Amurehna

False Awakening
Lucid
Non-Lucid

Sometimes I can't recall the actual order of the dream because it all feels the same. Anyway. I'll tell it in the way that makes the most sense. Jack always wears blue and black, though this time he also had a grey vest. He appears in uniform, police or military. He has dark hair and pale skin. He's always my friend but is sometimes more.
I wake up in my house but it feels strange. I can't figure out why exactly but I know I don't like it. It's like having a word on the tip of your tongue. Anyway, I get out of bed and I wander down the hallway. I glance over my shoulder and it's only when I realize the master bedroom is swapped with the other bedroom that I know I'm dreaming. There's a subdued sense of relief and I make my way to the front door. Instead of being on the east wall it's on the north end, and it feels so damn familiar. I know I've been here before. I push the front door open and frigid winter air greets me. I'm delighted when I find it's snowing. I can feel the air and the sharp bite of the snowflakes melting on my cheeks. There's a white crosshatch gate. I open it and climb out onto a massive snowdrift, laughing and spinning in a circle. My neighbor crosses the lawn and I wave. He gives me a small smile and ducks his head against the icy wind. This does nothing to dampen enthusiasm and I throw handfuls of snow into the air in wild exultation.

Suddenly I am back in bed. I experience a moment of vertigo as I sit up. It's only when I realize that the two bedrooms of my apartment have switched places that I know I'm dreaming. Still, it is a distant realization. I move toward one of the two closets and look inside, there is an old washer and dryer set in there. I back out and see Jack there. I should be clear though, I only know it's Jack in retrospect. I have been doing this a lot lately. Depression makes me indistinct and so my recurring dcs are indistinct. I know him because he is wearing blue and black, as Jack always does, and because he feels the same way. He's the right build, though I never see his face.
I recognize him, standing in front of the other closet. He is mine.
He shows me the new washer and dryer set in the second closet, though I have already seen it. It's like a game. I turn to kiss him and get an impression of pale skin and black hair, also very much Jack.

There's a lapse. A very stark lapse. I'm in a dim hospital. Jack was a police officer who was killed on duty. All of his friends gather in vigil around the room containing his body bag. I can't quite believe he's dead and I wander away from the sober scene, all those uniforms gathered in chairs around the room. That is the only reason I survive.

The hospital is so very still in the late hours of the night. Dim. Quiet. The recently dead become quick, nimble zombies pouring down the hallways in waves. I hear them before I see them and have a moment of intense annoyance and disbelief. Of fucking COURSE there are zombies. Why the fuck not.
I run away. I realize I'm barefoot. I can feel the doors under my hands as I push them open, and the rush of night air that greets me. And the sound of the undead pouring out in my wake. I almost lose my lucidity and think I have to find MY car. Then I think "No, you're lucid. ANY car will work. PICK ANY CAR." I don't get to find out if that is true. I run for a car, the zombies coursing around me like I'm a wide river stone. I pull a car door open---

My vision...fluctuates. I try to focus. It's hard to say how I do it. It feels like I'm looking up, like I'm willing my eyes to close? I find myself in a motorcycle shop with a familiar blond, bearded man in a leather vest. I immediately start to cry. "Where am I?" I ask him. "How did I get here?"
I move around the counter as I ask these questions, my eyes straying to the tv mounted on the wall behind him. I ask but I already know that he saved me from the onrush of zombies. He asks me if I've seen a certain documentary, or heard of a series of experiments. I know of it in a distant way, but it still feels like I'm lying when I say I've seen it and he seems to know it is a lie. He explains that the undead are everywhere and they managed to pull me here, though it is unclear if I will turn.

Liam and Jack are recurring dream characters of mine. Liam always leaves me in a state of awe, like seeing a deceased loved one. When Jack appears, it's like...seeing a friend you haven't seen in a long time. Sometimes he's an ass. With Liam I'm always vividly aware, I can hear his voice. Feel textures. It's like becoming lucid. Jack is always more about emotions or situations.
Saja is a facet of my personality. Sometimes I become her when I dream. She belongs to Liam.

I find myself walking down the hall in my new apartment. I see a man kneeling at the foot of my bed, he's strikingly familiar. Dark-haired, wearing a plaid shirt and black jeans. This should immediately make me think of Jack, but I can't seem to think of his name. I go into my room, which is larger. The closet doors are open and there's a large alcove at the foot of the bed. I regard him with some fascination, as I always do. There's a random person hanging out by one of the windows, and also a man laying before him. My ex? This is important, my time to explain. Because when I step up beside him I am not myself. I am Saja. I want to tell my ex, and Jack about how there's this whole other person hiding in my subconscious, that takes over when I'm dreaming. When I step up beside him he addresses me, though he continues to stare forward into the alcove.
"I've...come a long way to find you." He sounds strained and a little hesitant, "Do you...know who I am?"
I never get a clear look at his face, only his mouth. Everything feels slow and perfect as I drop to my knees in front of him, uncertain. He is familiar, for sure. No one could have come further than Liam, though. And because I am so firmly Saja right now, and not myself. I breathe Liam's name with a sad kind of reverence.
Jack hesitates. His stark, angry disbelief ripples through the air, striking me like a slap. My mistake leaves me cold and a little ashamed.
Jack's mouth twists into a slight sneer. "Liam. Always Liam. He isn't even real. Just a fantasy you've built into a man." He's trying to shame me because I've hurt him. I'm embarrassed and I want to counter his statement. Liam is just as real to me as he is. What about all the times of I've seen him? With his fire-like hair and crooked smile?
I don't speak, just convey my recognition. I KNOW him, but I'm afraid to call him Jack, just in case I am wrong.
A moment later Jack gives lie to his pronouncement of Liam being a fabrication.
His voice is low and intense, "Do you think he would have done the things I've done for you?" He wants to show me what he's done, and rips his shirt off. Because of the drama behind the action I expect to see some sort of scar to represent his sacrifice. There is nothing, though. His skin is pale and smooth. That doesn't mean it isn't there, only that I can't see it. I regard him silently and give him a small smile, pressing my mouth to his by way of apology.
There's a confusing sequence, in which I am doing things but also not doing them at the same time. My sister arrives to make fun of me for my actions. I make excuses for my behavior but my shame sharp. I leave the room instead, hoping she will forget. I go out into the living room, I suddenly have a grey cat. I've had him for a week, I realize. I frown...realizing there isn't a litter box. How could I have forgotten? I find my sister in my room, except now it's her son's room. She's cuddling with her own cat, a long haired grey female.
I tell her I somehow forgot she had a cat. I initially felt like a jerk for forgetting a litter box for my cat, then relieved that there was one in the house.


There was also some weird thing about being in a bar, and the drunken masses choosing sober people to 'ride the wave'. They would pick us at random, swinging us into the air with wild abandon, like crowd surfing. Then buy us a drink afterward.
I meet a man who looks a little like Neil Patrick Harris, who endured the swinging, just for the drunken people to offer him a drink. Just like they did for me moments before. He introduces himself as Jack. I smile a little, knowing he isn't my jack but wishing he was.

I don't remember the beginning very well, but I'm sure it looks a whole lot like the end of the dream, considering the course of events.

I'm walking through a parking lot at night. The pavement glistens with recent rain. The group fans out ahead of me, already sure of the tasks that they've been given. Out of the corner of my eye, I first notice Jack from Lost. He's wearing a faded red shirt and is carrying a black back pack.
"Someone left the van open." A man, the owner, says. I'm closer to it.

"I got it!" I call out and go over to the van. It's an older model, faded brown with dark stripes down the sides, with an aluminum ladder

and spare tire on the back. The door on the left has a top and a bottom half that move independently of each other. When I press the bottom closed, the top springs open. The tire is in the way and I'm short, so I can't put enough pressure on it for it to click shut.
Jack sees that I'm having trouble and splits off from the group to help. He reaches over my shoulders to put his weight on the stubborn door, for a few seconds my back is pressed against his chest. I'm enjoying the contact, but he doesn't notice. The lock finally clicks into place and he steps away, gesturing for me to follow.
After a moment he drops his head like he's trying to hide his amusement. He briefly smiles at the ground and says,

"You couldn't close the van door because you're too short."

I pretend to be offended. "Jack! I could reach the door, I just couldn't get enough...leverage."
The word seems vaguely dirty, though the connection is too vague for me to grasp.

"Because you're too short?"

"Yes, fine, because I'm too short. Jerk."

I smack his forearm, he chuckles.

We reach a closed off section of the parking lot. The others separate into groups.

"Are you clear on what you need to do?" He asks me.

"Yep!" I say enthusiastically, even though I'm struggling to remember what I'm supposed to do. He kneels beside a pile of junk. It's a lot

of plastic shopping bags, a mattress, and there's a man spread out on top of it.

Jack sets down his back pack and starts taking things out of it. I produce an alarm clock, intuiting that I'm supposed to set it. We're

being...secretive. At the time, I understood the reasoning behind the alarm clock, but I can't remember now. It was supposed to help us prove a point. The clock says that it's 6:47AM, I start to set it for 6:49AM, and I turn the volume down, clicking the buttons carefully, so not to wake the man on the mattress.

"What time should I set it for?" I ask, realizing that I don't know when we're supposed to test it. I so very much what him to think I'm

clever, quick.

"Don't worry about it now." He snaps at me."I'll tell you when I'm finished."

I suddenly feel stupid and useless. I set it back to a default setting, the time displays as 99:99.
A woman crouches down next to me.

"Are you almost ready?" She gives me an encouraging smile. I nod. We stand and move a few steps away from Jack. She moves in

front of me and holds out her loosely closed fist.

"Tell me what this will do, so I know you understand." She says.

Dutifully, I recite the plan. I will take a pill that will allow me to become Lucid and to Travel to the places in question. I will help them break the stalemate on the case by giving them notes written in my sleep, that will let them know which areas are the right ones to search for new evidence.

"We're done preparing. Are you ready?" Jack asks, coming to stand with us.

I nod and the woman opens her hand. Resting in her palm is a small, round red pill with RD imprinted on the top.
Jack wishes me luck.

I take the pill and pop it into my mouth. I briefly wonder what will happen to my body while I'm out Walking. Does it stay behind? Or am

I sleepwalking? It bothers me that I never wondered before. Immediately upon consumption, the world sharpens to waking clarity. I'm freed of the restrictions of the dream. I turn a full circle, taking in my surroundings. I run a few steps and leap into an elaborate string of tumbles. Apparently I like acrobatics. I bend forward, plant my hands on the ground and lift into a perfect handstand, I fold my legs backward until I'm almost C shaped, before touching my toes to the ground and standing up.

Now I get to see all the things that happened at the beginning of the dream, I get a do-over. I'm walking down a drab street choked

with black dead trees. The buildings are dark grey, the cobbles are a lighter grey. Two boys try to get my attention by pretending to be rude. They're teenagers, skateboarders. The last time I did this, it made me angry that they were being rude. But I'm not the only one getting another chance. The last time, they allowed me to walk into a confrontation and I was hurt.
This time, the boys know that the Midnight Watch is coming and they are trying to warn me without appearing to be involved. I wave to placate them, they know, but I know it too.

I walk to a wide trunk thrusting its way out of the middle of the street. From the other side I can hear whimpers of pain. I peek around

the tree and two men leap from the treeline, howling like madmen, making for the person huddled by the roots.
I smile and pull a throwing knife from my belt. I leap around the tree and neatly throw a knife into the leading man's stomach. He falls down, clutching the wound.
I look the other man in the eyes and, slowly, draw another knife from my belt. I smile.
He hastily gathers his friend and they stumble back the way they came.
The person I rescue clutches at me, trying to thank me for my intervention. I don't even look at them. I still have work to do.

There's a lapse. I know I went somewhere else but I can't remember where. Something about soldiers being called, the front of a grey stone building with cobbled streets outside.

I'm in Jack's house. The front room is oddly shaped. Just inside the front door is a single step up, the living room is large and bare. The living room curves back alongside the front door, there's a wall ledge sticking out of the floor? The wall is painted a dull orange. The ceiling is yellow. Jack's father is laying on the ledge, bundled in blankets. He is dying.
His father refuses to share the secret with Jack before he dies, he says that Jack's high morals are a liability and that his pure ideals make him worthless to the company. He says that it makes him weak, and he has no business cunning.
The hurt and rage heats Jack like a furnace, it fills the entire room. Jack yells something and turns to leave. I follow him.

"He doesn't mean it, it's the.."

"What do you know about it, little girl?" The way he says it makes me feel small and stupid. I know that the last time I gave him a

reproachful look and swept out the door. I also know it only makes him feel worse. I see myself from his point of view. I'm wearing a vivid navy blue v-neck t-shirt with black Jeans (funny, I usually see all Jack characters wearing blue and black), My hair is pulled back into a glossy, wavy tail. Now I get a choice.

There's a wall that juts out in front of the door at an angle, making a narrow V shaped space. He's standing at the peak of the V.

I reach the door and instead of leaving, I walk back around to the other side of the wall. He is tall enough that he can rest his head on his folded arms atop the wall. I take his face between my hands. He reluctantly raises his eyes to mine and then drops them. I lean forward to kiss him and he tenses, giving me a distracted smile and a tiny shake of the head. Now isn't the time. I'm disappointed and sad, I know I've overstepped my bounds.
I can tell his father has hurt him though, I know I should go, but first...
I vault over the wall and fling my arms around him. He protests, I refuse to let go, tightening my arms around his middle and squeezing. He issues a startled laugh and drops his arm across my shoulders, giving me a brief, breath stealing squeeze. I release him and tell him everything will be alright, then I wander away.

I see some scenes where I have completed the dreamwalk and the team follows in my wake, picking up notes I have left behind on yellow post its. Where jack's father died, I wrote a note that says "sleep, little dreamer, wake when all has ended. Until then, dream on little dreamer."
Someone picks up the note and asks another team member, "What do you think this one means?"
"Damned if I know..."

Olivia Dunham, Me and K on a Forklift
I rush into the mall. It's vast and busy. It's around noon, I know I have several hours yet before I have to be somewhere. I'm headed for the escalator when I notice Olivia Dunham standing by the railing, across from a dress shop. She looks amazingly pretty, but serious. Her lips are bright red, long hair gathered over one shoulder. She's wearing a black dress.
"Would you like to buy a dress?" She asks me. She smiles, but it doesn't look friendly. I can tell she doesn't care one way or another.
"This is your shop then?"
"Of course."
I glance over my shoulder and see several circular racks full of dresses. I wonder if any of them will fit me. A black and white dress with a zig-zag pattern catches my eye. I know they are probably too expensive for me, at least $200 for one dress. I step closer to her, but I'm about to make an excuse. I need to leave, I'm getting married tonight. (Really not, but my subconscious likes to use that as an excuse to make me feel terrible.)
She can feel my hesitation. "Your hair is lovely." She kind of means it, just a little. "How do you get it to do that it?"
I briefly see myself from her point of view. My hair is fantastically wavy.
"It just dries this way."
She doesn't believe me, and any spark of friendliness she showed me is gone. She flicks her eyes away, annoyed. I notice an archway next to her.
I know it's a doorway to the other universe.
"Can you open that?" I ask, intensely curious. I would like nothing more than to escape from my impending marriage, to go Home.
"Oh yes."
"Would you open it for me?"
"Sure. Go to the other side of the arch."
Obediently I do as she says. I pick up a piece of chalk from a box at the foot of the arch and draw a symbol on the side. Nothing happens. When I go over to her side, she is crouched by her mark, clearly amused. I see a mocking smiley face. She glances at me and smiles meanly.
"Oh, did you actually think I could open a gate?" She asks with a mock apologetic tone. She has made me feel incredibly stupid. She stands and crosses her arms, smirking at me.

There's a lapse. My friend K and I are driving down the highway, in a loaded forklift. We're going ridiculously fast, such speed that I can't make out anything that's happening on the road. We fly out into the open air, having driven off a cliff.
"Oh no." He says. The vehicle tumbles through the air. I wonder when we're going to land, and if it's going to hurt. As I'm wondering that we land wheels down atop a semi, unharmed.
"Huh." He says. "interesting." He hops down to the ground. "Now, how do we get the thing down from there."
He tries to figure a way to move the forklift without damaging the product.
I roll it off the semi.
"How did you do that?" he asks.
"I dunno."
"Weird."
Yeah."

I want to start by pointing out the obvious, that this is a dream journal entry from before I began posting here. My retro-posting has a purpose, as I've begun to mention Jack in recent dreams, I wanted to write a little bit about what he represents to me and post his first appearance in my adult dream-life. He may have made earlier appearances, but it is only recently that he gained a name.

I may be crazy, but I've always been a little infatuated with the character of Jack Sawyer from Black House. And, also, after reading through my journals I've found many instances where I dreamed about various characters named Jack (though never actually the one from Black House). It seems I have a fondness for them. So, in a way, my Jack may be inspired by many Jacks.

Jack feels like a guardian, someone who will watch my back no matter what's going on. I'm excluding this dream because Liam and Jack mixed personalities. It was distinctly different from other dreams, just like my dreams of Liam and of Jack are distinctly different from each other. That one was...very odd for me. I guess the blending of traits explains why Jack was being so stubborn, Liam can be...bull-headed.

Call of Cthulhu
I sat with three men (one of them my boyfriend) at the Home Decor desk at work. My boyfriend is sitting diagonal to me. A pale, dark haired man is directly my opposite (this one is Jack). Next to me is a man I never look straight at. The department manager of Plumbing is very loudly leading other employees in a song aimed at one of his underlings as an insult. It begins to annoy me, I can't concentrate on the game we are playing.

Suddenly I say, "He shouldn't be allowed to talk to people that way, it isn't right."
"Relax." My boyfriend says, "It'll blow over, he'll lose interest eventually."
I frown, glancing over my shoulder toward Plumbing as they erupt into another round of clapping and singing.
"Hey, you want to go stop him?" The dark haired man says to me.
"Yeah! I do!"
"Alright." He says, giving me a wicked smile. "Let's stop him then." He rises from his chair and I follow suit. He has short

black hair, wearing a navy blue button-up with black jeans. The shirt has pearl-capped buttons. He leads the way. The Plumbing department looks like a restaurant. The walls are painted dark red and the trim is a bight yellow-gold. We reach the restaurant and discover that the man we came to confront has fled to one of the upper levels. There is a flight of stairs going down on the left side of the department. We take them. I'm confused about why we have to go downstairs first before we can go up.

The stairway is enclosed in a tile tunnel. The tiles are small, gray 1x1s. It's cool and damp and feels like a storm drain. The stairs are very steep. I only realize how steep when at the halfway mark, the guard rail disappears. It find it difficult to breathe, and I become nervous about falling, I step very cautiously. The man sees how afraid I am and passes in front of me, so that if I stumble he will be between me and danger. I clutch his shoulder to keep my balance. He flashes me a knowing smile.

Something catches my eye and I look up. There is a large circular cut out in the ceiling, edged in stone. I can see the night sky through it. The moon is full, casting its clear light down into the storm drain.

"Hey look.." I say.

The man halts, we both look up. Now, instead of night sky it is like water is suspended in a well and we are looking at the underside of it. There is an image of a brunette woman. Her hair is blowing across her face. The image ripples as though on water, and stretches, her mouth gradually opens in horror and green tentacles erupt from her mouth, before the image disperses entirely.
We continue down the stairs. On the wall across from us, I notice another disturbing display of art. It looks like dark green tentacles bursting fort from a sewer mouth. My uneasiness grows.

"Are you sure we should be down here? Haven't you read call of Cthulhu?" (and I still haven't read Call of Cthulhu so that...doesn't

really mean anything to me haha.)

"Relax, we'll be fine." He says.

Once we reach the bottom of the stairs, it becomes muddled. Something about a girl laying on a platform that we raise to cross the water. She thanks us for rescuing her. I try to offer her my hand to cross the gap from platform to walkway but she insists it is easier to cross on her own. She says the man we're pursuing trapped her on the platform, but she knows where he's going.

At times there is a game UI on the screen and sometimes there isn't. At first I am Lara Croft, I see a screen where you can name the character anything you want. I'm thinking "I could name her anything I want, and I pick Lara?" still, it makes sense, I think. That is who she is, changing her name will not alter that.
Then I am running through a department store. A monster kind of like...a rock genie, (I don't know, it's all blocky but it's blue its torso tapers down into a slender cord that attaches to a sidestack), it gets in my face and the UI pops up. I scroll through my weapons and realize I'm all out of ammo. So I jump forward and punch it until it dies.
I pass through the department store and I'm desperate for ammo. Jack appears, much like he did before. He's tall, wearing a black suit, thin black tie and a white shirt, his hair is completely black this time. He beckons to me,
"Hey! This way!"
I'm so relieved to see him, now I'm not alone. "You okay to pass through the Wastes? We're almost Home."
"Yes, but Jack, I'm all out of ammo."
"I'll show you where you can get more."
The area is like a basement with a low roof, but it's covered in rock and dirt. I want to think of it as a cave, but it's too regular for that. Blue monsters dot the otherwise barren landscape. He turns to face them and instructs me on how to open a secret weapon/ammo cache in the wall while he guards my back. It all seems too easy, but I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Get as much as you can carry, there isn't another one of these for a while."
I see us from overhead, tiny 2D pixelated versions of ourselves. I'm no longer Lara Croft but Annie from Covert Affairs, wearing a floor length black strapless dress with a slit almost up to the hip.

I'm in the department store again. I'm myself, my dad walks with me to where the rock genie was.
"Aaawww...you killed the guardian?" he says.
"What? It was in my way."
"I really wanted a beard though..." he whines.
"I don't know what you're crying about, the beards are still here." I gesture to the sidestack and take a moment to think about how stupid all the beards look. They're not even hair, they're pieces of cloth folded into small oval shapes in plastic. He walks away without taking one. I shrug and make my way around the store.
My sister is there with her son, except he isn't as old, he's only three here. And he's making a mess. I discretely try to pick up after him. I realize I'm embarrassed, not because he's making a mess, but because people watching will just think he's being unruly. They don't understand that he's autistic and isn't comfortable here. I'm worried they'll think badly of him. (He really is autistic, by the way.)
After a moment I decide to leave the mess.

Then I'm at work, standing at the appliance desk. Jack is waiting for me, sitting the wrong way in a chair. He smiles.
"Jack!" I think, delighted he has followed me here. Now I am Annie again, I try to flirt with him without being outrageous about it. I can't seem to find a balance. We banter back and forth, but I don't remember any of it. I say something clever (which of course, I don't remember), and think about how I want to threaten to kiss him. I don't say it, but after a moment I take his face in both my hands and lean down to do it anyway.
Except that while I can feel his face between my hands, he disappears when I get close. I pull back, frowning. He gives me an apologetic look.
From a few feet away David Boreanaz rubs the back of his neck in a gesture of mild discomfort and chagrin at our situation. He's dressed the same as Jack.

Some other things happened, but I don't remember them.
Oh yeah, I have no idea how it relates to that, but i see a guy's face and he mumbles something at me.
"What?" I ask.
"I'M TERRIFIED OF SQUIRRELS!" He yells, startling me and DC.
I frown at him. The other DC leans over, "...is he serious?"
Then I see a mental picture of why he's terrified. Apparently he thinks they're ravenous and blood thirsty and if he opens the closet all the squirrels will fly out and tear him to bits. I think he's being stupid.

Lucid
((The parts where I see him as Liam and become Saja feel different, like I'm on the edge of being lucid, but I don't make any choices. I just have clarity.))

The beginning is a little hazy. I was a member of an archeological dig in the desert. A man from the government came in to

find a missing woman and debunk our findings. He was being an irritating, arrogant ass, who kept ignoring facts and wouldn't listen to me.
There's a tent pitched alongside a wall, the wall looks like it belongs to the outside of the house I grew up in in MA. Out of the corner of my eye I see a dirt floor and observe all the 7x10 photographs tagged to the canvas. The government agent, Jack, is speaking to a blond woman who pins another photo up and then exits the tent. It annoys me that he's still following the evidence this way, because he's ignoring the danger. He has his back to me, he's wearing a black suit, white shirt, with a thin black tie. He considers the line of photographs, hands on his hips.

I can't help myself. "Still refusing to follow the facts, I see." I say to him. He turns around and drops his eyes to the floor, smiling

a little.

"Oh. Hello again, Brenna." ((I've never been a Brenna before. Huh.)) He ignores my jab and looks after the blond woman

as she makes her way down the narrow canvas hall. "I was sad to see that she had dyed her hair."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"I have a particular weakness for women with black hair." He gives me a significant look, it's almost playful. He's giving me the

option to ignore it. It's only then I realize that I'm Saja. My hair is waist length, black and wavy. I'm even wearing one of her dresses, the hem falls mid-calf, it's a spring green-yellow with a white apron. I draw my hair over one shoulder and smile. He walks over to stand beside me and examines another line of photographs. As he crosses the floor, the wind snaps the canvas overhead creating gaps for the sunlight to stream in. Where it shines on his hair, it makes it look less brown and more red. The longer I look at him the more red there is. He suddenly reminds me of Liam. It's only when he's standing next to me that I realize he's the right height, too. Before I had seen him as my enemy and would not allow myself to find him physically appealing, but he's opened a door and I can't ignore it. Because he looks like Liam.

I turn to face the wall of photographs. They all look the same to me. It's dimly lit snow with a faded splash of blood.

"Well. As long as we're sharing. I can't help but notice how much red you have in your hair...and I have a certain fondness for

redheads." I stare at his profile while he looks at the pictures, and see a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

I fix my gaze on the pictures, pretending to look at them, knowing that as I turned away he looked over to study my profile.
"Look at us. Being civil. Can't have that, can we?" He comments wryly. "Why did you come here?"
"I want to try one more time to help you see the truth, Jack."
"Brenna." his tone is sharp, warning. His expression turns cold. "I don't have time to listen to your tripe."
"TRIPE?" I exclaim, suddenly outraged. "Oh YES. Why bother with facts when you can make up whatever story you like!"
"You were falsifying your findings and when you needed proof that these 'creatures' exist, you murdered a young girl to fit your story."
"You are so incredibly wrong. How can anyone stand to be around you?"
"Well, naturally I'm offended by deception. Honest people get along with me nicely."
"Oh, I'm sure." I snap sarcastically.

There's a lapse. It's after dark. I'm fleeing the tent because I've stolen evidence. Jack caught me at it and is pursuing me with ill

intent. I also overhead him talking about the undercover agent in our unit that was meant to disrupt the core stability of our group, to try to suss out who exactly the murderer is. The landscape looks like the yard outside the house in MA. Where there is a small hill leading down into the neighbor's yard, the lawn fades into sand and the landscape becomes a desert.
I'm barefoot and I can feel the cool sand under my feet. I get a brief bird's eye view of his pursuit. I'm shouting over my shoulder as I run.

"How can you be so willfully blind? When all the evidence is right in front of you!" The dune to my left is, I know, actually a

sphinx that has been swallowed by the desert. I run my hand along the front paw, clearing it of sand. There's some sort of creature nesting between its front legs, close to its chest. I eye the thing and hope it hasn't noticed me. A little ways further there's a stone wall and a line of open doorways. I think I've lost him for now. I jog up the next dune and at the bottom of the following valley is our research and living trailer.
I'm inside now. I pass a guy who looks exactly like Sendhil Ramamurthy. I ask him where Nate and the new girl went off to and he says to the kitchen.

"Will you get them for me, I just found something interesting." He says.

Attachment 4750 I suck at describing this crap, so I made another layout. I cross the living room and go to hall, the door to the kitchen is slightly open and Nate has his back to the door and the new girl, who is Jack's undercover agent. She doesn't feel right somehow, she is raising a large kitchen knife.

"HEY." I say loudly. They both turn around, she drops the knife and looks a little embarrassed. "Looks like we found something.

You wanna follow me?"

They follow me back to Sendhil. We act like I didn't just find the new girl about to murder Nate. Sendhil talks about how he

just found some proof that our group had been infiltrated, but we won't know by who until we can get all the hands together in the morning. The new girl looks extremely awkward, I wonder why I'm not saying anything.

"Jack is on his way here."
"We can meet him outside if you need some time." The girl offers.
I grin at her a little, her cheeks flush. "Sure. Whatever you like."

There's a lapse. Sendhil is trying to show me something, it's a really confusing image. We're looking at something like a mirror

or a tv screen. There a thin metal frame around it and it glows a dim blue. He's sitting right behind me, chin on my shoulder, urging me to look and see for myself.
I see my own face, and his. I can't really remember what happens here. I notice the shape of my eyes, and the curve of my jaw.

There's another confusing moment after another lapse, he says he's going to meet Jack outside. I say I'm going to follow but

when I pass the mirror in the living room I'm a fat young man with pale green eyes and cork-screw curly hair. Then I try to put on my shoes but I forget my socks, and my shoes are shaped all funny. They look more like a walking cast. I don't want to get sand in them when I go outside. So I take them off and try to find socks...

There's another lapse and the story picks back up. I have traveled to a snowy place up north, I have tipped Jack off, telling him

that if he follows me there he will find the proof I've tried to convince him exists. That the woman he thinks I've murdered is actually here and alive. I meet him outside the house, he's huddled next to the wall. I sit down across from him.

"Oh, I didn't realize you'd be here." He says.
I let him pretend I wasn't the one who gave him the tip, and remain silent.
"He said he'll come get me. The girl wakes up every morning at the same time, like clockwork."
"I'm glad you're here." I whisper.
"Are you? Well. There's that at least." he pauses. "We're on different sides."

He looks so much like Liam that I forget he's Jack. "LIAM." I say, leaning forward so my nose is almost touching his. "Do you really think I care about that?"
He doesn't look startled or confused that I used the wrong name. He meets my eyes squarely and shakes his head once, just a little. I can feel my name on his lips. I want him to say it. He's never used my name in the dream.
I will him to call me Saja.
He opens his mouth like he's going to speak and then closes it.

"At least put your arms around me, then?" I say, disappointed.
"I..."
"It's cold."
"I can't."
I want to kiss him on the cheek but I don't. "Fine."
"I'll...see how things play out."
"As you wish."

He smiles a little but he looks sad. We hear the front door of the weathered shack open and we go inside. The girl we have come here to see, lost her fiance out in the snow. They thought she would die. Physically she recovered, but once she woke she would just do nonsensical things and spout gibberish.

"Can we speak with her?" Jack asks.
"You can try." Says her grandfather. "I'll give you ten minutes." He leaves the house and we proceed in trying to talk to her.

I don't remember any of what she says, but she goes over to this small round table by the door.

"You might want to be car---" she deliberately runs into it. "Yes. That's right, keep running into the table."

She and picks up the lamp, "You might want to not---" she then leans forward and knocks her head against it. Hard. "Okay, sure. Knock yourself out."
Jack kind of rolls his eyes at my sarcasm.

"I don't think we'll get anything useful from her, do you?" I ask him.
"I'm gonna talk to the grandfather again."

Now the girl is laying on the table, cuddling with the lamp, her head hanging off the edge. Her skin has an unhealthy blue cast and her eyes look strange.

"Odd are the hours that meet us at the gate." She says. I frown at her.
"What gates?"
"The ones on the edges. IT lives beyond the gates. Follows every grain."

She's really freaking me out and I get the sense that she actually did die out in the snow and whatever THIS is, is no longer human. She's changing into something else. Her lips look blue. She reaches out and grabs the front of my shirt. I tear it out of her grasp and join Jack outside. I'm am done with this creepiness.
He gives the grandfather his best and we start to leave.

"I guess that settles it. You didn't murder her."
"Someone sure did."

He stops me and gestures at my shirt. There's a splash of luminescent blue on the front. Just beyond him I see two tonberry trundle out from the darkness, carrying their lamps and stylized blue knives. There's a glowing blue orb on the ground, they're attracted to it. One of them starts to come toward me. Jack pivots and sees the tonberry.
"Uh oh."
We watch as the second tonberry viciously stabs the blue orb and absorbs its energy. The other one stops in front of me and makes a weird keening noise. I take off across the snow.
"What are you doing?" Jack hisses after me.
"I'm running ya moron. I'll be fine."
The tonberry follows me to the edge of the lake. Running is fluid, so easy. I dive in, and hear a splash as it moves out into the water. Swimming is even easier, I glide effortlessly through the water until I reach the other side and leap to the bank. There's a large snowdrift there, and on the other side I know is the road. I climb over the drift and fall into the snow on the far side startling three strange turkey-peacock creatures into flight. There are three giant zebras in the road. They are the size of draft horses, I know they are extremely aggressive. I grab a handful of snow and pelt the zebra stallion's flank hard, and then dive into a snow drift to hide.
A second later the tonberry bursts through the snow hill I climbed over, the stallion is offended, thinking that the tonberry hit it with a snowball...so the zebra tramples the hell out of it.

Gleefully triumphant that my plan worked, I wake up.