Arc042

This is the closest thing to a truly lucid dream that I've experienced to date. It's now a recurring dream I suppose, since it's happened once or twice before. In this one, I fade in and out of awareness (that I am dreaming) and seem to have some limited control at times.
In the beginning, I'm back in that funhouse mansion - but now, the changing rooms have all stopped, like a powered-down amusement park. It almost seems like they were the same rooms all along as they are now. Was the rest all an illusion?
I'm somewhere on the second floor - whoever I am. I'm dressed in a light black robe and I have red hair (I don't).
I make my way through the rooms and down the stairs to the exit. I'm a little afraid to go, but I have to. There are points where I close my eyes in anticipation of what I'll see in the rooms - events are the same as the first time I dreamed this, and in this dream I remember that. For a moment, though, I'll remember either who I am or that I am dreaming and move more confidently. The feeling would fade away after a short time.
After besting the trials of the manor, I exit into a dark and humid urban environment. Before me is a long straight road, with hazy light fixtures on either side. It looks like I'm seeing it through a car window, but I'm just standing there. Elsewhere there is a grid of featureless buildings and between them, a labyrinth of little roads. A few people come and go.
Someone speaks to me -- I don't remember ever seeing him -- and I am running as he does, following some unfamiliar girl. She falls and is injured, and a man appears and carries her. He's stocky, but quite agile, and fairly vulgar from what I remember him muttering.
The disembodied voice is telling me that I am looking at one point in my life, in the universe, on a time line. That everything has already "happened," and as I hear him, things slow down. For a moment I feel aware again, and I move back and forth through time by a few seconds. It feels more like reading a book, though -- but I don't feel disillusioned. It seems so right and reassuring.
We three runners come together before some fourth figure -- the source of the voice, no doubt. Some words are exchanged but things have faded heavily and I enter a different dream.