Two weeks later I was back for another rave, but also to spend time with the girl I had met in my prior experience. For some reason, this new fling in combination with the near-arrest had spurred a sudden sense of recklessness that was quite uncommon for me. I decided to take MDMA again, even though I had just taken it 2 weeks prior. It's not like it seemed that dangerous, I even remembered people in reports saying that having a one time 2 week break wouldn't really be that big of a deal. I reasoned with myself that it was only taking MDMA repeatedly with short breaks that could pose a problem. So I said fuck it, popped a capsule once we got to the rave, and waited with the usual anticipation.
Sure enough, 20 minutes later I was getting that unsteady drug-like feeling, something that always used to happen for a few minutes before I would start rolling. It was usually characterized by some anxiety and a sense of 'off-ness', but always quickly replaced with the amazing sensations. But soon, I noticed 15 minutes had already gone by... Why wasn't it moving past this stage? Something was wrong. No no, I thought to myself, you're just psyching yourself out, remember what your friends said before that very first rave, 'Don't expect anything, just let it happen'. So I waited. And waited. But now an hour had gone by and I wasn't feeling the roll. In fact, the anxiety seemed to be getting worse, and I felt incredibly uncomfortable and weak. I felt the familiar jaw clenching, and tingling on my skin, but where was the euphoria? The magic? It didn't make sense to me because my friends had taken the same stuff that I had and they were all having a great time. They would see I was just sitting there and try to ask me what was up, and I just tried to play it off as feeling sick, or having a weird comeup. But something felt very wrong and I couldn't understand why. I had heard of the 'losing the magic' phenomenon, but this was only like my 6th time and I was always careful to take large breaks! Plus I had such a positive time at my last rave, it just didn't make sense. As the night progressed I began to feel a little better and even managed to do a little dancing, but I never got the magical feels, only some mild stimulation.