memorable

I'm really only posting this because I found it interesting.

I don't recall ever having a more gentle transition from waking to dreaming than what I experienced during my nap yesterday. I was drifting between fragments, constantly shifting, but not restless. I turned over and closed my eyes. In closing my eyes, a new scene became visible on the back of my eyelids. I knew at once I was staring at a wall, and that I was laying on a floor. My hold seemed tenuous like I was at risk of losing lucidity, but the dream was odd that way too. I had many lapses in which I found myself back in bed, and when I closed my eyes the dream reappeared in the same gentle way, but my dream self was confused and worried that I was 'blacking out again' and that if I was blacking out I wouldn't be able to hunt packs of fury when they raged through town. We called zombies Fury. O.o

I don't remember much, I remember quite a few lapses. I know the room I woke in had three fireplaces and there were many small indicators that would have allowed me to become lucid, but I never pursued them. Like, thinking that this house had two kitchens just like my grandparent's house when I was a kid. I realized that wasn't true and experienced a panicked moment of vertigo and a fading to the clarity of the dream, which my dream self took as the edge of a blackout, so I backed off. Or thinking that the man in the room with three fireplaces was my grandfather, and then wondering how he could be my grandfather since both of mine are dead.
And the fact that there were bears hanging out on the deck.

Anyway, many times when I began to lose focus and 'black out' someone would offer me their hand and it would ground me in the dream. I also remember a disturbing conversation with a childhood friend, who I shared the house with in which she points out that I've been suicidal for a while, and she noticed because when I would go out to hunt Fury, if I stepped into the pack I would look left, then look right, and then look right again. She explained that I did this so that if an attack came from the left, I would not be forced to defend myself and I could die.
"Would that be so terrible though? Maybe I shouldn't come back." I reply.


Sometimes, when I am in a dark mental space, my subconscious will save me from it by giving me a soothing dream. I have talked about them before. They instill in me a sense of well being, and even if they don't make me feel good, I no longer feel as bad as I did before I slept.
This one was lovely but very short.
I found myself running along a familiar road, like I was coming off the highway. It was crowded with trees. At the start of the bend, there is a guard rail and a sign marking the merging of the lanes from two on the left side, to one. So it will be a regular two-lane road. I'm confused when I see a car coming at me in the lane that should be going the other way. I jump off the road into the brush and it is only three quick hops before I take to the sky. I rarely have big lucid epiphanies they are subtle realizations. I will notice something is off, or I will look at the sky and think that I want to be there, and then I am.
Anyway. I take to the sky, which is a sweet, green-tinged blue. Many feet of the ground I find rain that is waiting to fall. There are hundreds of individual droplets. I rise, softly turning through the suspended rain. I can feel a cool breeze on my skin, easing the stitch from my brow, and the kiss of rain on my face and arms. I take a deep, slow breath. It's so beautiful here.

I would like to know why I have so many false awakenings. I've grown used to it but it seems...unusual.

You know, when I woke up I kept trying to figure out who we looked like, convinced they were rooted in actors. Like Sarah from Lost (Jack's ex wife) mixed with the girl from Warm Bodies, and then a really pale Robert Downey Jr crossed with Jack. O.o then I looked up pictures and I'm not sure where I got those impressions from.

My name is Sarah, I have been friends with Stephen since we were children. I see us running a silly kind of race with five other

children, where we team up and one person runs carrying their teammate on their shoulders. Stephen always insisted on being the runner, even though at that age I was a lot bigger. Then, he was a little thing with slightly round features, his black straight hair in a bowl cut around a pale face with black rimmed glasses. The only person without a partner is a large girl to the left of us, the top of her head is even with mine even when I am on his shoulders. He makes for an amusing figure, his little face red with effort, swaying back and forth trying desperately to stay upright and to keep me on his shoulders. He is wearing a gray sweatshirt with a circular panda face on the chest.

Then I am nineteen. When we finished school a few of us got together and rented a house. We even all work at the same place,

employment opportunities have been scarce since the end of things. Still, we are content with our lives. I am leaving work with Stephen, he has grown into a solid broad-shouldered man, none of the roundness of boyhood left. His grandmother has come to give us a lift home. The drive home is terrifying, mostly because Granny can not keep her eyes on the road for more than a few seconds at a time. Stephen obviously thinks that it is hilarious, I might have laughed with him if we were not constantly on the brink of death the entire way home. She goes on about her difficulties in finding a clear path to our place of employment.

"I finally made it! You have no idea what kind of trouble I had. I even cut through a road blocked area!" She exclaims.

I groan and cover my eyes with one hand while Stephen cracks up in the back seat. "And then, there was a car blocking the road!"

"What did you do then, Granny?" Stephen says with a little too much enthusiasm.

"Stop encouraging her." I hiss at him, he just laughs at me. Granny does not hear me but karma pays me back for the

comment anyway since Granny is clearly oblivious that our lane merges with another and haphazardly sails past a line of angrily blaring horns before wedging her SUV between two cars. I find that I cannot handle anymore and I duck down in the seat with my arms over my head. I have a moment where I think that I need to be paying attention because it's my dream, and I'm driving even if my character isn't watching the road. I risk peeking out the windshield just in time to see her run a red light and speed past a cop car that's sitting across one lane, and narrowly missing one that hurdles in the opposite direction.

We make it home alive. Finally. The scene cuts to us walking through the front door where I live with Kenna, my brother, his girlfriend Beth and Stephen

. The walls are all dull gray metal and the doorways are rounded off at the tops and bottoms. The dining room is a large wide open area with a big rectangular table, to my left is the living room and on the same wall as the door is a little alcove with bunk beds, my brother Roe sits in the chair crammed between the bed and the door frame. Like me, Roe is tall and athletically built with pale blonde hair and blue eyes.

"Hey, little sister."
"Hey yourself, brother."
"Just a little bit of a warning..."

Little Kenna storms in from the living room, like a tiny angry cloud of red curls and green skirts, and slams a long chain of pill packets onto the table.

"They wouldn't do that, I said. They wouldn't keep drugs, I said. WELL! It looks like they were right!" She growls, glaring at me. My

brother lounges placidly and regards us expressionlessly.

"Did the sisters tell you that?"
"It doesn't matter who told me! I found these in the dryer and they melted all over my clothes! Now I have drug laundry!"
"Kenna, I really don't---"
"Don't you try to turn this around on Double H!" Kenna is so busy ranting that she does not notice when I look at Stephen who mouths

'Double H?'
Kenna keeps going, "You're the one with the drugs, I'm leaving. I'm going to go live with Haddie where I can do my laundry in a non-drug-caked dyer."

"Yes ma'am." I agree and give her a slightly sarcastic salute.

She scowls and rages her way out of the house, leaving her laundry basket behind.

"Does anyone else think that was incredibly weird?" I ask, frowning down at the pill packets. My brother shrugs and Stephen can barely

contain his amusement.

"Drug laundry!" He snorts, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. His amusement makes me feel better about the situation.

Haddie and her older sister Haley had been giving us trouble since we were children. The tormenting had settled down for the others, but Haley somehow intuited that I knew her secret: she had lied to Haddie about how their parents had died.
Haley had practically raised Haddie and based her methods somehow on their parent's death. Once I had considered telling Haddie about the lie, thinking it would drive a wedge between them and end their rampage of villainy, but Haddie would never believe me.
The sisters only ever said things when others were not looking, then I would explode and they would see my disproportionate reaction. Recently they had been hanging around the house, Haley was trying to get at Roe despite the fact that he had a girlfriend and pointedly ignored her advances, and one day Stephen had said something funny to them. Instant approval! I think he hoped that if they spent more time around me they would stop trying to enrage me. So far they tolerated my presence because they wanted Stephen around and he had made it clear they he would not ditch me for them.

Now Haley and Haddie arrive at the house and Beth welcomes them inside. I don't remember the conversation but Beth said something,

Haddie replies, and when Beth turns her back Haley says something behind her hand about me to Haddie. Instantly I'm angry, I'm standing right here. I make an angry retort and roughly shoulder myself between them to get outside. Behind me I hear Haddie say "What was that about?"
Followed by Haley muttering, "Crazy bitch."
I feel so angry and frustrated. The outside looks like the house in MA that I grew up in. I run to the left side of the house where there is a hill and Beth follows after, ripping into me when I turn to face her. She tells me I am being childish, that I need to grow up. I say something rude, she tells me to just get over it. My sudden rush of rage has actually made me feel faint, so I move around to the massive oak at the corner of the driveway, it will hide me from view. As I'm dropping to my knees I see Stephen stalking toward me.

"What, you too?" I ask, I could not help myself.

"Excuse me?" His jaw tightens and he says stiffly, "I came out here to tell you that the things they say don't matter, to remember that

I care ab---"

"Well I don't care!" I snap. Then seeing the look on his face, I realize the mistake I have made, how he must have taken that.

"Stephen...I didn't mean--I only said..."

"I know what you said, Sarah. Just...take some time to cool off before coming back inside." He shakes his head at me and retreats

to the house.

I don't go back inside immediately, I take his advice and circle the house twice before I've calmed down. I see Haddie and Haley

talking, there's a long staircase along the side of the house that does not exist in waking life. They stand near the top by a narrow door, conspiring. Once again I contemplate how I could arrange for Haddie to overhear that her sister has lied to her. They open the door, I hook around to the front of the house and go back inside.

I am in the living room. Haddie, Haley, Beth and my brother Roe sit on the couch while Stephen sits on the floor. They are watching a

movie. Haddie and Haley make a joke about me. Something about The Six. When we were children there was a group of children (myself and Stephen included) that were outcasts and generally made fun of, we called ourselves The Six. I stand beside Stephen. He hands me a beer and smiles a little.

"Conveniently you forget that I was one of The Six." He interjects smoothly.

"Really? I don't...remember that." Haddie says politely embarrassed.

"Oh yes, I have pictures if you need proof." He replies, this shuts Haddie up. He seems to have the talent for pointing things out or laughing without making a person feel stupid.

Stephen keeps his eyes on the television and asks me absently if I feel any better. When I shake my head and sit down next to him he pats his leg. I settle my upper body across his lap and he lays his arm across the front of my shoulders. This is immensely comforting and very slowly my nerves calm and I am no longer sad or angry with the H sisters. I sit up and arrange myself in his lap with my arms around his neck. He is still distractedly watching the movie and we have known one another so long that such closeness is not beyond us. While the everyone else is otherwise occupied, I make a decision.

I see us from a foot away, the clean line of my jaw and one sky blue eye, my hair is back in a ponytail. His hair hangs straight to his

ears, it's fine and black, like his eyes. He has stubble on his cheeks, when did that happen? I down the rest of my beer, set the bottle on the floor with a clatter, and before I can lose my nerve, I press my lips to his temple.
He has gone very still in response. He is quietly shocked, I can tell, still he tries to give me an out.

"Well...that was fun." He says with a fleet meeting of the eyes.

"Fun isn't the word I would use." I say softly.

"Sarah, what was that for?" I sweep my eyes over his familiar features and realize that I love him. I answer by bending gracefully to

touch my lips to his. I can feel the pressure of them against mine and the weight of his arms tightening around me.

There's a lapse and we are in his room, laying together on his futon. We're both wearing pale blue jeans and gray sweatshirts, my

head is on his shoulder and my hips rest between his legs. I lean down to kiss him again, then trace my fingers over his abdomen where his shirt has ridden up. I shift my weight to my knees. I know he is savoring how my waist feels under his hand, I have always been fit but hidden my figure with shapeless shirts. With a sinuous move I kiss his chest---

---and that's where my consciousness separates from Sarah. I am vaguely embarrassed that I am watching them. This is a private, intimate moment for them. It is the look on his face that makes me turn away. I should leave them alone with each other. ((I censor my own dreams, how lame is that?))

Next I am following Stephen. There is a large metal grate in the floor of the dining room, he has dropped down into the tunnels that run

underneath the house. He is crossing to another area of the house, the tunnel dips down into a lower level. The side he is on is higher, the other side has two regular steps going into a bare metal room. As he is walking to the opposite side he glances up to the small round mirror above the tunnel hole. In it he sees a figure standing with its face in the corner. He freezes and only just keeps himself from cursing aloud. It looks like a boy, with a long t-shirt and shorts, but is dripping with toxic green ooze. It mumbles under its breath, smacking its forehead into the wall.

"He..." SMACK, "He...killed..." SMACK, "He...killed me." SMACK.

Stephen knows he only has a small window of opportunity to kill it before it obliterates him. This is a Shade, the spirit of a person who has killed themselves and cannot come to terms with the action. Some of them can be reasoned with, the worst ones are hard to kill.

"He..."SMACK the boy begins again.

"Jesus." Stephen thinks, "He doesn't even know that he's the one who did the killing." He raises his handgun, it has a laser

pointer. He aims up at the mirror and sees the laser appear on the back of its head. He has to time it between the smacks. He firmly squeezes the trigger but at the last second the thing intuits his action and stands very still, thus taking the bullet in the back of the neck instead of the head. This time Stephen curses as he whips around to dodge the Shade. He manages to catch it off guard twice, the second time it rushes toward him he stumbles past it and hits the low stairs hard. He scrambles backward into the corner and unloads the clip into the Shade's back and head while it still faces the other way. It refuses to die. It will kill him, he knows.

That's when I, as Sarah, fly into the tunnel and pin the thing face-first to the wall. It struggles wetly against me, oozing and issuing

raspy whimpers.

"RUN!" I cry over my shoulder.

"Sarah, what are you doing? Get out of here!"

"Are you stupid? Run while I distract it!"

"NO!" It's clear we won't be leaving each other. About then the Shade's oozing face reforms out the back of its skull and it clacks its

teeth horrifyingly close to my ear. I recoil in revulsion and release it.

"HEY over here!" Stephen shouts. It advances on him, a jittering sort of stalking. I will die before I let it take him. With a fierce yell I grab it by the

arms and swing it like I am ringing a gong. I slam it against one side of the tunnel and then the other as hard as I can, yelling on impact. Its wrists are green slimy bones in my hands. It breaks into pieces and when all that is left are the arms, I drop them between Stephen's splayed legs. He's staring at me in awe.

"That...was the most awesome thing I have ever seen." He says into the sudden calm. I let out a shaking laugh.

"Are you alright?" The three remaining fragments of Shade quiver violently startling us badly. I bring my heel down hard on the largest

piece and grind it into the floor until it stops moving.

"Let's get out of here, yeah?" He says, I offer him my hand and pull him to his feet.

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.

I watch Vampire Diaries but I've never been invested in Elena and Stefan as a couple. So it's a mystery to me why these two pop up so often. The dream stories revolving around them are always bittersweet, about the inability to choose between love and duty. A sad slow spiral away from each other but unable to stop reaching.
So this is how it began:
The world is washed out, tinged yellow with storm light. The world is beginning to fall apart. Elena and Stefan sit facing each other, knees touching, in a scattering of dead leaves. Cupped in Elena's hands is an ugly ring. The metal is thick heavy silver. The fitting is a threaded hole about half an inch wide. The stone is the size of a crystal door knob with an eight-sided cut. It looks like tarnished mirror with flashes of iridescent pink. Where she touches its surface magenta sparks leap into the air then disappear. They have to make a choice between each other and doing what is right.
Elena grimaces and unscrews the stone from the fitting. This is not without risk, they are linked by the stone and whoever discards it will begin to forget the person it links them to. She will even forget where she has hidden it.
She rises from the ground and walks away, Stefan still sits in the leaves staring forlornly at her as she retreats. It seems so terrible. The world is dangerous and they could die, he doesn't want her to die having forgotten him. Still. This is necessary. There is more at stake than their own lives.

There is a lapse. Elena has hidden the stone and taken up with a woman who should be her ally. I'll call her Kara. I don't get a good look at Kara so I can't describe her. Elena is leading her somewhere. It's dark outside and she pauses, unsure if she has lost her way. Kara pulls a long glowing knife from thin air and presses it back against her forearm. Elena senses it and knows she's been betrayed without turning around.
My mind rallies for a moment and thinks incredulously "You're formidable! You can't just stand there and let her knife you in the back!"
Elena narrows her eyes and pretends she doesn't know what's happened.
"Oh please, I've been deceiving people since the beginning of existence, don't insult me by pretending you don't know. Turn around and stand still like a good little girl." Kara says. Elena tries to remember why it's important to fight, why bother? It would be so easy to stop.
As she turns to face her enemy, Kara's knife flashes out. Her reflexes decide for her and Elena only just dodges, then ducks under another swing. The knife cuts through the fabric of reality leaving a glowing slash in the air. Elena turns on her heel and slips between the world into the Nevermind.
It's almost like a physical representation of her memory. The world here looks a little like where she left Stefan, but she can't remember that. There are thick white swathes of fog obscuring sections and black text is typed into them 'nevermind'.
She escapes.

There's a lapse and I see Kara standing in front of Stefan who is still sitting in the dead leaves. She pulls the stone from her pocket and smirks down at him and watches the conflicting emotions play across his face. He looks horrified and delighted. He only just keeps himself from reaching out for it. If he takes it and somehow finds the strength to discard it, he will forget Elena as she has forgotten him.
"Oh, look at you." Kara says like he's the cutest thing she's ever seen, "Resisting so hard. Here. Let me help." Kara has a walking stick with a silver handle, she uses the end of it to turn his hand over and then presses the stone into his palm.
"nnnoooooo." he moans.
"Yes." She smiles and pats him on the head. "I sincerely wish you all the luck in the world with that precious little gem." She sounds too smug to be sincere.

There's another lapse. I see him sitting on the ground. He's doing a voice over narration, telling the story. I've missed part of it, so I focus and the scene pauses then restarts. A text log even pops up so I can read what he's saying.
"So what do I do? I still have an option to cast it away. If I do I won't even remember that I've done it. Where is the loss in that? Can I miss her even if I can't remember?"
As he's thinking this, he stares down at the thick ugly band without its stone. "I couldn't stop myself. What we had was like a drug, I could not choose to cast it aside. Not again." His expression is equal parts resolute and sickened, he begins to screw the stone down into the fitting.

As this is happening random dialogue starts to pollute the text box like it's a chat room. It really annoys me because I can't read what he's saying. I notice there's music playing. Someone says the song is perfect and someone else asks who the band is. Another person says the band name is "Mm...Perhaps the Fish?" It seems to fit them exactly. They kind of sound like their underwater and at one point make a 'glub glub' noise.

My alarm woke me.

I was going to give you some back story on Saja and Liam, but it seemed incredibly stupid when I typed it out. I often become Saja and almost every time I have a lucid dream I go looking for Liam.
Lucid
Non-Lucid
False Awakening

The layout of my house is huge. It also seems to share something of the more important houses I have lived

in. It is also, in part, Lowe's. I'm making my way down a wide hallway with cream-yellow walls and dark walnut trim and flooring. This part looks a little like my house in MA. I take a right at the end of the hall, the next one has a heavy dark walnut door with little lanterns on either side. I open the door and outside is the Lowe's parking lot. There are racks of flowers on either side, and then standing placidly between them is a team of horses hitched to a small wagon. It's a string of six. Well, I guess they're ponies. They are all paints, and only one of them is black and white, with black flecks all across his coat. I look at that one fondly. All the others are variations of chestnut and white.

I decide I want to ride one. I almost choose the last one in the train but he's tethered at the back of the others,

so I pass him by and walk to the less pretty first horse. This one is mostly chestnut and has very little white aside from a diamond marking and some white in his mane. The top of their heads are even with mine, making them fairly small.
I'm pleased by how small they are because I'm short, and I can climb onto his back without standing on something. I straddle the pony and grip his mane. He starts walking forward. The dream feels more vivid here, like before I was just on the edge of lucidity and now I've found it. I start experimenting with control, using my mind to change his path since I don't have any kind of reins. The parking lot is cold, there's some snow on the ground, and few cars. I lead the horse back toward the door and slide to the ground. I pat his neck. Something startles me, and I can't actually remember what. I run inside and slam the door, then take off down the hallway. Hoping that they didn't see me, and that if they did I'll be too far into the house for them to know where I've gone.

There's a lapse, I'm in the same building but this time it looks more like Lowe's. The aisle is also open

to the outdoors. A co-worker is talking to me. I stare at the wall behind him trying to figure out what's different about it. What's there that shouldn't be?

"....Did they put a bathroom here?" I ask, a little incredulous. This is one of my aisles after all.

"Why yes, it looks like they did." He says. I stare at the blue wall, which is just like the stalls in the bathroom. I can see the

seams now.

"There's no handle on the door, must not be finished."

Somehow I know this is the Women's stall, and there's a Men's room a couple aisles over. My co-worker wanders off outside and again I feel like I'm on the edge of lucidity, then pushing into it. It's a beautiful day out, and suddenly I wonder what the exterior of the building looks like. I run outside, feeling unnaturally fast. This section is actually a second floor, set higher than the main part of the building. The concrete is new and yellow-white. I run along, rushing past my co-worker who says something I can't remember. I fling the door open and run inside...

Another lapse and I'm in a hospital-like section. I'm here for tests? I think? I need to go to the bathroom

first. I walk down a long, wide hallway. It feels deserted. At the end is a bathroom. I can't figure out what's weird about it, despite the fact that there aren't stalls and there are just chairs by the sink. At first I think the chairs are toilets, until I sit down on one and realize it is, in fact, a chair. The cushion is yellow, wider at the front lip and more narrow by the back of the chair. I frown at it, I really need to go.
The room is kind of C or [ shaped. I go further inside, it's all white-pink tile with pale pink stalls. Finally!
The bottom of the stall panels are tall enough for me to duck under. I go into the first stall and am disgusted to see flecks of urine on the seat. I hear someone else come into the bathroom, and I'm suddenly embarrassed. Even as I'm doing it I wonder why. I duck under the wall and go into the next stall. And then into the next one. Which...puts me in a kind of mail room. It's dimly lit and there are bags as tall as my hips full of mail, with people rushing in and out. An old man with white hair is directing them.

"Trying to find the bathroom?" he asks.

"Yeah.."

Behind him I notice the wall is the side of a stall. He gestures to it. I smile and duck underneath. It puts me on the far side of a

string of stalls. When I turn the corner I'm walking with a tallish black girl, wearing a green t-shirt, her hair is pulled back into a fluffy bun. I feel a moment of vertigo. I hear myself say that I'm Saja and that 'd been looking for her everywhere. What had I just been doing? Something odd happens here, my vision doubles and I'm standing a couple feet from the black girl and a slightly taller willowy woman with long brown hair. I've separated from the woman, like I'd just been inside her. I can see the back of my head, the wavy black hair. I've become Saja.

"Hey!" I call after them. The girl in the green didn't hear me, but the other woman tenses and when I call

after her again she glances at me, whip quick. Then pretends I don't exist.

"Hey, I KNOW you!" I say. She looks extremely uncomfortable and leaves as quickly as she can without breaking into a run.

The girl in the green looks startled, and suddenly I become real to her. The woman had been pretending to be me.

"Who are you? What just happened?"
"I am Saja."
"Do you know her?"

"Yeah..." I say something I can't remember. I look up at her. I'm little next to her, she's almost a head taller than me.

We walk out of the bathroom, next to it is a kind of study with a long table. It's dim and cozy, dark red walls, a banked fire, bookshelves lining the walls.
"

Can you use magic?" She asks me curiously.

I smile a little, walking over the threshold behind the girl. "I am magic."
There are people gathered around the table. A male dc sitting across from us is trying to influence the dream by telling them all 'my' story.

"How do you know anything about her? Your family is broken, disgraceful. Thieves and murderers, all. Why, your father could

come in here right now and murder us all--slit our throats where we sit." I can feel the others start to believe him, but what's the benefit of being lucid if I can't change anything.

"That sure would be a trick, wouldn't it? Considering he's dead." The man is staring hard at me, and it takes me a minute to

realize that I'm lying. "I killed him myself, murdered the bastard in his sleep."
Another moment of vertigo, the man is smirking at me, like he wanted me to say all that. "No wait." I amend. "That isn't my story at all. You want to hear my story? All of it?" He rolls his eyes and leaves the table. The green t-shirt girl and a few others sit down. I remain standing.

"Have you ever heard of the Serpent?"

The all give me blank looks.

"Alright then, I'll tell you about It." I try to decide where to start. I try to tell them about Ru-em, the province I'm from in

the Midlands, and how our culture developed, how we learned to plant and harvest. Then I shake my head, trying to clear it. That's not where I want to start. "There is a creature, on the edge of existence. It moves from world to world, consuming all in its path." Someone rolls their eyes at me, bored. The girl in the green t-shirt is rapt.

"It's massive, as big as the sky." I can see it, the purple-black scar against a clear blue sky. How the world shook. "Ancient.

It crashed through our reality and into the earth, and down into the Spirit of our world. Which it would eat until nothing remained."
I move around the table, to a smaller one in the corner. The girl and a couple others follow me. I sit down and they take the seats across the table. There's a small spiral notebook.

"It wasn't really serpent-like." I pick up a pen and begin to draw. "More...like a--" I think a slug, but decide not to say that out

loud. "Like a whale and a manta-ray and--"

"And a worm?"
"Kind of like that, yes."

She stares down at my small drawing, the ridges by the tail fin. "It looks scary."

"It is." I pause, thinking that no one wants that horror to visit their door. I look down at the paper and decide I want to write

something down. I open a pen and write "Saja is magic."
It's clearly legible, actual words. The ink is a little thin, but I can't have everything.
I tug at the cap of a marker and worry for a second that this effort is going to wake me up. The dream wavers as I pull off the cap and settles again when I set marker tip to paper.
"Liam is alive." Instead of black, the words come out pale translucent green. The tip has split so the letters, while I know what they are, blur together.
I try to write it again, but the tip is still messed up. I stare at the notebook and smile. What am I doing here, playing these little games? I could be off looking for Liam. I leave the table and then the room, when I reach the hall I start to call out for him.

"Liam! Liiiiiaaaam? Are you here?" I call out several variations and my eyes are drawn to a window. For some reason the blinds

are on the outside. 1" aluminum blinds. I see blue eyes and then a smile through the slats. My heart pounds with excitement. It's never been so easy to find him! The man opens the window and I rush to meet him. I pull up short as he's trying to dip inside. It's not Liam. Not even close.
He's scrawny, medium-height, with gray-brown hair and sharp blue eyes. His teeth are crooked and yellow, he's dressed all in black. Skull-cap, jacket, jeans. All black. I frown at him.

"Who are you? Where's Liam?"
"What d'ya mean 'where's Liam', Liam's dead."
Panic grips me for a second but I refuse to believe him. "You're lying, he can't be dead. I would know."
"Wooould you?" He has an accent, faintly Scottish. "From all the way over here?"
"I would."
"I don't know what to tell you, swee-heart. He's definitely dead. Been dead a long time."
"Stop saying that!" I yell, twisting my hand into a fist in his jacket. "He isn't dead!"
"Suit yerself. Don't say I didn't warn ye." He laughs at me, I hate how amused he is at my expense.

I'm in my bed. I can hear talking in the other room, thinking my boyfriend is watching something on his computer. I get up, decide to ask him if he wants something to eat. The voices get a little louder and I distinctly remember hearing them on the episode of Revenge I watched before laying down. I approach his door, which is cracked open. I wonder if he's watching Revenge, something he never watches. I go inside. His bed doesn't look right, it's all gold and red. There's a woman wearing blue striped shorts and a white tank top curled up along his legs near the foot of the bed.
What? I frown at the form huddled under the blankets. He turns restlessly and it's not my boyfriend at all.

"God damn it, I'm still dreaming." I say, surprised. The man blinks awake and startles into a sitting position.
"What are you doing in here?"

Before he can even finish the sentence I glance to the wall behind me. It has a wide window, I recognize it as one of the rooms from the building. I grin and run to it, open it and shove the screen out. I throw myself out and land in the hallway down below.

I land at the foot of a concrete staircase. At the top is a door with a sign above it saying who is broadcasting inside and has radio station numbers.
I can hear them through a speaker by the door. "Just like Jack and Ron except, me, obviously like Jack, doesn't have a problem clearing the saliva from my throat." It makes his voice sound less thick. A man comes outside and notices me listening, he tips his hat to me but my eyes kind of slide around him. He's tall, wearing a black ball cap a dark green t-shirt and black knee length shorts.
A tv screen on the wall at the top of the stairs flickers to life. It features a short blonde woman who looks vaguely like Amanda Bynes, wearing a bring pink uniform and hat, standing under a spotlight in a black room. She is trying to act out their radio show and is getting mixed reactions.
I frown, what am I doing? I was looking for Liam. I find I'm standing in front of the tv, I head back down the stairs. The hall there ends in a glass door with a metal bar across the middle. I push it open and rush outside, calling for him. The dream feels brittle, like it's about to fall apart. The walls are...papery. Thin. A man on a motorcycle rushes past me and stops. He flips up the visor and for a second he looks exactly like Liam. I rush to him and him to me. He pulls of the helmet. The closer he gets the less he looks like Liam. It takes me a second to realize it though.

"Are you him?" I ask.

He looks puzzled. My heart sinks a little when I realize he's a stranger. "No, you're not, are you."
He smiles apologetically.
Wouldn't he be here if he were alive? Maybe he really is dead. The man from earlier moves up beside me.

"I told ya."
"Stop it." I snap.
"Tried to warn ya." He says. The buildings to either side of me are beginning to break apart, like sand in the wind.

I realize I am close to waking and I try to focus to hold it together a little longer.I ignore him. Even from here I can see muddy black waves crash through a line of structures, tearing them to shreds and beginning to flood the parking lot from 3 sides. I stand and observe.

"What do you think will happen if I let it have me?" I ask, I feel a little hopeless and wrung out. What's the point of anything if

Liam is dead?

"Likely you'll die."

I stare at the water. It's consuming the building closest to me.

"Here, step on that." The man shuffles a large thin piece of blue foam board at me. "Fat lot of good it'll do you."

He then escapes back the way we came. The water lifts the foam board, it starts to float away under a black truck. I step onto the corner, and it rises with the water. Water takes the path behind me, it's too late to run now. The board won't last me long, there's no way it can stand up to the raging water. Cool air blows the hair back from my face. The board is swept from under me and I remain in the air. I flap my arms like a bird and rise above the water, deciding I'm not quite ready to die. People beside the front of the Lowe's/Hospital/House are pointing up at me in awe. The water is receding, leaking away from the parking lot. I see a small group beside what looks like a...firetruck shaped like a four wheeler. I direct myself toward it, the police officer there is tall and fair skinned. He has bright blue eyes and I can see a little red under his hat. He holds his hand out to receive me as I alight on the top of the ladder extending from the top of the four wheeler. He helps me down. The top of my head barely reaches his shoulder. He looks strikingly like Liam but I know it isn't him, this man is only an echo. He knows exactly who I am though.

"You look just like him, you know."

He takes it as a compliment and smiles a little. "Thank you."
The police officer/Liam Echo turns away from me and speaks to the small group of survivors.

"Let's head inside where they are waiting to treat any injuries." He touches the brim of his hat when he glances at me, and then

his eyes rest on a legless woman in a wheel-chair with an IV drip. He says it's a miracle she survived. Given her health problems, the quality of her existence, I wonder if it might not be kinder if she had died. I'm not mean enough to say it though. He leads them inside, there's an emergency room bay just over the threshold.
Beside the door is a table. I walk to it. I notice there's an egg sitting in the middle of it. I pick it up and it slips from my hand, cracking against the table. It makes a noise like breaking, like it's boiled, but when I shake it I can hear the yolk. I test it between my hands and cracks spider out from the palms of my hands.
Now I'm curious. I throw it at the ground and the shell breaks away, but the yolk remains egg-shaped. Tough but still obviously a liquid. I begin to laugh, the revelation hitting me like a stone. I'm extremely delighted.
Of course, this is the message my subconscious wanted to send. Though the egg looked fragile, it could never actually have been broken.
I pick up the yolk, thinking to show the police officer. He seemed like he would enjoy a neat epiphany like this.

"Hey! Check this out!" He turns to face me and I throw the yolk. He isn't expecting it so he misses entirely and it breaks in

the most awkward spot. The crotch of his pants.

"Oh...I am so sorry! I just....wanted...to show you the egg!" I start laughing again, he looks a little amused and bewildered

and embarrassed. I leave, my last view of him is him trying to brush away the yolk. I decide it's time to wake up.

(Once Upon a Time, Supernatural and Cthulhu Mythos. Apparently.)
I am Snow White's daughter, but I'm not Emma. I have an older brother who looks like Charming, while I look like mother did when she was young. I also have two younger siblings, a two year old boy and a newborn. Our parents have gone missing and we don't know what has happened to them, in actuality they have disappeared to another world and gone to war. They've left us to care for the young ones, I'm worried I'll never see our parents again. Our own world is filled with demons, even the hospital is infested. Such that when I see my brother walking with a portly red-haired female nurse, I'm afraid that he has become possessed. In terror, I watch him from afar. If he has been taken, it's possible that no one in my family remains unchanged. I notice him doing normal things and am vastly relieved. The nurse turns her black eyes on me and I look away. It seems that even they would not dare hurt royal children just because the king and queen are away.

There's a lapse and I'm outside, it's dark. The trees framing the monastery walls are black and dead. I'm looking for my little brother, he has been missing for days. I'm at the edge of the clearing when I see the nurse from the house, wearing a shark's smile, kicking a box under a table. She disappears, I run to where she was standing and find my brother in a yellow shoebox under a long picnic table beneath the awning stretching out from the face of the building. I start to panic, he looks tiny and emaciated. I'm afraid he will starve if I don't get some food into him immediately. I cast around for some food but the place is dead, empty. I start to cry, grief and helplessness tight in my chest. It's hard to breath around it. I'm terrified that I'm being tested, and realize the truth of that fear when I see my options. An old oven is illuminated in the wall behind my brother, and off to my right by the arched red monastery door, are three orphan babies left in the cold. Usually the monks here would take them in. It's the dead of night and whoever left them didn't bother to ring the bell, leaving their lives to fate or to demons.
Upon seeing the oven I felt a surge of hope, I could bake something for my brother to eat. He wouldn't die! Then I saw the freezing orphans and knew I had to make a choice.
"No no no, I don't know what to do. Don't make me choose."
But it's a test, and I have to choose. What do I do? Is it selfish to choose one life, because it belongs to my brother? Will my mother be disappointed that I didn't save the three children?
Indecision tears at me. I pace between my brother and the three shriveled children. I start to sob, twisting my hands into fists in my long black hair. I don't want to choose, I don't want to choose. I fall to my knees beside my brother and...
The pain becomes too much for my subconscious and I feel myself retreat. I am myself and the daughter no longer. I'm asking someone if they're caught up on episodes, and it's terrible what happens to Snow's family, that I can't believe what they have to go through.

I follow Snow around and don't participate at all. Like I'm watching a movie. The day is overcast, we have gathered for war games to prepare for battle. This seemingly insincere call to arms is the only way we can meet under the eye of the enemy and avoid retaliation. There's a beautiful dark-haired cat-eyed woman who can't take the games seriously. She knows the true purpose of the call, but keeps joking around. At first she steps up to the man carrying the roster and gives him a salute, somewhere between a mocking gesture and seriousness. When he looks away she grins a little and hops into rank with five others. Snow sees her for what she is though, that despite her attempt to remain a jester, she is very capable and charismatic. Snow calls out that those she hands hats out to will play officers in the coming game. They've all mounted horses, and the black-haired woman is on a black horse with a white stripe down its nose. Snow drops a hat onto the woman's head, surprising the hell out of her. For a second she looks disconcerted, then she smiles and tugs on the reins, her horse neatly side-steps and dances up beside another person in line. She takes the hat off and drops it on someone's head. When the woman glances up she sees Snow's wry look, it also says "you won't escape that easily."
"Aura. Come HERE." Snow points firmly at the ground in front of her.
Aura, the woman, grins at the person next to her and prances up to the commander.
"I don't know why you're so reluctant to help."
"I can't be of use." The humor vanishes from her face and is replaced with sharp deprecation. "My heart just isn't what it used to be. I bet you didn't even recognize me..." She hands a male soldier a greeting card. On the inside is her picture, she looks subtly different. When my vision pulls back from the card, I see a triangular bandage on her chest, indicating that she has been injured. "Besides, do you really want a super model leading your troops?"
Snow looks annoyed but gets called away before she can say that it doesn't matter who you are here, it matters who you used to be back Home.

From where I stand, the sea is a grey choppy mass to my back. There's a rough rock outcropping jutting from long pale grass lain flat by the wind. Dean from Supernatural is holding up a mess of purple string.
"WHAT is this?"
I gesture for him to hand it over, and he does.
"It's our early warning system."
He looks extremely amused, something about how the words and their implications are of this world and alien to the one we are from.
"Early warning system?"
I roll my eyes at him. "Can you please take this seriously? It works, alright? They've proven it." I explain how the string is staked into the ground all around the world and that each attack from our Enemy is preceded by vibration. The direction of the vibrations will help us pinpoint the place the Enemy intends to attack, and will appear on our map. Showing us where to go.
He nods at me, knowing he needs to stop joking around. He turns to the others around us and holds up a map. "The...early warning system," he cracks a smile and I shake my head at him, a little annoyed. He clears his throat, "the system indicates that the next attack will happen in Ghana." But he doesn't say Ghana. He says Ana, leaving the G silent. I hear somebody snicker.
"Hey Dean, the G isn't silent..."
"Sure it is."
"Nope, pretty sure it's Ghana."
"Shut up..."
"Fine, okay, does it say WHERE in Ghana?"
I look at the map and as I expected, there's a rough wooden pin sticking into a mountain range. I think it's a large crescent shaped range, then realize it's actually a solitary mountain at the range's back. I tug on the mass of purple string, trying to straighten it out. I can feel it against my fingers when, hear the sound it makes between them.
"Here. In the hills."
"Let's get to it then!" Dean says.

Myself, Snow, Charming and Dean have gathered with what's left of our people in Ghana. We know that It plans to come here, and we're going to be in Its way when it does. We pretend we're having a meeting, the leaders from each race was invited to the panel, so that we could decide how to handle the Enemy, together. When It invaded ten years ago, It forbade large meetings like this. Snow tenses and runs past me. I catch her arm,
"Hey, what's happening?"
"It's here. Prepare yourselves everyone, it will see right through our excuses." She goes to face the black wall behind the table we had all occupied a few minutes before. We thought that we would have more time.
A woman in glasses with dirty blonde hair rings her hands.
"He's coming here?"
"Don't call it a 'he' Sara. Giving it gender will only humanize him." I frown, "It."
We hear it before we see it.
"A panel? And I wasn't invited? You're in violation of the One Law." The black wall behind the table becomes a fathomless void, and from the abyss emerges an androgynous child. It would almost be pretty if not for its dead eyes. It's dressed in a white and grey skin-tight spandex. Bare footed. Head shaved. The only indication that it is not human (aside from it's eyes), is the lesions from corruption and plague on its scalp. I'm afraid suddenly that he heard me call him an IT and will be violently displeased.
It seems the creature will be violently displeased anyway. It gives us a mad-man's smile and its true form appears behind the child. An giant scaly eye with yellow sclera, innumerable tentacles snake out from behind the eye, this monstrosity filling the room with its vile, suffocating presence. We tense---

AAAAND MY ALARM GOES OFF. >.< WHY?! I was going into an epic battle against an eldritch abomination!

The room is laid out like the paint desk at work, but it's all stone. Everything is grey, the room is closed and open at once. I'm standing at the mouth of a hallway, a ramp descending. When I turn my back on it, a man in the hall is abducted, dropping his coin purse. At the front of the 'paint desk' there's another man. He's kind of ugly, but I try not to hold that against him. He's holding out his hand in a gesture of terrified defiance. When I hear the man taken behind me, I turn to see the coin purse and try to gather the spilled coins (a smattering of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies), then back. I see a creature drop out of the sky and snatch him.
"NO!" I yell, and try to run for him, I drop the coins.
The man and his captor have disappeared in a moment of distraction. Now there's a woman standing there, the light makes her look blue and purple. As she draws closer, she looks familiar. It's my face, sort of. I throw myself at her, one hand clutched to my chest, the other outstretched. I hit the ground. She falls too, her hand stretched out just like mine, other to her chest. I'm confused. I notice how she's dressed, an ankle length pale lavender dress with a white apron cinched at neck and waist. Her hair is dark, one long thick braid. Her features are delicate, eyes green. She almost looks animated, idealized.
Saja? I think, frowning. Why is she a villain here? Is it a trick? Ever before, if Saja appears I am her, we have never been divided like this. Her confusion mirrors mine. I make a grab at her face, she grabs at mine. 'Saja', however, changes form. She becomes a dragon...thing. She's all round and soft, and a shimmering purple. I try to climb onto her back, she glances down at me, about to take flight. I assume she'll take me to the others. She crouches, ready to leap, I can see the square of dreary sky overhead.

This is kind of a long one. It's made up entirely of dream characters. The family bears no resemblance to my own, I'm not even female in the dream. I'm a little boy for most of it. I gotta say though, I love storyline dreams.

I know a little came before this, but I can't recount it clearly. I'm a little boy of about five, my Grandfather is a doctor and he's gone mad. He has somehow figured out a way to turn us into living ghosts, we are not dead, but we aren't corporeal anymore. Myself along with my seventeen year-old sister, my mother and my father, have been forced to follow him around as spirits. He keeps us tethered to himself. He takes us to his home. It's a long, spacious, one story house. The carpet in the living room sometimes looks faded orange, and sometimes faded gold. There's a dark wood table, and behind it a dark china cabinet with diamond beveled green glass faces. I know that grandmother is resting in one of the rooms on the right side of the house.
He's explaining to us our purpose, and he summons his wife into the room. One of my aunts is helping her. Grandmother has faded red hair, one of the family trademarks, my sister has red hair just like hers.

The doctor explains that the exposed power lines on the wall to our left are to a machine that will temporarily make us solid. He lowers a gas mask over his face and turns a knob. The air turns frigid. We are literally frozen solid. We can't move. Grandfather explains that Grandma has been sick, and that he plans to make her well using parts from our bodies. Well, one specific part. Grandmother is suddenly lacking her head, now looking like a mannequin. He removes my sister's head and starts to put it on Grandma's neck.

Obviously, father is not happy with this turn of events. While Grandfather is distracted he summons the will to move and as a spirit shoots over to the exposed power lines, intending to rip them from the wall and electrocute the doctor.
(right now Father looks a little like these guys http://www.se51.net/wp-content/uploa...st_hound-4.jpg)
The first handful of cables won't part from the wall and he's tugged back to the wall face. Father grabs another power line and tears it free. Before he can attack him, grandfather wills him out of the window and sends the currents of electricity through father.

Father hovers in the air. "I will not let you take her."
"Then it will be you instead..."
"So be it."
Grandfather intensifies the electricity (apparently by will alone), but it has a different effect than he intends. The electricity gives father power, he alternates a cartoony yellow electricity and more realistic flashes of blue, the longer I look at him the more changed he becomes. He looks younger by the second, a stooped older man no longer. His hair regains color, his eyes turn bright and sharp, his back straightens and shoulders broaden. I see what he looked like as a young man. He lowers his head and smiles.

The smug look fades from Grandfather's face. Father kills him, but I don't see how. My sister magically regains her head, and grandmother hers, and we return to normal.
Then, as though nothing strange has happened, mother and sister are talking about how we should spend our visit to Grandma's. I may only be a child but I think they're nuts. I go outside to play.

There's a subtle change in the dreamspace, the house we were in had almost the same feel as an apartment, or a city home. That it was snugged in next to other residences. This house is different, it's wide open, solitary. It's a pale shade of yellow, with a wrap around porch and flowers hanging from the beams. I run out into the backyard. It feels familiar. The grass is dark green, lush, a little overgrown and there are tiny colorful flowers growing in it. There's rotted out hollow tree laying near a faded cement path. To my left is a storm drain tunnel, across from me are woods.
(I haven't thought about this place since I was a kid, I only went there once with a babysitter. She pretended we were on an adventure, she was going to show me a special place. It was out in the woods, and had a secret air about it.)
Out of the corner of my eye I see an R.O.U.S nosing its way out of the fallen tree. It's about the size of a crocodile, scaly and diseased. I understand that things are about to get scary, I notice the creature but I'm stuck in the storyline of the character. HE hasn't really seen it yet, so I cannot do anything.

Then it gets worse. Across the concrete, a pack of deformed inbred rednecks burst from the trees. They're splattered with blood and carrying gore encrusted baseball bats. Storyline dictates that they don't see me. I crouch behind the fallen tree, I can feel the tree shaking with the movements of the creature struggling inside. The rednecks mount the steps, I hide next to the wall of the house. Looking outward they won't see me, they'd have to look down.
Because I've moved, the creature (finally freeing itself from the log) doesn't see me, and runs up the stairs to join the creep-pack. I know that they've been on a murdering spree, traveling between all the country houses and killing anyone they find. I can hear screams from inside the house.

I run away, straight for the fence bordering the property. I can see a line of people making their way toward me dressed in S.W.A.T armor and carrying guns. I go through another set of gates, it's only then that I realize it's not a gate. It's a cage. An arena wrapped in chicken-wire around wood veins.
One of the group asks "What do you think you're doing?"
another shouts to their leader, "Hey, we've got a stray!"
The leader takes off his helmet and says "What're you doin' here kid? Are you crazy?"
"My family..." I look over my shoulder and he does too, we see the murderers leaving the house.
"I see.." He hands me a gun. It's huge and heavy, I'm terrified. "You don't happen to know how to load that, do you?"
Mute now and close to tears, I shake my head.
He drops a black canvas bag at my feet, it's already open. He pulls out white shot-gun shells and commands me to hold out my hand. He gives me the bullets hurriedly. The fence begins to shake and rattle, the howling reaches a fever pitch. He shows me how to load the gun, after the affair with my grandfather and the random murderers I'm expecting a trick. I keep scanning his face for signs of dishonesty.
"I can't make any promises, kid, but stay close and I'll try to keep you alive. You might have to wait until their almost on top of you to shoot, they're quick bastards."
That does NOT reassure me. I'm afraid that all of this is a trick, that he's a cruel man who would give a child a gun and hope for life just to allow me to be cut down when the bullets do nothing.....


-Fifteen Years Later -

The story jumps. I'm a different person, an aunt of the boy who went missing. There are rumors about Hunters in the area who might have taken him on and raised him. I've gone to see if it's true. I see him from a distance. He's a young man now, tall and all lean muscle. He is returning from a hunt, glorying in his physical prowess and the admiring looks the others send his way.

I sneak into their meeting hall and their leader gives me a small nod. He's the one who contacted me about the boy, not so I could take him, just so I'd be assured that the boy was safe. I see him enter the room, he's wearing a loose grey shirt and his wispy almost orange hair is barely contained under a cloth cap. I can see my sister in him, his pale skin, blue eyes, the shape of his nose. He doesn't notice me.

I briefly switch to the man's point of view. We're having a meet, just like we do after every big hunt, we get together and discuss problems. I understand that someone may bring up my existence here. I am clearly of outside blood, all those around me are dusky-skinned and dark of hair. It means nothing to those jealous of me that I have hunted with the pack since I was a child. They were born into it, and adoptions were unheard of until I came along. The Leader looks at me, then sweeps his eyes over the crowd.
"We will have our meet, but first we race."
This was his way and I silently send him my gratitude and applaud his cleverness. I am the fastest, I always have been. Before each meeting we take the Death Run, the winner is beyond scrutiny. This is the way he has kept me safe, I always win, no one can question my presence in the pack.

I'm the woman again. The leader claps his hands and the pack takes off. My nephew is so quick, almost a blur. I know I have to keep up with him, if I lose him I'll never see him again. He is way ahead of them, I am quick too, I pull ahead of the pack.
The death run is an obstacle course, built spiraled like a snail shell, obviously made more difficult if you are moving quickly. I don't remember all of, the last part I see before I wake up is stepping stones jutting from the inside curve. I see my nephew fly down them and then nimbly leap to the opposite side of the hallway and disappear through an opening there.

Dream
Real-life influence
WTF

At first I am just an observer. I walk up a flight of yellow carpeted stairs, a young woman's father is saying that due to the policy of the company, for her boyfriend to travel overseas with them, he must first take her as his wife. It's impromptu, and at first the boyfriend is worried that she won't want to, so he keeps coming up with reasons why it won't be terrible.
"Or, you know, it can only be on paper. We don't have to act married at all."
She doesn't say anything, though she seems pleased by the prospect of marrying. (I picked celebrities to be my dream characters. Katharine McPhee was the bride to be, and Jensen Ackles was the husband. I'm assuming I only picked them because I just finished watching Smash and Supernatural.)
I wake up and roll over.
In the next part I'm with some other women about to get my hair dyed. There are two women in front of me who have red hair and orange highlights. I think that there is no shame in copying them, then I just decide to dye my hair black. I tell one of them about the time where the black 28-wash out dye wouldn't wash out. They criticize my box dye. I try to defend myself, but then just accept their judgement. I don't actually end up getting my hair dyed. From there I start trying to find something to wear to my wedding. I'm myself as far as I can tell. I have to pick from what's in this room, because time is short. I choose a black skirt I own in real life, and cast about for a suitable shirt to go with it. I ignore a pile of black shirts, pick up a weird shirt on a hanger, it's a dusty dark pink and looks kind of like a coat cut in half. I wonder why anyone would wear it. I find the one I'm looking for, a cream shirt with small green flowers on it. I put it on, but don't know where the skirt is.

Besides, I have to shave my legs. I walk into the next room. There's a shower in there, but it's also the kitchen. I notice a room separator that I can pull across and latch to the other side of the room to give me privacy. I pull it across but a woman unhitches it and tells me she has to examine my razors. I hand them to her. They are pink.
"What do you intend to do with these?" she asks, like I could kill someone with them.
"I'm going to shave my legs? Before the wedding?"
"Okay. Fine. But stay where I can see you."
I walk over to the shower. The water is already on. I really wish I could close the divider, now there are more people in the kitchen. I don't want to get naked with them watching me, so I get into the shower clothed. I take my shoes off and drop them outside the tub. My shirt gets soaked, I pull it off. I wonder what I'll wear now. I start to shave my legs and realize I don't have any shaving cream, I keep going anyway thinking I'll just have to be careful.
The woman interrupts me, but I don't remember why.

I get out of the shower. My mother- and sister-in-law (DCs, not people I know) run up to me with fabric swatches. At the time I knew what they were for, but now I have no idea. She has 4, I only really see the white one with small blue flowers on it. I choose that one. They seem ecstatic about my choice, saying they knew I'd pick the blue. They rush off.
I realize that the wedding is going to be in a few hours, and that none of my family is there. I really want to call my dad, to see if he can make it. My friend Cel, and also L. I wonder what L will think. Will she be happy for me? Or will she just remind me of my doubts?
...do I have doubts? I then ask myself who I'm marrying. Since I can't remember, but can recall in the dream having the other dream, I assume I'm marrying my boyfriend and not a DC. Once inside the sanctuary where I know my boyfriend will be, I walk to the length of pews where he's sitting. I start to ask him if he knows when the wedding will start, but he shushes me. A priest (in full papal regalia...oh my god I just realized he was dressed like the guy from Princess Bride XD haha...except with lines of red down the front of his robe.) makes his way to me. He says he's there to bless me before the union. He doesn't seem concerned with blessing my boyfriend. He holds out his hand to me and at first I'm confused. I don't know what he wants me to do. Awkwardly I lean down and kiss his ring. He looks down his arm at me and smiles with yellowed teeth. He says something that I miss entirely, but I know there's another part of it. I'm supposed to kiss him. A little disgusted, I press my lips to his for a good 10 seconds. I really don't like the look on his face when I pull away.
The priest pronounces me blessed and then leaves.
My boyfriend seems amused. I wonder if it was some sort of prank...
"Anyway. Do you know when it'll start?"
"A few hours I guess...why?"
"I want to call my dad."
"Why?"
"Don't you think he'd want to be here?"
"Yeah, I guess."

I decide to call my dad anyway, the drive will take a couple hours. Maybe I can hold the ceremony until he arrives. It doesn't feel like I have that much time.
My mind wanders, and I start to wonder what it will be like for us once we're married. I wonder if we will echo Liam and Saja or if I'll create the echo myself just so I can live it again.

I wake up and roll over.

When I fall asleep I dream about zombies. I am one and I'm traveling on a boat with some other zombies. The boat is sinking and one of my zombie friends is stuck. I use a giant scythe to slice through the thing holding him. We start walking together. A weird dog/bird creature is following us. It looks a little like a furry emu with a terrier's head.
"That was cool." It says. That seems so absurd that I burst out laughing. The creature shoots me an accusing look. "What are you laughing at."
"I'm sorry." I giggle. "That wasn't funny." Then I laugh more because I realize I'm a zombie giggling at a talking bird creature.

This dream isn't recent, but I wanted to post this first because it's been on my mind lately. In the dream I cheat on my boyfriend with a stranger, and kill myself. I've never considered cheating, or killing myself. However, the dream came at a time when I was considering a break up. I look at the state of the water throughout the dream. The raging, relentless ocean. The running water. The tranquil pool.

I am traveling in a group of five. We set off across the world, seeking a way to keep it from ending. This world is winding down and the end is eminent. Our efforts are futile. Yet while I travel with them I find I can hope. We come to the ocean, it is vast and ceaselessly tumultuous. The waves tower and crash, and we walk between them, on rough stone platforms. I'm trailing behind the others, and I realize they wouldn't care one way or another if I left them. I do not speak a word, I just decide to leave. I turn around and make my way home.

I am approaching my house. The forest meets my back door, the smooth golden path transitioning prettily into a single stone step. The door stands open. I hesitate knowing that as soon as I go inside, I may not be able to leave. I considering trying to find those I have left to their quest and then decide that it is hopeless. How would I even know where to look?
Inside the house it is cool and dark. I feel a sharp stab of sadness, thinking that I will find the house empty and that my boyfriend has long since left. I notice that the floors are a white/grey tile, there's an L-shaped sectional in the middle of the room with blankets piled on it. There are dark brown curtains covering the far wall, to my right is a wall of glass blocks. I know the bathroom is on the other side. I keep thinking that I can hear water running. I walk to the end of the glass block wall and step into the long hall preceding the bathroom. There's a sink there full of water, and a maid who has been dusting the drapes walks up beside me. I think about how easy it would be to kill myself now before my boyfriend has discovered the depth of my betrayal, and with that thought I remember having sex with a stranger in an alleyway when we first realized the world would end. I think about slitting my wrists in warm water, and about asking the maid to draw it for me.
"I know what you are thinking. It is not as bad as that, is it?" she gestures behind me and I notice movement on the couch. There's a person under the blankets, he rolls over. It's my boyfriend. Tentatively I allow myself to believe that I do not have to tell him what I've done. I go to kneel in front of the couch. He refuses to look at me.
"Hey," I begin, "it isn't too late! I came home." my throat feels thick, like I'm about to cry. I worry that he knows what I have done to him, and doesn't want me anymore. "We can go anywhere, just you and me. We can watch and wait for the world to end, together."
He turns his back to me. I plead with him, but he has ceased to exist. There is now only a pile of blankets on the couch.

What now?
The maid has drawn back the drapes. The entire wall behind the drapes is glass, one panel slides back. I know what I will do, what is the point of drawing things out? My world has already ended anyway. My feet are bare and the floor is cool beneath them. I'm wearing a white sun-dress with large red flowers on it. I step to the edge of the tile. My house stands so high off the earth that even the titan trees on the ground below seem tiny.
"Yes." I think, and take a shaking breath. This is where I will find release from my grief. I stare out over the valley. Then I close my eyes, and I dive neatly out into the air.
I can actually feel the wind on my face, the longer I fall the more free I feel. The air streams past me. Intuitively I know that I will land in water, or that I must. I became aware then, that I am dreaming. My mind resisted the dream, telling me three separate times that I could choose to wake up, that hitting the ground would be the death of me.
"No." I thought, "I want to see how this ends."
So I fell, and fell, and fell. I could see the tree tops and directed myself toward it because I knew there would be water at its center. By then I am without all the pain that was with me when I jumped.

When my body hits the canopy my mind separates from it. I am crouching beside a tranquil pool when I see my body tumble like a rag doll through the trees and plunge into the water. I stand up and walk out to the body. I know it is me, but she no longer looks like me. I take her wrists in my hands and pull her from the water, dragging her beneath a tree and arrange her among the roots.

I leave her there and go to find the others in their quest to save the world.