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    Things to Run Away From Really Fast

    Warnings: violence, problems with authority, and links to TV Tropes.

    But in all seriousness, this journal legitimately contains the kind of graphic and disturbing content that gives people nightmares, so either that's a selling point or a reason not to read on. Just a heads up.

    As of 2015, dreams are ranked according to three categories:

    Adventure: How much fun and excitement can I fit into one dream?
    Control: How much control do I have over the narrative, environment, and dream powers?
    Fear: How scared and out of control do I feel? (Has very little to do with how Silent Hill the monsters get.)

    Regular dreams are in black (along with notes).
    Semi-lucid dreams are green.
    Lucid dreams are blue.

    1. #135. Children and Monsters

      by , 08-29-2010 at 06:16 AM (Things to Run Away From Really Fast)
      My imagination is running away with itself.

      08/20/10




      The setting is a town in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The few remaining adults are being picked off one by one, killed by things they can't even see. The surviving children are being drawn towards the town hall, where a dark force promises them protection.

      I follow the point of view of a little girl whose father is killed in front of her. We don't see what kills him, but his arm explodes suddenly in a fountain of blood, and she's running, tripping, looking for somewhere she can be safe.

      She crawls through the wreckage and finally finds them. A dozen or more children are gathered, underground, in a circular concrete bunker. In the center of the group is a demon, an inhuman little imp that looks especially pleased with itself.

      It calls itself the Devil.

      - time skip -

      The children are running.

      I materialize in the first person, cornering the creature as I do. It cowers as I place my hands on the concrete wall, one hand on each side of its head, boxing it in.

      "Do you know," I ask conversationally, "How many lives I've been through? How many times I've done the same things over and over again?"

      - faces i'm too close to fighting a war that doesn't mean anything hand to hand combat a peaceful mountain landscape and i'm teaching them to kill -

      "You don't have any idea," I say, meeting the thing's terrified eyes and smiling widely, "What Hell is."

      End recall.

      Scare Factor: 4/10
      Rating: 6/10


      The quote's more or less verbatim. I get a bit too caught up in my characters sometimes. Also, flashbacks can be incredibly freaky.
    2. #129. Shapeshifting Children

      by , 08-12-2010 at 02:48 AM (Things to Run Away From Really Fast)
      08/11/10



      I'm travelling through a village. Their level of technology seems medieval at best. A little girl is suspected of being a witch. I help her escape.

      We wander up a path through an idyllic countryside, hilly and covered in green. I lead and the girl, ten or so, trails slightly behind me. The hinges of the wooden gate creak as they move, and I hold the gate open. The girl shrieks in delight and runs onto the field. A dark brown horse is running towards us. It has odd, light-coloured streaks painted across its side. As it approaches the girl, it slows down. The girl jumps up and down, asking if she can ride it.

      "He doesn't like anyone, even me." I say, studying the horse. I smile when the horse snorts. "Especially me. I think he might like you, though."

      The girl climbs on the horse's back, and the two of them gallop across the fenced enclosure.

      Later, we're sitting inside a log cabin that resembles a barn. The black horse is now a black owl, perched on a railing. I sit across from him, and we watch the girl explore the building as we talk. She runs back over to us, smiling as she sits down on the couch.

      "We're going to have to winter-proof the house if she's going to stay with you." I tell the owl seriously.

      The girl turns into a bird. I catch the bundle of feathers between my hands, gently. "You are far too domesticated." I tell her.

      I will the cracks in the wall to close, making the wood grow back together, sealing out the wind.

      It's winter the next time I return to the cabin. We play on the hill, sliding down packed snow and laughing.

      Shapeshifting Children. Scare Factor: 1.
    3. #59. The Heist

      by , 06-14-2010 at 07:19 AM (Things to Run Away From Really Fast)
      I'm having multiple writing-things-down-in-my-journal dreams (in one night), which is really annoying when I actually wake up and find it blank. Occasionally I can remember bits and pieces of what I wrote, but still: irritating. Apparently I'm going to have to RC more while I'm journalling.

      In one of my fragments, Neil Gaiman was trying to take over the world. Apparently he's on Time Magazine's Most Influential People list, so this wouldn't be too surprising. Oh, and he's capable of adding to historical mythology.

      Be afraid.

      The Heist:

      I'm robbing an art gallery. This is the easy part, casing the place, looking for details that might assist us in our escape. It's near closing time, and we need to know exactly how the staff shuts the place down - so we're posing as tourists, waiting to be shuffled out of the building.

      The place is huge, large enough to have their own conservator on staff, a woman that I'm talking to right now. I'm pretending to be a collector, probably talking about donating a piece to the public collection. We're discussing the minutiae of restoring a particular piece, a thirteenth-century painting that I actually have no interest in (ie: we're not stealing it).

      "Where are the security cameras?" I ask her. After all, I want my donation to be safe. I've spotted one camera in the entrance lobby, but none in the main areas or at the employee exits.

      "Oh," says the woman, "We don't have any."

      I look at her blankly for a second. "Well," I say, "That's stupid."

      I look over the woman's shoulder at Johanna, the blonde ghost girl from #59, Ghost Ship. My accomplice is decidedly un-ghostly today. She's with a tour group, examining the high-tech vault that our prize is locked in. The metallic display swivels around, forms a coffin-like shape, and seals itself away, fitting like a puzzle into the tile floor. The rest of the group applauds enthusiastically, but Jo limits herself to a small smile, eyes glittering with anticipation of the challenge.


      Jayne Wisener Johanna

      I signal Johanna and say goodbye to the conservator. We shake hands and she tells me to contact her if I have any questions. I assure her that I will, and I slip away into the back hallways of the art gallery, off limits to the public.

      Jo meets me at our planned escape route, one of the employee exits that requires a code to leave without setting off the alarm. I notice the visible red laser line over the floor, which could be stepped over easily, but the door is alarmed as well. I hear a voice over the intercom, saying that the museum will be closing in a few minutes.

      There's a keypad beside me. I enter the code, which I gleaned from the mind of the conservator when I shook her hand. This is why Jo and I work together well: I get the information and she steals the priceless artifact. We split the danger and the cut. And I do my job well - the outer door swings open, and the alarm switches off.

      "All guests have two minutes to exit the building," says the intercom. Jo and I grin at each other and step out into the alley. We pile into a small green car with a few other girls. This was our test run. We'll come back tomorrow night and pull the real heist.

      We've stopped at a hostel/diner/convenience store. While waiting in line, I'm looking through the racks for a pair of sunglasses that don't make me look like a girl. Everything's sold out though, and apparently I already bought the last pair of sunglasses, which are either broken or missing.

      DCs have been telling me, for the last few minutes, that I'm late for the Evil Meeting of Evil. This is, apparently, not a good thing, as the meeting is headed by one of the organization's scariest members. I remember being appropriately terrified earlier in the dream, but now, semi-aware, I can't see why I should be afraid of a DC. When I step outside, I see minions of the League on rows of fold out chairs, under a bright blue sky. Odd.

      The terrifying speaker is a black woman with straight, shoulder length black hair, who bears a remarkable similarity to Zoe from Firefly. This, of course, means she's a badass character who I should probably Run Away From Really Fast, but instead I pretty much ignore her as she yells at me and tells me to sit down.

      Not!Zoe continues her pep-talk, and I wander back into the building, finding myself in a hostel-style dorm room filled with bunk beds.

      The first person I notice is a Legion-style, long-limbed teenager. I'm fascinated by how tall he is, and by the way he's swinging from what are effectively monkey-bars suspended by the bunk-beds. Apparently, the boy can't support his own weight. He stumbles into the diner/convenience store area, and his mom snaps at me not to stare.



      What are you looking at?

      I turn around, and suddenly there's a high speed bundle of white lace crashing into my arms. I catch the little girl as she throws her arms around me, demanding a hug from a complete stranger. I stand there awkwardly, regaining my balance.

      The mom rolls her eyes when I look at her, and tells me that the girl used to suffer extreme pain when anyone touched her. Now she's cured. Okay...

      I leave the strange family behind and go back outside to deal with my fellow villains. Who want me to become Doctor Insano. I tell them that I really would (I have my lab coat on and everything), but I can't find my swirly goggles - I only have a set of pink ski goggles, and those just aren't the same.



      So yeah.

      Johanna and I are back in the art gallery, along with another girl, Macy, who's actually outside. Macy was with us in the getaway car, and she's possessing her pet cat (her spirit animal) so we can have another set of eyes on the inside. The cat is darting through the gallery's hidden places, under tables and behind exhibits, practically invisible unless you know what you're looking for. Jo and I are about to split up, while I keep the entrances clear, when we're interrupted by the most ominous sound I have ever heard.

      "KITTY!" shrieks a delighted, childlike voice. This is followed by a chilling snarl from Macy's cat.

      I turn around to see that the cat is a charred pile of fur and skin on the floor, and the little girl from before looks absolutely stricken. I look upward and sigh, knowing that we won't have a chance at the painting at this point.

      I'm waving at the little body, willing it up from the floor, and slowly toward the side door. At the same time, Jo and I are having a heated discussion over who gets to take care of the girl without making a scene. More so than the fireball and the crying child already have, anyway.

      "Me?" I ask incredulously, "I'm not a Meta!" (I don't have superpowers.)

      Jo sends a significant glance at the cat magically floating out the door, and looks back at me with a raised eyebrow.

      Well, I can't argue with that.

      I go over to the little girl and ask if she remembers me. She nods her head and I hold out my hand, and we all go outside.

      Jo is over with Macy, who's a sobbing wreck on the ground, leaning against one of the tires of the car. She's looking at her cat, lying on the dirt a few feet away from her. Apparently, her experience was slightly traumatizing.

      I lead the girl over to the cat, and kneel down beside it. I give a heartwarming speech involving the importance of responsibility and compassion, and tell her how important it is that we keep our powers under control. Then, waving a hand over the cat, I tug at it's life energy, and the cat gets up and wanders over to Macy.

      "There," I say, getting up and dusting myself off. "No harm done."

      An alarm starts to blare from within the gallery.

      "Son of a bitch!"

      All of us pile into the backseat of the car, which is suddenly filled with half a dozen girls, and we speed away.

      The Heist. Scare Factor: 3.
    4. #50. Soylent Green

      by , 06-14-2010 at 06:51 AM (Things to Run Away From Really Fast)
      A dream occurs on two levels of reality. In one, the cast and crew of Supernatural go about their daily business of making an awesome TV show. In another, I go about my daily business of building houses. This gets confusing when suddenly I'm Misha Collins, calmly vacuuming up sawdust in the basement while a highly amusing PA briefs me on whatever they're doing next. Also, a suspended ceiling puts itself together in the writer's room and the baseboards I've been staring at for the last few days drift in and out of existence at eye-level.

      shift

      I'm in a den, or a living room, and I think this was a mall a second ago. Everything is in dark shades of brown and black. I'm sitting on a brown leather couch facing a wide-screen TV, and along the opposite wall is a set of dark-stained table and chairs. Beyond the table is another room, which is completely white. Right now, it might be a kitchen, but it's about to turn into a slaughterhouse.

      I have my laptop open on the couch, though I'm not paying much attention to what I'm looking at. I move over to the table when a ten-year-old boy wants to flip through the channels on the TV, looking for his favorite cartoon. When I look back, he's pulling up a page on another laptop, which is a list of his favorite cartoons, put together by his dad. A static image of one of the characters shows up on a projector behind the couch, and I start drawing it.

      It's later. A team of vigilantes/ex-minions have found out what's really going into the meat made by this factory. They/we are standing around the owner, backing him into the white room. The boy* is wearing some kind of Kickass-style costume like the others in the room, and is staring at his father with an incredibly detached expression.

      *I wouldn't worry about the little sociopath. I get the feeling that the vigilantes are all puppets on a string to him.


      Practically the Antichrist.

      Two men grab the owner and force him toward the wall. He's shouting at them and struggling to get away, but when his back hits the wall, it latches onto him and forces him down a tube. I drift through the wall, and I can see the human sized plastic tunnel he's trapped in. Pistons are forcing the right side of his body, as he's alive and screaming, against the meat grinder. His right arm, part of his leg, and the edge of his scalp have been torn apart by the machine when I see his expression shift, angry but resigned, and the machine eats into his brain.

      He probably wishes he'd designed the machine to kill its victims less horrifically, I muse. A straight-razor, perhaps? The machine rearranges itself on my whim, and I wonder if cutting the throat upside-down or right-side-up would be more effective.

      Three women are standing in the same room, which, maybe, is supposed to be a different place entirely? They talk about the dead owner's eldest daughter, who has sworn revenge on us/them for killing her father, his right hand man, his lieutenants, the captain who exported the shipments, the cleaning lady, and possibly me, considering I'm short of a body at the moment. Also, for kidnapping her little brother, who I'm half-sure started the coup anyway.

      They laugh a little and say they have to get back to camp, so they jump out of the building and land on the ice of a half-frozen river, and start speeding down it as if they're on a slide. I have to keep nudging them closer to shore so their momentum won't carry them out onto the middle of the river, which is slushy and wouldn't hold their weight.

      One person crashes into the slush anyway. No one pays attention, and I have no idea if s/he gets out alive.

      The women arrive at a rocky shore where a bunch of colourful tents are set up. No one brought chairs, so someone fetches pillows for the half-frozen trio to sit on, and blankets to keep them warm. I, still incorporeal, follow the guy who gets them and see a whole pile of pillows lying on the ground.

      Oh, and someone's getting married.

      Soylent Green. Scare Factor: 3.5. Reaction: Lucidity, you escape me. And the meat grinder thing was pretty fucked up, too.

      ETA: Oh! I know! I know! It was green, and had a giant lizard's head and sharp teeth that changed direction to spiral inwards and then fan out, and I knew I was dreaming because all of my dreams are just that fucking insane.

      I can feel it nudge up against me, feel its scales and warm breath as it bumps its nose against my shoulder, and I'm not afraid because I know this is a dream...

      And that's all I remember.
    5. #13. Third Person Narration

      by , 06-14-2010 at 03:44 AM (Things to Run Away From Really Fast)
      Game. Tree. Spy. Babysitting.

      It feels like I might be playing a video game. There are two characters: the main character is following a mentor archtype through a forest filled with ruins and caves leading deep below the surface. I'm not sure if I'm the mentor or the MC; I might be both. We're searching for a series of gemstones or charms, consulting witches on the way. On some level, I know the MC won't go for the mentor's final goal. It's far too diabolical.

      There are something like four dimensional levels of this tree, and we're exploring them all. I recall at least two characters (though I'm sure there were more): the theoretical expert, and the practical one. Again, I think I'm both characters. Somehow, climbing the tree leads to different dimensional gateways, though I don't remember where they were all located. Dimensions below the surface still had branches and a fall that would probably kill you. I remember that TE is very well protected via anchors and harnesses and carabiners, presumably because the various dimensions can be so disorienting. I remember being the TE, and being left on one of the explored levels, then being the PE and actually exploring a deeper one. When we get to the final level, we find another gateway. We go back to the surface to recoup.

      Spying is involved. A guy of about my age may have information that our organization desperately needs. Me and another female friend get ourselves invited to... watch movies or something in a group. We're sitting in a basement on a bunch of couches. Then everything is flooding. I stay behind to grab all of my things that are scattered below the water (seems to be my swimming stuff and a coil-bound notebook containing instructions). An older man, maybe the other guy's dad, is back for me, scolding me for not evacuating and leaving my stuff behind - is it really worth my life? Considering how incriminating that notebook is, it very well could be.

      I think I'm found out later, anyway.

      "If we're babysitting tonight, why are we here in the morning?" Apparently the parents don't actually need us until 9PM. I resolve to put the brats to bed VERY early, and enjoy the party in the meantime.

      Third Person Narration. Scare Factor: 2. It's annoying for dream recall.
    6. #12. Homicidal Robots

      by , 06-14-2010 at 03:42 AM (Things to Run Away From Really Fast)
      I'm at school in Halifax. Now I'm going to school in a mall in Halifax. I have some studio space near the entrance of the mall. It's like a stand at a farmer's market, all open. As usual, I work by spreading all of my stuff over every surface, even infringing on the space of other vendors. Temporarily, I promise.

      Now I'm going to class in the mall, but I need a specific kind of button for a project, and I can't find them. Big buttons that you'd find on a velvet jacket? Someone mentioned I should try Buttons R' Us or something, on the second floor. I think I have a vague idea of where it should be, so I'll try it out. I take the stairs, but it's all confusing and I don't know where everything is.

      And then I spot the robots. At first, I think they're statues, but they're moving around, each of them patrolling a little corner of their own. They seem to be placed at major exits and intersections in the mall. This... could be a problem.

      I'm young, maybe ten years old. I'm in a church, sitting in the back row and threading a leather string through the covers of the bibles/hymn books stacked in piles beside me. The other people are being led in the lord's prayer, but I can always say I didn't know it. I'm so engrossed in my work that I don't notice that the service is over and the priest is standing nearby. My friend who dragged me here is sitting beside me, and her mother is in one of the aisles, looking on disapprovingly. And this feels like deja-vu.

      It's a surprise when I realize that the priest isn't mad. He's curious, more like, wondering what I've been doing. At one point, I show him that I can lift the books without touching them. Up, up, up, and they fall to the floor. He isn't angry. He tells me that I'm having trouble holding them steady, right? To hold them in one place, I need to harness the potential energy that they have while being held up. They're at rest; they just need to stay that way. I try again, this time doing as he says, and it works beautifully.

      I'm somewhat aware that I look like Jubilee. I'm back in the mall, surrounded by Sentinels. I still need to get to class, but somehow that seems like less of a priority at the moment.

      At one point, the sentinels are on high alert, and I hear a transmission over the radio, telling all mutants to either get out of the mall, or find refuge in one of the stores (apparently a safe-zone). Not everyone can hear the announcement, I realize. I've been using the stairways that don't seem to be guarded. I spot a Subway nearby.

      On the way, I notice that a bunch of the buttons I've been looking for have spilled across the hallway. I decide that picking them up would attract attention, because this is somehow a trap. I discretely pull several buttons from the floor and place them in the pocket of my long jacket, before realizing that this could have been a trap as well, and I probably won't be able to use the buttons for my project.

      I make my way to the Subway, even if I'm not hungry, and realize that I don't have enough cash (only change from the last dream), and I'll have to use my debit card. (Wait, I might have a ten.) I stay in the Subway after ordering, until I get bored and annoyed and decide to take out one of the Sentinels on my own.

      I manage to separate and corner one away from the rest, outside. It tells me it has a picture of me in its memory, and I'll be hunted now anyway. I realize that's true, so I tell it that I've been wearing a mask the whole time. And now I have been.

      Fire's supposed to work well against them for some reason, but my pyrokinesis is on the fritz (read: weak). I'm joined by a boy of about ten who fancies himself a superhero, and helps me cause damage to the thing. It's not fighting back much. I lift the Sentinel about ten meters into the air and let it crash back to the ground. The boy and I then use our limited fire-powers to melt the Sentinel's internal systems and then go investigate it's car.

      We find something surprising, and decide it would be a great idea to go back into the mall and pretend to be a part of an anti-mutant demonstration UNTIL THE TIME IS RIGHT TO STRIKE!

      Homicidal Robots, Mutant-icidal Robots? Scare Factor: 2.

      Updated 06-14-2010 at 06:20 AM by 31096

      Categories
      non-lucid
    7. #9. Allegiant Little Kids

      by , 06-14-2010 at 03:33 AM (Things to Run Away From Really Fast)
      Things to Run Away From Really Fast #7: Allegiant Little Kids
      I'm browsing the forums here, thinking about dreams. Then there's something about the library here. Which reminds me, I need to return an overdue book.

      I walk into a bar, where, apparently, Lindsay is bartending. I order a drink, and end up sitting down with her and a few friends while they eat supper. We talk about the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and discuss parts of it that probably didn't exist in real life. You know that one girl, who really didn't want to go to the Brown's house for Christmas Dinner but would rather have gone to New York for a Broadway show? Yeah? Why couldn't she have done that? That would have been cool.

      There's four or five of us, and we start walking. Shift. We're in a playground. I look around, trying to place it.

      "Aw, man." I say, "We're in Ixburg! Quick, someone think of somewhere nicer."

      A couple people glance back at me, bemused. I give up and strike up a conversation with one of the girls, who has red-brown hair, a ponytail, and glasses. I try to ask her name, but she says it so fast I can't understand it. I ask again and try to repeat it back to her. One of the other girls laughs and tells her to stop teasing me.

      We're still standing outside the school at this oint, and a teacher comes out to yell at hus. "Ixburg sucks!" I shout, assuming there's a game going on right now.

      Little kids come out and throw rocks at us. We take shelter in a non-existant frame of a shed just outside school grounds.

      "So," I say to Lindsay, "Next time, you pick the setting."

      Allegiant Little Kids. Scare Factor: 1 for banality.
    8. #8. Mental Institutions With Lax Security

      by , 06-14-2010 at 03:31 AM (Things to Run Away From Really Fast)
      Bare feet touch to the cold linoleum one after the other, as I creep up the back stairs to the second floor. Everything is white and open and contained, but the dark creeps along with me, and the world is cast in a cold, blue pallor.

      The door opens before me, my feet touch scratchy carpet as I step into the bedroom. My nightgown whispers faintly in an absent breeze as I twist, taking in the contents of the room. It seems almost normal, a bed to the left of the door, foot facing me. There are stuffed animals everywhere, strewn across the room like they've been played with. They haven't been.

      There's a window above the bed, and I can see the balconies a floor above the lobby.

      I hear water running.

      A half-open door lets light stream into the rest of the room, and I open it, squinting against the harsh yellow of the light, of the tiles, of the linoleum.

      The tap is running cold water into the bathtub, and I can see my brother there, hands curled around his knees -

      There have been rumours, faked suicides and murder

      - the first thing I do is turn his wrists over to look for injuries. I sigh in relief when I see that he's fine, and I move to turn off the water.

      I freeze. I can feel something, in the walls.

      "Boom." I whisper. The boy looks up at me for the first time. I pull him up from the tub, grab a towel from above the toilet, wrap it around his shoulders.

      "Go to bed." I say. "Stay there."

      He walks toward his bed without another look back.

      I press one hand to the ceramic tile in the shower (shh, calm), use the other hand to turn off the water and remove the drain from the tub, drenching my sleeves as I do. Tick, tick, tick but it won't hurt him if he stays in bed, and I need to make my escape.

      I leave the room, taking stairs directly from the bathroom to the basement, to my own room, trekking barefoot over thin blue carpet to a room that resembles an office. I see my bed, empty, though the covers are strewn about.

      "Hey," says a voice from behind me. I turn around, look up, hope that he won't notice the fact that my clothes are drenched from the water. He doesn't. "We were wondering where you've been all night."

      I smile, and the guard moves on to continue his rounds, completely unconcerned about the little girl who was committed here long before he ever got the job.

      After all, I never did mention who the murderer was.

      Well meaning though I might have been.

      Mental Institutions With Lax Security. Scare Factor: 2/10 for worrying over the girl's brother. I was never concerned for my own safety.

      I wonder when that bomb is set to explode?