Amurehna

Non-lucid
Lucid

I'm in the back seat of a blue van that belongs to my sister. Instead of a trunk space, the seats are pressed against the end of the vehicle, and there's a dash under the back windshield. She's driving. A child that is supposed to be her son but looks like a combination of my brother's little boy and hers is laying on the dash behind me.
We're almost ready to leave, parked on curved driveway in front of the rock house we grew up in. The van starts to roll forward.
"You alright back there, kid?"
He giggles and joyfully smiles at me. I lightly pinch his cheek and he giggles some more. I smile and turn my attention to my dog, Caspian who is laying across my lap. He twists to expose his belly so I'll pet him. I do.
I notice, for some reason, his fur is getting increasingly more soft and his ribcage smaller. I look down at him and he's now a kitten with the same coloring. He's a bluetick beagle. The Caspian-kitten yawns and and grabs at my hand with his little paws, claws out. I start to play with one of his claws. My boyfriend walks up beside the van and it stops rolling. My window is down a little. I can't recall what he says to me. I hand him the Caspian-kitten who stretches languorously across my hands. My boyfriend smiles and takes him, Caspian clings to his teal button-up.
We finally leave the driveway. Something about my nephew's changeable face and the fact that my dog just turned into a cat has given me the choice to become lucid. I'm looking toward the front of the van, and the dream would have me continue doing so. I have a choice. I worry that the dream will distort and fall apart if I take initiative.
I decide to risk it and am pleased when everything remains normal. In fact it becomes more vivid. The early morning light swells and becomes impossibly sweet and warm against my face. The road we're taking hugs a cliff, it's narrow with no guardrail. We reach a red, arched metal bridge. The curve before the bridge is such that she speeds around the corner and almost hits a blockade made of cars. Everything slows down. I make the van fly over the blockade and hear my sister make a surprised, amazed noise. The van lands hard near the other side of the bridge, and the back wheels skid close to the edge where the beams have broken. I get out feeling awesomely smug and look outside curiously.
The road is a mess, it's the aftermath of an attack, the men assaulting the road have gathered near my end of the bridge, awaiting orders.
A thin man in a black suit with long black hair looks surprised to see me. Then he grins. I hear a strange sliding noise and turn to find my sister, nephew, and the van gone. Fear grips me, I notice a tall blonde man dressed in a striped red and black shirt and black slacks climbing down to a rough red-stone ledge that juts out from underneath the bridge. He tosses his jacket down and jumps into the water after my family. Without a second thought, I dive. I feel the wind on my face and the cool water closing around me. Everything is a delicious deep blue, far ahead of me I can see the man reaching my sister at the bottom of the lake. Both her and my nephew sank like stones, and float at the lake floor, he's in front of her, her arm draped over his shoulder down his chest. I see that the man has them, one on either side of him. I wait for him on a rock ledge. As he passes he nods to me, I push hard off the floor and slide my arms around his waist, adding my momentum to his.
The closer we get to the surface the easier it becomes. I foolishly think it's because I'm still lucid. He beings to break apart, becoming empty clothes. When I break the water, he's just a shirt in my arms. My sister and nephew are gone. Where are there? What happened to them? Are they still at the bottom of the lake? Someone calls to me but I ignore them and dive again. I get to the halfway point and do not see anyone down there. I swim around looking for them. For a second I'm worried about not having enough air, then I realize I'm already breathing, cool water along with air, in through my nose.
Then my boyfriend is there, he tugs on my arm and gestures to the surface. I shake my head, I don't want to go yet. He pulls me along after him anyway. We pass a ledge with treasure on it, a faded mahogany box with a gold circle with a Greek maze design engraved in a gold metal circle, it has one of these circles on each side. I want to see what's inside, but instead I follow him. When we climb out of the water, he tells me he has some idea where we can start to look for them. He makes it sound like they've been abducted.

I follow him, a little uncertainly, into a bar. This is not the kind of place I would usually go. He doesn't really feel like my boyfriend, more like an acquaintance with his face. The place is narrow and drab, the bar is on the left as I walk in with backless stools bolted to the floor. On the right side are red cushioned benches running the length of the wall, leading up to a door with a frosted glass window. There's a man standing in front of the door.I don't remember seeing any tables.
"Wait here, I'll be back." He goes to the man and talks quietly with him.
The dishwasher has made his way out from the back to gather some glasses. He's a little rough looking, scarecrow thin with bright almost hectic blue eyes, missing teeth. His hair is dirty blonde and sticks up straight up from his skull. He's wearing a dark brown apron over a dirty white thermal shirt. He sees me and says something about how a pretty lady shouldn't come alone to a place like this.
"I'm not alone." I say, giving my boyfriend a significant look.
"Oh, of course."
He catches the attention of the waitress. She seems like she's humoring him, he creeps her out a little with his intensity but she knows he's harmless. He starts to tell us a story about a renegade that passed through a few years ago. I wonder absently if he's talking about Liam.
"The reddest hair I've ever seen, big guy! You know what I said to him, I said--"
The bartender, a handsome man with a shaved head gets the waitress's attention, effectively interrupting the dishwasher. I can tell from his expression that this happens to him often.
"Nevermind, no one was listening anyway." he starts to leave. I cut in, partially because I hate to see that happen to people, and partially because I want to hear the end of his story.
"I was listening!"
I move over to the row of cushioned benches, backing away but keeping eye contact so he knows I'm still listening. His expression brightens and he smiles, I see he's missing some teeth.
"What did you say to him?" I prompt.
"I said, sir, that beard ain't much of a disguise." When he says it he tugs on his own. "Besides, everyone knows who you are, hair like that there cain't be two of ya!" he laughs, amused by his own wit and daring, questioning a dangerous rebel.
I laugh with him, but not really because I think it's funny. He moves off into the back, waving goodbye to me. I setting back on the bench. After a minute, something strange catches the corner of my vision. I look over, to my left is an extremely large man dressed in a black suit. I don't mean to say he's fat. Even sitting down I can tell that he's at least 8 feet tall. His leg extends nearly halfway to the bar. He's the biggest person I've ever seen. Bald, ridiculously muscular, sharp blue eyes with pinpoint pupils in a grizzled face. He's not a particularly attractive man, but his size suddenly appeals to me. He smirks at me like he knows what I'm thinking. I glance away. My boyfriend sits down to my right.
"Did you find anything out?" I ask anxiously.
"Not yet, the man I came to see is in a meeting. When the time comes he'll only see me, alone. We just have to wait a little bit."

The next part looks like an SNES video game, a world map. We're following a trail and gold beads dot the ground in our wake. "Hehe, it looks like Mario." I think. A flashing dot appears in the spot we just left. I refuse to turn my quest into a marrior game. I focus and the avatar gains a little more definition, turning into a 16bit version of me and my boyfriend. The lack of detail annoys me. I focus, willing myself closer to the 'screen'. The dream starts to lose cohesion. My boyfriend has led me to a cliff.
"Where are we even going? How will this help me find my sister?"
"....these look a bit heavy to carry." he replies and points behind me. There are four chest-height empty boxes, they almost look like giant square mugs, tied together at the handle with a hot air balloon or parachute. They have angry bird face on them.
"We just have a little further to go." he says.