Things to Run Away From Really Fast

The light rail car speeds across the desert, its tracks raised high into the air. An attack helicopter closes on us, and the tension of the people within the car is palpable.

The train is carrying civilians, and we don't have any way to fight back.

The wind whips at me as I stand at the open door, the grounday speeding past far below. What's the worst that could happen? I think, This is only a dream.

I jump.

I reach out and grab onto the landing skids of the helicopter, grinning wildly.

(Later, I'm Harry Potter taking on an army of conventional weaponry.)

I'm at a networking event that's in someone's living room. In this dream, the very nice houses in the city are on a peninsula overlooking the water, and the host has a big house that fits everyone. It looks a lot like my house, but bigger.

---

I'm at the dumpster in our complex, and I've found a couple of really cool chairs that I could use in my studio. My husband is not happy with the prospect of dumpster chairs. I now realize that the chairs that were really nice a minute ago actually have broken lifting mechanisms.

---

I'm sharing a dorm with my mom and my brother. This is not a happy arrangement. We've just moved in, and the management is now telling us that we need to move to another one of their properties because they're renovating.

I'm arguing with my mom over whether we should rent a U-haul or take several trips in the truck. She vetoes my U-haul suggestion and says that we can make the truck work, but I say we have two hours to move and we need to take at least three trips in the truck.

A panel that we're loading into the truck snaps, and it flies with force towards my mom's throat.

Pause.

I realize that I'm dreaming.

With my mind, I catch the broken pieces as they fly towards my mom, absorb the kinetic force, and let them drop, harmlessly, to the ground.

I remember that my next task is to teleport—and that I want to teleport to a neighbour's house to fulfill two goals at once—but the dream is getting fuzzy and I'm starting to drift towards consciousness. Blearily, I think that it seems silly to teleport into a neighbour's house when it's right next door. I wake up.

---

Malfoy is sending a robot after me. It would be a physical threat, but as long as I pick it up and hold it on its side, it can't actually get to me, so that's a bust as far as evil plans go.

The robot follows me uselessly around the room.

We're in a playground, and I've hijacked Voldemort's followers by pretending that I, Harry Potter, am actually the next incarnation of Voldemort. (Or maybe I am?)

Malfoy is teetering on top of something that looks like the Cirque du Soleil-inspired stunts from Mad Max: Fury Road. He's trying to prove a point. He falls, but he's currently invulnerable.

02/21/11

Door after door leading to white hallway after white hallway. "You must remember the way," he says, "For you will return alone."

The next room is an airy loft, warm lights illuminating hardwood floors and brick walls, black leather furniture and red accents. Light streams in from the windows, but I don't look outside. My focus is on the jewelry box which sits on the black coffee table.

Dark stained oak, cheap brass clasp. Approximately six inches across, four inches tall, five inches deep. I flick open the cheap brass clasp. Red velvet? Darker. Not black, too repetitive. Inside the box is an onyx pendant, oval-shaped, set in silver.



My mind filters the details automatically, but I'm focused on the brief spark of red energy, invisible threads latching onto my energy reserves and trailing through another level of the dream-world. A horcrux, then.

Dark. Underground. Cavernous. Walls drip with slime and... blood, yes. No smell, no sensory input other than sight. Area is large, but confining. Can feel the thing trapped here, straining against its bonds.

Sharp movement. Living, shapeless mass of flesh and grinding bone. Something claws its way from inside, tears the creature open from the inside. A humanoid figure steps out of the bloody, writhing thing. This is the monster.

"Run," I say to the other man. "You need to get as far away from me–"

Too late. The room goes pure white in an instant, powered by the horcrux's parasitic bond. A cloaked figure unfurls itself across the room, stands up straight and I make a sharp gesture with my ebony wand, shouting and pulling on the emotions that I need to fuel the spell.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

White noise is deafening and the room gets brighter than should be possible and - nothing.






He sits poised on the far end of the couch, staring disapprovingly at his cup of tea. Earl Grey in delicate white china, set in a saucer that he holds in his left hand. I'm on the other end of the couch, looking straight at him. I probably have a cup of tea, or maybe it's sitting on the coffee table.

"So," I say casually, "From one dark wizard to another..."

He smirks at that. "A dark wizard, Harry? You?"

"This time around, it's different." I say with a scowl, "What was the first curse I cast at you, again?"

"As I recall," he says, taking a sip of the tea, "You attempted to cast the killing curse."

Attempted–?

"You lack the hatred required to fuel the spell." He explains, and he meets my eyes. "This version of you does not love, Harry. All you have is apathy."

Trinkets. Scare Factor: 3.

★★★☆☆

Four hours of sleep, and suddenly this monstrosity comes along. It's fairly disjointed; I don't have a whole lot of time to play with it, so without further ado...

10/18/10



Harry Potter tries to mess with the fabric of reality, I have diabolical plans, and Dumbledore disapproves as usual.

"Just think about it," I tell her. "With this kind of breakthrough, we could completely alter the way humans perceive reality!"

Sophie looks up at me, skeptical, one hand keeping her place in the textbook. She's holding a pen in her other hand, and she taps it impatiently against her notebook. She pushes a few strands of short red hair out of her eyes, and says, "I know what happens when you try to play mad scientist, Harry."

We're sitting across from each other at a long wooden table. Sophie's studying - this is a library, after all. The interior is almost entirely decorated with red-stained wood, giving the impression of a highly modern, really big log cabin. With lots and lots of glass (and books). Sunlight streams in from the huge windows, and outside is a view of the forest, and the other school buildings in the clearing.



"Chaos, generally." I say, grinning. Some of the other students notice that I'm grinning, and quietly begin to edge away from us. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

skip

There's this thing I have to do on the computer. It's very important. I'm sitting outside on the green grass, trying to do this very important thing, when - hey, will you look at that? Dumbledore's on Skype!

Albus Dumbledore appears in a new window, looking very grave indeed. This is somewhat offset by all of the spinning and twirling metal gadgetry on his desk.

"Harry," says Dumbledore gravely, "I've received word of the research you've begun."

"Really?" I say, looking up from Minesweeper. "Brilliant, isn't it?"

He sighs. "Harry," he repeats, "This is not a road you cannot walk down unscathed. You'll be returning to Hogwarts."

"Um..." I say slowly, "No."

"By force, if necessary."

My computer pings.

"Did you just -" I say, looking at the screen, "Did you just track my location through my internet connection? You realize I'm on a different PLANET? How the hell does that even -"

But Dumbledore's appearing at the edge of the wards, walking into the school grounds the only way he can. I meet his eyes for just a moment, and I disapparate.

skip

Moving through Ixburg, and I'm running. I'm moving through a jobsite, people from my hometown who were, apparently, in direct competition with my family's business. By some sort of mutual agreement, they all ignore my presence, and I pass through completely unnoticed.

Back doors of the grocery store and I'm having a conversation with someone before I disappear again -

Narcissa Malfoy. We're standing in some anonymous hallway of a starship, looking out into the black.

"I don't disapprove of your cutting his influence out of your life," she's saying, "But I'm not convinced that making an enemy of Dumbledore will be conducive to your goals."

"There are greater forces at work here. He may get in my way," I say coldly, "But he can't stop me."

Narcissa nods once, sharply. "Very well. My family is at your service, as always."

I'm closing my eyes, casting my senses out into the nothing. Golden light is cutting through the darkness, pushing it away, burning.

"You need to leave," I tell my informant, and I'm hurtling out into the void of space, an ethereal being of energy and animal and just a sliver of humanity. And the burning, fierce presence is crying out, raising its wings.

Fawkes.

He's found me through Harry's holly wand, called by the phoenix feather within. I smile and pull another wand from my sleeve, one made of ebony. And as the phoenix is upon me, I call up the Void, and I meet the creature's light with an unfathomable darkness.

Boom.

(O'Neill: What the hell was that?)
(Carter: I don't know, sir, but it almost blew straight through our shields. We're lucky it wasn't closer.)

"Grab my arm." I tell Sophie. We apparate from planet to planet, trying to get Dumbledore off our trail. One, two, three, four, five. Hoth, Antarctica, Europa, Tartarus, Miranda.

I appear in the woodshop of the school in the clearing. There's another person in the room.

"Where is my daughter?" The woman asks.

I look around, but Sophie's nowhere to be seen.

Dumbledore.

skip

"Aurors and their locking spells," I mutter, pointing my ebony wand at the door. The lock clicks, and I open the door to the super-secret impenetrable Unspeakable Library. "Well, come on." I hiss at the nervous man behind me.

The two of us shuffle into the library and quietly barricade ourselves in one of the rooms. We're pretty sure that the information we need is here.

The man is flipping through a card catalogue, mumbling under his breath. I'm scanning the books on the shelf, but something seems out of place. I feel a presence. Thinking it's a guard, I make my way over to one of the closed doors and peer through the keyhole. I'm looking for the beam of a flashlight.

At first, I don't see anything. The hallway is white, and bare, and dark. I look through at a different angle, and

look directly into blood red eyes. There's no pupil, iris, sclera, it's all a murderous shade of red, and for a moment, I'm held captive by the gaze. I notice, peripherally, that she's a ghostly little girl in a tattered white dress and everything is bleeding into itself

She flickers, like a strobe light. In and out of existence, and suddenly, she's in the room with us

Harry is terrified, and I'm calm. The ghost is on us, tearing into our essence, and Harry is terrified but I know that there's no danger but I can feel his fear

Everything's going dark

And I wake up, disoriented, in a pitch black room.

Scare Factor: 4/10

Oh. It was a dream.

It made sense at the time?

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

07/17/10



The castle is light grey stone, bleached white in the moonlight. Spires reach to the stars. Atop the tallest tower, Debra Morgan stands looking out over endless mountain forests.

This is fucking ridiculous, she thinks. Of all the people to be kidnapped by a mythological creature, she should not be playing the damsel in distress. She's a cop, for Christ's sake.

She takes a breath, straightens her long, flowing (fucking impractical, is what it is) dress. It's silk, flowing patterns of blue and purple, glowing in the moonlight. The harsh notes of an organ drift across the courtyard from another tower. She frowns, humming along with the melody.

She hears her voice being played back to her, a recofded message. She stops humming, startled, and the voice stops. A slow smile forms on her face, and she starts humming the tune that the Beast is playing on his organ. She hums and listens carefully to the instructions her future self is giving her, letting a grin form. This plan just might work.



I'm a reaper, recently deceased. I've always wanted to leave Ixburg, and I was just shy of graduating high school. Now that I'm dead, I basically have sole dominion over the entire area's dead and dying.

My family moved out of our apartment block soon after my death. I get the place for a discount. Nobody wants to live in that particular suite anymore. I'm running the place for the new owners, a profession that gives me the flexibility to gather the few souls that suffer freak accidents occasionally.

For a retirement town, there's not a whole lot of death here.

Rube shows up around the corner of the shop in the back. He asks how I'm doing. I say that all I want is to get the hell out of here.

I'm jumping on fenceposts where the shop should be. I see a ten foot post and I jump up from the ground. I'm suspended in the air for a moment, and I force the dream to let me land on the four-inch circle.



I find myself in the middle of downtown Halifax. Barrington is a pedestrian only street. I feel ridiculously ashamed of my bare feet for some reason.

I take off to the south end at a sprint, enjoying the feel of running barefoot. I take the boardwalk, heading for my apartment.



I'm working at a table at some kind of convention, minding my own business, when a girl suddenly attacks me with a sword. I take a glancing blow to the neck, fall with it to avoid more damage. I pick up the short sword that was sitting beside me on the table as I dive for cover. I bring the sword up over my head as the girl strikes again. We fight.

This is a game. Damage is taken, and I slice open the girl's scalp. She hardly notices. No one loses until they surrender. I switch my sword for an axe on the table. I preferred the sword, so I switched back. The sword is knocked out of my hand and I rush the girl, tackling her and pinning her to the ground. She gets her hands out somehow and tries to struggle away, but another quick move has her immobile.

I fumble for my sword. I hold the blade to her throat, and rasp, "Do you yield?" She grins and concedes victory to me.

I'm outside, by the Halifax clocktower. The grass is green, and I look over the Vancouver harbour.

An orchestra is playing outdoors, under the blue sky. I take a breath, and allow the music to wash over me.

Now, what was I supposed to be doing?



A group of people are camping near a lake. Getting out of a car, they bicker with each other. Ron, Hermione, and Draco Malfoy are all members of the group.

Malfoy is concerned about his haircut (blond and spiky). He thinks it's just great the way it is, but they've been camping for so long that he's starting to need another haircut.

Ron can cut hair, but Malfoy doesn't trust him not to mess it up on purpose.

The Beast. Scare Factor: 4.

07/10/10

I'm an employee at a convenience store or pharmacy. I have to restock the book section; there are fewer books on the shelves every time I look back at them.

I grab a box from the back and open it up in the comics aisle. It occurs to me that I have no idea what went where, or even which books were out here to begin with. Rather than call my boss over such a trivial matter, I happily start arranging my own favorites on the shelf.

Oddly, the comic books seem to be about 15x15 inches across, and the shelves are sized to fit them. Even in the dream, I think this seems a little off.

Later, I find out that Quickton has enacted a new law: hair colour has been declared illegal. I immediately dye my hair blue.

---

I'm at a lake. A girl dares me to swim under the dock and pick up a pebble she just dropped in. I jump into the water. Beneath the surface, it's perfectly clear, and I look around, exploring the caves and crevices that make up this underwater world. Finally, I grab the odd-coloured stone - it's pink or purple - and head back to the surface.

Standing with a group of people in the woods, I watch Dumbledore give a speech about a competition that's going to happen. It's similar to the Triwizard Tournament from the fourth book, but more people are involved. Each of the houses gets representation, and there are a whole bunch of different areas - including chess tournaments - that not everyone will be competing in. Furthermore, you can be selected to represent a house that you're not a part of.

I'm Harry Potter, and obviously, I'm in Gryffindor. I already know how the rest of the dream is going to turn out, though; I'm going to be chosen for Slytherin. There's no other possible outcome.

I observe Hermione freaking out over something, but I'm feeling very calm and cold, and so I leave her be. I'm much more interested in the competition.

Later, as myself, I talk to a family friend at the campground I spent most of my summers in. It's windy, and she's worried about their tents flying away. I tell her that the storm is about to get a lot worse. I know this because I'm from the future.

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"As long as I don't step on any butterflies."

Butterflies. Scare Factor: 1.

ETA: I took this as a sign that I should die my hair blue today. So I did.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Teleporting is hard.

I'm standing by a river. The sky is bright blue, and the dry grass is long and yellow. I'm looking up at the sky, staring at an illusion that's some kind of sculpture, a clue into my quest during this dream. (This was a long and meandering dream, but I don't remember most of it.

I'm the producer for a play. It's going well, but during the middle of it, Harley Quinn and the Joker show up and start dancing. The crowd cheers, and I'm not sure if this is part of the play or if the characters actually showed up.

"Write as if it was my plan all along." - written in journal

There's a parkour club in Quickton. I tag along.

---

I'm Harry Potter, fighting Voldemort. He sends me into an alternate dimension, and I have to get back to my friends. There are death eaters in the buildings around us, raining down stunning spells as if they're snipers. "If you get hit seven times, you're dead," says my companion. I deliberately get hit by stunning spells, counting, and they send me back to the previous dream.

The windows are leaking. We have to stop it because the magic could get in. We're holding the building against Voldemort, but it's going to be destroyed soon anyway, so we do a quick job. Hermione staples stucco wire under the windows, and I use an air nailer to keep the frame in place. The way that I'm holding it in the dream would probably break my hand IWL.

I'm either Harry or Voldemort, fighting the other one. "Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus!" I shout, matching the other character spell for spell, effectively blocking them. I realize I'm probably Voldemort. "Avada Kedavra!" Seriously, these spells are kind of hard to remember.

---

One of Ben's friends, a guy my age, is pissed because I just told him off for something. He throws a few punches my way, but always misses. He attacks me in earnest, throwing punches hard and fast. I block them easily, redirecting them in circles. One punch hits me, but I barely feel it. The guy is getting more and more frustrated.

Finally, my brother pulls him off me, and we go rob a grocery store.

---

FA. I wake up in a house that resembles my rental in Squamish. Ben and my cousin Reg are in the basement. I look at my right hand and count my fingers. They're blurry, and my fourth and fifth fingers keep fading into one another. Weird. This doesn't feel like a dream. I try to remember a more dependable RC, and pinch my nose. I can still breathe, but shouldn't I be able to anyway? No, wait. I have my mouth closed. I really am dreaming. I wonder if the boys are gonna go all nightmarish on me.

I think back to my lucid goals. 1) Talk to a DC on a phone. 2) Find Hazel. 3) Teleport. I go to pick up the landline, but change my mind and grab my cell phone beside my bed. I call someone; I don't remember who. I talk to them and hang up. I type into my contacts for Hazel, but the number isn't there. I phone information, ask for Hazel. The woman on the other end tells me crabbily that there are a lot of Hazels in the world, which one do I want?

"The one from DreamViews, obviously."

"This number is not in service."

It's night outside. My mom is sitting in the car, apparently waiting for Ben. She has some weird emo-style haircut, and I'd be more weirded out if I didn't know this was a dream. I use telekinesis to lift up the fringe over her eye, checking for zombieness. Obviously, I'm not completely lucid. Ben leaves the house, catches a ride with my mom.

Reg is still here. I have my hand outstretched, focusing on wherever Hazel might be. I'm trying to draw myself there so I can teleport. I turn around briefly.

"How do I teleport?" I ask the DC.

"How the hell should I know?" asks Reg. He pauses and sighs, "Just... stay like that for a while. Until you wake up."

"Or it works?"

"Like hell."

The dream starts fading into different solid colours, and I wake up back in the Squamish-room.

I hand check again. Most of my fingers are missing. I pinch my nose. Still dreaming.

I go outside and there are a bunch of dogs on the porch. There are also a bunch of people talking about their pets.

Telephone, Take 2. Scare Factor: 2.

Fragments: Snape writing a letter to Voldemort about how annoying Harry is, and how Voldemort probably should have chosen Neville as his arch-nemesis if he actually wanted to win.

Walking through a pathway in a zoo that is filled with snakes. I name cottonmouths, rattlesnakes, and coral snakes, which I peer at carefully, trying to decide if red touches yellow. I refuse to walk down the path while barefoot, because I like snakes, but I don't particularly want to die, thanks.

Running into Vicki from boxing; apparently she lives on the top floor of what might be my apartment building. It's an open dorm, so I recognize her while walking through, and consider waking her up. Or would that be creepy? She wakes up anyway.

End Fragments.

Alternate Squamish. I'm watching video footage from a couple years ago, when apparently the downtown was flooded with green and black clouds of swarming... things.

I'm walking through back alleys and crab-walking (crawling) over gravel, for some reason. I look over a fence and see two-police officers disappearing around a corner. Deja vu. I've been at this fence before. I think I had trouble climbing it, since the fall down one side seems so steep. I try the sequence again, jumping over multiple fences through a back yard. One is a metal railing that seems too tall, and I climb over it, disappointed at the interruption.

I get to the other side, and a woman interrupts. She asks if I have an appointment. I remember that I do. I follow the woman into the building and slip off my shoes. There are change rooms. I think I'm the main character from #59: Ghost Ship, Jade. I follow the person who I have an appointment with. She's a really hot girl whose strawberry-blonde hair is tied up into a ponytail. A few strands fall attractively over her face. We've met before. Apparently she's painting my nails? I'm calling her Elle.

When we walk outside, I'm wearing a spa-like fluffy housecoat. Elle has her hands on my shoulders, pushing me gently through the door. I look around, amazed. One of the mountains extends over this part of the town. The stone is made out of a glassy black rock, like obsidian or onyx. Water falls in torrents into the ocean around the peninsula, surrounding the area with a fine white mist. Behind me is an eastern style wooden building, complemented by the sleek metal and glass railings running around the deck.

I follow Elle over pathways leading back and away from the ocean. Everything is sunny and the effect is much less impressive. We go to sit down at a picnic table.

My character falls asleep on a bed inside the building.

Cut to a group of people back at the picnic table area, randomly deciding that my character is a werewolf, and she needs to die.

The real me is listening in, sitting a table away and reading a book. The book is describing everything that's happening. I have to wonder why I'm only identifying with the parts written in first person (Jade's part), rather than the parts written in third person that have Elle in them. I concentrate on reading the book and getting back into the story.

I wake up, back in the building, as Jade. I'm highly annoyed by the inevitable running that's about to occur.

Nail Polish. Scare Factor: 2.

I think this dream means I have a crush on my hairdresser.

I'm Harry Potter, in what's sort of a pre-2005 video game environment. We've shifted into a circular hall in some sort of grand manor - an inheritance from my family. I've been using it as a base, as I'm on the run from a million and one different organizations. The hall runs in a circle, and the inner doors are decorated by massive arches that jut out from the stone walls.

I meet with my friends on the second floor, outlining a plan to get back at our opponents.

I choose Hermione from a list of avatars and I'm jumping around on the landings above the doors.

shift, and I'm at my childhood elementary school, looking up at the big brick building and vaulting over dark blue fences. I know that I'm dreaming. The entranceway is one story tall, an impossible leap. I'm concerned that I won't be able to make it, as I've been having trouble defying gravity lately. However, I call up the will, and effortlessly make the jump onto the roof. When I land, I can still feel the upward momentum. I feel like I should be floating, but I have both feet on the ground.

Back to being Harry, as a child, I talk to a woman who's coming out of a house. The entrance is lit up brightly behind her, and everything is blurry. The house is where a clump of bushes should be. I talk to her, and she invites me in. I think she's Lily.

Zoom out to view a fleet of battleships approaching Earth.

Gravity. Scare Factor: 2.

Originally Posted by Samael

I really haven't been lucid much since I've joined DV. Odd.

I'm in an afterlife version of downtown Quickton, wandering is separately from a group of people. There are at least four people here, but only one that I'm dealing with directly. I'm my female Lucifer character, and a female character is my main focus. I am, quite benevolently, her guide.

I look at the United Church. Cross streets on crosswalks. Generally being a smartass. There's a slight orange filter over everything.

Driving with the group, trying to retrieve something. The ground turns to water. Trying to swim out with buckets. There's a girl with long, blonde curly hair and her boyfriend there, trying to stay afloat with the bucket they're carrying together. Quite a bit of leather between them.

I'm myself, near an approximation of Quickton's high school. There's a lot of concrete. I'm dropping off something for my brother, Ben. I'm driving away down a dirt road when my car stalls, and won't start again. I put it in neutral and coast it down a dip in the road, out of the way. I get out of the car, take a shortcut through someone's house, nervous that the owner might catch me. Back yard, hallway, kitchen. Enter from the west, leave through the south. I have been here before.

I'm an old woman sitting in the third or fourth car of a train. I have the car all to myself. It's cozy, and I'm sipping tea. Bored now. I climb out of a window on the side of the car and haul myself onto the roof. Jump over the other two cars, after curiously investigating the occupants, and greet the driver in the engine. She's looking off to the side, staring at something out of a window. I demand to know what she's looking at, because it might be important. She points, and I guess she's talking about my car.


Ninja Grandma!

I jump from the train without waiting for it to stop and walk through the dark green grass to the orange-lit streets. Traffic is backed up, though people are surprisingly patient. I walk to the very front of the traffic jam, and climb into my car.

I'm a little girl, Alice, and I'm being forced to drive the car by my father/uncle/evil stepfather. I keep adjusting the seat so I can see properly. Driving down a highway, then down a hill under a tunnel in a city.

Wandering through a grand manor full of rich red and orange hues to find my character sitting on the balcony. She looks extremely depressed, but it might actually be a spell. The other characters are concerned.

We're in a cute little house on a hill, all pastels and green grass. I'm either the male or the female main character. Both are magic-users/witches/wizards. The family is almost identical to the Dursleys. Petunia has immaculately permed hair, Dudley looks like Harry, and so does Vernon, really. Except older. I'm aware that Vernon has been making deals with a minor demon/god who, in his true form, looks suspiciously like the Cheschire Cat.

A conversation with the family ends with us being locked in the cellar. I'm a Mia Wasikowska version of Alice, unrelated to the Dursleys. I doubt I've ever met them before. Harry and I plot our escape.



Later, I'm trapped at the kitchen table with Petunia and raspberry jam. Petunia's put on a veneer of politeness (while Harry is still in the cellar), using teatime as an excuse for an interrogation. Petunia doesn't think it's fair that our people keep secrets from her and her family* when the Dursleys are very obviously involved and in danger. Dudley lets us know from the door that Vernon is coming up the hill.

Vernon isn't alone. He steps into the house, perfectly blank in every way. An old man in a bowler hat walks calmly up the trail. He's a dead ringer for the man from a previous nightmare. Or God.



Petunia rushes to Vernon, asking what's wrong as Vernon stands motionlessly as a doll. I keep my attention on the man in the bowler hat, and nod slowly.

"The Lunar God," I say.

The man laughs and says yes, that's him, and Vernon's been dealing with him for quite some time.

He's given up control to you, I say quietly. For everything.

Well of course, but he didn't tell Vernon that beforehand. That would be a poor way to attract followers.

And then I wake up.

Alternate Perspective Disorientation. Scare Factor: 3.

I always wake up when I meet that character.

*She has a point.

or

People to Deliberately Annoy Even More than You Already Have Just By Existing

I'm taking a course that requires all the participants to stay together in a hotel room for some reason. We pool all our food together to come up with a really weird breakfast. A can of brown beans are involved. Which are vegetarian.

Shift.

I'm staying in a hotel in a city where one of my friends from high school - Miranda - lives. I spot her, and we hang out for a while. One of those drivable carts and a supermarket are involved.

Shift

This is a duel between an approximately 20-year-old Harry Potter and one Professor Severus Snape. I smirk. This is going to be fun. I'm approaching the tournament as if it's a video game, wearing down my opponents with a barrage of spells, exhausting them. Then I'll disarm them with an expelliarmus.

"Expelliarmus!" I shout, aiming at Snape.

He shields easily, smirking at my incompetence. There's going to be a lot of smirking going on in this match.

"Sectumsempra!" I call out before he has a chance to get a spell off. A scythe of dark energy slices toward him. There, that one wasn't so easy to block.

I'm going to have trouble remembering spells for this dream, I realize.

We circle each other, I mostly dodging the spells that he sends at me. Until he's standing with his back to a seemingly bottomless pit, facing me warily.

Bad, bad move.

I shout two random words to cover what I'm doing, forcing a wave of kinetic energy towards Snape, who is pushed off the edge, and if that's from the wrong movie, I'm sure no one will ever notice. The boundary spells will catch him. Probably.

(I'm proven right when he's yelling, a few minutes later, that he will triumph in the end, and will beat me in one of the upper levels of the tournament. At least he's confident that I'll get that far.)

New match.

A kid - a young Crabbe from the movies, I think - is attempting to creep silently through a poorly-lit arena, stirring up dust as he goes. I think he has an allergy, because suddenly he has to sneeze, and he can't help it - he sneezes, the sound echoing loudly through the darkness. My third person POV catches the horrified look on his face as it zooms back to another room, where Snape is creeping along more successfully. Snape hears the sneeze, turns quickly to where the sound is coming from and moves hurriedly toward the other room, ready to sneak up behind Crabbe and take him by surprise -

Expelliarmus.

Snape's wand is sent flying out of his hand by my spell, and I catch it out of the air. I smile brightly and wave, and Snape is positively fuming while he's pulled out of the game.

Crabbe is expecting me, though, and our disarming spells are shouted at exactly the same time, resulting in a brief wave of energy that has both of us stumbling back. I recover first, and launch myself at him, scrambling for the wand. I catch it by the tip, and pull it with me as I roll past him, but the wand is about as strong as tumbleweed, and doesn't even make a decent snap as it breaks cleanly in half.

The kid is staring at his remaining half in horrified fascination.

"Ouch," I wince sympathetically, "And this is the world where no other wand is going to work for you as well as the first one." Crabbe looks crestfallen. "Oh well. I win, right?"

I guess the answer is yes, because the next thing I'm aware of is stumbling through a bar after a round of celebratory shots. I sit down at a table.

"May we join you?"

I'm reintroduced to Fleur Delacour, who I met a few years ago, as well as a pretty brunette with curly hair whose name I don't remember. I flirt shamelessly with both of them, and we have what I'm sure is an incredibly deep and nuanced conversation.

I'm still in the bar when I realize, abruptly, that I'm dreaming, for no real reason whatsoever. It's not so much that everything comes into focus, but that my awareness expands exponentially, and for those few seconds, I feel fucking awesome. I'm exploring the boundaries of the dream, looking for possibilities.

Then the brunette invites me to dinner, and I decide that here is fine.

We're sitting together on a couch, eating what I'm certain are some very expensive appetizers. She mentions that they'll be leaving to China shortly, for a business meeting, but we'll have to meet up again.

Shift.

I'm in a theatre, watching a movie along with, I think, my family. Water is pouring from a shower-head on the ceiling for some reason. I'm sure there was a very good reason for that, having to do with the toddler who has latched onto me as a babysitter.

Shift.

I'm in Halifax. Yay, I love Halifax! I'm along with my younger-than-they-are-in-real-life cousins and my brother. We decide that the most efficient way to get back to our hotel with all our luggage is to take a kayak back there.

...

So we rent a kayak from MEC, and paddle across the harbour with it. The geography has changed immensely, and I don't seem to be deathly afraid of the water.

Seriously, you don't want to go anywhere near the Halifax harbour water.

But I am concerned when it splashes all over my backpack, which holds my laptop, which is still on. I open it up, pop the battery out, and don't bother to wonder where all of my cousins are.

We get back to the hotel, where everything gets a little fuzzy. I think I'm either Sam or Dean Winchester at one point, having an argument with whichever one of the brothers I'm not.

But I have to return the kayak, so I bring it back to the dock, and then I'm at the hotel, but I realize I have to bring it to the store, so I convince someone who looks a lot like Alan Rickman into bringing it back to the store for us, please.

And then I spend the rest of the dream wandering around Halifax and making up parks that don't exist.

Pissed Off Teachers. Scare Factor: 2/10, but only for the first two dreams that were really feverish and hallucinatory.