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The cloak is quick enough to react when a magical blast hurls his way, and Stephen finds himself getting yanked to the side before it could even get a chance to hit him. The sorcerer in front of him readies another blast, and the shield he conjures manages to block that from hitting him as well.
He's fighting one of the many sorcerers Mordo has somehow convinced to join him in 'restoring the natural balance'; whether out of fear for what Mordo will have done to them if they chose otherwise or out of genuine, shared conviction, he doesn't know.
Mordo has, frequently, tried to persuade him into joining him and see the truth in his beliefs in their not-so-frequent encounters, but Stephen's made it clear the first few times that he had no intention of doing so. The man is headstrong, however, and believes that some part of Stephen isn't truly 'blinded'. He's surprised he hasn't gotten himself killed yet. (For the record, he has, but that was a different case. It's only out of dumb luck and strong will that he's able to have survived that, but even then he didn't leave completely unscathed.)
His mind snaps back to the present when the heat of a tendril of eldritch energy wraps suddenly around his ankle and, before he could react, he is thrown over to the side with an impact that makes his head throb in pain. The rogue sorcerer is quick to take advantage of him being momentarily immobile, and approaches within spell-casting distance.
Stephen feels as if his mind is slow as he tries to recover from being thrown like a ragdoll, but he recognises the hand movements of the sorcerer, despite not being able to fully comprehend the lowly muttered incantation. The movements are quick and precise, something he would've been able to do easily if his hands aren't in such a state. He searches through his mind on the possibilities of what the spell might be, and it isn't until it's casted on him that Stephen realises what it is, and that it's too late for him to react or stop it.
It's a spell meant to induce delirium.
The sorcerer flees, away from him and out of his vision, before he could even get up on his feet. God, he felt old; how is everyone else moving like fucking ninjas?
A sense of panic washes over him at the thought of the spell the sorcerer had casted and what it might entail, but he's grateful he knows enough of it to understand that whatever happens next isn't real.
Once he's up on his two feet, Stephen looks around hastily, finding that everything still looks the same around him. Maybe the spell hasn't taken its effect on him yet.
He runs down the direction the rogue sorcerer had gone, hoping he hasn't run too far to be out of reach. He hopes the Sanctum is kind enough to guide him to wherever the sorcerer had run off to.
He passes doors, old furniture, large windows, everything he's familiarised himself with over the years as the Master of the New York Sanctum. His footfalls seem to echo down and up the hallway with every tap tap tap on the floorboards.
It seems almost endless.
After a minute or two has passed with him just running forward, Stephen pauses for a moment, frowning, noticing that he's probably going in circles or something. There is an end to this hallway if he keeps running, but from the position he is in now it seems pretty far away. Shouldn't he be there by now? He continues forward anyway.
There's a peculiar vase in this hallway; something with an intricate pattern. It's a strong magical artefact that Stephen knows he shouldn't mess around with. He's sure he's passed that.
He passes doors, old furniture, large windows, and then the vase. He keeps moving forward.
What was it that he was trying to do? He is running after something… Or is it someone? He isn't sure.
He passes doors, old furniture, large windows, and then the vase. Maybe he hasn't been running for long after all. He has never been very good at keeping track of time, anyway. Always have been that way. Countless of times he has found himself spending hours and hours of the day focusing on tasks or research, sometimes only snapping out of it when he realises sunlight streaming through the window and that he hasn't gotten a blink of sleep. His uni years, training days at Kamar Taj. Time slips through his fingers too easily.
The loop didn't make that any better.
He passes doors, old furniture, large windows, and then the vase. Has he passed the vase before? He has, hasn't he? Maybe he hasn't.
What is he doing again? If he wants to go on a jog he shouldn't do it indoors. Stephen frowns to himself, feeling more than a little bit ridiculous, and stops running. He turns around, notices the vase, and moves forward.
A door nearby to his left creaks open on its own, and Stephen hopes someone isn't playing tricks on him. He approaches, feeling like a stupid main character in a horror movie, and pulls the door open.
He goes through the door, and in the dark he sees the faint outline of a vase. He frowns. That's definitely not where it's supposed to be. He carefully approaches, puts his hands on the vase with intentions to lift it up, and the cloak hurries to lift itself off his shoulders to help. Stephen mutters his thank you, and they move it into the hallway where it's supposed to be.
He continues to walk down the hallway, not really knowing where he's going but just feeling the inclination to do so. He passes doors, old furniture, large windows, and an odd sense of deja vu hits him. He feels a little faint. Weak, even. His eyes feel a bit unfocused.
Was he doing something? His mind feels far away. He should focus on the task he was doing. It was…
A figure appears and runs off the side, so quickly that the visual input might've been something he made up. It looked like a little girl. A familiar little girl.
He moves forward, cautiously, checking to see if he's truly seen something.
"Who's there?" he asks, and goes into a fighting stance. He takes a turn to a different hallway. "How did you trespass the wards of the Sanctum? I–"
He freezes as the figure comes into view, standing at the end of the hallway.
"Donna?"
He runs.
"Donna, I–"
He's in the library in Kamar Taj, having taken a bite off an apple and staring at the open page of his book. His surroundings look a little unfocused. He looks up at the Eye of Agamotto.
It glints, a bright, green flash–
"So… I got you a little something," Christine says. They're eating dinner, he remembers now. She pushes a small box across the table to him, and Stephen gives it a curious look. "Congratulations."
"Wait.. I…” He frowns.
"Open it and see."
He obliges anyway. A watch is inside the box, and a marking behind it reads only time will tell how much I love you.
"This is…"
He's forgotten something, his mind provides. He's forgotten something important. He's forgotten about–
It happened so quickly. One moment he is lost in his own head, and the next, Stephen finds himself trying to steady Donna as she wobbles on her feet. He frowns further.
The thing he's forgotten–whatever it is–is nagging him in the back of his head.
"It's harder than I thought." Donna says to him, and something about her feels odd. Wasn’t she…
God, he can’t remember.
He's forgotten something. He's pretty sure he has, but he can't remember exactly what. There is something he's supposed to… What is it? He's sure there's something. It's important.
He watches as Donna finally gets the hang of it, able to let go of his arms now and balancing herself on the ice. He plays along and smiles at her.
He doesn't remember what he's forgotten. Maybe it isn't anything important to begin with. Stephen shrugs internally; it'll come back to him later.
He hears the crack of ice, a surge of panic running through him, and–
He blinks. That was the past. He's in the present now. He's in the Sanctum, running after–
"You've come to die."
He looks up at the flaming head above him. He looks down at his wrist, expecting to see a watch–why a watch? What watch? There isn't a watch, is there? He isn't wearing one–and instead finds green energy wrapped around it.
Right, he's set them in a time loop. He's fighting against Dormammu. The name feels wrongly familiar in his tongue; maybe he's been in this loop for a while already.
He doesn’t dare look around. His eyes are fixed to the entity above him. He feels a strong urge to fight .
A familiar voice rings in the back of his mind; Stephen, it says. Stephen ignores it. He hurls a blast of energy at the rubble Dormammu shoots his way, and manages to obliterate it into pieces before it hits him.
Stephen!
The cloak levitates him off the ground as spikes emerge to attempt and impale him futilely, growing as he floats up higher.
Stephen!
Fire rains down on him, and he protects himself with a shield to stop them from scorching his skin with its heat.
Stephen! Snap out of it!
The voice is louder now, echoing in his head as if someone's managed to slip into his ears. Stephen freezes.
This is not real!
Stephen frowns.
This isn't real, Stephen!
His shield stutters, falls, fades into sparks.
"What?"
He looks around, and the Dark Dimension seems to morph around him. Everything swirls into colours, like the sky of Van Gogh's Starry Night, and the world shifts and turns, spinning underneath his feet. He feels lightheaded as he stumbles about, directionless, desperately hoping he could find a way to get out of this.
"Stephen Strange! None of it is real!"
A face comes into view. Stephen blinks away the blurriness around him, and shakes his head when it refuses to fade. He regrets it as soon as he does so, as his head is now sporting a headache and the movement intensifies the throbbing in the back of his skull.
"Wong?"
Wong looks relieved.
"Oh, thank the Vishanti. The spell's worn out."
Stephen blinks slowly, blearily, dazed and more than a little confused. "What…"
There are marks of what seems to be blasts on the walls, floorboards, and even on the ceiling. Where did that come from? He looks down to find his robes in tatters. There's a tingle of something in his fingers, like the residuals of using magic. How'd he get all these cuts?
His eyes widen in realisation, and the memories come rushing back to him. He groans, cupping his face with trembling hands and kneading the space between his eyebrows.
"Fuck," he mutters, "Did he get away?"
Wong looks at him.
"The sorcerer?" Wong says, "Yes. He was very quick."
He sighs. Despite it all, he chuckles to himself.
"Ninjas, Wong. They're like ninjas, I'm telling you."