Amurehna

I liked that the twists were surprises. I usually have a tiny thread of lucidity that makes me meta the hell out of my dreams.

Anyway. My starting point was a little confusing. First I see a wounded Damon Salvatore, on the phone with Elena. It's night, he's crusted with blood and looks ten kinds of awful. The camera pans over and I see a white figure standing at the corner of the frame. I' m worried because the thing looks like a threat. But then Damon says something about running into a Sarvati (the white figure, now wringing his hands). Elena asks if he's alright, because apparently Sarvati are dangerous.
"It's fine." Damon says with his trademark smirk. "I persuaded him to help." he pauses. "What about you?"
"Getting a little help of my own. Maybe." She says, and I finally see her. She's in a barn, the moonlight shining through the open door. "I have a plan, I'll let you know if it works." She seemed hurt, too, but it isn't apparent how. Hanging up the phone, opens her mouth wide and lifts her wrist. I assume she's going to feed on herself to heal...and I'm doubtful that would even work.
The camera pans out and I recognize the setting.

In this version of the story, Stefan became like Michael and only fed on vampires. Also being a ripper meant he hurt many people before his friends were able to subdue him. Weary of fighting his hunger, he allowed himself to desiccate and made a deal: he would sleep until they found a cure.
There he lay, under a bare foot of soil, in a weathered wooden crate. Elena meant to feed Stefan. Of course.
For a moment I am irrationally angry with Elena. They had promised him! And here she was, at the first sign of trouble, waking Stefan to his torment. It seems so selfish and, only for a moment, I hate her.

They will need him, though. He is a definite ally in a sea of mistrust. There's a new creature in Mystic Falls. They are vampire/zombie hybrids. In the early days of their Turning they drink the blood of humans, but then require flesh to survive. They can walk in the daylight and may subsist on human food for a time, if they are disciplined. Though the first was the result of a spell cast by a powerful sorcerer, it could be spread via saliva. So, naturally, the first Turned would be a whore of a football player.
A girl named Sandra who looked like the actress Annalynne Mccord is the only one who really notices that the school is slowly slipping into chaos. The faculty are nowhere to be found and sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, certain people have ashen skin. She used to be a cheerleader but has since lost her taste for it. No one knows that the hiatus she took from school wasn't a vacation, she actually went to a care facility for anorexia. There are students milling around, crowding the halls, and debris on the floor. Sandra walks into the locker room, uncertain, arms crossed over her abdomen. She spots Stacy who looks gray, talking to a chubby, blond, blue-eyed Davina Claire. Stacy asks her if she's thrown in her lot for the party food, that they were thinking about ordering pizza, but she has a better idea. In her hands is an advertisement for a company known as Meal A day. Sandra knows it well. Upon release from the hospital, Meal A Day had delivered healthy meals to her door three times a day, she checked her progress after every meal and they took the plates. Each seemed a small victory over the illness.
"So have you signed yet?" Stacy asks.
"You know me." Davina says, "Always hungry."
Sandra intuits that Davina is bulimic. She isn't sure if she can trust a near stranger with her secret, but it would be worth the risk if she could help.
The students don't realize that they are signing up to be the food and their dietary preferences will determine who will be consuming them.
Their hunger is a quiet, fervent energy, a slowly building frenzy. They are cunning in their design.
"I put a spell on you. You're mine now." A male voice says.

I return to the barn where Stefan shakes dirt from his hair. His eyes are an unnatural golden brown, he wipes Elena's blood from his mouth. Still disoriented, he asks how long it has been.
I loathe Elena's sheepish look, wishing she'd just left him alone.
"You've been down for a little over a day."
His expression twists in wry amusement, tinged with pain. "What's happened now?" He asks as she helps him stand.
"I'll explain on the way, we don't have a lot of time." Elena replies. She hopes Damon won't be too angry, he wanted to honor Stefan's wishes.
"I'm assuming you didn't bring a car?" He says this with an air of contained amusement that is achingly familiar. She smiles, casting her eyes to the dirt floor and dipping her head. He grins suddenly. "You always did love to run."
They had always loved to run together.
Yet, this is not a reunion of lovers, just friends who were lovers once upon a time. Their love has since mellowed into fondness. They exit the barn into the soft summer night. Lucidity here is a sweet thread that pulls me through Elena and then back out to observe. They are so happy to be together. Their hasty separation, though it seemed longer to him, had worn on them. This reunion is like the giddy absence of pain amidst torture. For a time, they don't think about what they will face when they arrive at town, or that Stefan will return to the ground when this new threat is stamped out, only that they are here again, running together.

The moon's cloak of clouds pulls apart to reveal swathes of landscape. The grass is deep blue-green, knee high and soft against my legs and bare feet, Elena is wearing a flowered dress. They run almost human slow. Then I am her, smiling as he draws up next to me. His silhouette is immensely comforting. I trip, tumbling into the sweet grass. I fall and roll, we laugh at my clumsiness. And like a dance, he is there to take my arm and help me up. I have been explaining the threat. This fits seamlessly with the male voice speaking at the end of the last segment. Elena tells him about what the sorcerer said.
"He didn't." Stefan says, smiling.
"He didn't even get it!" Elena laughs, then they share a joke, singing "I put a spell on you, and now you're mine." and express their disbelief that their new villain said it in all seriousness. I separate from Elena and pull back as they reach the river and leap across, as graceful as deer.

I'm not exactly sure where to start.

Tortured Ghosts

I have a thin thread of lucidity during this part, otherwise it would have been terrifying. There's something happening with the earthbound spirits, they cluster around a traveling man. They can't help it, they want to be near him and they don't at once. They don't because they relive the accidents that killed them. I become each of them in turn, a blond woman turns her hand over again and again, each time she twists her wrist the hand disappears and becomes a stub, then returns.
Another woman, a red head who looks a little like Kate Winslet relives the moment when she found out she had died. She stands over a tub, now empty of water, but full of her corpse. Her face is missing, like her head was cut away in jagged layers from nose to ear. Since I am her (and I am not) I wait for the terror to hit me at finding my own body, but my subconscious is just lucid enough that I tell myself to close my eyes and take a deep breath. That it isn't real. The scream I waited for never comes.
I'm in a living room at dusk, shadows are slowly leaching the light from the room. A blonde ghost sits on the couch, another is crouched behind me beside the door.
They say these words in unison "He has another passenger, no others can ride.", then go stiff and dead eyed and move no longer.

Liam, Saja. Kvothe, Batman, Sylar/Silas
While I am glad Liam has made another appearance, this dream was really strange. It tried so -hard- to have a storyline. Here's what I remember:

I am in an odd combination of Walmart and Lowe's, a crazy woman keeps sending me and my friend to fetch her things from other parts of the store but she doesn't give us details, she

just says "Get me something with a hook on it." like it is a scavenger hunt. So we do, we run to Electrical. My friend is wearing knee high brown suede boots, black tights, a jean skirt and tank top. She is several inches taller than me, with long brown hair and brown eyes.

"Okay, she said something that glows like a firefly, something with a hook on it, and a reflective surface." My friend says as we rush down one of the aisles. "Remember that

there are cameras everywhere, don't put anything in your pockets."
Instead of thinking that is ludicrous, it makes complete sense and I thank her for reminding me. We head down one of the aisles, it's all open and has no racking but the products are stacked like they would be on shelves, in big organized piles. She grabs a lamp and tucks it under her arm, waving at one of the cameras. There's an endcap with hand mirrors, I grab one. We head back to the main aisle which now opens up into a mall-like area.

"I'll go get the hooks." My friend says. The crazy woman runs back up to me, she has long greying blond hair pulled back into a

thick ponytail and bangs that run straight across the top of her wire glasses. She's wearing a white shirt and a pink jacket.

"What the hell is that?" She demands, pointing at the lamp and the mirror.
"The things you asked for..."

"No no NO." She shouts something about wanting all of those things in one object then turns and runs away as a man comes

to stand beside me. When she gets about 20ft away she starts skipping.
We stare after her with identical expressions of amused dismay.

"Remind me why we're fetching her things?" I say to him.
"What else would we do. Where's Kara?"
"She went to get the hooks....which I see you already have. Not that it matters." I reply, gesturing to the white boxes cradled

against his chest. I finally look up at him and my heart turns over. He's wearing a white suit with a black shirt. It is Liam. Same crooked, infectious smile, red hair falling into his eyes which are a familiar vibrant blue. I see myself from the side and see that I am Saja, my hair now long and curling to my waist, wearing a dress with a thin belt and cropped sweater. I want an excuse to touch him, because we are not quite who we feel like we are, we are still playing characters. I reach up to take the white box from him, when my hand gets close he takes my fingers into the hand that's pressed tight to his chest. He smiles at me.
Kara comes to join us and he releases my hand.

"I got the hooks!" She exclaims, then sees the box he carries and lets out a disappointed "aaaw.."

I start to explain that the crazy woman is asking for something different, when she reappears and looks over our gathered objects. She sighs loudly.

"Fine fine, I guess it will have to do. We're out of time. Follow me."

((Now it gets really confusing)) We follow her down the corridor, part of me understands what is happening. That we are in her thrall and we are wanted for a spell of some kind. I understand why she would want me but not Liam. He shouldn't even be here. I glance over at him and he's wearing a dazed, troubled expression which mirrors my own.

Then I am Liam, glancing over at Saja and thinking that I understand why they would want her, but not me. I shouldn't even be

here. We walk down a dark narrow hallway, the others are further ahead of me, so that when I finally reach the door at the end they are already inside. The door stands open and there is so little light that I can't see anything of the layout. I step inside though, because Saja is in there. It's not her fault they used her to lead me here. I can feel the spell pressing down on my consciousness, making independent thought heavy, like walking through mud. A portly man dressed as an 1800's gentleman complete with a monicle and handlebar mustache emerges from a deeply shadowed corner. The women each carry a large bell jar with a lit candle inside.
I follow the man with my eyes, frowning fiercely.

"I am sure you're wondering why you're here."

I think something sarcastic in his direction and he chuckles at me.

The women take a step closer, revealing a twin bed with a two woven blankets on top of it, a green and a dull burgundy.

I know I'm supposed to lay down and find myself climbing onto the bed as a child would, on my hands and knees. I resist the pull and the world tilts. I see the cuff of my jacket, and see my hands as Saja would see them.

"Here, let me help." The man pulls back the blankets, then shuffles to the shuttered window at the side of the bed and opens i

t letting in bright daylight. Something in me eases, I can't tell if it is my resistance, or the thrall.

"You are here because of your singular nature, who you used to be. Who you are now." He says and instructs me to lay down.

I comply, my eyes sliding over the dull-eyed Saja who still stands at the foot of the bed, holding a jar.

The world suddenly feels compact, compressed, the pressure of the wind as it rushes through the open window and the

weathered wood of the walls withering away (alliteration!! Sorry, I couldn't help myself). Then we are flying. All of us, the two thralled girls off to the side, the old crazy woman, the portly gentleman and myself. There are numerous strings dangling around us attached to all different manner of coins. We rise into the sky. His reason doesn't really explain why I am here, but I understand anyway. I hold the name of the wind (this is where Kvothe comes in) inside me, and the wind will not harm me, or those with me. It's why we can defy gravity and why the strong gales outside the border of coins does not sweep in on us. I take a deep breath and speak the name of the wind, it rushes from my mouth and the man commands me to stop. I don't listen.

Now it gets even weirder.
Something about Liam becoming Batman and Saja being Catwoman. I try to get a better angle as he leans down threaten her but kisses her instead.

I am outside, flying. I see a long bridge connecting a fortress to the city and a moat. I fly down because I see a small figure

crouched on a rock jutting from the water. It is supposed to be Saja...and in a way, it looks like her, I guess. I drop down in front of her. She's wearing an elaborately layered red gown, each layered part of the skirt fringed in black lace, she's wearing half of a plague mask and a red wig with black fringe, that matches her dress. She's completely soaked and frozen like a statue. I can tell she's breathing though. I reach over and remove her mask. Water drips down her deathly pale face and her eyes are silver. Her face isn't how I recall it from other dreams, more narrow and plain. I notice she's holding an axe in one hand, like she's waiting for the go to attack the enemy. I can see her black hair underneath the wig. Huh.

Then I am in the bedroom from before. Liam is sitting on the end of the bed with a thin knife in his hand. He is clutching the handle

and I know he is resisting his past life as a serial killer. (?! I shouldn't take this too seriously...considering he was batman 10 minutes ago.) Another face flickers over his own, black eyes, black hair slicked back, wearing a big loose navy blue t-shirt.

"Don't be who you were...be who you are."

I insist, Liam is having trouble fighting it and his face keeps flickering from the dark eyed man to the one I know.
This is also confusing because I am the silver-eyed girl from before. I'm wearing a black tanktop and dark gray pants. I have no idea who this is supposed to be. I feel like Saja but I don't really look like her.

The gentleman from before appears, telling me that he's fighting his nature for my benefit. That if we hadn't interfered, Silas

would have emerged and started killing again. He calls me Julie.((I have only ever been called my WL name a handful of times. So this is pretty strange.))
I rush across the room from where I crouched next to the bed where Liam is sitting.

"Stop calling me that, my name is SAJA." I yell at him. I must look pretty disconcerting because he backs away with his

hands before him in a placating gesture.

"Alright, alright. You're Saja. Let us help him."
"NO. Only I can help him."