LiveInTheDream's DJ v2.5

<Click here to read part 1>

Once inside the upstairs room with the closet, I reached over to the nearest lamp and hit the switch. The lights didn't come on. I hit the switch again. No good. So I went to a different light and tried it, but got the same result. "Oh, that means it's a dream!"

Now if you know me, you know that I like to use doors to teleport places in lucid dreams. But my lucidity was not strong even now, and so when I opened the closet door, I did nothing but shatter everything...and lose lucidity.

All the lights and lamps in the room (which were many) flickered strange colors, as if there was an electrical issue. I didn't know what was going on, so I decided to just grab the gift boxes and go. There was an eerie blue light inside the closet that was good enough for me to just barely be able to make out what was inside. However, one step further inside, and the whole place shook as if from an earthquake. I stumbled and fell, expecting to hit the back of the closet...but instead I fell right through where the back wall should have been.

When I looked up, I was flat on the ground of a vast mass of red, mars-like sand. It was dark in the sky, so I couldn't see far, but I could feel in the air that something was wrong about this place. My feelings were confirmed when a little kid ran up to me screaming for help as she apparently fled from something...just before hands reached out of the darkness, grabbed her, pulled her into the darkness, and then...instant silence.

And now all the attention was on me.

"The portal!" A rough voice shouted from the distance. "It's open! Move, now, let's GO!"

I tried to get up and run, but I ended up being carried back through the closet by the oncoming flood of bodies that rushed through it. Once they'd gotten through and changed their course, momentum flung me into the air and into the middle of the forest of lamps that stood in the closet room. Because it was dark and there were too many lamps to comfortably navigate, nobody paid attention to me, and I watched in horror as dozens of 7-foot tall, burly, rough men rushed into the room and down the hallway right to where my friends were. Many of them brandished weapons...I knew that no one would stand a chance against them.

As soon as I found my footing, I got out of the lamps and threw myself at the closet door. I managed to shut it, but in the process cut off the finger of one of the tall men as he stuck out his hand to try and stop the door from closing. I was surprised at first to see that there was no blood...it was just a skeleton and dried up, gray insides in that finger. But then it all made sense. These were the living zombies I had heard about; those who were internally dead but externally still strong as ever. Fully mindless, ruthless bodies.

Jane Doe was the first thing to come to my mind. No matter what happened, I just couldn't let the living zombies get to her. She didn't know how I felt about her, but our relationship had a lot of potential that I intended to take advantage of when the right time came, and I wasn't about to lose my chances now.

Suddenly I had knives on my belt, so I pulled them out, ran for the stairs (which was where the zombies were by now) and with expert handling began to lodge the blades into the zombies' dead bodies. It wasn't exactly one knife = one kill, but it distracted the zombies long enough for my friends to get weapons of their own.

The battle raged for what seemed like hours. It was not an easy victory, but we did eventually destroy the zombies' bodies bad enough that they really and truly died. I remember the last zombie's death in particular...I was running out of knives, when I had gotten backed into the closet room by one final zombie. I had a couple minor wounds, so I was being cautious--not to mention this thing was huge and mighty and had brass knuckles. I landed one knife into the zombie's shirtless chest, but it merely groaned in pain and kept coming my way. I threw another one and it landed right next to the first knife, but still it didn't bleed and it got close enough to land a blow that threw me back several feet.

I was out of knives. Frantically I searched my belt, but there was none. However, after a glance behind me, I saw a blade sticking out of a dead zombie's back, grabbed it, and hurled it towards the live zombie, expecting a triumphal, last-minute kill.

It didn't happen. Despite three knives in its chest, the beast was still as alive as ever, and heading my way. I really thought this was the end...

**BANG!**

A bullet shot echoed through the halls. The zombie collapsed onto its knees, two holes through it in addition to my knives. It cussed and swore in pain, but still didn't die.

"Finish him off!" I called to the one with the gun (who was on my side, obviously).

He emptied out his clip on the zombie, but it wasn't until easily two-dozen bullets later that the thing finally died. Still...it was over. We'd fought off the zombies.

<Continue to Part 3>