Plot
The background story is told by the novella. Steve is in love with his attractive fellow coworker Emily. Unbeknownst to Steve, Emily is possessed by a daemon named Zelloripus which was banished to Earth, stripped of most of his powers, and trapped into a human female due to unspecified crimes he did to other daemons.
Emily sees a chance to let someone else suffer and stifle her boredom. She tricks Steve to take three pills, constructed by her, to “heal his flu”. While the pills do cure him, they also grant Zelloripus access to his body and mind. His dreams become both more lucid and strange, each one getting more intense and painful. Steve's psychiatrist does not understand what causes the dreams, and neither does Steve. He refers him to a neurosurgeon. After his health dramatically declines, Steve undertakes brain surgery in an attempt to stop the dreams. Under an anaesthetic, he slips into one more dream, possibly his last.