Original comments:

Like many stories like it, Imran woke up bathed in sweat, heart pounding in his chest and panting as if the air was thinner than human hair.

Over breakfast, he talked to Jeremiah (whom he's shared many things with over several now-seemingly-short years, some simple, others harder to have parted with) about what he saw before he woke up.

Its head was featureless pearl, a polished white thing that wrapped its own shadows around itself. Despite that fact, he felt its gaze press onto him as if he was miles under the ocean.

It opened the right side of its robe, revealing to him a field of glistening topaz that separated and bonded in false ellipitics, like stirred mercury.

It opened the left robe, and in it obsidian fire furled and danced over sharp stripes of ochre and saffron.

The robe fell... and Imran became silent and pale.

"What then?" asked Jeremiah, before he saw Imran's eyes.

He held Imran's hand, gently, until it was time to go to work.