Soulless
Aeterna Somnia

Last night I dreamed of a city that didn't quite seem right. It was a large city, kind of like the current cities. I had lived there all my life in the dream, and was now a young adult. I lived on a big street with a nearby park filled with chestnut trees. The Kind Man was my close childhood companion, and we were both university kids who were taking a weekend off to share time with each other. We first went to a local convenience store to get us both some ice cream. It was late afternoon. There was a close intimacy to it, without any romance or sex. I talked with the Kind Man about my stress, having (in my waking life) 3 exams in 2 days, followed by an 8 hour bus ride. The Kind Man hummed in the back of his throat and looked out a window of the convenience store, saying something along the lines that when I wake up I should have nothing to worry about. That it'll be "taken care of".

Later on, after finishing our ice cream, we went to the park with the chestnuts. The trees clustered close together in such a way that it seemed separated from the rest of the city. It must've been autumn, because the chestnuts had started to fall from the trees. There were squirrels scampering around, gathering nuts to prepare for the winter. The Kind Man and I settled down by the trees and I remember closing my eyes and just feeling at peace with everything. The Kind Man sat up and looked over to me and gave me a sad kind of smile again and asked me if I remembered. I asked him remembered what, and he shook his head and said it wasn't important. I could tell though, my forgetfulness had hurt him again, but I didn't want to push the issue.

We stayed together for a little longer before I woke up. Now oddly enough, when I did, I prepared my day as usual. However, when I went to check out the window, there was a huge blizzard. I checked the weather and supposedly school was canceled this day. I don't read the weather and I don't pay attention to it, so how could the Kind Man have known?

I didn't write this own quickly, so I've forgotten much.

I dreamed I was on a train. The train stopped at multiple afterlives, and was in fact basically the path to the afterlife. I remained alive despite being on this train, for the dead. There were conductors on every tram, the ferrymen, reapers, so on and so forth. The Kind Man shared a booth with me, and gave me a blanket in which to wrap myself with.

There were subtle differences between me and the other dead people around me. For example, at one point there was a brilliant and burning light that seemed to hurt the other dead people on the train, as if they were being burned by it. I felt nothing, and the Kind Man, ducking under the window and looking to me standing in the light, asked me why. I found I had no answer to him, and when the light faded the train was noticeably less crowded...

I met someone else on the train, who told me of their world where people worshipped a kind of creature similar to a hagfish. Their homeworld was filled with swamp and murk. The hagfish type creatures were the oly creatures that were directly beneficial to the environment around it, in other words there could never be an over-population of them. The more there were, the healthier the place was. It was believed that these creatures were the spirits of the kindest people, and that these fish temporarily regain their human forms in order to commit random acts of kindness, before disappearing again, just out of complete compassion. These fish supposedly saved drowning children and led relatives to lost family, explorers to civilizations, travelers to food. I asked that person where they were going on the train. They responded that they hoped their stop would be murky, like the swamps of their home- to be one of their sacred fish.

The Kind Man said nothing during this conversation, looking out the window with a forlorn look on his face. While I talked with that person, the scenery outside was.. hard to describe. Like an ever-shifting painting, colors that have no description. I was under the impression I was watching the essence of life and spirit and afterlife, if that makes sense. When the person passed our booth by, I looked to the Kind Man and asked him where he was going and if he was dead. He gave me a soft smile and asked me "isn't this what you made this place to be? I'm just fitting in" He opened the window to allow a warm breeze through. It smelled like... well, I can't describe it. The Kind Man looked out the window, and said to me almost absentmindedly, something I don't remember but I remember finding it fairly significant in the dream. He looked to me and gave me a sad smile, and then I woke up.

Let's try to belt this out in less than 10 minutes. Here we go. I had a dream in which I was captured by a group of people who claimed to be my family. I knew that they were not, but they were kind and gentle with me in all things. In fact, they spoiled me with their kindness, and so I allowed myself to remain in their home. The house was old and quite tall. It had a large backyard with muddy grass and a patio, along with steps that led into the front door. I dreamed the family was composed of a mute older woman, a boistrous and generous "mother", and an even more loudly generous "father". The house was in a relatively large town, but not quite a city. I stayed inside mostly to play video games.

In a video game, someone had messaged me while I was playing a game of sorts. The mysterious messager quickly became a friend of mine, there was a kind of wild rebelliousness about him that I was attracted to in the dream. Later, he told me that I was important to a certain group of people, and that it was cruel of them to keep me. He asked me to step outside at night, on a certain day while the night market was open. I did so, and enjoyed the night market alone. The night market was basically chinatown in Toronto, filled with lights and food and open doors filled with interesting knick-knacks as well as markets for all sorts of asian cuisines. I went to a traditional chinese medicine store and bought a few herbs I liked in order to drink when I got home.

As I was going "home", a stranger approached me. I knew immediately it was the Kind Man, this time in the role of a skeevy looking man with dark hair and a dangerous look to his eye. He smiled to me, with slight sharp, fanged teeth. He approached me and introduced himself as my online friend, and said he had much to tell me. He led me away to another area, of which I do not have the time to describe. There we talked about the fact I was being held for the purpose of others, and he would like to introduce me to what they were hiding me from. He led me to anoher's house, and told me that we were going on a hunt.

I don't have the time to explain exactly how, but we ended up killing a small child who lived alone in a house, which was later explained to me to be actually an old monster that took the form of a human. My internet friend (the Kind Man) consumed the person, in such a manner that I understood instinctively that while the Kind Man was merely acting out a role of the dream, he was totally able to stop at any time and chose not to for reasons I do not know. Later on, he led me back home where he told me that I was the "key" to something to open and that it was important, also he warned me of the people who were holding me. He told me that if they found out about him, they would surely kill him without hesitation.

Awesome I can edit this. Anyways, when we came back to the house, he had found some entrails in the backyard. Almost compulsively, he went to take out a bit of intestine and stuck it in his mouth, chewing idly. He told me that the entrails were of the same species as his prey, and this is likely a warning to him to stay away from me. He smiled a bit and told me that it is a foolish waving of power in attempts to ward him off. I know in the dream I was meant to be afraid of him, because he was this murderous cannibalizing monster that was cruel and yet enchanting. However, because I knew it was the Kind Man and he knew that I was just a dreamer, it felt more like a game of pretend than anything else.

After he spoke from me, we heard someone inside asking if anyone was there. I dove under the backyard porch, covered in slick mud. The other man snuggled up with me, trying to hide with me. When the person inside, the loud "father" checked under the porch, the Kind Man barreled past him and made his run for it. I pretended to not know any better. I knew the "father" was calling my bluff, but warned me to not interact with that man anymore, as he is a serial killer murderer and cannibal, and told me to go back to my games. Later on, when they thought I was asleep, I later heard the "mother" and the "father" discussing reviewing my games as I play them, in order to make sure no one they didn't want to was interacting with me through the medium. I woke up shortly after that.