Amurehna

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."