Things to Run Away From Really Fast

Friday, June 25, 2010

Apparently, psychopaths are drawn to the martial arts.

I'm in the middle of a karate class. I don't know the instructor, and I think I'm new to this dojo. The students are preparing for an upcoming tournament, concentrating especially on their kata. One man is leading a bunch of other students in a kata, but I notice that he moves with a limp.

The head sensei, an old man, shows up beside me. He explains that it was he himself who crippled the other man. You see, he explains to me, this man was my student at the time. Apparently, the other man was using what he learned in martial arts to abuse women he was in relationships with over the years, and the head sensei put a stop to it. The other man's punishment was that he would no longer be able to reach his full potential as a martial artist.

I'm talking with some of the other students, when I remember I have to check something. I sit down on the grass with my laptop. Firefox is already open, and I start to type something. Or maybe I'm clicking the Stumble button, I don't really remember.



A girl from high school shows up and sits on my lap, taking the computer. I look over her shoulder as she types something in.

I'm playing a video game that's a cross between Saint's Row 2 and Assassin's Creed 2. Why all the sequels?

I tell my brother about a bug in the game. I load my save game and see my character collapse and die. The game reloads, in a different place. I collapse and die. Cue loading screens to a bunch of different characters and places. Collapse and die, collapse and die, collapse and die.

Finally, we see a cutscene. An old woman is the queen of the land; she's bedridden and giving orders to messengers. Apparently, she was my character's mom at one point, only I keep dying and getting reincarnated, so I've been missing for the last thirty years.

"Change in next music and chocolate."

...what?

Lucid moment. I look at my right hand and notice that the three little fingers are bent, but it feels like two of them are, and the other three are extended. Wait a minute. I glance up and look around, but the dream is already over.

Sensei. Scare Factor: 2.