Things to Run Away From Really Fast

I'm a vampire that's hunting vampires.

Sam & Dean Winchester are hunting me.

The woman I killed was a vampire preying on the local townspeople, but you can always trust Hunters to not understand nuance.

Later, I'm using telekinesis on small objects around my grandmother's living room. I'm finding that I can easily lift objects that are within about four feet of me, but to move anything further away, I have to move closer. I find this frustrating, because I know I'm dreaming, and this is all about what I believe I can do.

It's a rubber band bracelet thingy, for gods' sake! This shouldn't be that hard!

I drive a motorcycle across my hometown, and realize I forgot my helmet. Oh well. I'm also carrying a baked potato in my jacket pocket, and it's falling apart.

---

A nest of vampires in an otherwise benign-looking place, like a post office or a government building. S has warned me, but I come back anyway.

Vampires are repelled by objects of faith (Dresden Files), but unlike the stereotype, they don't need to be Christian symbols. The eldest vampire stalks towards me, and I have my pendant in my hand (the question: does the onyx within it represent me or the people I believe in, because I don't necessarily have faith in myself...) and I strike, pressing the pendant into the vampire's skin. It sizzles and burns, the vampire trying to get away, shrieking.

It's cries draw the other vampires, and I draw back to swing a fist, my Celtic ring coming into contact another vampire.

Later, I'll be asked if we can do an empirical test to determine whether the gold of the ring or the silver of the pendant was more effective against vampires.

---

"Who's your commanding officer?" demands a formidable looking black man with a military bearing.

"I don't know yet."

"Good answer," he tells me. He is my commanding officer.

When a small group comes to tell me I'll be joining them, I look back to him.

"Sir?" I ask, and he instructs me to join the group.

We board a plane. There are more than a dozen seats left when I come in, but one of my squadmates is arguing with a blond, thinner man who's already seated.

"These are for the paratroopers," says the seated man. "We don't have any seats for you."

I approach and tell him that we're assigned to this plane, and will be taking some of the seats. He is angry, but we end up seated, anyway.

I'm sitting next to a superior officer who's played by an actor I can't remember the name of. He's a heavier-set black man and he asks roundabout questions about my place in -- and loyalty to -- our shadowy organization. I tell him I will do what needs to be done.

The plane is in the air. I stand up and walk down the aisle. "It's time," I say to one of my squadmates as I walk past. She's a darker-skinned woman with long, curly hair.

We're in the air now. The six members of the squad are gliding towards our destination using wingsuits, flying through the chilled air.

"We can make it the whole way," the woman I was talking to says over the comms.

"Negative," I say. "We're losing altitude. Chutes on my mark; aim to land at the planned point."

I see a red plume of light indicating where we should land.

"And... NOW!"

We deploy our parachutes and land on the ice next to an island. Before I know it, we have skates on and are making our way towards the shore.

A red pickup truck meets us. We put skate guards on our skates and a few of us climb into the cab, the rest getting into the back of the truck. I'm making plans with the driver.

Scare factor: 5/10. Lots of fun and adventure, felt in control of the narrative the entire time, despite not being lucid.

EDIT for new rating system (and formatting colour):

Adventure: 8/10
Control: 8/10
Fear: 2/10

Actors are running amok in my dreeeeaaaaams.

09/21/10

Don't leave your distractions up to me. Things will get dark.

I'm leaning over the stone railing of the balcony, stretched out under afternoon sunlight. The balcony overlooks the city below, with its clay tile rooftops and climbing ivy. This place is teeming with life, and I allow myself to bask in its positive energy. Looking at the roads below, I can see -

Wait.

"Is that guy riding a unicorn?" I ask.

The soldier standing next to me, dressed in forest green camo, puts a hand above his eyes and squints. "Oh, yeah. That's the pizza guy."

"The pizza guy." I repeat flatly. "Of course."

The pizza guy has convinced his unicorn to go up a flight of steps. As he turns the corner, I see his face. I bury my head in my hands.

I appear outside next to him. "Really, Misha?" I say, "You know what'll happen if they catch you?"

He says something.

I shake my head. "The stage is set." I make a grand gesture with a sweep of my arm. "Your distraction is ready."

How many pizzas would you need to feed a platoon of soldiers, anyway?

Vampires.

The girl looks maybe thirteen years old. She's quiet and sullen, and thirty vampires are following her through the darkness.

She didn't mean to turn them. Well, not all of them. As their sire, she's responsible for them, and needs to keep them under control.

I really need to kill a few, she thinks.

She keeps three.

"Rosie," she says, "It doesn't have to be this way." She's staring at the animated corpse of her friend. She turned Rosie into a vampire to save her life.

Rosie laughs, trapped as she is within the circle. Still grinning, she'll speak the words that will damn her friend forever.

Flashback.

This is the girl vampire's past. She's still human, up in the building that I just left, protected by a platoon of pizza-ordering soldiers in forest green.

The soldiers are all dead, attacked by vampires. The girl is injured, bleeding. There is one soldier left, a recurring character. He turns around to reassure her, tell her they'll be all right. He lowers his weapon.

"Look," I say gleefully. "You can see the precise moment that she turns."

She's a vampire now. She kills the soldier.

Scare Factor: 3/10
Rating: 4/10

I realize this was probably confusing. I've got nothing.

08/15/10



I stand on a narrow walkway, facing off against the creature I've been hunting. It's been hiding among the humans, wearing the face of a beautiful redhead. Right now, she's snarling, defensive, and her fangs are in full view. The Doctor, meanwhile, is hovering over my shoulder, looking like he might intervene.

I'm distracted for just a moment, and the vampire turns her back and jumps off the landing.

I glance back at him. Wordlessly, we agree on a course of action. The Doctor moves away from the edge, goes back into the main building to save the day.

I survey the area, quickly. It's a six-story drop, at least. It dimly registers that I'm dreaming, and before I can change my mind, I'm jumping after her.

The ground rushes up to meet me. I hit the tile floor, narrowly missing a set of wooden pews. I look around, noting that I'm in the sanctuary of a large church.

End recall.

Scare Factor: 2/10
Rating: 6/10

I feel a steady pull somewhere, like I'm being summoned. Images of an immense stone cavern, alive with a bright blue energy.

I seem to be on a road trip with my family. We get mixed up with the local vampires, and I have half of the population out to kill me. I'm standing in a hotel room with off-white walls and a duvet on the bed, talking to a woman with short blonde hair. She's an important figure to the vampires, and she's giving me information that might help me survive. We're planning something.

Memory of a red metal door and what might be a gymnasium. Being chased by the vampires, slamming the door into the face/arm of one of them as I run outside. It's daylight, but I'm not sure if that bothers them. Outside a brick building, patches of green grass growing weed-like in the gravel.

Space dream. Mentions of Kyle Katarn. I'm in a ship, dark metal interior. A DC thinks he's intimidating, but I don't feel the least bit threatened. Semi-lucid, I'm thinking about writing things down later. Sex dream.

Weird FA. I still feel half-stuck in the dreamworld, but not immersed in it. I think about waiting at the Twin Towers that Walms mentioned as a possible meeting place, pull up an image of what used to be there. I'm standing on top of the north tower, beside the antenna. I think about the Task of the Month, jumping off a skyscraper. I watch my dream avatar jump from the building and land on her feet, as if I'm watching a video clip. The scale is all wrong; the DA is too tall in comparison to the building beside her.

I'm Neal Caffrey from White Collar, helping to catch people. The dream-plot is nonsensical, and my surroundings are wavy coloured lines over white. I talk to Peter Burke about the people we caught by running into them with more wavy coloured lines that might have been a car.

"OMFG A CAT!" I shout, pointing. A cat walks along the driveway. I have no idea what context could turn this into a momentous event. Maybe all the animals are dead?

A CAT! Scare Factor: 3.

We're driving down the highway in a tan-coloured Oldsmobile. The driver seems to think the speed limit is optional, which really wouldn't bother me, only he doesn't actually have his license yet. Also, he doesn't seem to be in control of the vehicle, if the wildly oscillating steering wheel is anything to go by.

"Whoa! Whoa!" I shout from the backseat. "Oncoming train, ONCOMING TRAIN!"

"Ben, stop," says my mom from the passenger seat.

Ben reluctantly brings the car to a stop before we get to the train tracks. I breathe out a sigh of relief and glare at my brother.

"You know," says the fifteen-year-old comfortably, "Sam could totally supervise my driving -"

"NO!" My mom and I say simultaneously.

Ben slouches in his seat and gets the car moving again, now that the train's past. The car gradually speeds up, and he throws my mom a look that reads See? I can totally drive without giving Sam a heart attack.

A copse of trees blocks the road a little bit farther along. It's night. We need to hike through the trees in order to get to the road on the other side.

We're not a few steps in before I can feel a tingling feeling up my spine. I sense a malicious intent, which lingers, as if the blood that's been spilled here has never properly washed away.

"We should hurry," I say quietly. "This isn't a good place." I should know, this is my dream after all. Vaguely, I wonder if this is going to turn into a nightmare. If it is, am I sensing evil, or creating it?

There are men sleeping, haphazardly strewn over the grass-covered ground in various garishly coloured sleeping bags. I hurry Mom and Ben along, out of the campsite through a path in the bushes. I know it the moment the men wake up.

"Go! Go! I'll meet you at the car!" I shout at my family. Somewhere between eight and a dozen men come rushing onto the path, heedless of my attempts to block them. I can't move, I can't shout, I'm completely helpless -

"KIYA!" I lace a high-pitched shout with all of my fear and anger, forcing the men's attention onto me. I move out into the middle of the clearing, still pulling their attention, focusing on the present rather than the danger that faces the others. I need to be able to move.

"KIYA!" I shout in challenge, feeling ridiculous, catching a third-person view of myself as Eliza Dushku.

A man runs at me, using his momentum - and considerable bulk - to ready a skull-crushing punch. I sidestep. He misses. I use his momentum against him, throwing him out of the way.

It's on.

Another man rushes me. I catch him by the arm, twist, breaking it. I throw him over my shoulder and he crashes to the ground, where I aim a kick at his neck, killing him instantly.

Two come at me. I send one stumbling with a kick to the solar-plexus. He trips over the corpse and I disable the other one with a ridge-hand strike to the throat, crushing the windpipe. He collapses to the ground, gasping for air, and I'm already rushing a stunned thug, sweeping his legs out from under him. I pound three high-powered kicks into his left temple before he can blink.

A thug is picking himself up from beside his friend's corpse, looking enraged. I'm behind another one, hand across jaw, and I pull, breaking his neck. I don't see Trippy until he has a hand around my throat, lifting me until my toes barely brush over the ground. I twist, tearing - tiger claw - rigid fingers across his face, ripping into flesh. His grip slackens and I turn around to meet another attack, evading arms and deftly clawing an eye out of its socket. He's out of the fight.

One of the smarter ones is readying an incantation - I'm in front of him. I grab, twist, tear his arm off, leave him to bleed out.

Another. I aim a kick for his groin, surprised when I hit the inner thigh. Hard. Time slows for the others, and I admonish myself for losing focus. Concentrate on the dream. I pull my leg in, I lash out with a side-kick to the groin. He's down. I smash his head in.

I hear a dark chuckle from across the clearing. Trippy is struggling to his feet, one hand pressed against his bleeding face. He laughs. I want to know what's so funny.

"You think we're monsters." He laughs again, eyes closed for a moment.

He's down before he knew what hit him. I kick him repeatedly, into the gut, into the side of his head, until he's nothing but a mangled corpse leering at me with a dead grin.

I put down the others with brutal efficiency.

I meet Ben and Mom at the car, which happens to be a Chevy Impala. Not meeting their eyes, I mention that we're going to have to wipe down the car, inside and outside. Apparently it was used to run over people while I wasn't looking. I'll have to dispose of these clothes, too. They're black, so I can't see the blood-spatter, but I just murdered a bunch of unarmed humanoids, and there was blood spraying everywhere, so -

"I'll clean the car," says my brother.

I take a deep breath. "Yeah. We should go."

---

Some time later, I meet up with an alternate version of my mom, driving the Oldsmobile. We talk about the forest/campground, but she isn't entirely sure what I'm talking about. In her world, we kept driving right past the damned place.

I get to thinking about alternate endings...

---

They have Ben. My mom has disappeared, but they have Ben and he's a prisoner of these things and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

There's a young boy, maybe ten, being carried from some kind of ceremony, half naked. I have a bad feeling about this.

I take a breath, calm my mind. I can stay out of sight for now, wait for an opportunity to rescue him. I'm practically incorporeal right now; it's not like I could do much anyway. Although, I think, as I watch them drag my struggling brother out of sight, waiting could be easier said than done.

---

Colourful round wooden tables are interspersed throughout the clearing. I couldn't see the place before I followed Ben in. My brother is sitting at one of the tables, eating the same grilled cheese sandwiches as all the other humans. On his left is the vampire he's been bound to, and on his right, a human slave, eying the former nervously.

I get a bit of insight from the slave, who, apparently, was a member of the local Resistance before he was captured. He still hasn't quite lost the suicidal tendencies.

"You realize," he says to Ben, keeping his voice low so the vampire won't notice, "That these things are just using you, right? We need to fight them."

Ben snorts. "You're just saying that because they're planning to eat you."

Apparently they keep humans as cattle. Charming.

Also, Ben's been brainwashed. This could be a problem.

---

I'm watching the loading area, a gravel parking lot leading into the back doors of the complex. An Oldsmobile drives in. I move closer.

A group of three or four slaves is conversing with the driver. One of them was talking to Ben earlier. Kel, I think his name was. I recognize the leader of the group: Damon. Fanatic.

"What do you want with the Aur'i, Reader?" Damon asks, as my mom steps out of the car.

"Your masters have taken one of our own." Mom tells them coldly. "We want him back."

Fuck me. Readers' powers are the opposite of my own, divine while mine are hell-powered, and they're positively toxic to the Aur'i (vampires). They're more of an allergy, for me.

"The boy, yes?" says Damon, "What of the girl?"

Ah, the Dushku persona.

"Not one of ours," Mom says, "She didn't violate the Accords by attacking you."

"A pity," says Damon. "I'll pass along your message to our Masters. You may leave now."

Ignoring the slight, Mom tips her head and goes back to the car.

Damn it. I've got to get her a message before she leaves. I take off along the side of the complex.

---

"Sokka Katara Sam!" Ben gasps, clutching his head. I hear him, glad that he's finally broken through the mind control.

Lay low.

---

I break out into a full-on sprint, moving as quickly as I can around the back corner of the loading bay. When I stop, I hardly even notice that I'm not out of breath. I wave my arms at my mom, staying carefully out of the slaves' sight.

I gesture towards some scaffolding near my hiding spot, which should be hidden from any observers. My mom exits the car and heads toward the spot I indicated, and I slink along more carefully, hidden by the various construction materials along the way.

"You had to choose this spot?" asks my mom, visibly shivering.

I'm surprised, but I look more closely at the wall. There's warding magic emanating from it.

I smile sheepishly. "I can't feel it like you do." I tell her, "My power meshes with the place."

"We'll talk about it later." She pulls an iron chain out and throws one end to me.

I catch it. It feels like ice-water is crawling over my skin.

Covered by the protection of the chain, I explain the situation, highlighting the layout of the compound and detailing Ben's chain to the Aur'i. I'm so caught up in the story that I don't notice the patrolling slaves have noticed us. Noticed the chain, rather, since we're invisible.

"That is a forbidden magic here," says Damon, indicating the iron chain.

"Is it?" I ask, adopting a really bad light Jamaican accent. "It is looped through this equipment like a spider's web."

"The reader," hisses Damon.

"You're Nomad?" asks Kel, indicating a nationality.

I glance back at Mom, but she's disappeared along with the car. Good.

I have an image of dark skin and bright colours. I take the appearance of the girl in my mind's eye and let the chain fall from my hand.

I can work with this.

I Am Legend. Scare Factor: 5.[/QUOTE]