reality's boring. I try to avoid it whenever possible'

Fay looked down at the pill. It didn't seem anything special. 'Careful.' warned John.

Fay ignored him. He was probably just annoyed that she had got the drug instead of him, but she detected a more genuine concern in Leman's eyes. 'Think hard about this,' he said quietly.

Fay slipped the drug between her teeth, swallowing it with a mouthful of wine.

The room was as silent as a midnight church. Fay stood up, pacing the room. She noticed absently the first flickerings of dawn through the dark window panes.

'Well?' asked Gavin.

'Give it time,' said Leman quickly.

Fay glanced around the room. Familiar patterns and shapes. 'Nothing,' she said, slumping in disappointment next to Leman. 'You're a frigging rat, Tony. Tell me the truth.' this is a bloody antihistamine or something, isn't it?'

'No,' said Leman. 'No, it isn't. It'll happen,' he said, almost sadly.

Fay took him at his word, and looked around the room again. No change. Then she became aware of her own breathing, the blood pouring through her veins, the scratch of fabric on every inch of her skin. She forced her eyes open -

she hadn't even noticed them close - and felt reality bend.

Leman was saying something, but his voice came towards her in a wave. It was as if four thousand Zen Buddhist monks on a hillside were chanting at her and she was the Dalai Lama.

She swallowed hard. Darkness shrouded the periphery of her sight, then it blossomed blindingly in every direction, like a switch from tunnel vision to Cinemascope. She felt like she was a hundred feet tall. 'Oh,' she heard herself saying. 'I think...'

And then, rather than looking at the room, she looked inside herself, at the world contained within, at the snake wrapped around its apple-green purity, at the gaping mouth beginning to open, spilling dark shapes.

Somewhere, a world away, she could hear herself screaming.

* * *

Fay threw herself to the floor, her arms thrashing about wildly.

She screamed again, ranting incoherently as her astonished friends sat motionless around her. Finally, John dragged himself out of his stupor and grabbed hold of Fay's flailing arms, taking a whack in the face for his trouble. 'Help me, for Christ's sake,' he said angrily.

Slowly, Gavin and Chris pulled themselves together and shuffled over to his side.

'Fay,' said John urgently, 'Fay. Listen to me. It's all right.

You're with friends. Fay. Calm down'

'No!' screamed the banshee he was holding. 'Don't let it open its mouth! The snake's opening its mouth'

'What can you see, Fay?' asked Gavin, pinning her right arm to the ground. 'Can you hear me?'

It's the snake,' she cried. 'The serpent. It's... It's so big.

It's as big as the world' Then she threw herself up from