(A week later)

Norman woke up bathed in sweat. His head ached as if it were crammed with stones. It had been like this for every day of the last few days. He hadn't stepped outside his apartment after coming back to the academy.

Over the last few days, he had spent every waking moment thinking of a solution to his parasite problem, and he felt the creature getting more angry and annoyed with every passing day.

Every time he would think about either injecting himself with something to kill the abomination, a surgery conducted in secret, or subjecting himself to electrocution, the parasite would express its discontent, and increasingly sharper jolts of pain would shoot through his leg, incapacitating him for the next several minutes.

He no longer had any doubt that its influence was growing stronger. Its communication had grown more nuanced and was no longer limited to occasional itching, subtle shocks, throbs and aches as before. He felt that he could now instinctively feel its emotions - its anger when Norman thought about ripping it apart, its delight when Norman looked over his past research on essence harvesting, its frustration at Norman's poor understanding of the Yaskh tome whose snapshots Norman had left lying on his bedside table. It had enmeshed itself deeper into his neural system and was increasingly gaining control.

And then were the dreams. They had started out as hazy glimpses at first, but gradually they evolved into vivid scenes that went on for hours.

What Norman gradually came to understand was that the wyrms were not a group of individuals like humans. They were more like a single collective mind that had organically grown over many centuries. The creature that accompanied him was a fragment of the collective. While separated from the hive mind, it could observe and act independently, but its destiny was to eventually be re-assimilated back.

The fragment did retain some memories from the collective, but it no longer had access to the entirety of the reservoir of knowledge and skills amassed by the hive. Whatever it did retain, it took the liberty to project into Norman's mind while he slept.

Over the span of numerous torturous dreams, Norman saw the Yaskh elders descend into the world of the Nightwyrms and kneel before them. He saw the Yaskh incorporate the alien wyrm-sorceries into their own culture - he saw them weaponizing their arcane crafts. He saw cities burning. Thousands dying.

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The dream last night was particularly disturbing. It depicted the Nightwyrm devouring a sun. A tentacled monstrosity - its vast form a writhing mass, each appendage tipped with a mouth filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth. A miasma of noxious gases billowed from its gargantuan maw as it drifted closer to the red giant. He saw its tentacles curl around the Sun and snuff out the golden orb's fiery heart. And thus followed the death of a world that depended on it. Flora and fauna died a prolonged death over days, weeks and months of unending darkness. He saw hundreds of primitive people huddled around an immense bonfire as the biting wind howled through the barren trees.

One by one, they began to succumb to the frigid temperatures. The first was an old woman, her hands trembling as she clung to the warmth of the now-meager fire that barely held off the encroaching frost. Her breaths grew shallow, her eyes glazed over, and soon she was still.

A young man, who had been the strongest among them, collapsed not long after. His body rigid with cold, he lay there, his limbs unmoving as life slowly ebbed away. His family huddled around him, trying to warm him with their own bodies, but it was futile. His eyes stared blankly into the nothingness as his final breath escaped.

The once lively bonfire flickered and died, leaving them in darkness. One by one, they began to fall. Some tried to press on despite the agony of their frostbitten limbs, but it was a futile effort. The cold claimed them all until there was only one left, huddled in the snow, praying for the warmth of death to come and release him from his suffering.

The last survivor looked at his companions, their bodies now lifeless and frozen, and he knew that he too would soon join them in the great beyond. With a heavy heart, he closed his eyes, welcoming the icy embrace of the cold, and let go of the world that had so cruelly abandoned him.

As Norman looked on as a mute spectator, in this desolate wasteland, where even the hardiest of souls were no match for the unyielding cold, another tale of survival against insurmountable odds had ended in tragedy. The wind continued to howl, mocking the memories of those who had once called this land home.

Even though he was now awake, no matter how hard Norman tried, he could not shake off these visions. The images of people freezing, screaming, and dying haunted him all hours.

Eventually, he decided to step away from his room. He was losing his sanity and needed some contact with the outside world. Staying locked up in his room had been nothing unfamiliar to him, but increasingly, his quarters - spacious accommodation that was provided to every student—felt more and more like an asylum.

He gulped up a liquid medication to deal with his headache and thoroughly rinsed his face. As he looked at his reflection, a haggard shell of a young man stared back at him. In his twenties, Norman had always been paler and skinnier compared to his peers. But now, as he saw the deep circles etched into his sunken eyes - the dark bags beneath them heavy with the weight of many nights of troubled sleep—he knew something had to change.

No more of this - he thought and stepped out of his apartment and took the lift up to the corridor. He'd first get a haircut and then think of what to do next.