Things to Run Away From Really Fast

I'm wandering around Quickton. There might be some kind of business convention going on. I temporarily will a giant tower into existence over the highway, to defend/attack something.

My old high school. There are teachers and students milling about in the hallway, and I'm standing outside near one of the entrances. I'm hooking fingers and toes into the brick of an inside corner, climbing onto the roof. At one point, I'm near horizontal, and climbing in dreams is so much fun.

Apparently there are some parkour and climbing classes going on in June (in the dream). I want to sign up, but there are people trying to kill me, and I'm trying to lay low.

Climbing Classes. Scare Factor: 1.[/QUOTE]

I feel a steady pull somewhere, like I'm being summoned. Images of an immense stone cavern, alive with a bright blue energy.

I seem to be on a road trip with my family. We get mixed up with the local vampires, and I have half of the population out to kill me. I'm standing in a hotel room with off-white walls and a duvet on the bed, talking to a woman with short blonde hair. She's an important figure to the vampires, and she's giving me information that might help me survive. We're planning something.

Memory of a red metal door and what might be a gymnasium. Being chased by the vampires, slamming the door into the face/arm of one of them as I run outside. It's daylight, but I'm not sure if that bothers them. Outside a brick building, patches of green grass growing weed-like in the gravel.

Space dream. Mentions of Kyle Katarn. I'm in a ship, dark metal interior. A DC thinks he's intimidating, but I don't feel the least bit threatened. Semi-lucid, I'm thinking about writing things down later. Sex dream.

Weird FA. I still feel half-stuck in the dreamworld, but not immersed in it. I think about waiting at the Twin Towers that Walms mentioned as a possible meeting place, pull up an image of what used to be there. I'm standing on top of the north tower, beside the antenna. I think about the Task of the Month, jumping off a skyscraper. I watch my dream avatar jump from the building and land on her feet, as if I'm watching a video clip. The scale is all wrong; the DA is too tall in comparison to the building beside her.

I'm Neal Caffrey from White Collar, helping to catch people. The dream-plot is nonsensical, and my surroundings are wavy coloured lines over white. I talk to Peter Burke about the people we caught by running into them with more wavy coloured lines that might have been a car.

"OMFG A CAT!" I shout, pointing. A cat walks along the driveway. I have no idea what context could turn this into a momentous event. Maybe all the animals are dead?

A CAT! Scare Factor: 3.

Fragments: Snape writing a letter to Voldemort about how annoying Harry is, and how Voldemort probably should have chosen Neville as his arch-nemesis if he actually wanted to win.

Walking through a pathway in a zoo that is filled with snakes. I name cottonmouths, rattlesnakes, and coral snakes, which I peer at carefully, trying to decide if red touches yellow. I refuse to walk down the path while barefoot, because I like snakes, but I don't particularly want to die, thanks.

Running into Vicki from boxing; apparently she lives on the top floor of what might be my apartment building. It's an open dorm, so I recognize her while walking through, and consider waking her up. Or would that be creepy? She wakes up anyway.

End Fragments.

Alternate Squamish. I'm watching video footage from a couple years ago, when apparently the downtown was flooded with green and black clouds of swarming... things.

I'm walking through back alleys and crab-walking (crawling) over gravel, for some reason. I look over a fence and see two-police officers disappearing around a corner. Deja vu. I've been at this fence before. I think I had trouble climbing it, since the fall down one side seems so steep. I try the sequence again, jumping over multiple fences through a back yard. One is a metal railing that seems too tall, and I climb over it, disappointed at the interruption.

I get to the other side, and a woman interrupts. She asks if I have an appointment. I remember that I do. I follow the woman into the building and slip off my shoes. There are change rooms. I think I'm the main character from #59: Ghost Ship, Jade. I follow the person who I have an appointment with. She's a really hot girl whose strawberry-blonde hair is tied up into a ponytail. A few strands fall attractively over her face. We've met before. Apparently she's painting my nails? I'm calling her Elle.

When we walk outside, I'm wearing a spa-like fluffy housecoat. Elle has her hands on my shoulders, pushing me gently through the door. I look around, amazed. One of the mountains extends over this part of the town. The stone is made out of a glassy black rock, like obsidian or onyx. Water falls in torrents into the ocean around the peninsula, surrounding the area with a fine white mist. Behind me is an eastern style wooden building, complemented by the sleek metal and glass railings running around the deck.

I follow Elle over pathways leading back and away from the ocean. Everything is sunny and the effect is much less impressive. We go to sit down at a picnic table.

My character falls asleep on a bed inside the building.

Cut to a group of people back at the picnic table area, randomly deciding that my character is a werewolf, and she needs to die.

The real me is listening in, sitting a table away and reading a book. The book is describing everything that's happening. I have to wonder why I'm only identifying with the parts written in first person (Jade's part), rather than the parts written in third person that have Elle in them. I concentrate on reading the book and getting back into the story.

I wake up, back in the building, as Jade. I'm highly annoyed by the inevitable running that's about to occur.

Nail Polish. Scare Factor: 2.

I think this dream means I have a crush on my hairdresser.

I'm Dean Winchester (again), and we're on a hunt. We have to go through Lady Gaga videos frame by frame. Apparently there's a reason for the scene in "Bad Romance" where she's crying.

Also, I had the song stuck on a loop in my head after waking up. Ugh.

Lady Gaga. Scare Factor: 10!

Okay, 2. Scare Factor: 2.

I'm river rafting with a group on the backs of whales/fish/squid/leeches. The creatures swim down the river with one side of their bodies facing up, which turns from pink to silver in the sunlight. They turn over after a while, so we have to stay on top of them.

My creature is about to turn over, so I jump onto the shore and let it. I throw one smaller creature back into the river where it got caught somewhere. I watch a kid's creature turn over and throw him into the water. He comes up on the other side, laughing.

I'm back in the water, swimming on my own. I'm wearing running shoes, which really limits my swimming ability. We'll be hiking later though, so I can't go barefoot.

An enemy is on the shore, aiming something at our group. I'm swimming through fairly deep water, but I jump up and land a flying kick on the henchmen, knocking the gadget aside. There's another one farther into the forest, and I rush at him -

shift

I'm driving through one of the main intersections in Quickton. The stoplights facing me are blinking orange, the adjacent stoplights are blinking red. I drive through the intersection, thinking about the DC I'm trying to help / is helping me.

I'm biking down one of the pathways near my house. I wonder how I'm going to meet up with her again. On impulse, I pull out a blaster and shoot two Star Wars-esque red laser blasts into the sky. I consider that we should have used that as a signal. I shoot a couple more just to see what the range of visibility is.

The signal starts coming up elsewhere in the city. Sirens go off. Uh oh. I stow my blaster under my jacket (it's too long to sling across my back; the barrel pokes up under my collar) and quickly pedal home. I do have to wonder how video game characters manage this.

I end up in an oh so messed up version of my backyard. I'm setting my bike against a fence and am about to haul it over into my half of the back yard (it's a duplex), when, for no apparent reason, I realize that I'm dreaming.

I don't see a reason not to leave the bike where it is. I decide to play along with the dream and get rid of the gun, so I walk into the garden shed and hold the blaster up along the wooden wall. The wall folds out and clamps onto the gun, and when it folds back you wouldn't even know that we were stockpiling an armory. Then I stare at the inside of the shed for a moment, marvelling at the detail and how real this all seems. I can feel my body, the scratch of the jean jacket I'm wearing, my feet on the ground.

I shake myself out of it. I had plans for a lucid, right? I was going to... meet Walms. Right. Now, how am I supposed to get there?

Stepping out into the bright sunlight, I extend my right hand, intent on peeling through the layers of the dream. Something goes wrong; I can't feel them.

"What are you doing?"

There's a guy my age standing on the lawn in the back yard. Short blond-ish hair. Let's call him Derek (I haven't used that name yet, have I?). He doesn't look much different than I do in dreams. Similar clothing, too.

"You know what?" He says, when I don't answer, "I don't care. See ya."

Derek jumps through a hole in the lawn. It's shimmery, like a puddle, but it doesn't reflect the blue sky above. It reflects a different sky with a setting or rising sun, shot through with pink.

I jump through the puddle.

I hit sand on the other side, startling Derek. "Um, hi." I say.

"I wasn't expecting you to follow me," he admits.

"Yeah, well..." I look around, taking in the view. We're standing on a beach, looking out over a sunset. "Huh. I think I have a [desktop wallpaper] like this."



We spot another puddle in the sand. "You coming?" he asks me.

I nod.

We jump. The other side is more blue-tinged. It's still sandy, but everything is underwater.

"So, you've gotta be looking for something, right?"

I try to answer, but the words come out garbled.

Derek rolls his eyes. "You know this is a dream, right? You wouldn't have been able to follow me otherwise. You can still talk."

I take a breath, feel cool air enter my lungs. Breathe out, breathe in. I try again. "I'm looking for a guy who calls himself 'Walms'".

Derek looks at me, incredulous. "You don't even know where you're meeting him? Jesus. I could take you to a place, but I don't think I can help you find someone you don't even know."

False awakening. I feel the dream fall apart around me, and become aware of my body lying on the bed. There is bright white light everywhere, and I can still feel the remnants of the previous dream around me.

I fade back into the dream. I'm back in the dream-warped backyard, sitting on the lawn. Derek is standing beside me. I swear, if he rolls his eyes any more, they'll stick like that. I go over where I left my bike and lift it over the fence. Derek says something.

[I]Puddles. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: Okay, Mr. Negativity.

I'm Harry Potter, in what's sort of a pre-2005 video game environment. We've shifted into a circular hall in some sort of grand manor - an inheritance from my family. I've been using it as a base, as I'm on the run from a million and one different organizations. The hall runs in a circle, and the inner doors are decorated by massive arches that jut out from the stone walls.

I meet with my friends on the second floor, outlining a plan to get back at our opponents.

I choose Hermione from a list of avatars and I'm jumping around on the landings above the doors.

shift, and I'm at my childhood elementary school, looking up at the big brick building and vaulting over dark blue fences. I know that I'm dreaming. The entranceway is one story tall, an impossible leap. I'm concerned that I won't be able to make it, as I've been having trouble defying gravity lately. However, I call up the will, and effortlessly make the jump onto the roof. When I land, I can still feel the upward momentum. I feel like I should be floating, but I have both feet on the ground.

Back to being Harry, as a child, I talk to a woman who's coming out of a house. The entrance is lit up brightly behind her, and everything is blurry. The house is where a clump of bushes should be. I talk to her, and she invites me in. I think she's Lily.

Zoom out to view a fleet of battleships approaching Earth.

Gravity. Scare Factor: 2.

I'm alone on a ship - all of the crew have succumbed to... something. Another ship is attacking mine, full of spirits. I swing over onto the enemy ship and rescue a girl, who turns out to be another ghost. She's my ally in the dream.

I've had visions throughout the dream of the final battle against my enemy. I've lost every time. Now, the time is really here. My enemy taunts me, tells me that there's no way I can win, but I've seen how he won before and I know I can beat him. I meet his attack with a wave of blue energy that knocks him away and destabilizes the dream.

shift

Human survivors terrorize each other post-apocalypse, forcing their views on the weaker individuals.

A group of survivors in some post-apocalyptic world is trying to establish a prohibition on alcohol. The main character (male, short blond hair) is arguing during a town meeting. This is followed by someone accusing, "It's almost like you don't want it gone!" Well, duh.

The main character is female, now. Long, black hair, looks like a character from one of my stories. She's with the blonde (no longer ghost) girl from the previous dream. They're standing in a run-down shack. Then I show up. My dream avatar is some kind of male mythological figure, with long white hair. A conversation takes place. She's accusing me of something.

I laugh and say, "You're more of a Reaper than I am!"

(Unconsciously stepping back and choosing the weapons: a short, hand held scythe for the MC, a sword for the ex-ghost, and I'm somehow fighting with chains.)

I quickly knock the blonde out of the fight, sending her flying toward the wall. I block their blades with heavy metal chains on the defensive, strike barehanded on the offensive. With ghost-girl out of the fight, I renew my attack on the MC, enjoying what - to me - is a friendly sparring session.

Ghost Ship. Scare Factor: 3. [/QUOTE]

A dream occurs on two levels of reality. In one, the cast and crew of Supernatural go about their daily business of making an awesome TV show. In another, I go about my daily business of building houses. This gets confusing when suddenly I'm Misha Collins, calmly vacuuming up sawdust in the basement while a highly amusing PA briefs me on whatever they're doing next. Also, a suspended ceiling puts itself together in the writer's room and the baseboards I've been staring at for the last few days drift in and out of existence at eye-level.

shift

I'm in a den, or a living room, and I think this was a mall a second ago. Everything is in dark shades of brown and black. I'm sitting on a brown leather couch facing a wide-screen TV, and along the opposite wall is a set of dark-stained table and chairs. Beyond the table is another room, which is completely white. Right now, it might be a kitchen, but it's about to turn into a slaughterhouse.

I have my laptop open on the couch, though I'm not paying much attention to what I'm looking at. I move over to the table when a ten-year-old boy wants to flip through the channels on the TV, looking for his favorite cartoon. When I look back, he's pulling up a page on another laptop, which is a list of his favorite cartoons, put together by his dad. A static image of one of the characters shows up on a projector behind the couch, and I start drawing it.

It's later. A team of vigilantes/ex-minions have found out what's really going into the meat made by this factory. They/we are standing around the owner, backing him into the white room. The boy* is wearing some kind of Kickass-style costume like the others in the room, and is staring at his father with an incredibly detached expression.

*I wouldn't worry about the little sociopath. I get the feeling that the vigilantes are all puppets on a string to him.


Practically the Antichrist.

Two men grab the owner and force him toward the wall. He's shouting at them and struggling to get away, but when his back hits the wall, it latches onto him and forces him down a tube. I drift through the wall, and I can see the human sized plastic tunnel he's trapped in. Pistons are forcing the right side of his body, as he's alive and screaming, against the meat grinder. His right arm, part of his leg, and the edge of his scalp have been torn apart by the machine when I see his expression shift, angry but resigned, and the machine eats into his brain.

He probably wishes he'd designed the machine to kill its victims less horrifically, I muse. A straight-razor, perhaps? The machine rearranges itself on my whim, and I wonder if cutting the throat upside-down or right-side-up would be more effective.

Three women are standing in the same room, which, maybe, is supposed to be a different place entirely? They talk about the dead owner's eldest daughter, who has sworn revenge on us/them for killing her father, his right hand man, his lieutenants, the captain who exported the shipments, the cleaning lady, and possibly me, considering I'm short of a body at the moment. Also, for kidnapping her little brother, who I'm half-sure started the coup anyway.

They laugh a little and say they have to get back to camp, so they jump out of the building and land on the ice of a half-frozen river, and start speeding down it as if they're on a slide. I have to keep nudging them closer to shore so their momentum won't carry them out onto the middle of the river, which is slushy and wouldn't hold their weight.

One person crashes into the slush anyway. No one pays attention, and I have no idea if s/he gets out alive.

The women arrive at a rocky shore where a bunch of colourful tents are set up. No one brought chairs, so someone fetches pillows for the half-frozen trio to sit on, and blankets to keep them warm. I, still incorporeal, follow the guy who gets them and see a whole pile of pillows lying on the ground.

Oh, and someone's getting married.

Soylent Green. Scare Factor: 3.5. Reaction: Lucidity, you escape me. And the meat grinder thing was pretty fucked up, too.

ETA: Oh! I know! I know! It was green, and had a giant lizard's head and sharp teeth that changed direction to spiral inwards and then fan out, and I knew I was dreaming because all of my dreams are just that fucking insane.

I can feel it nudge up against me, feel its scales and warm breath as it bumps its nose against my shoulder, and I'm not afraid because I know this is a dream...

And that's all I remember.

There's a wedding or a funeral in the family, and we (the "kids") are getting ready. I'm in a store, wondering if I dare to wear a tie. I do, deciding on a light blue dress shirt. I go over to the mirror to try it on, but I can't pull it closed over my breasts. Damn it, I think, annoyed, I shouldn't have to deal with this in my own dreams.

I'm in the Ixburg apartment, doing a hand RC. Everything is slightly blurry. It's hard to move. The RC worked, and "I'm lucid," I repeat to myself, "I'm lucid, I'm lucid, I'm lucid." I look in the mirror of my bedroom door, and see a dark grey blob standing where I am. I peer to the side, and the blob doesn't move. I see myself, currently male. I have dark brown hair, longer than it is now. I'm wearing dark clothes, a black dress shirt unbuttoned over a t-shirt. No ties, apparently. Thank God. I see strange things in the background, and open the door before I get freaked out and this turns into a nightmare.

I walk out of the apartment, fighting to stay grounded as everything blurs around me. I keep RCing and muttering that I'm lucid, until I'm halfway down the stairs and looking out of an east-facing window.

The town has transformed itself once again, this time into what looks like a creepy green-tinged matte painting. The entrance to the building, which juts out into the gravel parking lot, is in ruins, and the entire field beyond is covered in water. About fifty yards away are a set of stone steps, leading up to a square stone arch. Someone is hanging from it, arms stretched into either corner, feet hanging above the ground.

At first, I think it's a woman, but the scene shifts into someone I'm pretty convinced is Walms. At this point, Walms is down from the arch, probably having escaped the bonds (or rescued someone else from them). I have to hurry if I want to catch up to him.

I look down at the uneven ground and sigh. I don't suppose this will count as a skyscraper? But no. Maybe I'll do the flower thing later. I throw myself off the building, feel my speed building -

Pause, as I consider where to land.

Full-speed, I crash into the remains of the entrance, numbly feeling my ankle bend at an impossible angle. I stand up, feeling no pain, and head east toward the blurry archway.

There's no one here, unfortunately. I sigh, and look beyond the arch. There's a whole bunch of people milling around on the lawn beyond it, so I consider trying the flower task. I pick up a flowering piece of the clover weed that runs rampant around Ixburg, and scan the area for someone my age - most of the people here are elderly.

I focus on the piece of clover in my hand and it turns into a violet. The colours shift and blur and it becomes a rageddy, fushia thing. The flower shifts into a perfect bunch of green and I concentrate, pulling a pink rose-bud from the centre.

I spot a woman my age exiting the Quickton college. She couldn't be a supermodel, but she has long, blonde hair, and something else draws me to her. I hand her the rose, smiling. "This is for you," I say, and turn away.

"Wait!" she says. She looks like she's about to say something important. "Are you Israel."

I don't know what she means, and I answer honestly. "I don't know." I say, and walk away.

I'm play fighting with a dog, probably a Great Dane. I realize that I'm losing lucidity, so I concentrate and RC and start saying, "I'm lucid."

Everything is blurry as I walk into a building and do a hand RC. I can see all five fingers, but they're all attached between the index and middle knuckles. I see a guard, and -

shift

People are talking about animals in pairs. Apparently, there are two such animals that signify love. What about dogs, I want to ask snidely, but I'm not actually there. Jackson thinks the sign might apply to him, but O-Neill scoffs and starts making fun of him.

shift

FA, I scramble for my dream journal, but there's a bunch of different notebooks beside my bed and I can't find the right one. I'm lying on the bed when I realize that I'm dreaming. I push into the waking world (for the first time) so I don't forget the dream.

Dream Goals. Scare Factor: 2.[/QUOTE]

This is not a lucid dream.

I'm parked in the local Walmart parking lot, waiting for a woman in a grey minivan to back out so I can leave. I look into the car and recognize someone from the forums, who I'd assumed was a guy. I don't remember who I thought she was, but I remember deciding she was a dreamer. She had short hair somehow braided close to her head, and dark skin. I guess she looked a bit like Naiobe from Matrix.

I think about meeting up with Walms, but I'm not lucid; I think all of this is happening in real life. I think I'm meeting him later.

There's a man lying on the pavement in the middle of the parking lot (behind my car). The manager (of Walmart) doesn't know what to do, and ambulance/police are on the way. The man might have raped someone? We decide we need to move him and I lift, hooking my hands under his arms while the (female) manager lifts his legs. We carry him into the lobby and lay him on a bench. The girlfriend is waiting, and he wakes up briefly and says something to her.

Possibly another dream entirely: Walmart bathrooms are converted to sleeping places for $15 a night. Carpeted, the toilets are gone and the stalls are wood. I exit the stall and find red lockers being brought in. I chat with the girl in charge of the program, but decide that I'd really rather leave. Unfortunately, the building's on lockdown until morning. I plot my escape.

After a false awakening I don't remember, I wake up. Probably. I'm dead tired and know I should RC. I flip open the curtain and count five fingers. Then I collapse back into bed and fall asleep.

Fragments. My dad talking about one of our cousins.

Walmart. Scare Factor: 1. Reaction: I think I'm catching a flu bug.

The dream takes place several years (decades?) into the future.

The Library is falling apart in the absence of a Librarian. The Library itself is a vast compendium of past knowledge, mostly accessible through computers. It's a surprisingly busy place, in this future, filled up with mostly young people, but it's dying.

I already know how this is going to end. I slam open the door of my house (the library is inside) and walk out. It's a well lit night, and snow is falling lightly from the sky.

"OKAY!" I shout at the sky, "I'll be your fucking Librarian!" I pause at the flicker of a curtain across the street. Most people would think I'm yelling at God or something, but I'm actually communicating with a highly advanced intelligence that has full control over... never mind.

A question forms somewhere in my mind, asking what it would be like to stay in this one place for years, contrary to everything that I am (a traveller). Stubbornly, I continue to assert that I'll do the damn job if I have to - time is fluid in this place, anyway.

I don't receive an answer.

---

I'm in a location I dreamed about last spring. It's almost identical. The local aquatic centre is fused with a rock climbing gym, which we don't have here in Quickton.

In the dream, I'm wondering why I thought we don't have any rock climbing here, since we so obviously do (we don't).


Map


Colour of the walls

Silence in the Library. Scare Factor: 2.

We're driving down the highway in a tan-coloured Oldsmobile. The driver seems to think the speed limit is optional, which really wouldn't bother me, only he doesn't actually have his license yet. Also, he doesn't seem to be in control of the vehicle, if the wildly oscillating steering wheel is anything to go by.

"Whoa! Whoa!" I shout from the backseat. "Oncoming train, ONCOMING TRAIN!"

"Ben, stop," says my mom from the passenger seat.

Ben reluctantly brings the car to a stop before we get to the train tracks. I breathe out a sigh of relief and glare at my brother.

"You know," says the fifteen-year-old comfortably, "Sam could totally supervise my driving -"

"NO!" My mom and I say simultaneously.

Ben slouches in his seat and gets the car moving again, now that the train's past. The car gradually speeds up, and he throws my mom a look that reads See? I can totally drive without giving Sam a heart attack.

A copse of trees blocks the road a little bit farther along. It's night. We need to hike through the trees in order to get to the road on the other side.

We're not a few steps in before I can feel a tingling feeling up my spine. I sense a malicious intent, which lingers, as if the blood that's been spilled here has never properly washed away.

"We should hurry," I say quietly. "This isn't a good place." I should know, this is my dream after all. Vaguely, I wonder if this is going to turn into a nightmare. If it is, am I sensing evil, or creating it?

There are men sleeping, haphazardly strewn over the grass-covered ground in various garishly coloured sleeping bags. I hurry Mom and Ben along, out of the campsite through a path in the bushes. I know it the moment the men wake up.

"Go! Go! I'll meet you at the car!" I shout at my family. Somewhere between eight and a dozen men come rushing onto the path, heedless of my attempts to block them. I can't move, I can't shout, I'm completely helpless -

"KIYA!" I lace a high-pitched shout with all of my fear and anger, forcing the men's attention onto me. I move out into the middle of the clearing, still pulling their attention, focusing on the present rather than the danger that faces the others. I need to be able to move.

"KIYA!" I shout in challenge, feeling ridiculous, catching a third-person view of myself as Eliza Dushku.

A man runs at me, using his momentum - and considerable bulk - to ready a skull-crushing punch. I sidestep. He misses. I use his momentum against him, throwing him out of the way.

It's on.

Another man rushes me. I catch him by the arm, twist, breaking it. I throw him over my shoulder and he crashes to the ground, where I aim a kick at his neck, killing him instantly.

Two come at me. I send one stumbling with a kick to the solar-plexus. He trips over the corpse and I disable the other one with a ridge-hand strike to the throat, crushing the windpipe. He collapses to the ground, gasping for air, and I'm already rushing a stunned thug, sweeping his legs out from under him. I pound three high-powered kicks into his left temple before he can blink.

A thug is picking himself up from beside his friend's corpse, looking enraged. I'm behind another one, hand across jaw, and I pull, breaking his neck. I don't see Trippy until he has a hand around my throat, lifting me until my toes barely brush over the ground. I twist, tearing - tiger claw - rigid fingers across his face, ripping into flesh. His grip slackens and I turn around to meet another attack, evading arms and deftly clawing an eye out of its socket. He's out of the fight.

One of the smarter ones is readying an incantation - I'm in front of him. I grab, twist, tear his arm off, leave him to bleed out.

Another. I aim a kick for his groin, surprised when I hit the inner thigh. Hard. Time slows for the others, and I admonish myself for losing focus. Concentrate on the dream. I pull my leg in, I lash out with a side-kick to the groin. He's down. I smash his head in.

I hear a dark chuckle from across the clearing. Trippy is struggling to his feet, one hand pressed against his bleeding face. He laughs. I want to know what's so funny.

"You think we're monsters." He laughs again, eyes closed for a moment.

He's down before he knew what hit him. I kick him repeatedly, into the gut, into the side of his head, until he's nothing but a mangled corpse leering at me with a dead grin.

I put down the others with brutal efficiency.

I meet Ben and Mom at the car, which happens to be a Chevy Impala. Not meeting their eyes, I mention that we're going to have to wipe down the car, inside and outside. Apparently it was used to run over people while I wasn't looking. I'll have to dispose of these clothes, too. They're black, so I can't see the blood-spatter, but I just murdered a bunch of unarmed humanoids, and there was blood spraying everywhere, so -

"I'll clean the car," says my brother.

I take a deep breath. "Yeah. We should go."

---

Some time later, I meet up with an alternate version of my mom, driving the Oldsmobile. We talk about the forest/campground, but she isn't entirely sure what I'm talking about. In her world, we kept driving right past the damned place.

I get to thinking about alternate endings...

---

They have Ben. My mom has disappeared, but they have Ben and he's a prisoner of these things and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

There's a young boy, maybe ten, being carried from some kind of ceremony, half naked. I have a bad feeling about this.

I take a breath, calm my mind. I can stay out of sight for now, wait for an opportunity to rescue him. I'm practically incorporeal right now; it's not like I could do much anyway. Although, I think, as I watch them drag my struggling brother out of sight, waiting could be easier said than done.

---

Colourful round wooden tables are interspersed throughout the clearing. I couldn't see the place before I followed Ben in. My brother is sitting at one of the tables, eating the same grilled cheese sandwiches as all the other humans. On his left is the vampire he's been bound to, and on his right, a human slave, eying the former nervously.

I get a bit of insight from the slave, who, apparently, was a member of the local Resistance before he was captured. He still hasn't quite lost the suicidal tendencies.

"You realize," he says to Ben, keeping his voice low so the vampire won't notice, "That these things are just using you, right? We need to fight them."

Ben snorts. "You're just saying that because they're planning to eat you."

Apparently they keep humans as cattle. Charming.

Also, Ben's been brainwashed. This could be a problem.

---

I'm watching the loading area, a gravel parking lot leading into the back doors of the complex. An Oldsmobile drives in. I move closer.

A group of three or four slaves is conversing with the driver. One of them was talking to Ben earlier. Kel, I think his name was. I recognize the leader of the group: Damon. Fanatic.

"What do you want with the Aur'i, Reader?" Damon asks, as my mom steps out of the car.

"Your masters have taken one of our own." Mom tells them coldly. "We want him back."

Fuck me. Readers' powers are the opposite of my own, divine while mine are hell-powered, and they're positively toxic to the Aur'i (vampires). They're more of an allergy, for me.

"The boy, yes?" says Damon, "What of the girl?"

Ah, the Dushku persona.

"Not one of ours," Mom says, "She didn't violate the Accords by attacking you."

"A pity," says Damon. "I'll pass along your message to our Masters. You may leave now."

Ignoring the slight, Mom tips her head and goes back to the car.

Damn it. I've got to get her a message before she leaves. I take off along the side of the complex.

---

"Sokka Katara Sam!" Ben gasps, clutching his head. I hear him, glad that he's finally broken through the mind control.

Lay low.

---

I break out into a full-on sprint, moving as quickly as I can around the back corner of the loading bay. When I stop, I hardly even notice that I'm not out of breath. I wave my arms at my mom, staying carefully out of the slaves' sight.

I gesture towards some scaffolding near my hiding spot, which should be hidden from any observers. My mom exits the car and heads toward the spot I indicated, and I slink along more carefully, hidden by the various construction materials along the way.

"You had to choose this spot?" asks my mom, visibly shivering.

I'm surprised, but I look more closely at the wall. There's warding magic emanating from it.

I smile sheepishly. "I can't feel it like you do." I tell her, "My power meshes with the place."

"We'll talk about it later." She pulls an iron chain out and throws one end to me.

I catch it. It feels like ice-water is crawling over my skin.

Covered by the protection of the chain, I explain the situation, highlighting the layout of the compound and detailing Ben's chain to the Aur'i. I'm so caught up in the story that I don't notice the patrolling slaves have noticed us. Noticed the chain, rather, since we're invisible.

"That is a forbidden magic here," says Damon, indicating the iron chain.

"Is it?" I ask, adopting a really bad light Jamaican accent. "It is looped through this equipment like a spider's web."

"The reader," hisses Damon.

"You're Nomad?" asks Kel, indicating a nationality.

I glance back at Mom, but she's disappeared along with the car. Good.

I have an image of dark skin and bright colours. I take the appearance of the girl in my mind's eye and let the chain fall from my hand.

I can work with this.

I Am Legend. Scare Factor: 5.[/QUOTE]

Ariel, Samael, Rick.

The group of survivors have made it to an open courtyard surrounded by stainless steel fencing. The entrances are similar to cattle corrals, and apparently zombies aren't smart enough to get in. The horde is separated from us, but a few renegade zombies are still trying to eat us.

"Oh my god, just shoot them already!" shrieks a girl with dark hair. There are probably half a dozen of us, but only two guns. A shotgun blast goes off, taking out the zombie. The man holding the gun starts reloading. The blonde woman with the other gun lays down cover fire.

One of our members is somehow a conscious zombie, fighting off other ones and getting bitten in the process. The bites don't bother him much.

A zombie no one else seems to have noticed is sneaking up on one of the youngest, unarmed, members of our group. I curse, and rush the zombie, blocking the kid from its view. The thing immediately starts in on me, and, stupidly, I let it close enough to get in a bite.

"Fuck!" I shout, calling the attention of the rest of the survivors. I grab the zombie's head and twist the neck, severing the spinal column. The zombie drops limply to the ground.

I put a hand to the side of my neck, wincing when it comes away sticky with blood. I can already feel the wound starting to close. I look up, noticing that the man with the gun is eying me speculatively, his shotgun fully loaded and pointing straight at my head.

"Rick," I say, warning in my voice. "Don't even think -"

He pulls the trigger. My head explodes in a spectacular fountain of red chunks.

I come to some time later. I sit up in the grassy field, and I'm covered in my own blood. I purge the various fluids and chunks of brain matter with a thought, and stand up, cursing Rick's entire family tree as I do.

Already, there are more zombies shuffling toward me.

They scurry away when I send a telepathic, high pitched whine toward them, scrambling what's left of their brains and causing blood to pour from their ears. The closest zombies collapse immediately, the rest stay away.

I head toward the stone building. A school, before the apocalypse hit, and by coincidence, the perfect place for a bunch of insects to make their last stand.

---

The blonde woman is on edge the moment she sees me. "You're dead." she accuses, bringing her own shotgun up to fire. "Sam, I'm sorry, but -"

"You know, Ariel." I say, casually swatting the gun away, "That didn't work last time."

Ariel lowers the weapon when she hears my voice. "How the hell?"

"None of your goddamn business." I say brightly. "Now, where are the others?"

She's suspicious. "You know Rick meant well, right?"

"By shooting me in the head. I know. And I considered slaughtering every one of you without mercy," I say, willfully ignoring Ariel's horrified expression, "But the world would be so boring without any humans to torment."

Ariel makes a choked sound.

"So let's call an end to your little scouting mission," I say, starting down the concrete tunnel, "And go find the others."

If I can't kill them all, I can at least look forward to the expression on Rick's face.

The Devil You Know. Scare Factor: 2.

ETA: It was just like this, actually.[/QUOTE]

I'm in a familiar place, messing with the controls on a high-tech piece of equipment (possibly the Stargate). My partner is a girl named Susan.

The building is a small house with fake-wooden paneling on the walls. There's old and worn furniture scattered throughout, mismatched and comfortable. There are a huge number of people in the house, milling about and chatting, but the atmosphere is mournful. Apparently this is a funeral or a wake.

I'm trailing beside Susan as she moves through the room talking to people. Suddenly, she half collapses, sobbing. I turn to our boss and tell him I'll take her away from the crowd.

I tell Susan that we're going into the lounge. I support her weight as we walk into the room and I have a strong feeling of familiarity with the location. I help her over to a couch and she lies down. I go over to sit on a recliner.

When I look up, I see that Susan has come to stand beside my chair. She asks if she can sit with me. I move over, and she sits down with me. I imagine the chair laying back and the footrest coming up. Susan and I lay down together, and I drift off to sleep.

I wake up, curled on my side in the chair. Susan is gone. I get up and pad through the living room that was full of people last night. I pop into my head into the den, and ask my dad (who's watching TV) where Susan is. He says she's probably sleeping in one of the bedrooms.

I stare at all of the people in the room, whose faces I can't really see. I notice that some of the people seem to be disembodied heads under various blankets all over the room. I dismiss the phenomenon as being normal for a dream, and go to find Susan.

Susan is, in fact, sleeping in one of the bedrooms. I close the door quietly, trying not to wake her.

When I step away from the door, I decide it's time to double-check my suspicions. I do a hand RC for the first time in a dream, staring at my left hand until the fingers move separately from my will and thick red blood begins to foam over the knuckles of my ring and middle fingers.

I'm somewhat disturbed, but I decide it doesn't really matter. I look at the digital clock on a VCR, which reads 1:45 PM. I decide that the time isn't unreasonable, since it was around 11:00 AM when I last woke up, and I had time to sleep in today.* I will the time on the clock to change, and it flickers. I repeat the hand RC.

I stretch out a hand in front of me, willing open a portal to a skyscraper. Instead of a portal opening in front of me, the door across the room to my left opens with a bang, letting the bright morning sunlight stream into the room.

I step out of the house and look around. There are mountains surrounding the town. The mountain I can see between buildings is a sloping, tree covered hill, and I'm happy to be on the mountainous west coast. The buildings are probably a couple centuries old. The church I can see has a spire reaching up toward the blue sky.


St. Paul's Church, the oldest building in Halifax, NS.

I repeat the hand RC, hoping to extend the dream. The ring finger on my right hand is missing, but when I look closer, I realize it's still there. The light seems to bend around it so that it's just barely visible, like the non-existent puddles on the highway in the middle of the summer.

There's nothing resembling a skyscraper nearby, so I throw open a few doors, hoping for a portal to a bigger city. I go through one, into brighter light, but I'm still more or less in the same place.

I'm just outside of town, looking at a delapitated building. There are no doors that don't have shelving inside, so I focus on the people who are there. Selina, a girl I graduated with, and an old man who looks kinda like one of my art school professors (Mike) are the only characters who don't fade into the background. They're picking things up, working on repairs to the heritage site.



Mike and Selina greet me, and ask what I'm planning to do. Mike says that if I'm planning to go into the woods, I should avoid making deals with the beings there. They can offer a lot, so it's a hard temptation to resist - the creatures could bring back any of my relatives from the dead.

I wryly assure him that I've had a similar dream before, where someone warned me not to bring back the original Elaine. By this point, I'm well aware that anyone I try to bring to life will come back wrong.

Mike is wistful, saying that if they would come back right, all of us would be willing to live without our souls, and to hell with the consequences.

I remember to do another hand RC, but I'm waking up. Everything fades and when I wake up, I already have my eyes open. I do another digital-clock RC, but I'm really awake this time.

Girlfriends, Dead People. Scare Factor: 2.

*It was around 12:45 PM when I actually woke up.[/QUOTE]

Image of a blonde woman. She looks like Ripley Grace from Avatar.

shift

Two groups are transported to a dark and scary place, lit up with a lot of orange. The cobblestone streets are coming loose in places, and stone structures are crumbling.

The group that arrives ahead of us are poachers. There are four or five of them and three or four of us. We appear practically on top of them, which is Not A Good Thing, because we're rivals/enemies/nemeses of each other.

We start to spot tiny little insects, looking like the drops of water in the first scene of Avatar (guess what movie I finally saw last week). They're bees. Honey-bees, to be precise. The bear-man in the other group freaks out and runs down a stone flight of steps, batting at the bees as he goes. I get the feeling that he's heading toward the hive.


Run, you fools! They're trying to kill you!

The bear-man in our group (symmetry, I suppose) suggests that we run. Quietly. In the other direction.

shift

I'm in the apartment in Ixburg. I'm still trying to get away from the bees, but at this point I know I'm dreaming. The goal of the dream is to get to another floor, either up or down, and the stairs would be too easy. I move away from the door, toward the master bedroom, remembering my attempts to reach an attic through a closet in a previous dream (#49: Misogynists, Scientists, Doctors, Little Girls, Monsters, and Faeries).


Still gonna kill you.

There's a second exit from the apartment, leading down a hallway we used for storage. I pause as I move to pass it, and decide this would be a good time to practice "Open A Door, Create A Portal". I don't really want to leave this dream, for, say, the moon, but I decide to open it up for practice anyway. I concentrate on what I'd see if I made it to the moon (the image has a moon in the sky, oops) and push the door open.

The hallway has become a steep flight of steps leading two floors down. I'm thrilled, because regardless of my intent, this is exactly what I wanted. I fling myself down the stairs, not worried about the landing, because I'm well aware that there won't be any impact. At this point, I'm quickly moving through the building by skipping the stairs entirely. I peer down each level and jump as far as I can. At one point, I take care to concentrate entirely on the feeling of falling - as if the bottom is dropping out of my stomach. It's horrifying - and absolutely brilliant.

I think back to something I said yesterday, that my falling dreams usually end with me bouncing off the ground. That's not quite accurate, I decide. It's more like I've jumped a foot into the air and landed toe, ball, heel.


Or maybe it was like this!

Nope, totally grounded.

The actual building this dream is based on has four floors, including the basement. I must have extended this by several stories, as I lost track of the time that I played on the stairs. Finally, I reach the basement.

I look around and down the hallway, marvelling over how real all this feels. I feel more awake right now than I usually do while I'm conscious.

There are railings criss-crossing throughout the basement. I remember the April dreaming task (last chance!). Stand on your head, right? I go to a place where the railings meet at a 90 degree angle. I grip the railings, and pull myself up into a handstand.

I can feel the burn in my arms. Balancing isn't a problem, but I have to work to support myself in that position. Letting out a huff of exultation, I lower myself gracefully to the ground, grinning all the while.


Because I can't do this in real life. Yet.

The advanced task reads "Stand on your head", literally. I concentrate on the shadows cast by the light source behind me, put my fingers over my temples and under my jaw, and gently pull away from me and downward.

From a first person POV, I'm watching the shadows intently, seeing the shape of my head separated from my body. Suddenly, I'm brought back to the starting position. I concentrate on my reflection in a dusty mirror, and repeat the process, slowly. I see my only my silhouette. I bend my knees and try to place my head on the floor, only to find myself in a sitting position, legs bent outward, stretching toward the floor.

I'm still in the basement. My mom is folding laundry, and there are piles of clothes all over the place. I see a pink or blue t-shirt, apparently my mom's, that reads "Slytherin Mom". I start telling her about the dream I just had.

I "wake up" in my room at my parents' house. I write down my dreams for the night. I check my alarm clock, but I'm too tired to do the RC properly. I'm annoyed by my mom, because she keeps popping into the room while I'm trying to sleep.

shift

I'm chatting with some people in an imaginary gay bar. A girl tells me I ought to come out more. No pun intended.

shift

I'm doing dishes via telekinesis. The mice from Cinderella will be disappointed that they didn't get to help, but they did the dishes in the last dream. Which means they haven't done the dishes in this dream. Which means I'll still have to do the dishes when I wake up.

I bring garbage out to the dumpster behind the shed. I'm Alice in Wonderland. After falling down the rabbit hole, I meet my character's worst enemy.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

And then I'm a scary-looking monster horse hissing at the singing monstrosity.[/QUOTE]