Searching For The Center of Everything

[Saturday, September 22nd, 2012] [AI is Viral]
(I feel like my soul has just returned from the most extensive adventure... I just got done living another life...)

I remember a futuristic city- Me and Alex witnessed the discovery of a new type of energy that unlocked the secrets of AI. Professors and
Cid-like people gathered around a small machine. They clapped and applauded the arrival of the plasma-like substance that gathered electric
currents out of nothing. The little cylinder music-box-sized machine danced with sparks and lightning. It spread to every thing in the room that had
certain false AI that humans had invented. AI's intelligences advanced so fast and replicated beyond our imagination... within minutes the city was
under attack by our own technology. People were being killed instantly. Alex ran as fast as she could. I was knocked down... I saw people being
impaled... melted... sliced... I crawled into a pod-machine with a red force field that cloaked my presense and protected me- and I waited and
watched. A giant red tenticle of energy whipped around the plaza and killed countless humans. I watched it kill every thing it could detect with
lightning precision. I was watching a masacre- and was the only one in this area to survive. I sat there and watched something evil looking whip
it's bladed arms across the forcefield and slash and slash- but I stared and watched. This was a bad idea- I was stuck in here and Alex was lost
somewhere. I closed my eyes and went back in time- to before the AI made the change. A few minutes before.

I didn't go far back enough. Alex had already run... and Nathan was with me now. But instead of crawling into the safety pod, I grabbed Nathan
and ran. We took turns through the city's hidden corridors and tried to imagine which way Alex would have gone. I felt that she took a left, a right,
another right... then we were at the edge of the city. We were on a giant island ship of metal. Water spread out as far as the eye could see. There
were teleporters on the edge of the ship- and we chose one and it sent us to Manhattan... I could feel that city was already destroyed... so I
reversed time and chose a smaller city. One that Alex was in. We were catapulted through space-time and arrived within moments

This city was dark and depressing, rainy and poor. It reminded me of a late 19th century England city with no modern technology existing, or
perhaps just out of sight and not so advanced. Shingles were falling off roofs from dilapidation, and wood was rotting away. Nathan was here
somewhere in the city, but now he wasn't with me. Dammit. Now I had two people to find. I turned down one alleyway and it led down to a
hidden replica neighborhood of our apartment complex. The parking lot was filled with potholes of rainwater and a few doors were off their
hinges. I went up to number 8 and knocked, SHE ANSWERED. <memory skips>

It's been a few days of us living in safety. But there were memories of her being uninterested in me anymore. I was to be replaced by figures such
as Pompous, Brandon, and more. I felt like she gave the attention she used to give to me to everyone else. A nightmare in itself. I was devastated
but she thought it was only fair. We got in a fight that was very unclear to me and just as we went inside, some kind of shit went down. During a
party, AI had arrived in THIS town. It must be trying to exterminate humans or something. I grabbed Alex by the hand and everything we might
need- and we ran with our backpacks. People were being slayed that came out of hiding- but our neighborhood had been compromised. I saw
Nathan too and I shouted at him to follow- and we headed to the teleports. We all got in one and tried to leave to the place with the least amount
of population. That must be the safest place!

The machine malfunctioned and sent us up into the atmosphere. We all flew up where we could land on an airplane. But we all did grab on until it
landed. Where we did land, it was a tropical island- big, but not as populated. The technology here hadn't been quite affected by the change yet,
so we were sort of safe. The first building we entered shut us in when we walked inside, and a trial began. A box wheeled itself into the room with
supplies for a battle. There was a battery recharge, a weapon capsule, and another thing I don't remember. I grabbed the weapon capsule- it was
kind of old and damaged, I tried to heal it with my mind and it worked. Just then, a robot/cyborg arrived in the room with the intent to destroy me.
I chucked the weapon capsule with all my strength at it and busted the attack machine. That was easy, I thought.

<I faded from the dream and woke up.>

[Tuesday, September 11th, 2012]
There's a mall, which I assume is Prescott Mall, and I walk around it along with all the bustling people. I enter stores now and then, but my memory is pretty lame here. I walk outside I'm at Prescott still, but now it's an ocean dock-town scene. [**2**] Along the building, there's a rotting-wood walkway built above the water. There are restaraunts on the right-side and the ocean is to the left- but I pay the horizon no attention. (It was sunset at the time and I'm sure I missed the most beautiful scene...) Straight ahead, I follow the walkway to a door and follow it in. <My memory is empty of this room.> I emerge back out. Someone goes to a wall with three white vertical buttons- (like a vertical line that's fragmented into three short lines.) and he walks through the wall. It's a hidden Gambling Bar. I'm sure there's a cardgame inside. I press my hand through the middle button and I can see from the other side... It's a wall of the universe... with a painting of a woman cut into three sections (just like the line). (The wall goes forever, left and right, up and down, and it's filled with countless other symbols and paintings and ideas and markins and notes and thoughts of the human collective consciousness or maybe something more?) My hand emerges on the otherside of the wall from her chest, by her neck. I slide my hand back out with a little disappointment that I couldn't get in. Suddenly I realize this dock is a hidden workers-only area. I'm dressed in a similar uniform now and I grab a giant rug with a big picture or advertisement on it and roll it up and begin walking with it on my shoulder. I get funny suspicious looks from passerbys and workers, but no one stops me. I must look like I know what I'm doing, at least. My idea works! I get inside and drop the rug on the floor in a random spot where it seems to fit, and walk away casually. (My memory ends- I must have woken up here then fallen back asleep into the next dream.)

+

I faintly remember there being a drawer with a coupon in it for free Subway. Someone grabbed it out and used it before I could...My real dream recall starts in... I'm hungry and I want some fast food. I don't have any money whatsoever, but I have a strange feeling that makes me leave. I drive my Grandma's truck through town, having trouble sterring and keeping in the lines, but eventually I make it to the intersection of town just before the underpass. The world is dark, with the feeling of a calmed Zombie Apocalypse (as if the world has ended and this is the last safe haven, or its the end of the worst parts of the end... if you know what I mean. It's not neccesarily the plot as it is the 'mood') Passing by the actual intersection, I see flashing red and blue lights to the right towards Hassyampa School. I also hear faint police sirens everywhere. I see no cars. I keeping driving the dark streets, thinking about my lack of money and see more lights and hear more sounds. Come to think about it... the truck is silent. I can hear noises behind me coming from the Theatre. I ignore all these sounds as "my imagination running rampant", but I'm still worried about the police. I make it to the bridge and notice its MUCH bigger and longer than in reality. (I've already missed so many Dream signs. Damn.) The sky is puke dark rain. I cross the bridge without thinking again about it. I pass the unbuilt ruins of McDonalds and then Subway, and then suddenly there's flashing police lights behind me. Just then, I notice how bad I've been driving- swerving constantly. I try turning into Country Kitchen's parking lot with much difficulty, completely missing the first turn and barely making the second. I pull in and I'm halfway off the road when a curb appears in front of me. I'm stuck, and I glance over my shoulder to make sure the police are actually pulling me over. They are. I'm worried this might get me in even more trouble... I try reversing, but the car only moves forward. I press the brake more... I still move forward a bit. I'm confused more than panicked now, but I keep at the break, afraid to go flying over the curb if I let go. Suddenly, the officers are helping me in a strange way. The truck vanishes, and all I have is the shifter and the brake in my hands... there's also a yellow and black caution-striped half-tent above mine and the cop's head. I'm holding the brake down, as I shift into reverse, then I let go of the brake and walk backwards.

Next thing I know, I'm inside Country Kitchen- or at least a beat-up diner with the lights dimmed. It's filled with young people around my age, give or take. There's a bar to the left of me with a lone girl... there are tables and chairs and booths to the right of that. A bald cop follows me in and begins to babble about something to the whole restaraunt. I don't understand what he's trying to say- but I listen anyways. He sounds drunk or crazy. I dismiss him politely, after listening, and I forget he exists. I find someone who I feel like I "know"... but I don't remember anything specific about them. I approach her and she turns around and it's RUKIA! "Rukia!" I exclaim. She acknowledges me with slightly less enthusiasm. We converse about something before getting back to the matter at hand; FOOD. (I try not to be rude, but I hint that I have no money and that I'm hungry.) She suggests one way to get food:"Go look in the drawer at home, and there's a ticket-"Already used it- it's already used." I interrupt her "Hmm... well I guess if you wait a bit, I could help. I'm kind of waiting for something right now, though." (She replies something like that.) I understand this as her needing to find a nearby Hollow still. It's at this time my attention shifts to the bathroom doors. The bathrooms are straight ahead from the entrance on the left, past the bar. I get impatient after my attention returns, so I decide to speed up the process. Rukia is still just waiting on the Hollow...

I might not do this normally, but I know I can. I remember listening to "binaural beats" earlier that day... specifically the one that would open your third eye chakras. The whole day before that, I had an unruly sense of strange things too. My intuition is top-notch right now. I walk around the restaurant and try to find the Hollow- it has to be one of these people. I approach a couple: dismiss them, walk up to a filled table: not them, pass by a booth of teenagers: they're normal... then I reach the bar. It's this person! Their hair is a dark, dirty purple. It's a tangled mess that hangs over their face. I grab them by the arm and confirm it with their level of shock and resistance."It was YOU! AHA! I knew it was you!" I say with conviction, but letting my excitement get the best of me. I pull the Hollow-in-human-form to the back and disappear behind the bathroom swinging doors. Rukia gives me a blank stare. She's surprised but understands. Inside the bathroom, the Hollow slips out of my grip and shrinks, vanishing into the planked floor through a broken gap.... just like a mouse. I look closer, there's a pool of dirty water underneath these planks. The bathroom is very strange. (I'll have to illustrate it. [**3**]) But in the first room, I set my black dufflebag with red symbols on it down on the bathroom counter. The second two rooms ahead are bathrooms complete with... only urinals and planks for flooring. Below them, I can see dirty water again. The right planked-room is the one with the missing chunks of wood, and where the Hollow escaped. The left planked room has no missing wood, but a rusty blue steam-pipe wheel on the ground in the center of the room. I need to follow the Hollow, but I won't crawl down there unless the water is gone. I realize that the blue wheel must drain the water! I turn it clockwise, a little bit at a time... and it's working! The water starts to descend very slowly. Gradually as I turn, and the level descends, the rusty blue wheel crumbles and chips until its nothing but a metal stub with nothing to grip. I stand up and walk to the right planked room. The water is still there, but I can get underneath the planks without getting too wet now. I crawl down and can go under the wall to the next room. I stand up and I'm now in a room that turns to my right and follows a hallway. The water's up to my feet and its very dim in here. Trash floats along the dirty water.

<memory skips>

I was so close to finding that Hollow! It must have gotten away, because I didn't remember actually doing it. I think Rukia needs to know now- maybe she can help. She should understand if it got away. We'll find it again the next time it strikes. But what if she was trusting me? Testing me? Oh well. I walk out a door at the end of the sewer-like hallway to the left and it leads outside. There's no one. The world is empty. I walk back inside, heart-racing, then stop myself. I decide to use the front entrance this time to avoid getting wet again. My vision hangs back while I run ahead.

There's a figure crouching on the roof watching me, in all black.
"Finally, the Father of this World has returned."

I get back inside to the bathroom, where I set my black dufflebag- but it's been turned into a beige purse. I dig through it for something that'll help. I pull out a tin of Mentoids and pop one in my mouth. Memories of these mints rush through my mind... but they aren't the same as they used to be. The taste is dull and unfulfilling. I dig for more and find an Ipod... I'm sort of relieved, if I'm stuck in this World, I'll at least have music. Or even better, maybe I can use binaural beats to wake my out of this World. Wait- I'm drea-

(I wake up... and stretch... clinging on to what little dream recall I had at the time. I stopped and lied still for a moment to hang on to it, before typing this.)