Things to Run Away From Really Fast

Hidden in a tiny nook inside the metal walls of the space station, I feel Darth Vader sweep by my hiding place. His footsteps rattle the walls, and I can vaguely hear him giving orders to subordinates.

I am the space station, I chant, blending further into the background. The stark walls are etched by suffering. The station belongs to the Empire—although it masquerades as a lawless refuelling station—and if the Empire's agents make demands, the station management will fall all over itself to capitulate.

"Find her."

I smile.

Then I'm walking through corridors until I reach the outside of the station. The rooms that I walk through are open to vacuum, but I don't bother with a spacesuit. Opening an airlock would be logged on the station's computer, as would removing a spacesuit from storage, and that would tip my hand. Unnecessary, when I can just walk through space under my own power.

It's fucking cold, though. My skin is literally freezing in chunks, but that will go away once I re-enter the living areas of the station.

I can see the stars stretched out in front of me through the transparisteel window, and I step through the glass—

And fall.

I catch myself with a thought. I glide towards the station, where I can see in through the windows and spy upon my quarry. (I wrap myself up in thick blankets as I do so.)

---

The Exile—and administrator of the station—looks enraged.

"These are our people!" he shouts at the officer. "I will NOT allow them to be put in harms way because of political machinations."

---

We're on the surface of a rocky planet, under an orange sky. The other darksider has his lightsaber out, taunting me.

You can't kill me, he says, not bothered by the lightsaber wound jutting through his abdomen. I've upgraded my body: these machines make me invincible.

I charge at him and plunge my red lightsaber into his stomach, psychically forcing lines of corrupted code into his body through the blade. He falls.

My husband and I are visiting the UK. It's incredibly difficult to find a parking spot.

We're wandering through a series of buildings that are all interconnected, and I'm opening new doors, creating new spaces that sometimes lead back to the previous ones. We run into my grandmother.

There's a contest that we somehow become involved in, and there are little children hurling chunks of ice. I talk to their parents disapprovingly, and somehow win the contest, described as the "yelling" person.

We're fugitives now, trying to escape the UK. My attempt to get us free passage out of the country fails when I can't get the three images on my ticket to line up (like a slot machine), despite exerting dream control. There are dogs coming after me, and I send bolts of ice magic at them, freezing them in place, because they can run faster than I can.

I find myself in an empty field, looking up into the night sky. I start walking, and realize that there's a lunar eclipse in the sky. I'm flying towards it now.

I'm looking at a brick building, and decide to run up the side, Prototype-style. I'm having trouble with it, though. Instead, I run as far up it as I can and grab on, allowing the mechanism on the side of the building to buoy me up.

I look at the moon, which is a cube in the sky, and try to fly again. I can't.

A cabin in the country, where a man is offering lessons on writing a novel.

My husband and I are running through a parking lot, but the cars and semis keep trying to collapse on top of us. We're trying to get back to our parking spot.

From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favour fire...

Infiltrating a sorority/fraternity and it's terrible. And my female SHIELD agent is covering for the fact that Captain America is terrible at undercover work.

Now I'm part of a group of three people who are living semi-harmoniously in an older part of town. We have some interesting projects on the go, like improving playgrounds and adding giant transparent red walls to sidewalks so that people have to zigzag through.

I'm looking through a catalogue that has sheaths for ritual daggers that are being advertised pinned to the pages. There are daggers for earth, air, fire and water, and unsurprisingly I'm interested in the fire one.

And then I remember that I already have a ritual dagger. I turn it over in my hand. The blade is pure silver in the dream, unlike the real one.

I'm walking down a road, trying to find my way back to the original path.I know that if it takes too long to get back, I'll lose the thread of the dream, so I hold out a hand to the end of the street and soar towards it.

The street I want to take is the second from the end, but I can't find it, because the second path is now an alley that goes into someone's backyard. I follow the path and find a raspberry bush, and I look around for a basket. I decide that there will be one on the deck when I go to find it, but there's only a box that holds some kindling. I empty out the kindling onto the pile of smaller pieces of wood.

I look around and see an old, dying tree, and all I can notice is that the branches are so dead that they'd make great kindling for the cabin owner's fire.

There are workmen in the backyard. Apparently there are signs saying that they'd be in the area.

I'm Dean Winchester now. Sam and I know that when you get caught somewhere, you pretend that you belong there, so we approach the workmen and strike up a conversation.

They're vampires, as it turns out.

There's a fight.

I drive a stake into one man's chest—

wait, that's zombies in this universe

—and my silver dagger appears in my hand. I swing it around and slice into the vampire's neck as I throw my weight forward. The vampire stumbles, still off-balance from the stake, and I'm behind him, slicing into his throat and grabbing at his hair so that I can fully behead him.

(There's an argument as to whether this works according to the rules of the game. I win.)

There are bodies all over the back yard, now. We're going to have to burn them.

I grab wood from the shed out back and set to covering our dead vamps with lumber and kindling. I'm lighting the shed itself on fire when I hear a shout.

The man who appears was a friend of John Winchester's, and he's angry that his property is going up in flames.

I'm trying to choke him out without killing him. He struggles, and it's not working, but then he changes tactics and tries to grab at my ears and pull.

I decide that it's a trope of the genre that you can hit someone over the head and knock them out without being at risk of killing them, so one of us hits him over the head with the butt of a rifle.

Fire burns, and the old tree from earlier provides us with as much kindling as we need. I go over to the cabin, and realize that there's meat drying in the racks along the outside wall. My stomach churns as I realize that it's cursed all to hell—I don't want to think about what kind of meat has gone into the ground meat patties that are sitting on the rack, but there's a telltale haze of angry spirits hanging around the meat. Somehow, at least one of them is an ancient, powerful indigenous spirit, how the fucking hell...

I set it all on fire.

A blonde, average-sized woman with curly hair enters the yard, looking curious. "What's going on?" she asks, looking genuinely curious.

Because all we need is another civilian to knock out and haul away before they die of smoke inhalation.

"Ma'am," I start—

She looks past me. "You know, certain spirits are actually freed when you burn them."

Witch, I think. Of the Supernatural-style variety. I run forward, brandishing my knife, and she laughs as I plunge it into her chest. Light explodes from the place where the knife stabbed into her, and she soars up into the sky, a being of pure white light and destruction.

I turn around to deal with the spirit, and I think I'm calling up an explosion of—hellfire, soulfire?—and it's enveloped completely.

My long black cloak trails out behind me as I crash into the other witch, tearing into her. I snarl as I grab part of her cloak—pull it away with part of her essence as a ripping, tearing noise fills the air—and shoot past her. There are three of us, beings of darkness and the night, tearing through the sky and tearing into the thing of light that wants only to destroy.

Darkness can be a force for good in the world just as light can, and both can snuff out life as well as they can extend it. All we need—I think, flying at the other witch—is for some idiot to think that the good guy is being outnumbered here just because they're burning with Light.

My husband and I are hiking around a lake. The sky is blue blue blue and the colours are crisp and vibrant.

In the dream, this place is actually Medicine Hat with mountains (but in reality it's more like Kelowna.) I'm looking at the glaciers up in the mountains as they melt and shift and change, feeling the warm sun and the cool breeze on my skin.

We need to get back to the town, quickly, but we're partway across the lake. I'm trying to use my phone and Google Maps to figure out the fastest route back to the town. We may need to hitch a ride on a boat.

We're back in the town, and a friend, G, is helping us load supplies into a white Beetle. He's supposed to drive it a little ways, but instead he drives off with it.

That would only happen in a dream, right? Well, at least that makes dealing with this easy.

I lift off the ground and fly after the Beetle, wondering if car speed counts as flying at superspeed. I'm trying to use telekinesis to latch onto the car, but I end up peeling off the back bumper instead.

★★★☆☆

01/09/11

I just found a Star Wars game for my phone. I decide to try it out, so I'm tilting it left and right, figuring out the controls. Spacebar is jump.

I'm in the game. My surroundings are a dank green, covered in vines and rot. This was a school once. I try out the jump command, disappointed when I realize I have only first-level force jump. It doesn't matter; I'll be able to get around just fine.

Obi-Wan's shade appears beside me to explain my mission. This is strange, because I'm pretty sure I'm a past version of him. The force ghost fizzles out and disappears, exploding into four green blobs of goo. They reform and immediately begin to scuttle about, taking shape as Gravelings, mischievous reptilian creatures that arrange the accidental deaths of the people around them.

I strike with my single lightsaber, v-stepping in and twisting away after I cut through the torso of one of the gravelings. The creature goes still in shock, before it disintegrates in a flash of red sparks. With a sweep of my lightsaber, the others are scuttling away. I finish them off with force lightening.

Later, alone in an empty room, I suddenly realize that I'm dreaming. It feels like waking up. I try to remember my goals, but I come up blank. Fine - I'll run. I love to run in dreams. I take a running start and leap from a four-foot ledge.

In one reality, I can feel myself flying.
I drift away, into the blue, blue sky, heedless of the ceiling that used to be there. Simultaneously I'm falling, landing. I can feel the remnants of the other reality until all four of my limbs slowly reach the floor. I lay my forehead onto the cold cement and just breathe.

I see Zoe, walking away into a crowd of faceless people. I call out to her, chase after her. Her blonde hair swishes as she half turns, keeps walking.

We're sitting side by side, looking at the massive crowd milling about through the mall. She's counting the cash in a till.

"There's something you want to tell me," she says, flipping through a pile of five dollar bills.

"Yep."

She scowls, but doesn't turn to look at me. "Well?" she asks, "What is it?"

"You could say," I smile faintly, "That I have slightly more than platonic feelings for you."

Her hands go still. "Oh."

"But that doesn't matter," I say, leaning back.

"And why is that?"

"Because," I say, and I stretch my hands out in front of my face, "None of this is real."

And the dream dissolves into static.

Running. Scare Factor: 3.

Fun dream, but the writing's kind of screwy.

Moving out of Saskatchewan! Maybe I'll stop dreaming about "Ixburg".

09/10/10



I've de-aged again. I have the impression of messy black hair, and apparently I'm Harry Potter. Cool.

I'm also trapped in a cave.

"I can't let ya leave, 'Arry," explains Hagrid, turning to a conveniently placed stove to pull a kettle off the boil, "The Ministry won' allow it."

"I see." I'm standing with my hands at my sides, eerily calm. The lack of expression seems to unnerve him.

I'm unconcerned. Hagrid has already given away the secret, and he has his back turned.

I raise my right hand. "Imperio."

I walk out into blue skies.

time skip

In the time since I've left the cave, I've fought off a few extra-inept stormtroopers, easily taken care of. (I actually wasn't sure about one. Thought he might have been a shadow-trooper, but he died easily enough.)

I had another encounter with Berserker!Hagrid. Apparently three layers of Imperius spells don't do anything positive to your sanity.

Beat him.

Now I'm wandering around Ixburg, heading toward the east end of town for some reason.

I'm trying to fly. Annoyed that it's not working. I can manage some of the jumps, but I can't stay in the air.

Standing in the center of an open road, I concentrate on growing red, hawk-like wings. They extend from my arms, so I don't have to concentrate on a new set of limbs. I flap the wings, and take off.

Passing the warehouses on the edge of town, I notice Imperials swarming the place. Apparently it's their base.

I stand across from Darth Vader.

"I am your father."

I'm unimpressed.

We fight, but he fades into the background.

I remember Capture the Flag, from Jedi Academy. That was fun.

A stormtrooper holds the blue flag, and is standing on top of the empty red base. He's waiting for someone to return the flag so he can score.

I force push him off the building, and he goes crashing into the corrugated siding of another warehouse. Dead already. Hn. Blue flag returned.

The blue team scores, and I grab the red flag. Darth Vader's still lurking around here somewhere. Something's glitching on him, maybe? He can't jump onto the roof.

I fly off toward the hospital on the other side of town, the blue base, after sprouting another set of wings. I wonder how I'm carrying the flag without hands. I try not to think about it. Maybe I'm holding it with my teeth.

In another dream, I'm standing in a hallway, looking at the men's and women's bathrooms, which are side by side. I have no fucking clue which one to use.

Scare Factor: 2/10
Rating: 4/10

09/04/10



An airplane flies through the sky, slightly above the white clouds below. I'm a passenger, sitting in a window seat. The plane starts to descend.

It's not supposed to. I'm willing the plane to keep a straight course, trying to pull up the nose of the plane. It's not working. I let go, hoping that when we get underneath the clouds, it'll be easier to keep the plane level.

We hit white, fluffy clouds and suddenly, they aren't so fluffy anymore. The plane disappears, and I land in cold, white snow. I look around, realizing that I'm on the side of a mountain. There are pine trees all around me.

So I'm dreaming. I'm in a forest, so that makes this the perfect time to work on Nomad's task. I appear within a cluster of trees, looking out over a snow-covered clearing. I know that I need a mirror, so I focus on pulling something together, a plain rectangle. Golden lines of light create an outline, the most light sparking around the corners.

I can't hold it. The image falls away.

Goddammit.

Scare Factor: 3/10
Rating: 4/10

07/09/10

They'll never let you leave.

I'm in a department store with a bunch of people. We're trying to escape, but a malevolent presence won't allow it. A few people find an exit sign, but when they open the door, space loops back in on itself, sending them back through a door on the opposite side of the room.

I wake up, briefly, and automatically chain myself back into the dream. I'm standing in front of a set of steps leading straight into the ceiling - a dead end. I take a breath, and hurl myself into the air, over the obstacles blocking my path up the steps. I land on my right foot, spring up over a metal bar, flipping upside down and twisting. I land at the top of the steps.

There's an attic access now. I pause to imagine blue skies, and gently push the melamine panel out of the way. I stand up, and look at the sky. It's nearly blank, with a decidedly greyish tinge. There's a bit of blue mixed in.

I decide that if I fly, the dream will resolve itself. I take off into the air, fly up and up and up. The grey shifts into clouds, and the blue becomes stronger and stronger as I get higher.

A DC joins me in my flight. He has a warning for me, but I don't remember it.

I ponder on how interesting it is that I can turn into other characters in my dreams, and then utterly become the character. I land back on the ground and shapeshift. I'm Neil Caffrey from White Collar.

I wake up again, but I fall asleep right away. I'm back in the dream, muttering about dream-chaining and going over the events of the previous dream so I don't forget them.

I talk to a DC who's supposed to be a newborn cousin. She can say her own name, but is unable to pronounce most words. It's an interesting conversation.

Sears. Scare Factor: 2.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

I wander a city, searching for my skydiving class.

I'm in a plane about the size of a crop duster. My mom is piloting. We're angling to land on the top of a mountain, where there's a gas station.

I'm trying to get to a weekend course on skydiving. We wonder if I have to jump out of this plane to get to the course.

We land, avoiding the cars in the parking lot (on top of a mountain). I kick off of a maroon minivan in the parking lot, adjusting our course so we don't hit it.

We talk to the people inside, but this isn't where the course is. We have to keep flying.

Back on the plane, I wonder if we have enough of a runway to take off again. My mom shrugs and we go flying off the cliff. We stay in the air.

It's a tight fit between two pillars of stone. I'm worried we might hit, but my mom effortlettly steers us through them. Wow. She's better at driving than she usually is in dreams. I mean, there was this other dream with the truck where she kept almost hitting other cars...

(How did I miss that?)

I check my backpack and find an oxygen mask and a parachute.

We're back on the ground, in a car. I still have no idea where I'm supposed to go; there's no map in the brochure. Hours fly by. I was supposed to be there in the morning, and it's now 1:00PM on a Friday.

We stop at a store. Ben says his friend lives above the shop. They're selling Halloween costumes.

Perfectly Good Airplanes. Scare Factor: 1.

I'm at a track for horse-races, in the back. There are trailers around, and stalls as well. The place is deserted.

I don't know what clued me in to the fact that this was a dream. I think on that for a second, then shrug it off. I've been meaning to try flying. I jump into the air and swoop around for a bit. I remember to try to contain my excitement, but -

New dream. I'm probably ten years old, fighting a friend who has decided to be a witch. It's all in fun, and I trace sigils into the windows and tell her she can't get inside. In retaliation, she sets a bulletin board on fire. All of my photographs go up in flames, and I smother the fire with blue energies that aren't a tiny bit wet.

Fighting Fire. Scare Factor: 2.

I think I used to have better dream control than I do now. More frequent lucidity, as well.

September 2007

Why walk when you can fly? I have an impression of stone steps and pathways. They cling to the steep, grassy hilltop, jutting out into the wet, grey sky. The pathway seems to be large enough for only one person, but the pair of us climb the steps side by side.

I am looking ahead of us as the path ends at an alcove made of stone and concrete, similar to the one that used to be behind our apartment building in Ixburg, but it doesn't smell like mushrooms. If there is a smell, it's sharp, soft, clean. The smell of rain or of mountain air. On either side of the alcove, a trail begins, forking out from the steps. There the trail barely clings to the steep slope.

I can feel everything around me, imagining the texture of a surface as my eyes glance over it. The pebbles in the pathway, the grass and moss... everything tingles with the prospect of rain.

I let go of the ground, and drift upwards slowly until I am floating about a foot above the path. I am being pulled upward and pushed downward, and I hold on to the feeling. This is effortless.

Like a ghost - a painfully, ecstatically alive ghost - I drift alongside my companion. We discuss this phenomenon. I can still feel the ground, the sky, the grass. I simply didn't want to walk anymore, I explain.

The breeze doesn't occur to me. I am not bothered by rippling air currents. All that exists is the humming force which keeps me suspended in my dreamworld.

Gravity Hack. Scare Factor: 1. I wonder who my guide was in that dream. I think he was part-animal in the mythological sense, somewhat similar to a minotaur. Except more friendly.