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My subconscious rarely tells me happy love stories. It was interesting though, and there were also moments where we heard each others thoughts.

My character was not defined, I wasn't precisely myself, but I wasn't a character from the show. My love interest was actor Matt Ryan wearing the guise of John Constantine from the TV series. He wore his trademark white button-up, loosened tie and black slacks. I feel like there was more before this point and I just don't remember. Anyway. Constantine is lying supine on a flat elevated surface, in a barren living room with one large window and dull beige carpet. There are two other people in the house, a man and a woman. We are holed up here while we wait for some threat to descend, they hate John and me by association. The man comes into the room and hovers over John who is clearly unconscious.
At first he only mutters insults under his breath but soon this abuse escalates to pinches and prods. I rush to his aid, yelling at the man to stop, hastily dropping to my knees beside Constantine's head as he stirs restlessly. He raises his head and shoulders wrongly convincing me that he's conscious. I cradle his head to my folded knees with one hand and grab the man's wrist with the other to stop him, but he proves too strong and wrests himself from my grip. He lands several blows to John's rib cage, growling at him.
John's eyes snap open, fogged with confusion and enraged by the intrusion. In a moment of fast building tension, the man's aggression begins to peak, incensed by Constantine's own irritation. I know that if he lashes out he'll just regret it. I try turning his attention to me by speaking his name. He doesn't notice and just smacks weakly at his assailant telling him to bugger off. Jesus, he has the accent and everything. It's confusing, John recoils under a rain of shallow strikes, but once John is lucid, it's his acidic remarks that turn the man on his heels.
"Hey, I'm sorry okay?" The apology turns his focus to me. "I tried to stop him, but he was too strong." I need him to know I wasn't just standing by while someone hurt him. My hair falls in a dark curtain past my shoulder as I lean over him, my palm to his cheek, fingers along his jaw. His expression is unusually...soft, unguarded, like he's not sure he's awake. It startles me because I'm not used to seeing him without his sardonic armor. I realize he has said something to me and I was too busy staring at him to hear it. "What?"
Why are you looking at me like that? he thinks, saying "Is everything alright?"
I notice also that one of his eyes is half green and half brown, split vertically. It's extraordinary. "Yes." I say, thinking I've never noticed your eye before...I brush my thumb across his cheekbone, he closes his eyes all the tension easing from his face. I know he would like me to believe that this attraction is one sided so I withdraw my hand and eventually he sits up and I leave him.

The second part has a little WoW mixed in. There's a complex building, a dark warren of rooms and narrow halls. A young woman in our group was turned by a supposed ally and brought here by a cultist, to cast a spell that would serve the Rising Darkness. I slip into the hallway from the courtyard. The door at the other end stands open and I see one black-robed cultist raising her arms and chanting. In the first room to my left is an Ogre boss that I know I'll have to kill before going into the final room. I turn to fight. It shakes its weapon overhead, enraged at the sight of me. I seriously miscalculated, it wasn't alone and I died horribly, so I had to run back to my corpse like in the game. By the time I returned it was all over.
The house suddenly feels busy, Constantine comes into the Ogre room through a broken window, followed by Chaz and several others. The daylight shines white behind him, outlining his frame in a glowing aura. His face is what strikes me though, his features are grimly worried and exhausted, with a thin sheen of sweat. His dark eyes glitter in the half light, and I hear his thought clearly. You're better off without me, love.
But I'm not. I think.
This has never happened to me before, it is not a sensation I'm familiar with even when awake so this was also particularly striking. An ache settled into my chest and arms with the absence of him. Never have I been so consumed with the need to embrace a person and I couldn't decide what was worse: the haunted way he was looking at me, or the negative space between us.
I close the span between us and and whisper a word past the sudden knot in my throat, unable to articulate my feelings. It was unthinkable to leave him standing there alone, to leave this aching unattended. When did this longing become such a deep, unspoken part of our interactions? When did it become this?
I knew then that he would have left without telling me and had instead came here to my rescue. I had, after all, charged off on my own. Our arms went fluidly around each other, two halves suddenly made whole. The malaise vanished. I could feel where his wrists crossed between my shoulder blades, unyielding as stone, he was solid. Real. I was short, like my waking self, so the top of my head only reached his shoulder. His shirt felt coarse against my cheek and ear where they pressed hard against his chest, I could feel the fine tremor that shook throughout his entirety. Because this hurt too, in a different way. I feel one of his hands move up and the pull of my hair on my scalp as his hand clenched into a fist in it before settling on the back of my neck. No, I wasn't better off at all.

There's a lapse and I'm most definitely myself, in my kitchen, talking to my dad on the phone. This was a couple days after my first student showcase where I've been learning guitar, and I didn't invite my dad because he can be overly critical. He has heard about the showcase and called to ask why he didn't know about it until after. He has somehow seen a recording of it and starts in on my performance. I get really angry and start yelling at him, saying "THIS IS WHY YOU WEREN'T INVITED." I drop the phone, and people in the other room can hear my argument. Constantine thinks I've hung up and mentions loudly to someone nearby that he can't believe someone would treat their daughter this way and calls my dad an asshole. Because I'm actually still on the phone, I start talking loudly hoping my dad didn't hear any of that....and then I woke up.

Apparently I like anti-heroes. *eye-roll*

Post-edit 12/22/2014: Okay, so on the 12th I watched the most recent episode of Constantine. I borrowed a few elements, but I hadn't watched it closely because I was getting ready for work and I only just now really sat down to watch it.

Spoiler for Vague Constantine Spoilers (Because I'm too lazy to go into exact detail):

So the interesting bit here isn't what I borrowed from what I watched before the dream, it's in what I didn't know I was borrowing until just now.
Very loosely: A character is kidnapped, it sounds like it's by a cult.
They introduce the Big Bad for the season, a group of warlocks everyone thought has been extinct for eons.
A woman they thought was their friend betrayed John.
How I touched John's face in the dream mirror's John's action toward a woman near the end of the episode.
I saw Chaz climbing in through the broken window holding the same knife as at the end of the episode.

Certain lyrics from The Honey Trees songs, Golden Crown and Siren.

The setting was damned confusing. It constantly shifted from one type to another. I saw some familiar DCs, but they also melded with other DCs to create new personalities. Anyway. Sometimes this place looked like a house, sometimes it was a beach, sometimes it was a warehouse or school hallway.
I begin at the middle of a scene. I'm watching Wolf on the beach, he looks like a pirate captain. He knows he has very little time to complete his task, there's a boat close to shore with ghosts on it. He leaps from the beach to the boat, to disperse the ghosts with a kind of purple fire wrapped around his body, but he isn't quick enough and they escape. By escape, I mean disappear, because his window to 'disperse' them has closed. The deck's brittle surface collapses under his weight and I am suddenly him. I'm plunged underwater, fighting my way back to the shore. The water is thick, filled with sand. There's a man, Rook, trying to guide me back to the surface. I can hear him telling me I have to swim 'up' but I keep going at an angle, before I feel his hands under my arms, pulling me out.
I separate from Wolf as Rook rolls him onto his back. The fire courses over his skin before flickering out. There's a thin wooden frame around his chest and abdomen.
"What's wrong with him?" I asked, crawling to his side.
"He's fighting it. I'm trying to help, but it's really up to him." Rook says. He has a hand on Wolf's chest, who looks distinctly unwell.
I rest my hand on Wolf's side but he tenses and his skin breaks out in gooseflesh.
"No, not you. It's better if you don't." Rook says, as I withdraw my hand. I already knew I couldn't help.

There's a lapse. The beach has become a sort of dining hall with a concrete floor. It feels like an old house. The walls are white and worn thin, there's a double french door leading out. It all becomes confusing here. Toward the back of the hall there are what looks like an aisle from work at times, and at others it looks like lockers in a school. This is all jumbled now.

I see a young woman with incredibly long, wavy, dirty blond hair, she's kneeling on the floor with her hands lifted in supplication. She's wearing a jean dress with a pink sweater underneath.

I see another young woman, a version of the girl with long dirty blond hair. I mean that this is her current incarnation, where the other girl was her past life. She rises from the floor a different person, and goes to a three tiered rack at the end of the 'aisle' on the far side of the dining hall. She arranges identical 1 foot lengths of copper wire on the shelves, preparing them for the ritual.

The room is dark. Rook stands in front of the woman. I know my purpose is to keep him distracted while she weaves the copper into his hair and prepares him for the Dance he will take with her...they are meant for each other. He looks like Cisco from The Flash. He is wearing a dangerous expression. I draw his attention to me, inserting my arm between them and gripping his shoulder. I pull him around so his back is to her. I just want to keep her safe, and she knows this, but his focus is turned to me and we dance. It's a tense, hard-handed dance. His grip on my hip and hand hurt, and I know that mine on his shoulder isn't pleasant. I see the girl over his shoulder, still twisting copper into his dark hair and the flashes of jealousy in her eyes. I feel like I've done her a disservice by interrupting, but I can't stop now.

There's a lapse. I wake on the floor. It is daylight. Rook is gone and so is the girl. I know her name now, it's Kate. I wander down the hallway now filled with lockers, calling her name. There's a threatening presence behind me. I find her inside one of the lockers, she's been turned into a vampire. She won't talk to me, and won't accept my apology.

There's a hierarchy within the building. Those that remember more of their past lives are part of the inner circle and have more power. The pinnacle of the hierarchy is a woman who claims to remember all her past lives. She has at her disposal three brothers, I witness a conversation where she berates them. She tells them that they mean nothing, and never have. Their mother in a past live gave this woman her three sons to pay off a debt, consigning them to her meant that they would never remember who they were before. It seems cruel.

I find Kate by the door that goes out. She is hanging a sign by the door, it looks old. It has an Italian last name on it...Fantinelli or Ferrantelli, the faded white paint is cracked and mossy. The border is intricately carved vines, the middle is wooden.
"This is beautiful." I say, touching the face of the sign.
"Yes, I found it for him...but he went Out last night and I'm afraid he won't come back." she pauses, "It was from one of his other lives. I thought it would help him remember."
"Don't worry. He'll come back..."

Fragment 12/07/2014
Disturbing fragments arranged like a tv show trailer. I see flashes of Will Graham from Hannibal, all the other characters are trying to figure out what happened to Will and where he went. He apparently went mad and began his own killing spree, and he was even more terrifying than Hannibal. The end of the trailer said: Now they'll see first hand what's become of Will.

Fragment 12/08/2014
My best friend who is a bisexual woman is in bed with me, she tells me it was a lie that she wasn't even a little attracted to me. It startles me, because I'm straight and don't know what to do with that information. She then turned into a man.
o.O

I wasn't feeling well so I took a nap. Usually when I have false awakenings, I become lucid and get annoyed by them. This time they were almost seamless but no less frustrating and very confusing. Of course they were also...leaning towards horrific, but at least it was interesting horror. Most of it anyway. The waking bits will be in this color.

I shift restlessly in bed, my head hurts and I'm just warm enough to feel cozy. I sit up, startled by a noise, and toss the blankets aside. My dog has decided to poop on the bed. It keeps getting lost in the blankets at the foot of the bed before falling to the floor.
From where I'm laying I can see the computer screen clearly. Frustratingly my queue into WoW still reads 5055 in queue with a wait time of 641 minutes.
The screen blurs and I refocus my eyes, the message now says I've been disconnected. I hear my boyfriend talking to me from the other room and I express my dismay at being disconnected and punted to the tail end of a ridiculous queue.
I focus again and it becomes the queue screen once more.
I get out of bed, and my room is suddenly without furniture and the bed stripped bare. When I turn to look at it from the door, the mattress is laying at an angle having been tossed off the boxspring. I look down at my left hand and realize there is blue glitter all over three of my fingers. I wonder where the hell it came from and when I look around the room in confusion, I see that there is blue glitter everywhere. I stomp out of the room and into the kitchen. My boyfriend is standing in the laundry room. He asks what the hell is on my hand, and I ask him why there's glitter covering my room. He insists there isn't any glitter in my room. I pivot on my heel...shifting in bed, uncomfortable. My head pounding... I crawl out of bed at the behest of my boyfriend who is calling me into the other room. I pass by the mirror on my wall and it's like I'm looking at my sleeping body, my eyes flutter, I can barely keep them open. I make my way, slowly, into the other room. On my knees. I stand behind his computer chair. He keeps talking about how much fun he's having playing the expansion, I'm irritated because I can't even log in. He eventually asks what's wrong with me, I say that I think I'm still asleep. The world tilts and I'm laying in bed. I get up and go into the kitchen, thinking I'll make a cup of coffee. All the lights are off. Nothing feels right. Then the section of counter behind the coffee machine splits, peeling away from the wall. A sudden gout of water sprays from misplaced plumbing and I scowl, realizing I'm still dreaming. Dream logic interferes and I throw my coffee cup onto the ground, shattering it. My boyfriend enters the kitchen, asking what's going on then immediately ignores me in favor of making a milkshake...he opens the freezer, and sets the blender inside. He thinks better of that for a moment, and sets it inside the refrigerator part, and sets a command for the refrigerator to make a lot of ice for the shake. Then it's back in the freezer, full of ice cream and ice, and blending.
"You know what would taste awesome in there?" I ask, reaching into the freezer to grab a container of ice cream I bought in WL a week ago. The lid falls of and apparently the contents have melted because it all just spills out while I'm trying to retrieve it for him. I step back, confused. I'm still dreaming. I know it. The evidence is clear now, my dog doesn't look like my dog, the laundry room is now a dining room with a long table piled high with junk and small animals, one of which is a white chihuahua with red hearts dyed on its coat.
....I'm suddenly laying in bed after a moment of vertigo. I'm sleepily clutching the blender bowl in one hand and fishing around inside for ice chips, which I eat. I'm half asleep, I feel so lazy and gross. I drift further into sleep.
....I'm laying on the edge of the bed. M is a girl from work. In WL I'm incredibly straight, as far as I know she is too, but that for some reason doesn't always transfer to my dreams. Especially this fuckin' weird thing that just happened in my subconscious. Anyway. She is suddenly there and naked, telling me to scooch over so she can lay beside me. I'm at least still wearing my clothes. I turn on my side and she spoons behind me. She runs one hand down the front of my body, complimenting my figure. Then she slides her other arm under my body, and I don't even know what the hell she did here. It was like she strung a cloth rope around my upper body, between my shoulderblades...like a cinch? And then she quite suddenly wrenched it tight with an utterance of extremely mean words, causing me bend backward like a bow with sudden agony. I cry out and writhe, begging her to stop, wondering if I'm saying any of this out loud and if my boyfriend is going to come into the room to find me acting all crazy.
There's a fragment about watching a horrifying cartoon. It is vaguely reminiscent of Spongebob, but there's a talking snail and another creature I can't remember. They are underwater, staring out into a seaweed field. Something terrible is happening, but they don't fully comprehend the ramifications until the snail says, "I'm bleeding from my pores!" and immediately I see red welling up through his skin and his cartoony expression of horror.
I am once more, in bed. My boyfriend comments on the random dog feces at the bed's foot. I may also have stepped in it.
I am laying on some sort of chair dressed only in my undergarments, there's some sort of tray or table over my abdomen, like a dentist's chair. My boyfriend is hovering over me. I can't recall why. I look down at my right leg and see a livid vein from my knee to almost my pelvis. I comment aloud that it doesn't look normal. My skin starts to...ripple and bubble and then I am shaking, then convulsing. I gasp that something is wrong. For a moment I think my boyfriend is going to call an ambulance for help...instead he just forces me to the hard surface of the chair, restraining me while I thrash.

This part actually has a story. I see a young woman with dark hair in a hallway, she's carrying two bowls of food. One for herself, and one for her roommate. Before they bunked together, they hadn't known each other, but they were both from the same country and had similar interests, and were both foreigners here. She knocks on the door, seeing a weight set in the corner. Her roommate is supposed to be a workout junkie, but this set is pristine, appearing completely unused. It feels like this is supposed to mean something, but I can't figure out what. Roomie opens the door and I find her, predictably, with a local boy. This feels like an introduction to a horror movie, the turning point where the viewer can tell that the story will twist into something terrible. For a moment I see the room over her shoulder, then I am her again.

Everything is dark, I have lost my chance to change my path. I have made too many mistakes and I have somehow resurrected without my memories. I have one last option. A last resort. I am newly made into the dark haired girl, having died and been sent here to another layer of existence. Without my memories, there's no point. In one violent, desperate motion, I kill myself. I see her from the outside, her/my spirit standing over the corpse, taking the head between her/my hands. The scalp opens revealing the brain. She lowers her mouth to a metallic, rectangular slot. I am horrified for her, but it is the only way and there is so little time. She speaks the name of her previous incarnation and fixes the ghost of that person into her mind. "Mina." She says, then draws a breath, closing her mouth over the slot...sucking.

There's a lapse. I am a new incarnation and I am Elsewhere, in a room full of tall patina-covered copper statues. It is a temple. There's a man speaking, the statues come to life and all head in opposite directions, taking different exits. I know I am supposed to choose one who will lead me through this...nameless Elsewhere. One of them is a particularly roguish man. I follow him outside, rushing to catch up. He flashes a self-assured smirk as he rounds the corner. I call for him to wait up.
"How could I possibly have predicted that you would choose me. Again." He says.
"No one knows the Elsewhere like you do." Flattery will get me into his good graces, I know. He does too.
"That is so very true. Come along."
The outside of the temple is bright and airy, the pathway is zigzaggy without any sort of walls or railings, and we are very high up so it would be very easy to fall off. A confused spirit confronts us, demanding for us to answer a question. I don't recall what she says to me, only that she is unsettling and she is only really intent on waylaying me, my guide is not so affected by spirits and has no concern for my well-being. I know how I'm supposed to deal with her, and I can't let her touch me or I'll be sent back to the beginning of the maze, and all the guides will be gone.

In the beginning we were in a house that seemed familiar but didn't happen to be a place I had ever visited. On the wall behind me, stretched a large picture window, almost taking up an entire wall, except for the door to its left. Someone is telling a story, and quickly the telling becomes reality. The house became ill-lit and cold. A dark brown curtain still covers the window but the window itself is broken. I took a peek outside, and see that the landscape is devoid of life, all dark grey dotted with the crumbling black husks of plants and debris. Though it is midday, the sky remains heavy and overcast, with the horizion a barely distinguishable line in the distance. I drop the curtain, reminding myself that it this is how it was before, just after the storm. Now the landscape is alive and green and the clouds blown away. I settle onto the floor next to two other women, one of them the storyteller, the other a dream relative. The three of us are wearing drab colors, all browns and grays, all of us in long skirts and sweaters and thick scarves. Of course. It's cold now. I lean back on a mound of dirt underneath the broken window, then realize there is dirt on my sweater sleeves, sit up, and brush away the rust-brown particles.

She tells us a story about a girl that I knew when I was young named Des. She was my next-door neighbor all the way through middle school. Here it becomes a little...convoluted. It's very difficult to separate the details because, as you know, events can seem to happen before, after, and also at the same time as other things.
As the storyteller speaks, I find myself once more transported to the time she speaks about, so now I am at a wide island across from the unbroken picture window. The door is cracked open.
"Des, now moved to madness by her time in the storm, darts past the open doorway, and ducks in for just a second, gasping a curse. She sounds breathless with terror. Her eyes are wide and they sweep the room, "Fuck." she says again.
I turn to find her fleeing from the doorway, I call out after her. I hope that I can bring her back to herself, that I can change the story, which dictates that though she ducked in and cursed, no one was quick enough to catch her and that some time later she was found dead at the top of a hill. I think that I have missed my opportunity...but then she comes back. I almost wish she hadn't. Her unseeing eyes dart restlessly around the room. Des does not respond to anything I say.
I get a sense of how she came to be this way. The storm bore down on the world, an endless and violent torrent, but it did this slowly. It descended from the atmosphere in great sweeping movements, taking its time to reach us, its presence moving people to madness and previously unwanted notions. "And in the end, Des fled to the hilltop to meet the storm, hand in hand with her older brother. They kissed each other goodbye and consigned themselves to the storm. I see it then, a great sphere of dark grey swirling clouds, shooting lightning at random, descending onto the hill. That was how she died, not how she became insane. I have a moment of clarity, and try to put together the prophecy into poetic verse but I can't seem to make it worth. "The end will come when these truths subside, when brother and sister together lay..." And then "The parent will be taught by the child."
I see her in the week before the sphere ravaged the landscape. She stands by the kitchen island, a steak knife in front of her. Afraid that maybe she means to take her own life, I wait until she is distracted by the front door opening to take it from the counter. Des screams in a terrifying way, eyes stretched so wide that they are mostly whites, pupils shrunk to pinpoints, her hands out in front of her in disbelief.
"I'm sorry." I say, startled by her reaction. "I'll give it back. Just tell me what you need it for."
"KNIFE." Des responds in a low, fervent voice.
"Yes, why do you need it?"
"KNIIIIFE."
Well, that didn't work. I hand the utensil back to her, she holds it in both hands and sits back on her heels, staring at the thing intensely. We don't really have time to deal with her. Now there is a moment where she is both alive, and she has already died. i think that I don't have time to deal with her craziness, and become aware of all the people in the room. They are, at first, saddened by her state of mind, and then that she has died.
There will be a procession soon. I feel out of place here. I spot a pretty woman in a wedding dress, she has pale skin, black-brown eyes and curly black hair. She has fallen down and I go to help her stand, but by the time I get there, someone is already picking her up and heading for the door, she throws her head back and laughs. I then notice how many brides there are in here, and that we are all preparing for a mass wedding procession down the main street of town. The numerous bridal parties and their guests will walk together and then the brides and grooms will be joined under a clear patch of sky. There is suddenly a weight in my chest, a vast well of sadness and bitterness and unwillingness. I am standing by the door, waiting for people to clear away from it so I can step outside. There is a man in a black pea coat, wearing thick grey mitts.
"Hey, you okay?" He asks me. We don't know each other, I appreciate his concern though...
"It's...I just noticed how many brides there are." I scan the room and find five other women. My own situation is so complicated. He presses a mitted hand to the center of my chest, just below my collar bone but above my breasts. Like with most Liam-echo encounters, I can feel the fabric of the glove, the slightly scratchy wool and the cool bite of the snow dampness on my skin. With this casual comfort he has quelled the storm in my chest, replaced with a pulsating feeling of well-being and lightness. It's beautiful. I sigh with blessed relief and raise my eyes to his face. He gives me a kind smile...there's something familiar about him. Because of his coloring I immediately want to compare him to Liam, though this man's eyes are ice green instead of blue and though he also has red hair and fair skin, his face is not nearly as angular as Liam's.
"I would be happy to walk with you." He says, assuming that I am part of the bridal party (he isn't wrong) but have no one to walk with in the procession. I can't tell him that isn't why I'm sad. It's that I'm getting married tonight, but I don't want to be, and seeing all these women so happy to be on their way to joining with their fiances is like a spike in my chest. I can feel the weight coming back...but his hand is still on my chest and it disperses the depression like mist in sunlight. I rest my hand on his chest and he smiles, turning his eyes back to the room. I worry that this has gone on too long and will become awkward, but I'm loathe to give up this new peace. So our hands remain. I notice that we are preparing for a picture. I move my hand, gripping the side of his coat and move to, maybe, rest my head against his thick coat-arm. Instead I fall through the gap between his coat and the goddamn door which is still cracked open. I nearly go head over heels, one leg kicking high as I grab his coat and the door frame, I notice that I'm wearing a long dark purple dress. I lift myself to my feet. They snap another picture.
I worry that my fiance (my WL boyfriend) will hear that I told someone I had no one to walk with. I go over what I just said in my head, trying to figure out how many people heard me, and what it could do to our impending...wedding. I decide what will be, will be.

Oh, I forgot something but I can't remember where it fits in. One point, after Des had gone mad, but before she died, we were all standing in the house and one of her brothers (in real life she only had one) who was a martial artist was posing in the middle of the room. I was impressed by his manliness....hahaha
I also want to add that today at work, when I started to feel overwhelmed, I recalled that release of pressure and my mood would temporarily stabilize. It's rare that my subconscious gives me gifts like this.

A fragment about the walls in the house being on fire, you could only see it from certain angles. Like a lick of flame on a burnt out log.

In the dream I worked in an office building, I saw people from my WL work there like Jessi, except her hair was brown instead of blond. It wasn't just an office, it was also the police department. The police and the newspaper were one entity, with different branches. I was a reporter, of sorts. The police are having a meeting in the middle of the room, huddled between two parallel rows of desks that run the length of the building. One wall consists of floor to ceiling windows. I hear them say that they are still looking for any leads on the murder. I know I need to tell them what I saw, but I keep this secret to myself, for now I am afraid. I not only witnessed the murder, but the murderer spotted me afterward. I recall crouching behind a beam on an abandoned arched bridge, and how he paused, standing up straight and meeting my eyes.

The meeting breaks up, and when the flow of people clears, I see a man sitting among the other reporters across from me. He is wearing a denim shirt, his head his shaved. He turns and his eyes, which are sharp and ice blue, find mine. I freeze. It's the murderer. He's infiltrated the police department as a reporter. He gives me a slow, crooked smile. I avert my gaze but I can still see him in my peripheral vision, and it is then that I notice that his eyes are shaped like Liam's and I can even see a short fall of amber hair. When I see him again straight on his appearance has changed, making me wonder if I really did see the killer here in the office. Now the shape of his face is different, and his eyes are brown. His head is still shaved, and he wears the same clothing, but he doesn't seem the same.

He approaches me and we sit down across from each other in a black bench restaurant booth with a black table. Jessi sits beside me. The man digs into his food ravenously, though his appearance is now unsettling. He looks almost like a drawing, for he has none of his back teeth and when he dips his head to take a bite and his eyes roll up to look at me, they are dark red-brown. I shiver. Everyone thinks he's hitting on me, and no one thinks he's a serial killer. He's being perfectly polite, though I can't figure out why, and when he gets up to leave...Jessi whispers, "He really seems to like you."
"I don't know. He makes me nervous."
She laughs a little, knowingly.
"Not the good kind of nervous. BAD nervous." You know, like he's going to murder me in my sleep. There is a distinct and disturbing duality in how I view the man. Because I know that the killer had ice blue eyes and a differently shaped face, part of me is attracted to this man who is obviously trying to flatter me. Then there is the part that insists he's dangerous, that he's playing a part and when the facade falls away we'll all be sorry that we were taken in by the mask.
I find myself walking down a wide set of stairs, Jessi is to my left, and the man is to my right. They are one step behind me. Jessi reaches over to massage my left shoulder, telling me I look tense. The man echoes her action and in it I see something of Liam, my view is from a backward angle, so I see his hand on my shoulder, it is large and fair-skinned. He presses his thumb into my shoulderblade and relieves an amazing amount of tension from my muscles.
Then he is no longer an echo of Liam, but the dangerous man who might be a killer. He has surreptitiously touched me, delicately, almost like he knows he shouldn't but can't help himself. I know he shouldn't either, so I send him a sidelong look and he withdraws his hand.

Aaaand that's all. I don't feel like proofreading this. Sorry for any mistakes.

What's worse: complex nightmare plots, or fragments for weeks? I swear, lately all I've had are fragments. And they are so mundane and boring. For instance, I had one where I was in my kitchen making a cup of coffee. I realized after it already began pouring that I had not put coffee in the filter, so my cup was full of water, and like a moron I still put creamer in it. Then I was annoyed that I had wasted the creamer on a cup of water. Then I threw it out.

Something about a bathroom?

Something with an unlikely action...? I don't really remember what it was about. I took care of a situation using violence, it felt comfortable for two seconds, then I thought "This is odd, I've never punched anything in my life..."

...something about having broken up with my boyfriend and then asking him for sex advice. Good plan, subconscious. Let's do that.

I suppose I'll always find something to complain about.

Lucid
Non-lucid
The dream began in my bedroom. The moment I opened my eyes and looked around I knew I was dreaming. As usual I rushed to the window and climbed out (somehow this always seems the logical course of action o.O no doors for me). The landscape beyond my house was very different, so beautiful. The grass was lush and green, there were patches of tiny purple flowers everywhere and those patches are abundant with life, even the insects are a similar shade of delicate purple. I walk around the side of the house, there's a sharp wedge of land jutting upward like a ramp alongside the highest level of terrain. It's wonderfully green. There's a gap on either side of the ramp, so I have to climb carefully. I can hear someone moving around above. I'm curious and start to climb. It's too steep to walk upright, and I have to use my hands. There's a thick lacework of roots attaching the high level of terrain with the wedge of land I am on. I use the roots to steady my climb, and when I get to the top I think I see a gap large enough for me to pass through. Large trees line a lawn that someone is mowing. I pass to the other side of the gap, a trick of light making it seem like it's on the point of the wedge. When I realize my mistake and go to the other side, I realize there is no gap. I take the roots in my hands and try to part them, but they refuse and I only succeed in breaking them from the earth. I've put all my weight on the roots, when they come free I start to fall into the narrow gap between the cliff and the wedge. It is a very long drop. I tilt my head back and remind myself not to be afraid because fear would be admitting that some part of this is real, and if I believe it is real then the impact could hurt me. I close my eyes, feeling the air around me as I plummet to the ground, holding onto the roots, wondering when they will become taut. My feet hit the ground and I allow myself to crumple into a roll...

My mind sinks to another layer of sleep. I get out of bed and try to turn on the lights, the switch feels like rubber and keeps collapsing under my fingers, the lights won't come on. Disconcerted I lay back down. Someone else goes to try the lights and I explain that the switch is broken. I hear something moving on the other side of my closed door and I have a slight shift of perception. My boyfriend retreats a step from the door and I get out of bed just as the door slowly swings open. I make the sun rise so daylight floods the room. The shadow in my door remains a shadow, all hard edges, the suggestion of claws and teeth and horns. It is tall, taking up the entire doorway, and is carrying a hatchet. It kills him before I can react. I cry out and rush forward, disarming the creature with a quick swipe of my arm and killing it with its own weapon.

I'm a little unclear what happened next. I walked down the hallway and killed another shadow goblin. I end up in one of the houses I grew up in. I make the sun rise again so that the eerie dusk light is gone.

I wake up and roll over and I find I want to return to the dream. So I do. It's a combination of the two, I'm in my bedroom. I make the sun rise. I tell my boyfriend to stay away from the door and pick up two knives that are laying on the floor. I open the door and kill the thing on the other side, saving my boyfriend's life.
"How did you know it was out there?"
"I've already done this. Since I knew what would happen I came back to save you."
"Oh.."
"Want to see something pretty?" I say, smiling. I hand my boyfriend the creature's hatchet and open the window. On the other side is the beautiful green terrain with patches of pale purple flowers. "Come flying with me."
"We can't fly..."
"Sure we can. Do you remember why?"
"Because you're dreaming?"
"That's right. Because I'm dreaming."

I briefly remember returning to the wedge of cliff and my vision going dark and then being replaced by my room. I close my eyes and take a few breaths, I can still feel the dream. I can even still see a little green.
I think "That was good advice they gave me about stabilizing the dream, just close my eyes and take a breath. Allow it to continue, don't force it to."

I don't actually remember getting that advice, but it makes sense.

I'm not exactly sure where to start.

Tortured Ghosts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

hands before him in a placating gesture.

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

The sky looms heavy with storm clouds, the ocean roars in seething restlessness below. I am standing at the edge of

the city, which is situated in cluttered layers. The lowest layer is one diamond patterned metal grate secured by chains. I overhear someone saying that there is another hurricane vortex forming at the base of the city and they are worried it will grow. Curiously, cautiously, I move to the edge of the grate and peer over the side. I see a swirling vortex a few hundred feet below, with each moment , the center deepens and the eye widens. I back away, suddenly the ocean rises to the underside of the grate, slapping at my feet. I grab a plastic bag that has a pair of rain boots and my cellphone as I hurry away, climbing up up to the next layer of yellow concrete. I run a few steps but feel like I'm forgetting something, so I turn to look and realize that the bag I keep my dream journal in is still down there. The roar of the water is tremendous, I drop back down and grab the bag by the strap, but it was caught underneath so when I tug on it the bag spills open. Cursing, I stuff the contents inside...and my phone slips out of the plastic bag.
I throw the strap diagonal across my chest and bend down to grab my phone, the water immediately absorbing the platform. With a surge of panicky triumph I throw myself up three more layers before the water gets me.

Here I am on the edge of lucidity, somehow the way I move my body, and the way I have my arm extended

overhead, keeps me from being submerged, I manage to surge with each new wave and stay above surface. The ocean consumes everything in great cross-hatching fluctuation. There is one extremely tall central yellow building and I progress toward it, I'm lucky enough that the water leads me to the mid-building entrance. I see it's a hotel, and many people have fled here as the roof may be the only high ground. I run up the stairs and pass by a hall with 8 elevator doors and go straight to some sort of check-in table. I kneel down in front of it and put on my boots, stuffing my phone into my satchel. I wonder if I should bother taking it with me, my journal is ruined now. I stay there for a long time, falling into a kind of distracted lull.

"What the hell am I doing?!" I think, surging to my feet, I have to get to the roof before the whole building is submerged.

I see my boyfriend swept away by a crowd of people, all headed for the elevators, a woman and her small son are at the tail of the group, all trying to press themselves into the only open elevator. I step to another one and push the button quickly several times. The doors slide open and I throw myself inside, punching the button that will take me to the roof. The elevator rises but water begins to filter in through every seam.

"Oh, of course!" I think sarcastically.

I am spat out onto the roof which is waist deep in water, there is no one else on the roof. I start swimming, noting the many ships out on the water exploding or simply sinking, then turning into dark blotches in the water. I paddle past one boat as it is bursting violently into flames and I'm worried that the oil in the water will catch fire and I'll be burned to a crisp.
I realize that I have separated from my body and am watching myself from high in the sky, and that I can choose to be above instead of in the water. So I do. My escape is that easy. I sail onward with effortless speed, the wind roaring in my ears.There are two boats not sinking, one is speeding out of view over the horizon and looks like a clipper ship. The other is a little motor boat pulling up to a fenced cliff's edge that survived the watery cataclysm. I direct myself toward it, a familiar Japanese man extends his arm to me, I reach down to take his hand and he guides me soundly to the deck.

"You're alright!" I cry, happy to see him again. With sweet amazement I realize that his boys are with him, part of me knows that

they died years ago in an accident but somehow this event has returned them to his care. Though they are extremely pale and a little grey. The youngest is three, there is a middle boy of about fourteen, and a nineteen year old. They all look so familiar but I can't figure out why. The two other boys greet me like a long lost family friend, and take turns giving me a hug before climbing to the other side of the fence with their father. He leans on the top board and tells me that the return of his boys was meant to be, then earnestly asks after my boyfriend.

"I don't know, I saw him on the sixth floor before I got in the elevator, but no one else was on the roof." I start to say that I

think he is dead, but there's a painful wrenching in my chest and I can't get the words out before I cover my face and cry.

"Maybe it wasn't meant to be?" The man asks me. I don't want to believe that though, I want him to have escaped.
"Maybe he made it to that other ship..."
"Sure, maybe." He smiles at me.

I look out over the water and on either side of it, like the banks of a river, there are great water-logged expanses of land. He explains that the waves overtook that too, but immediately began seeping away after stripping all the trees bare.

There's something about seeing many people crammed into a small space and getting ready to go on or are returning from a hunting trip, and ordering fast food. I wonder how long the stores of easy, familiar food will last and what these people will do when it runs out.

One long post for the dreams from Italy, except for the Rescue dream.

Pills, Saja, Drawings August 27th, 2013

In the first part, someone hands me a bag of capsule pills, all different colors, meant for different things. He says it sounds like

I could use an extra source of income. I reluctantly accept the bag and worry about getting caught with a stash of drugs. He tells me that it is okay if I decide I don't want to sell but if I do, I know where to find him. I can't believe that I have gotten myself into this situation. Surely I will be caught. Anyone who as met me would never believe it. I hug the bag to my chest, casting about for a good hiding spot. The house here is a strange combination of two of my childhood homes. I live here with a group of people, some of them are people from Dream Views, but no one with a name I recognize. I wonder where I would even go to sell drugs. Night clubs? Teenager parties? Could I really sell drugs to children?

Finally i decide to stash the bag underneath the mattress of the twin beds in the long room, it sits on a hollow box

frame, I'm pretty sure no one will look in there. I don't remember actually hiding the bag, it is just suddenly in the past. There are two young me in the house that are never taken seriously and are often pranked. One looks a little like a young Wil Wheaton. They tell him that he will be included in their experiment but then an alarm clock goes off after they feed him some drugs, jarring him awake.

"Very funny, guys." He says. Everyone laughs.
The...other young man is overweight, stocky, with thick black rimmed glasses and corkscrew curls. When I walk past him

he sings in a deep, booming voice. I wonder if he wants me to sing with him but he unsettles me with his undue focus. He won't stop staring at me! I pass into another part of the house. Here it is open to the sky, there's a box with k-cups. I start to stack them but soon realize they are all used and set them down in a black plastic tray.
"IS that trash?" Someone asks me. I say that it is.
I contemplate selling drugs. The extra money would make a lot of things easier. Maybe I'll give it a shot. I vaguely wander into the long room where they are pranking Wil. This room reminds me of both my sister's room at the end of the hall in the MA house, and the living room from the white OK house.
Someone already knows about the drugs...I then contemplate testing them, at least then if they kill me I'll only be responsible for my own death. One of the pills, the red, are supposed to give you lucid dreams. A blonde girl in a racer-back tanktop heavily suggests wanting to get her hands on a sample. I only worry about telling her she would have to pay for it, and hope I don't have to explain that just because we know each other it's on the house.
"Both of us being dreams, we could help each other out." She says and I tell her I'll keep it in mind.

It is night when I leave the house to get something from the house across the way *where the overweight creep lived before he decided to encroach on my living space) there is a white fox/wolf creature. I'm afraid someone will hurt her and call to her like she is my pet, and somehow knowing she belongs to someone will deter others from harming her. I call her "Saja" and as she runs toward me, I see that she even has green eyes. I call 'Saja' again when she is startled and stops in front of a moving car. I am happy to see her bound away unscathed.

I walk into the other house. Those who vacated the residence have left it very unclean and when I go in the open front door I hear the loud buzzing of many flies. They also left the lights on. I vaguely remember coming here and talking to someone in the back bedroom. I had left a notebook on the counter, there are several pictures I have drawn of Liam & Saja. Piled atop them are drawings done by the creepy bespectacled man. The first few could be any woman, drawn sort of cartoony with green eyes and dark water-colored hair.
The next ones are obviously me, faces I must have made in passing when I met him here before. The second one even has me wearing my amber ring, pushing the hair back from my face. It bothers me. Wonderful, I have a stalker!
I return to the other house having found what I wanted. I figure I could be dangerous no matter what I decide to do about the stalker. If I ignore him he may get...violently offended. If I say anything remotely kind he may be encouraged and think it's an invitation.

Blue Dog Early dream 08/28/2013
I don't feel like typing this again. Stupid fragment about a dog that is spray-painted blue.

Shadow Heart Late Dream 08/28/2013

I leave the MA house at night, there is a hill even with a thick leafy tree branch. I end up on the limb. I see lights out of the corner of my eye, they are frightening and disappear when I turn my head to look. I see them flicker again and this time I stare at the trunk of the tree until the lights reappear. Two men about my age climb out to me, they vocalize reassurances they mean me no harm until I finally recognize them. One is wearing a white t-shirt with some sort of blocky cartoon face drawn on it. He looks a tad like Day 9. They tell me that they finally finished the horror movie but almost didn't make it on account of how scary it was. I give him a comforting hug, he pats my arm distractedly.
Then I am watching a movie about Buffy. She's standing outside a castle on a rocky slope with the ruins of walls jutting raggedly from the muddy ground. She is either warning somebody or has just rescued them when a shadow appears on the ground. It is a massive wolf's head like a werewolf wearing a floor-length cloak. He has appeared to taunt her. He knows that she cannot resist retaliation, even the his presence is too threatening to weather in silence. He feels calculating but wild, chaotic. He does things as they please him and often because they cause great harm to the insignificant people around him. This is the Shadow Heart.
He taunts Buffy with her inability to harm him but says that he will stop hurting people if she will just stop annoying him.
She, of course, refuses.
He reappears beside the castle wall where a woman wearing a white dress with a blue floral print is walking. I know, though she doesn't look it, that she is pregnant. He waits by the gate, gathered beneath a grassy knoll. He feels maliciously gleeful. With a gesture the woman stumbles and then falls down, her face creased with pain and bewilderment. I can see blood on her thighs. He has murdered her baby. She begins to wail between gasps. Buffy runs at the Shadow Heart, yelling for him to stop, to leave her alone. I know that if she had not done so, the Shadow Heart would have just left since he had already proven his power.
Instead, he begins to move his hands like his crumpling a sheet of paper. The woman looks suddenly poleaxed, stunned, and folds over backward. I hear her spine snap. He gestures again and her head splits open from chin to hairline. Then he disappears, laughing. If only Buffy had done nothing then the woman would still be alive.

I remember feeling, overall that he knew how she would react and that she couldn't help herself. She couldn't just stand there and watch, so she charged at him, part of her knew she could not intimidate him, but she went on with it anyway.

The Four Very Late/Very Early Dream 08/28/2013
((For the entirety of this one I was trying desperately to become lucid but I didn't think to wake myself up, and all my actions against the Four were ineffectual. I remember trying to will weapons into existence when I had none, I could feel them in my hands though none appeared. ))

I am in my house and when I walk into the kitchen from the living room I see, instead of the countertop and appliances, two large people. Each holding a wisp-thin and frail bald man draped across the cabinets. The spidery men are unsettling and they stare at me with hungry eyes, clenching then relaxing their hands. A person standing beside the table speaks to me.
"what about them?" I ask.
"Oh, don't worry about them." The person replies.
Still, I wonder. I turn my eyes away but I can still feel them looking at me. Three people appear quickly, a Mexican man wearing a blue mechanic's coverall, with a short 3 letter name, two other men (one in a white t-shirt, the other is tall and wide). I don't like the look of them. It's how they have their heads lowered, fixing menacing eyes on me. I run for my room, one of them grabs me at me and I stumble, when I crawl to the threshold of my room there is a paper-white girl with straight white hair, wearing a white shift and Joker make-up staring down at me. She opens her mouth impossibly wide...

...I am in the living room. I don't bother entering the kitchen and run straight for my room. There are knives hanging on the wall. I gather as many as I can, they are mostly throwing knives. The mechanic appears behind me. I am unprepared, my arms full of knives. He grins. He casually steals two knives from me as I am lifting one and throwing it. The first misses, the second sticks in his shoulder and bothers him little. He draws the knife and stabs at me...

...I am standing at my closed and locked bedroom door. It is a faded green. Sick with anticipation, I wait for the thing I can hear scratching on the other side...

...I am running for my door when something grabs at my ankles. I trip and the creature is all over me. I don't even want to think about how the tall and broad man is contorted, his arms are hooked up over my shoulders but he sinks his teeth into the small of my back. I arch away from him in sudden and blinding agony, screaming.
Somehow I crawl away and kick him hard in the chest before scrambling into my room and slamming the door. He throws his arms against it and the door shudders and then begins to splinter...

...I am in the kitchen. I know I have a little time before they find me again. I pull two large carving knives from the block and as I make for the hall I see the creepy mechanic staring at me. I rush for my room and close the door. Just when I think that this time will be different, I realize there is no lock on the knob. I stand to one side of the door and prepare to strike. The Mechanic throws the door open and I stab/slash at him, drawing a jagged cut across his raised forearm. It's hard to describe what happens here. I keep slicing at him, screaming as I do it, even when he throws me to the floor. His skin is a dark, mottled purple and the blood that wells up is red-black. He grins at me while I reduce him to ribbons...

...I run to my room and instead of grabbing weapons, I climb out the window. My legs feel heavy, I know that the Four are behind me and I don't have much time. I intend to run to the cliff and fly away. The rocks here are a bright burnt orange. It doesn't look fake and I admire the uniqueness of the stones even as I stumble/crawl over their uneven face. I feel a hand close around my ankle. I am just reaching the cliff which overlooks a city when I am dragged backward. I struggle and we roll underneath the outcropping. Below are women gathered in a circle around a blonde woman who is on her knees.
"Why do you run?" She asks me.
"Shouldn't I?"
"Do you know who we are?"
"...you are the---" I don't finish before she responds.
"Yeeeesss...the santamoori septividae ill." She throws her head back and her arms wide.

Puzzle Pun 08/29/2013 Nap Dream
I'm in a sort of waiting area for a place where they settle luggage disputes. Across from me is someone who reminds me of Sendhil Ramamurthy.
"Unbelievable!" He mutters, exasperated, "The scholar I'm traveling with won't allow me to remove a 2lb item from his 500lb bag, says it will unbalance the tablets he has wrapped in there. REALLY?"
I smile a little, it isn't really funny.
"What are you doing here?" He asks me.
"I have to find the correct way to stack these blocks or they won't allow me to take them." I reply, setting a long thin rectangle of marble atop a cube of similar blocks.
"It looks like a puzzle." He says.
"Yes, I suppose."
"Quite a situation we've found ourselves in..."
"Is it a puzzling situation?" I ask, smiling a little, then feel like I should apologize for my humor. "Sorry. I do love puns."
I shoot a glance in his direction to make sure we're still friendly and find that he's smiling too.

Lonnie Night Dream 08/29/2013
I don't remember the first part very well. It was pretty tame, about walking around Italy. I come home from Italy and there are people gathered in my house. A girl from work ZR and two DCs are trying to sing a song and keep messing up. They laugh at each mistake.
"Come on, get it together!" One of the girls laughs. A blonde, blue-eyed young man with high cheekbones and a square jaw sits down playfully forcing one of the girls from the group.
"Let me try." He says.
So they sing together. How they sing with the man makes the song sound completely different and when I try to join them in the familiar song, I find I don't remember the words.. I see ZR later and notice that she has lost a lot of weight. When I compliment her she smiles and says that she has been crashing at my place because I have exercise equipment. I am a little jealous of her improved figure.
I walk in on a group counseling session in the back bedroom. One of the women says that she wore her underwear into the delivery room. I laugh and she gives me a weird look.
"What did you say? I must have heard you funny."
"I said: Join the club of women who wore underwear into the delivery room."
"Oh. Right."
Gary from work walks up and says something about how fathers need to be prepared from the moment they see the positive pregnancy test. o.O

There is a lapse. ((There is nothing from WL in this next part, I am entirely a new character)) I am sleeping in the bigger bedroom with Connor, my little brother. Usually he sleeps in the same room as Suzie but tonight he is afraid. I take the cot beside the bed and allow him to have the big bed. I am worried. I haven't seen father since I've returned from my trip. He gained custody of us while I was gone. He was probably off traveling for work.
I have an absent knowledge of my family, that is separate from my character's knowledge. I know that since we came to stay with him he has become steadily more obsessed with my sister and has started to come unhinged.
I wake late in the night. Connor isn't in bed anymore. There is a disturbing stillness to the house. Father wanders into the room, he drops a towel on the bed. He glances in my direction and his expression scares me. Very slowly, I reach over and try to turn on the lights. The switch, of course, does nothing. I slide out of bed and see what he left behind. It is a white towel with dark stains all over it. I pick up the towel and walk into the living room where I find father sitting on the floor. He is tall, lanky, with tanned skin and greying hair. He babbles something at me which I don't understand, about how he was supposed to be with Suzie forever. I see cartoon versions of them sitting side by side, telling me a story of how things were supposed to be.
"What did you do?" Where's Suzie?" I speak in a whisper.
"In her room, where she should be." He replies.
I hope she is alright but somehow I know that she isn't. I walk to her bedroom and peek inside. Her bed is a tangle of blankets and a huge bloody mess of bits. Terror wells up in me but the scream sticks firmly in the back of my throat. I can't, can't.
I pull out my phone and dial 911 but when they answer, I am on hold. I wait, trying to find the words for what I've seen. When they finally pick up I can't speak, I know it wouldn't take much to get them here. Two words. Just two words. They prompt me to speak, ask if I am alright, but all I can manage is a strangled whisper "help". I'm afraid that won't be enough so I hang up and call back. I drop the towel on the floor and clutch my phone, crying. My baby sister!
I make a round of the room. When I pass by the front door I see that morning has come, and that two men are approaching the house, so I throw the door open and run outside. They are a pair of state troopers, one of them looks like Bob Saget...both of them have pretty fantastic costumes on.
Bob comes to meet me, asking if everything is alright. I raise my hands to wipe at my face, but they are bloody from the towel.
"My sister is dead." I sob.
"Can you tell me your name?" He asks.
I'm standing just to the left of the door, leaning on the wall. "ZR." I reply but the answer confuses me. I know that isn't right. What's my name? "No...I--" My confusion in combination with the blood on my hands concerns him. I know they think I killed her. "Just come inside...you'll understand when you see my father."
I remember how he looked when I came out of Suzie's room. The defensive wounds on his face and arms. Suzie put up a hell of a fight while he killed her.

I'm sitting at the end of a high school cafeteria table. Two friends sit in front of me and on either side of the table. They include me in the conversation even though I am silent much of the time. I don't really hear anything they say to me. I lift my head and stare at one of my friends who smiles at me.
"What's my name again?" I ask.
"Lonnie, sweetheart."
Then I cover my face with my hands and cry softly, pain wrenching in my chest, with the memory of my name I recall that my sister is dead.
"You're finding it easier to cry." One of them comments kindly.

I'm in a parking lot with my DC parents. They are expressing uncertainty over the path we should take because we've heard mixed reports of the road or exit we need to take up ahead of being closed. A map blocks my vision and I see a blinking red trail from our current location straight to the state line.
"I don't see that it matters." I say, "If the exit is closed down just take the straight shot out of the state, we don't even have a destination."
Both of them look a little uncomfortable. "Honey, that's a black road. There won't be any food stops." Dad says
"I'll be fine for a few hours yet. Besides! I've still got my lunch box."
He shoots me a doubtful look but ultimately we get in the car and leave.
Something about him calling a banana a weird name with the explanation that it was the sound you made when you eat one. Then I'm in a long tunnel talking to someone about Italian money, how 1 euro is worth more than an american dollar. They don't quite believe me. I shrug...what does it matter? It's true either way. Except that I'm telling my dad who has been there and should know this already.

I'm talking to a young man who feels familiar to me. Like I used to know him but we haven't talked to/thought about/seen each other in many years. I don't ever really see his face. He is wearing soft buckskin pants and is bare-chested. He is deeply tanned with light brown eyes and warm brown hair, he looks a little monochromatic because of it. He is telling me his story but we both know that I already know it, it's my story too. We are in a narrow room that sits snug against a dripping cave wall. My eyes follow his movements around the room. He has the air of a child showing off his toys...wait, that's not right. There was no joy, just a muted thread of excitement. Like it was perfunctory that he show me these things, powerless against the pull of the routine that we followed in the many times we have found ourselves meeting in this place.
He tells me that Mother passed away but he isn't worried because it was only her mortal body. A tiny spark of knowing strikes me, but I am thinking through a fog. I feel like we are earthbound gods, we have been forced to become human.

"I buried her over here, there's still a chance she'll come back. Not a big chance...but it was only her mortal body that died."

When he moves away toward the back of the cave I see, across from me, half hidden in the dark rich soil, a vaguely human shape. It is slimy, a dull red and clay-gray. The color is somehow familiar to me but I can't recall why. It has the oddest blend of human and animal features. A large, round skull with a pointed snout. Thin limbs and a tautly distended belly.
Out of the corner of my vision I notice movement and see a tiny and and face pressing outward from inside of 'mother'. Then I see two more unmoving ones. I understand that she is not his mother, but the mother. I wonder if I should tell him that she was pregnant but before I can do so he carefully covers her with a blanket of soil. I feel a little sick. I...they have been companions for a very long time.

"You won't believe the things I've found in here." He shuffles over to a pile of debris and 3 small birdcages. One is empty, one

has red canaries in it, they are all dead. "I don't know why he kept things this way...to what purpose?" He sounds curious.

"I don't..." I start to say, but he just keeps talking.

"I don't know why he would leave this in with the others."

He lifts a gold birdcage filled with cheerful-looking blue birds with fluffy tails. They are also dead. He thrusts is hand down amid their soft bodies, and pulls out a plucked one. It is bloody and decaying. I turn my eyes away.

"They are all dead, but why is this the only one rotting?"

There is a lapse. I have been traveling with friends, 3 men and 2 other women. We stop for the night or to get something to eat

and become trapped. The place puts up a forcefield at night and won't bright it back down for hours yet. It is a darkly decorated place, all dimly lit with dark red walls, black tables and chairs and red/black carpet. The place begins to change us. I am the first to become different. It is hard to explain because I don't exactly remember any of the uncharacteristic actions I took. I was just suddenly dressed in black and white wandering between the empty tables.
One of the girls talks about how she doesn't know if she can stay here much longer because they don't have something she needs. The other girl reminds her encouragingly that she has gone without before and they can just take care of it when the shield comes down.

"You're right, I can do this. I've done it before." The girl responds.

I stop at one of the tables and try to pour iced tea into a tall thing glass from 2ft above it. I sort of succeed. I notice the line the

shield cuts jaggedly through the club/restaurant. It is faintly blue and I can only see it because someone has leaned a bicycle on the opposite side to make it easier for us to tell where it is. I feel disconnected from my actions, a faint darkness has claimed me. And everyone else, it seems. My eyes trail around the room. At the far end of a long black table two of my friends are entwined on the floor kissing. Thankfully, still clothed. Before coming here the girl would not have been bold enough to make out with a boy in front of everyone, or to make a move at all. She had always been innocent, unmotivated by physical desire.

There is another lapse. I see one of my friends, a tall man with black hair out on the dance floor. He is doing all sorts of crazy dance moves I had no idea he was capable of. You know. Like splits. While I am fascinated by this display I think that if he were in his right mind he would be appalled by his clothing. He's wearing all white, a dress shirt with black buttons, a black tie, but the backside of his pants (while still white) are completely transparent...except for the pockets.
Then he is laying on his back on the long table. He has a dazed expression like he has been hypnotized. Some of the white on his clothing has turned black. Self-consciously I path my clothing and realize I'm wearing the same transparently-backed pants. Except they are shorts.
A matronly woman with red hair pulled tight and piled atop her head leans over him. I don't exactly know what she's doing. It isn't sexual but she slips a hand down between his legs, right up next to his groin. Animation seeps into him and he gets a small satisfied smirk that deeply disconcerts me. He grabs her wrist and grinds hard against her hand.

"Caspian!" I snap, "What are you doing?!" ((In hindsight this is hilarious....Caspian is my dog's name.))

Shock ripples across his face and he allows her to have her hand back, she shuffles away uncertainly.

"You won't believe the things I've seen. I feel so different." The prospect seems to make him happy. I begin to tell him that

I understand when the bare-chested monochromatic man from earlier appears and inserts himself between us. He grins and opens his arms wide in greeting before crushing me to his body, his arms around my waist, mine are around his neck. He lifts me a little off the ground. My reaction is equal parts disbelief and joy...but I don't feel joy. I feel like something has been taken from me here. Strangely he feels like a real person. So far only a few dream characters do, when he hugs me I can hear/feel the slap of our bodies and also his arms crossing my back.

"Where have you been?" I ask him.

"Searching. Didn't I say you would find this, or what?" He sounds smug and excited.

"Yes you did...I do feel older." I reply, "Different."

"Good. Now we go on to the next leg of our journey."

It doesn't feel like a good thing. What have I given up?

I had intended to do either one long post or a few when I returned, because I didn't know if I would have reliable internet access. It seems I do, though! And this one was interesting enough to post.

Part 1: Singing in Rome
There's a dead-end cobblestone street with buildings on the right side and dumpsters lined up on the left. The dumpsters are large for Italy, more like in America. There are people scattered everywhere, I can hear a radio playing and a girl singing along. The song changes, she stops, and a man begins singing in a charming tenor. When the song changes to 'Gonna Get Over You' by Sara Bareilles and the girl joins in, I start to sing too. She starts to skip down the street in time to the music, and before I follow her I realize that someone has covered the song, as it is higher than I'm used to.
People lined up along the dumpsters think that I am mocking the woman skipping away, so I stop trying to sync with her. When I walk back toward the dead end there is another woman, this one has long dark hair, tanned skin and black eyes, wearing a red tank top. I am singing 'Hate to See Your Heart Break' by Paramore, so when she says "Nice!"
I think she is talking to me. I start to thank her, and she quickly corrects me in heavily accented English.
"Singing, no. Look at where we are! Roma!" She laughs and lightly smacks my arm with the back of her hand. I am not offended, it is beautiful here.

Part 2: Running in Rome
The road is incredibly dark when we run to cross it and from where I remember the curb to be, I take a light leaping step to make sure I do not trip and fall. I run with my dad to the other side of an obstruction, where the sidewalk is elevated ten feet above the beginning part. We climb up.
"Do you think it's safe?" He asks me.
"I suppose." I answer. There aren't any people about.
"Maybe for you, I'm running around with money in my hand!"
I roll my eyes. I guess we're trying to find a bank? We find, once we climb up, that the rest of the street is destroyed and decide to turn back. Except it is too dark to see. So I take out my phone, thinking we can use it for light but he has moved ahead and is impatiently gesturing for me to follow. Oookay.
The obstruction is mostly white rubble with a stupidly wide ornate pillar and a rectangular piece of carved marble over the 'doorway'. I climb out after him, shove my phone in my pocket, and then try to hold onto the pillar without falling. It's too wide for me, since I am tiny. I slide down a little. I get to the other side and my dad is waiting in a super inconvenient spot so that I slip when I drop down beside him. He catches me, kind of, and swings me down to a flat grassy surface in front of the door. Somehow I've caught a hold of the decorative over-the-door piece and tear it off when drop. I let it go and it hits the ground, crumbling to tiny pieces.
"I probably could have put that down gently. Being a piece of history and all..." I say, frowning at the pieces. My dad shrugs his indifference.

Part 3: Lucid Rescue!!!
I am sitting in the very first seat of a public bus with a half full styrofoam cup of very american coffee. I stir the creamer in and take a sip. It is day outside but the bus window is tinted black glass. It's very peaceful and feels real. Even when I rest my forehead against the window. I don't immediately become lucid, it sort of creeps up on me. I frown down at my coffee, then at the window, and what is outside. This feels very strange.

"Obviously I am dreaming...there isn't even someone driving the bus."

As I think this I lean over a little and examine the driver's seat, it is hidden in shadow. I feel its potential to become something creepy, so I avert my eyes and take another sip of coffee. I suppose I could test it, at the very worst I'll get arrested for vandalism. Except this is a dream....soooo
I press my hand flat against the glass and push outward, the glass is now plastic and bows a little. Then I realize there is a bus driver, it's my dad.

"What are you doing?" He asks me, aghast.
"Flying sounds really neat right now." I tell him, then down the rest of

my coffee. It acts as an extreme stimulant and I shove the plastic out of the bus frame entirely. Then I start to climb out. I am not entirely lucid, part of me thinks this could be real, and it is that part that creates the seat belt which tethers me to the bus.
Outside the world is a wreck, there are cars/buses/motorcycles on every flat surface that could be used for driving as every person in Rome participates in a mass exodus from the city. It is this that convinces me I am dreaming. Also that I am already flying, but it feels like I am hanging from the bus. My dad appears in the window and grabs ahold of the seat belt with a triumphant 'aha!'. He tries to draw me in but my will is stronger. He looks worried.

I console him, "Don't worry! I'm completely lucid! I'm going to go on a trip, you can even come with me."

He doesn't look so inclined.

"But Julie, the fanny pack!" He says, thrusting his hand toward me. Ah, yes. I am wearing it, and it holds his money

and identification within. I'm not offended, I laugh.

"Oh, I see how it is."

I unbuckle the fanny pack and, holding one strap, I swing it to him. When he has a hold of it, I release the seat belt and the strap, and start to fly away. He tries to follow me out and falls. I don't believe anything bad will happen, so he is only stunned.
With an exultant cry I race into the clouds, heading toward a mossy green mountain range, all the peaks are flat and have ruins on top of them.
The sky is beautiful with large white clouds.
I can't recall all of this. At some point I begin to lose altitude and land in the water. The dream becomes brittle and when I try to rise into the sky, it becomes night and the clouds turn to crumpled masses of creamy paper. Startled by this development I fall back into the sea that has eaten Rome.

There's a lapse, I have made it back into the sky and after flying a great distance I find a u-shaped cobbled street

corner with houses on either side. It is still night, this part of the city is above water. There is a man and a woman trying to torture information out of a man, I catch part of their questioning, and land out of sight. When he refuses to respond they simply say they will go searching for 'her' since they know she is nearby.
When they leave I sneak over to where he lays prostrate on the cobbles, I didn't like the sound of the other two. The man is thin, of medium height, with sandy hair and beard, and blue eyes. He's wearing a blue polo and jean shorts. I pull him onto my back and make a run for it. I jump, as though to fly, but I can't seem to get into the air. I jump down an alley gasping words like "up! fly!" but of course they do nothing, I come to an elevated porch with a flight of stairs, the area below is obviously in water, and there's a mossy stone hill.
His face is right next to mine, he pants next to my ear.

"What are you doing?" He asks.
"If I can get enough altitude I can fly us away."
I can clearly feel his concern.
"Here, it'll be easier if you get on piggy-back."
"Are you sure..." Even in his disoriented state he has noticed I'm quite small.
I laugh, "I'm stronger than I look. Don't worry about it."

He lifts one leg, then the other, into my waiting hands and I hoist him onto my back. His legs feel misshapen. I take a running leap down the stairs and for a moment I think I'm going to fly, then I crash down hard enough to hurt my feet.

"Fine, I guess we're running." I say and take off up the hill. He feels heavy on my back and my legs start to burn.

I curse aloud trying to convince myself in gasping whispers that since I'm dreaming, weight isn't real. It doesn't work. We only make it to the other side of the hill when he writhes suddenly on my back, makes a strangled noise, and vomits thick black goo all over my neck and shoulders.

"Put, AH, put me down!"

I do as he asks, feeling the goo start to harden and burn. I take his thin face between my hands, I need to know his name.

"Hey! Who are they? What's your name?" I ask. His eyes fix on mine.
"Ah, Nathaniel. Nate. They, ah, I was traveling with my--" he starts hacking and forgets what he's talking about.

"Nate, you were traveling with your wife? Karen?" It's a completely wild guess.

He gives me a confused look. "My wife? No. My daughter. Kate."
Nate and Kate. Cute. At least it started with a K.
I hear a woman's voice nearby, calling to her companion. A glowing white arrow appears in the water next to us. The cobbles are hard under my knees.
The goo burns more and with a startled yell, I fall over next to him.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I say to him.

"Thank you for trying." Then with the last of his strength he pushes me from him, I slide across the slick stone and

flop over onto my side into a thick patch of shadow. I know he hopes they will think I am dead and leave me alone.

I hear the woman again, taunting Nate. She tells him that his wife stole shirts on a sojourn into Africa.
"Who steals from Africa?" She laughs.
I see a little blonde-haired girl (Kate) in a zebra-print dress with a pink ribbon around the waist.

A collection of fragments that felt connected, but I can't recall how.

Grief
I am in a mall, it has a natural light cast to it, there are a lot of windows. The walls and floor are a pale purple high gloss tile. Across from me is a man. He looks like my boyfriend, but he isn't. He hands me a small stack of pictures, they are hard, about the size of gift cards. The top one is of me and someone I have lost. A sharp spike of grief lances through my chest and I suddenly feel like crying. I hand him the pictures.
"You should have those back."
"Right." He seems so indifferent but takes them from me anyway. He gets up and leaves. I think how inconsiderate that was, then make an excuse for him. Maybe he didn't know. That was impossible. Everyone here knew. I look around, not sure what to do with myself now. A woman who looks like the actress who plays Julia on Under the Dome comes to find me.
The next thing I know we are in a store and she is trying to help me withdraw money, by going to one of the registers and swiping my card. It requires a passcode. An employee walks by and asks her what she's doing. She lies and says she can't get her card to work. The employee tells her to leave. She gives me an apologetic look and comes over to give me my card. I keep getting hostile looks from employees. They know who I am and I know I won't be able to stay here long. I'm bad luck.
"I knew it wouldn't work."
"It was worth a try though." She says.

I am following the mall manager and another man. He explains that a place has been designed specifically for me on the top floor. After the accident, he knows I am wary of magic, so there are wards at all cross joints to keep them from being destroyed by magic. We approach a white tower in the middle of the courtyard. The inside is bright white stone, there's a stairway spiraling following the curve of the wall. He's still talking, but I'm not really listening. What does it matter? They call it an accident, but most people still blame me for the event that killed my husband and several others. I see myself from behind, I am Saja, my long black hair curling to my waist. I have a white headband, wearing a white dress with a black floral print on it, and sandals. The stair narrows to a shelf.
This seriously concerns me. I lagged behind so I didn't get to see how the others crossed it. I frown. There's is a hand hold, a five foot gap, and another narrow shelf with a hand hold above it.
I reach up and hold on to the grip but can't seem to move like I need to.
"Don't think about it." The mall manager says. I know he's right.
I step back, looking at his outstretched hand. This feels like punishment somehow. I reach up, the hold is almost beyond my reach. I have to stand on my tip-toes to really wrap my hand 'round it. Then I swing and throw my arm out. He catches my wrist and pulls me across.
"Sorry about the gap. It's the only way we can protect the upper level, it's why there are no elevators."
He doesn't sound sorry.
"You could build a ladder." I suggest.
"No, that wouldn't work. Too obvious."
"No, it could be hidden." I start to explain what I'm imagining, an elaborate black lattice-working that surrounds the interior of the tower, only one section will be ladder. Then I realize he doesn't care and I stop talking. I feel pathetic.

Bookstore
I often visit this bookstore in my dreams. It is always busy, and there are three floors, and different tiers within for the various genres. It is wonderful. I wish it actually existed.

Bastard
I'm beside a pool at dusk. There are strangers everywhere. Lea Michelle is puzzling out why her father has never liked her. She tells me she found out about a man her mother had been with just before she met father. She seems distraught.
"I have an idea...but I don't want to offend you." I say.
"What, tell me! I promise not to get offended."
"Well...um..." I look at her thinking that maybe the man her mother married is actually not her father, that the first man is. "Maybe you're a bastard."
For a second she looks shocked. Then she realizes I'm probably right.

Haley Joel Osment Clone
I'm walking beside a young girl. I keep looking at her, because she looks familiar. I start to tell her so but she stops me with a glare.
"Don't you dare say it."
I decide, instead, to tell her what differences there are. She does look fantastically like the kid from Sixth Sense, the same eye shape and skin tone, hair color, eye color. But she is more fine boned, with a longer nose. I can't get her to like me though. She feels cruel and angry.

This dream is all fragmented, I've lost a lot of the storyline. I fell asleep on the couch and the storm kept waking me up. Not enough to move into bed, apparently.

I am taken captive, along with Sam from Supernatural, and Cyclops from X-Men. I'm not clear on why we are taken, only that they keep us complacent by feeding us this translucent purple liquid. I'll separate it into the scenes I specifically remember seeing.

Cyclops is in a small square room, it is all white except for metallic grates running along the right and left walls. The far wall is taken up by a single computer. They have commanded him here and he is supposed to follow their orders. His buddy who is drunk on the purple stuff is too dazed to make it through the door, so he is waiting outside. Cyclops has been secretly feeding his ration to his 'friend'. So now they give the order for him to go out into the hall and kill the man. They give the order absently, not really focusing on him, and not expecting an answer.
When they finally turn to look at him he gets awkward and dorky and kind of grins, "I'm um..."
"You're what?"
"I've had too much of the purple stuff again."
They sigh in annoyance.
"I'll just...go back out into the corridor and beat the hell out of number 8."
They all narrow their eyes at him as he backs out the doorway and closes it. He knows he doesn't have long before they come for him, he foolishly gave them a reason to doubt his faith.

The next time I see him he is quivering with tension, nervous, waiting for them to notice he hasn't been following their rules. Instead of killing people he has been releasing them into the woods. He 'stands guard' beside an elevator door, outside a banquet hall. If he's a good boy, he thinks sarcastically, they may feed him today. Then Jean swings around a corner in a lovely white gown. She hasn't seen him yet, and as she walks past, he seizes her by the upper arms and hides with her on the other side of a pillar.
"What are you doing here? Do you know how dangerous this place is?" He hisses.
"Yes. Why do you think I'm here?" She gives him a quick kiss. "I have a plan, hang in there, you'll be free soon." And then she is gone, sweeping gracefully into the banquet hall, leaving him there stunned.

I'm out in the woods, I am myself. Some part of me knows how the story is supposed to go, how I am supposed to act. So I lift the water bottle to my mouth and dizzily drink more of the purple stuff. I can't think straight, but I can't stop drinking it. Some clever chemical, or brain-washing technique makes me believe that my mind would clear if only I could drink enough of it. I can't remember what I'm doing out here and at the same time I know that soon Dean will find me and I'll be safe. First I have to drink more. So I do. Then I collapse in a drunken heap. ((I compare it to alcohol, though it wasn't, it was more like a drug.))

The next thing I know I am in a rough wooden cabin with Sam and Dean. Dean didn't really come to rescue me, but he couldn't leave me there either. So here I am. Sam still can not speak clearly so that he has to gesture what he means, something about a commercial with a dog licking his chops, he gives Dean a frustrated look. Dean hands him a bowl of wet Alpo. There's a bowl of mixed dry and wet dog food on the counter, I eat a bite of it. It doesn't really taste like anything, my head clears a tad. Then Dean turns to me with a spoon.
"You'll want some of this. I think it works better." Dean says.
"Tastes better, too." Sam says. "Almost like meat."
So I take the bite from the proffered spoon and nod in agreement. It really did taste better.

A fragment of me and my father talking about ways to deal with muggers, if they try to steal my glasses.
"Just let them take them and run." He says.
For a second that makes complete sense, then I frown at him. "But dad, if I don't have my glasses I won't be able to see anything."
"But you'll be alive."
"But I won't be able to see anything...."
"But you'll be alive."
"Oookay. I'll throw down my glasses then."

I...don't feel like proofreading this.

My house is more like a dorm than a duplex, the hall is wider and has more doors, but all the colors are the same. I wander into our room and think it still feels more like his than ours. I can hear my boyfriend talking from the kitchen, he is telling someone that he is going out to pick up food for a party. In our room there is a stranger in the bed with a blonde woman. They aren't really wearing anything. He has coerced her into playing a sex game. I find myself sitting on the bed, strangely intent on their actions.
"What is the point of this game again?" The woman asks.
"Jesus! The point is to see how long I can kiss you without vomiting. You're disgusting. When was the last time you showered?" He's being a huge jackass but she doesn't leave.
He coerces me into 'playing', and eventually I say that I'll only have sex with him if he calls my boyfriend in to help. Some more strangers come into the room, the same ilk as the man in the bed. At least they're wearing clothes. They decide that since I'm not playing his game, I can play theirs. It's called 'See how long you can stay conscious while we beat you'. What, doesn't that sound like fun to you?
I struggle as they pull my legs out straight and begin to strike me. I'm surprised by how much it hurts. The stranger decides he's going to have sex with me whether I want it or not, says that's what I get for being a tease.
Thankfully I fall unconscious.
I 'wake' with the sensation of arms wrapping around me. It is so realistic that I cry out and try to struggle away.
"Hey, are you alright? It's just me." It is just my boyfriend. I relax and lay next to him for a while. Eventually we get out of bed. I want to tell him what I've done before the stranger does it. What will I say? I was curious and it turned out badly? For a minute I thought I wanted to sleep with someone else? Before I can figure it out, he leaves.

Something else happens. I can't remember, but I'm coming back into the dorm/duplex and I am suddenly lucid. As always, I'm amazed by the clarity, how real it feels. I round a corner and find myself in the hall outside our room. Ours is the only one standing open, I go inside but my boyfriend isn't there.
At first I intend to find him, but when I get back into the hallway I start to mentally call for Liam. At the end of the hall is a wide wooden gate that is about my height and 10' wide. I immediately notice that there isn't a handle but I'm curious. The force of my curiosity creates a gap between the corner of the door and the wall. I hook my fingers into it and pull until it creaks open. On the other side is a collapsed tunnel. I hear a distant rumbling and dirt showers down from above. Of course, I think cynically, the one way I want to go is blocked off. It doesn't occur to me that I can clear the way. Instead I close the door and as I'm turning away notice a faded white dumpster filled with sapphire blue dirt. I'm having trouble with my eyes. The right one keeps dragging and skipping images. I think that maybe if I keep it closed I won't wake up, so I gently close my right eye with my finger and cover it with my hand. It seems to work.
"What are you doing, silly? You aren't using your eyes." And once I realize that, I have no further trouble seeing.

There's a breezeway and another sharp corner where there's a bathroom. I hear one of the managers from work talking about me, saying that I was such a whore for sleeping with a stranger, in my boyfriend's bed, while my boyfriend was in the other room. It makes me ridiculously angry, I see them leave out the side door and take the front door which leads out onto a bright pink pathway made of metal grates, that runs parallel to the path below. I suddenly have a bat in my hand. I run, savoring the feeling of the wind on my face and how the metal vibrates under my feet with each running step I take. I run lightly, easily, cutting off the three people below and jumping down in their way.
I land on one person, smack the second with the bat, and when the manager has the audacity to be amused, I throw the bat at his face.
There. Problem solved.
Then I realize the person I landed on is my friend Laura and I have hurt her. Still, she is glad to see me. I pick her up to carry her home, but her body is stretchy like...rubber or taffy. Or maybe a length of fabric. And for some reason there's a cat sitting on her chest. I struggle to pry it off of her and then cast it away so I can lift her more easily.


Um, something about a funeral? I was being disrespectful by riding a bicycle around while a man tried to talk to everyone who had gathered to honor the dead. When he mentions that food will be brought out, and that the caterers are fantastic, two people come outside with the food...carrying a vat of pork in a container shaped like a pig, that's suspended between two poles and is dripping grease everywhere. It smells delicious.