Things to Run Away From Really Fast

Apparently, this dream follows directly after #118. Also, I'm stealing titles directly from Mike Carey's Lucifer.

07/26/10

Sam and Dean want to kill the devil. I "help".

Sam climbs into the passenger seat of the Impala and slips on the pair of sunglasses resting on the dash. He lets his head fall back onto the seat and rubs his temples. (I marvel over the strange purple glow of our surroundings.) The driver's side door slams shut, and he lifts up his head. Dean has his hands clenched tight on the steering wheel, and stares into the desert horizon with his jaw clenched. Frustration seems to roll off him in waves.

They're back on the road before either of them says anything.

"So," says Dean, "We can either drive to Death Valley, or fly to the Himalayas." His tone makes it clear what he thinks of the idea.

"Death Valley's closer."

Dean raises his eyebrows, "With our luck, do you really think the devil managed to stay stateside?"

"I'd rather go to the Himalayas, personally." I say.

The car almost lurches off the road. Dean twists around in his seat to look at me. "Don't do that."

"We have wooden stakes in the trunk." Sam says mildly. "Trickster."

"When has that ever worked?" I ask. "Anyway, why are we going to the Himalayas?"

"We're not." growls Dean. His eyes are back on the road.

"We're trying to kill the devil." Sam says reasonably.

"Oh," I say, nodding along. "Why?"

"You know," says Dean, "Prevent the apocalypse, save humanity, that kind of thing?"

"There's a system of doors in Tibet that lead into other worlds. A psychic we talked to said that Lucifer left traces in the mountains that are somehow tied to these portals."

"The Nevernever." I say. "Yeah, we should check it out. Keep an eye out for vegan faeries."

"Right, I'm sure they're vicious little buggers," says Dean.

"Oh, they are. Somehow, human flesh satisfies the parameters of their diet."

***

"Nice office," says Dean, flopping gracelessly onto a black leather chair. He puts his feet up onto the desk. Bits of dirt flake off of his shoes onto the polished surface, and I hide a grin.

Sam just looks annoyed.

"Most of the objects in this room move along certain paths," I say, "Like levers. Get the right arrangement and the door will open right up."

"Unless, of course, you know a shortcut." The voice is British, and female, and I turn around to study her.

"Bela." says Dean. "Back from Hell already?"

"Someone had a job for me," she says, holding up a gun and pointing it at him, "And I am very good at my job." She smiles. "By the way, you might want to hurry. I informed security you were here."

Our eyes are drawn to the other hallway, where we hear a door click open. I look back. Bela's gone.

"God-fucking-dammit," says Dean.

"You figure out the combination," I say. "I'll distract him."

I stride into the hallway without looking back. Standing there, looking livid, is a man in a business suit. He's big and round, and his hair is white where he still has any. He slams the door behind him.

"Do you know who I am?" says the man, furious, "Do you know what I could do to you?" He pulls out a gun and points it at me.

"Not much?" I say, pretending to consider. "Relax. We need your door to the Nevernever, and then we'll be out of your hair."

"Impudence!" He snarls, "Just like my youngest son! I'll have you all killed!" He starts ranting about his plan to have me implicated in a gay affair with his son, followed by an elaborate murder-suicide.

I peer around the corner into the main office, since he's not actually paying much attention to me. Like I'd hoped, the Winchesters are gone. I turn back to the man, who by this time is ranting incoherently. I cough politely, hoping to get his attention.

He stops, panting.

"While that's a very... impressive evil plan (and you wouldn't have much trouble framing those two for anything) there is one tiny little flaw."

"And what is that?"

"I don't die."

The old man laughs and raises his hand - only to realize that he's no longer holding the gun. He freezes in shock and I wave a hand, banishing the Corrupt Corporate Executive to the late 51st century. He really won't like it there.

I take Bela's shortcut into the Nevernever, circumventing the need to play with furniture again. I appear at the top of a cliff covered in vegetation, which overlooks a hotel swimming pool and hot tub.

Sam and Dean stand on one side of the pool, facing off against Bela on the other side. I look for a way down, but there isn't one. I resign myself to jumping the fifteen-odd meters, knowing that there's no way for the fall to hurt me. I aim for the tile floor -

Only to land on the very edge of the pool. My feet impact the edge of the tile floor and slip off the edge into the water. I grit my teeth, feeling my dream-body reset itself, and I pull myself back onto the deck.

"You okay?" Asks Sam.

"Fine," I say, standing up and composing myself. "I don't die, as a rule." I notice Dean's weapon is trained on Bela. "Neither will she, you idiot."

As if in response, Bela spits a gob of blood onto the tile.

"Oh," I say, "They gave you a time limit."

"Apparently we're looking for different things," she says, her voice low, "Don't get in my way." She turns around and disappears into the cave system on the other side of the room.

There's a collective breath of relief.

"So," I say, turning to the boys, "Did you have a plan?"

"Find the devil," says Dean, "Shoot him in the head?"

"So, where is the devil?" asks Sam.

"I don't know," I lie with a shrug, "You guys said you wanted to go to the Himalayas."

"You said the devil came here!"

"It's what I'd do," I say innocently. "Anyway, plane tickets are in Sam's backpack. I have to run."

When I disappear, Dean is looking a little green.

***

I find him in a warehouse, beside a cracked-open wooden crate. Empty green wine bottles litter the ground, and Castiel himself - back in his original vessel - is sprawled out on the ground, leaning against the box. He has a half empty wine bottle in one of his hands.

I appear next to the crate, eyeing Castiel thoughtfully. I grab a full bottle and sit down on the concrete, popping the cork with a thought. Castiel's eyes roll up to look at me.

"Bad day at the office?" I ask, clinking my bottle of wine against his.

His face twists into a frown. "Being rescued by Lucifer didn't exactly set me up for a promotion."

"Well, I'd tell you they'll get over it," I say, taking a sip of wine, "But this is Heaven we're talking about. That lot can hold a grudge into eternity."

Castiel snorts. "You're not helping."

"Should I?" I ask, genuinely curious. "You wouldn't accept any advice from me. I'm the Deceiver, after all."

Castiel is quiet for a long time. I go steal chocolate bars from another section of the warehouse.

A Dalliance with the Damned. Scare Factor: 3.

WakingNomad provided the narration for the warehouse scene. Somehow. I think Microsoft Word was open in another window while I was experiencing the scene itself.

Also, I've somehow rewritten Season 4 of Supernatural subconsciously. So yeah.

P.S. I make up most of my dialogue. I don't remember the exact wording, so I improvise. I am a vile, evil attention-monger, I tell you.

I feel like I'm writing bad fanfiction subconsciously. I find it interesting that in the past two months I've had several dreams that carry on from previous ones.

Also, more Lucifer.

07/23/10

Castiel gets captured. I offer to help with the rescue.

"Let him go, you bitch!" I shout.

"Oh, Dean," says Lilith. "You don't understand. You've already lost."

I hate losing.

I throw myself back through the dream, back through the sewers that lead to the Hellmouth, zooming back over flooded streets and abandoned rafts and into a warehouse that I fought my way through not long ago.(1)

I arrive before Sam and Dean Winchester ever found themselves ambushed here, taking up precious time in our search. I can't afford that loss again.

A man is kneeling on the floor at the center of the warehouse. His face and arms are bare, and I can see designs swirling everywhere on his exposed flesh in patterns of black and blue. The tattooed man paints symbols on the floor, dipping his fingers into a wooden bowl filled with something red and sticky.



"Damian Masters." I say tonelessly. My voice reverberates through the building. Damian stands up, startled, and I step out of the shadows.

"Who are you?" He rasps, panicked.

"Have you ever heard the name 'Samael'?" I ask him.

He shakes his head.

"I'm an angel." I manage to say it with a straight face.

Damian falls to the ground and bows his head. I try not to let my irritation show. "What can I do?"

"We have need of Dean Winchester," I say importantly. "Allow him to leave. Kill the other one."

"Of course," he breathes, "The boy with the demon blood."

I walk across the room, deliberately scuffing the blood sigil where it won't be noticed. I roll my eyes. "So mote it be." I say in a mocking tone.

***

Dean steps onto the oversized raft, stumbling a little as it bobs under his weight. He turns around and catches the knife Sam throws at him. He breathes out slowly once he catches his balance again. (2)

"Watch it, Sam. I don't want to go diving for this stuff." He rubs his eyes and sighs. "Be careful."

"You're doing the dangerous part," says Sam, rolling his eyes. "I'm just casting the spell here because it's on the right ley lines."

"Other people thought so, too," warns Dean. "That blood on the floor still looks fresh."

"Get on with it, Dean. Castiel's not getting out of Hell on his own."

Dean unties the rope from the pier and casts off, sending his brother a sarcastic two-finger salute. Sam grins and salutes back. He only watches Dean drift off for a moment, carried by the current through the flooded city. He picks up a canvas bag and spreads its contents over a table, ready to start the ritual.

He gets so caught up in his task that he almost ignores the little warning voice that goes off in his head. He dodges to the side as a fireball slams into the table, sending his ritual ingredients up in flames. Sparing no time for disappointment, he runs over to where the guns should be, only to find them... gone.

He turns around to face the other man. The tattooes on his face and arms, Sam thinks, they probably let him manipulate energy. The man's face is twisted into a triumphant grin, and Sam looks down, realizing he's at the center of the blood sigil on the floor. The tattooed man raises a hand, covered in glowing swirls, and presses it to the concrete.

***

His raft floats through the flooded city, guided by a spellbound current. The shadows of buildings jut out of the water, reaching toward the orange sky as if in their death throes. Barnacles cling to the rotting and rusting wood and steel. Some of the buildings have collapsed in on themselves, leaving twisted metal sitting low to the water. Dean steers carefully around them.



"Dean Winchester, yeah?"

Dean spins around with the knife raised. "Yeah? And who are you?"

The boat tips a little, and I look back at him, unimpressed. "I'm here to help," I say with a smile. "You can call me Lucy. Things will get confusing, otherwise."

"Really. Okay, Lucy," says Dean, "Why should I trust you?"

"You probably shouldn't," I tell him honestly, "But I owe Castiel a favour, and I pay my debts."

Dean eyes me suspiciously, but he lowers the knife.

"Excellent." I say. "Now, we have a problem."

"Of course we do."

"Castiel's vessels have gone missing."

"His vessel? The guy he's possessing?"

"The daughter as well. You haven't met them yet?"(3) I receive an uncomprehending stare as my answer. "Whatever. He needs a vessel, and you're it." A pause. "Don't look at me like that, it's only temporary."

"Why not you?" asks Dean, "That'd be a good way to pay back your 'debt', wouldn't it?"

"How many humans do you know that can teleport onto a raft in the middle of nowhere?" I ask impatiently. "I'm an occupied vessel; it doesn't work that way."

Dean is silent as I latch onto the decorative post of a balcony and bring the raft to a stop. "We're hee-ere," I sing-song quietly, stepping onto the concrete deck. Dean shoots me a look, hand hovering near the gun concealed under his jacket.

We step through the archway, into a cobblestone hallway filled with rot and mold. Dean's nose scrunches in distaste, but I can't smell anything. A rusted metal ladder is built into the opposite wall, and I make a motion towards it. Be my guest.

Dean eyes the ladder. "I thought we were going into the sewers."

"We are." I confirm. Dean looks at me askance, and I roll my eyes. "We're walking towards a gateway to Hell! You can't expect reality to work properly."

Dean makes a disbelieving noise, but moves to the ladder and starts climbing up it. I follow a few seconds behind, looking up to track Dean's progress.

Wow. Those are some really nice jeans.

Climbing up brings us a level down, and we trudge through muddy water and orange-lit brick until we find an opening in the wall. Dean and I stand on either side of it, catching our breath and shaking out our shoes.

"Are you ready?" I ask. "Lilith's on the other side."

"Ready as I'll ever be." Dean shoots me a grin. We step through the opening.

It's bright. The gateway is orange-white, shedding the room with stark light and bleaching out the red brick. Lilith stands near the doorway, hands clasped loosely over her white dress. Her blonde hair flutters in a non-existant breeze.

I squint against the light. "Claire Novak?" I say incredulously. "Oh, irony of ironies. Nice one, Lilith."



The little girl smiles pleasantly. "I thought it was fitting, using an angelic vessel as my own." She holds a hand up to the light, studying her fingers. "It was actually quite simple to burn out the angelic protections."

"You're borrowing from Azazel." I muse, "His bastardising the Winchester line."

"Demon blood," snaps Dean. "Can we get on with it? If this is a seal, what did you need an angel for?"

"An angel?"

"Castiel." I supply helpfully.

Lilith laughs, her voice clear and deceptively innocent. "Oh, of course," she says, "Heaven has him, and I have no more need of opening seals. Lucifer walks the earth."

"What?"

"Castiel's superiors were unhappy with his exercising free will," I state calmly. "They're currently re-educating him."(4)

Dean rounds on me. "Whose side are you on?"

"Huh. Good question. I'm still going to need at least one of the vessels." I say to Lilith.

"Can we go back to the bit where Lucifer is free?"

"Dean, your presence is extraneous at the moment," I say, tilting my head sideways as I look at Lilith's teenage meatsuit. "Shut up."

Dean looks about ready to hit me, but I wave a hand and he collapses.

"My lord?" says Lilith carefully.

"Not today." I say, "Tell me, what is it you're after?"

"The end of all things." She responds immediately. "The apocalypse, which you are destined to bring about." (5)

I smile as I approach her. "Destiny," I say, placing a hand on her head, "Is bullshit."

Lilith's demonic form - grey and wispy and spiralling out of control - is forced out of Claire Novak's body. The light grey smoke hurtles toward the Hellmouth, screaming. It stills a second, pulling with all its might against the vortex, before succumbing to the orange-white light, falling back into Hell. The gate closes, dousing the room in shadow.

I will definitely regret doing that at some point.

I push the thought from my mind. In the next moment, I'm pulling on an incorporeal thread, tearing Castiel away from the torments of Heaven and back into human form. Blinding white light fills the room once more, before focusing on the girl.

Castiel opens her eyes.

"Lucifer," she says magnanimously.

I grin. "Hey, Cas. You should probably go rescue your other vessel. And Sam Winchester. Dean's fine," I say, seeing Castiel look over at the unconscious man.

There's an awkward pause.

"Why did you -"

"You let me go." I say, "Now we're even." (6)

I disappear without another word.

Castiel stares at the spot for a moment, before going over to Dean and tapping him on the forehead.

***

When Castiel appears back at the warehouse, supporting a groggy Dean Winchester, Sam is leaning against a table with his arms crossed, facing the tattooed man. The man is currently trussed up and tied to a chair, his head lolling at an awkward angle. Sam doesn't take his eyes off him.

"Who the hell is this guy?" Dean demands, inconspicuously taking his weight off of Castiel's shoulders.

"I have no idea," says Sam, "He attacked me, tried to activate a blood sigil." In response to Dean's worried look, Sam shrugs. "It didn't work," he says, "The outer circle was broken."

"Well, that was lucky," says Dean, sounding suspicious. "Anyway, we've got bad news. Cas?" He looks around, only to realize that Castiel is already gone. "Damn it."

Devil in the Gateway. Scare Factor: 4.

1. This dream continued on from a previous one that I don't properly recall. I think I was Dean. Sam and I fought Masters, the tattooed man in the warehouse, but it slowed us down considerably. Sam still stayed behind to do the ritual, but it completely screwed things up for us. When I replayed the dream, I kept Masters from attacking Dean, and sabotaged the ritual at the same time. I think.

2. A good portion of this dream was in the third person. My character wasn't spying so much as I was watching cutscenes.

3. Supernatural 4x20 "The Rapture", which aired over a year ago. We meet Castiel's human host, Jimmy Novak, and his family. Claire, the daughter, is briefly possessed as well.

4. Actually happened in the TV series. Same episode.

5. This was Lilith's motivation in Mike Carey's Lucifer comic series.

6. I can't believe I remembered that. According to this dream, Castiel let me beat him in our last fight. I resent the implication.

In other complaints, why is teleporting so easy during non-lucids?

Also, I haven't been online much for the past couple of weeks. Summertime! I'll do my best to get caught up with everyone's DJ entries.

07/26/10

I try to WILD. I notice the beginnings of HH, let my fingers twitch and decide I haven't reached SP.

I fall asleep. I'm laying in a bed when I feel someone lie down next to me. I freeze, and pretend to be asleep.

I make an impossible jump onto the roof of a barn.

I'm walking along cold grey tiles of a huge grocery store. If I look around, I'll see water flowing past the high windows, held at bay by degrading technology. I catch a glimpse of myself from the third person. I'm a teenage girl with pixie-like features. My shoulder-length brown hair is pulled back from my face.

I turn a corner, shining my flashlight up and down the aisles.

Since I'm a girl, I'm caught up in a rite of passage that all girls in my post-apocalyptic society go through. It's less a test and more of a sacrifice. If all the girls feed the monster a part of our souls, it'll be less likely to kill us.

My flashlight flickers and goes out.

I squeeze my elbow into my side, reassured by the blade I feel hidden under my jacket.

"Come to me, child," says a voice, rasping hollow through the darkness.

The voice resonates like a song, notes ringing through my mind, weaving a compulsion. I let the song flow over my mind like water, leaving my intentions to lie quietly in the darkness.

I let the flashlight fall from my hand. It clatters to the ground, the sound harsh in the relative silence of the warehouse. The music has reached a quiet hum. The flashlight rolls away.

I feel drowsy as I respond to the tug of the song, shuffling my feet toward the back wall of the building.

In one moment, I'm alone. In the next, the monster has apeared before me, a writhing mass of shadows moving toward me and invading my space. It brings me in, compliant, pulling me to the heart of it.

A distant part of me feels panicked and trapped, but I'm ready for this. In one smooth motion, I'm grabbing my blade and rushing forward, slicing through the monster's fleshy heart. Blood bursts from the wound, spraying everywhere.

I lick my lips, and step back, triumphant. The shadows dissipate, leaving the warehouse with the dim, directionless lighting of a dream. The scene starts to fade.

I'm standing in the produce department, wearing a more comfortable dream form, short-haired and androgynous, no longer covered in blood. The dark-haired man across from me looks annoyed as he holds a hand over his heart, willing the wound to close.

My lips twitch. "You lose again, Amon."

The Test. Scare Factor: 5.

07/25/10

Despicable Me is mentioned. I should see that movie one of these days.

I remember talking to a group of DCs, but I see the whole conversation from a far-away 3rd person POV. Part of the conversation:

"Like a riot don't need order!"

"...are you quoting Billy Talent?"

Wake Up Calls. Scare Factor: 1.

07/24/10

Something about angels that die at the same time as their human mates... I should really stop reading bad fanfiction.

I'm running away from zombies. I want to take to the water, so I steal my uncle's boat and go down the creek.

I need supplies. I find another boat, but apparently it's owned by the still-surviving Mafia. I steal the boat.

Now I'm being chased by thugs sent by the Mafia, as well as zombies. I run into a building, blasting holes through walls and ceilings, trying to make a route to the roof. I realize that I'm dreaming. I try to black out and go to the first location I think of (the apartment in Ixburg). I stop, everything around me faded to grey, and wonder why the hell I'd want to go to Ixburg. I fade back into the dream and keep running.

I make it to the roof. My enemies are right behind me. I jump down onto a white truck, and make a run for it, laughing.

Later. I'm on the road in a camper-trailer. I'm making dinner and doing dishes. Oma wonders if there's not enough protein in the pasta I made.

We're going to see a movie in Moose Jaw (real place, I do not kid). We park the camper and I step out with my cousins. I look at the showtimes, but Despicable Me isn't playing in that theatre anymore. Apparently this is the first day it's not showing. I'm very sad.

The Mafia. Scare Factor: 3.

Notes: I'm writing up an especially epic dream from two days ago, which seems to directly follow up Seven Minutes in Heaven. Basically, Castiel (from Supernatural) gets captured by someone, and I take the opportunity to thoroughly mindfuck Team Free Will.

07/17/10



The castle is light grey stone, bleached white in the moonlight. Spires reach to the stars. Atop the tallest tower, Debra Morgan stands looking out over endless mountain forests.

This is fucking ridiculous, she thinks. Of all the people to be kidnapped by a mythological creature, she should not be playing the damsel in distress. She's a cop, for Christ's sake.

She takes a breath, straightens her long, flowing (fucking impractical, is what it is) dress. It's silk, flowing patterns of blue and purple, glowing in the moonlight. The harsh notes of an organ drift across the courtyard from another tower. She frowns, humming along with the melody.

She hears her voice being played back to her, a recofded message. She stops humming, startled, and the voice stops. A slow smile forms on her face, and she starts humming the tune that the Beast is playing on his organ. She hums and listens carefully to the instructions her future self is giving her, letting a grin form. This plan just might work.



I'm a reaper, recently deceased. I've always wanted to leave Ixburg, and I was just shy of graduating high school. Now that I'm dead, I basically have sole dominion over the entire area's dead and dying.

My family moved out of our apartment block soon after my death. I get the place for a discount. Nobody wants to live in that particular suite anymore. I'm running the place for the new owners, a profession that gives me the flexibility to gather the few souls that suffer freak accidents occasionally.

For a retirement town, there's not a whole lot of death here.

Rube shows up around the corner of the shop in the back. He asks how I'm doing. I say that all I want is to get the hell out of here.

I'm jumping on fenceposts where the shop should be. I see a ten foot post and I jump up from the ground. I'm suspended in the air for a moment, and I force the dream to let me land on the four-inch circle.



I find myself in the middle of downtown Halifax. Barrington is a pedestrian only street. I feel ridiculously ashamed of my bare feet for some reason.

I take off to the south end at a sprint, enjoying the feel of running barefoot. I take the boardwalk, heading for my apartment.



I'm working at a table at some kind of convention, minding my own business, when a girl suddenly attacks me with a sword. I take a glancing blow to the neck, fall with it to avoid more damage. I pick up the short sword that was sitting beside me on the table as I dive for cover. I bring the sword up over my head as the girl strikes again. We fight.

This is a game. Damage is taken, and I slice open the girl's scalp. She hardly notices. No one loses until they surrender. I switch my sword for an axe on the table. I preferred the sword, so I switched back. The sword is knocked out of my hand and I rush the girl, tackling her and pinning her to the ground. She gets her hands out somehow and tries to struggle away, but another quick move has her immobile.

I fumble for my sword. I hold the blade to her throat, and rasp, "Do you yield?" She grins and concedes victory to me.

I'm outside, by the Halifax clocktower. The grass is green, and I look over the Vancouver harbour.

An orchestra is playing outdoors, under the blue sky. I take a breath, and allow the music to wash over me.

Now, what was I supposed to be doing?



A group of people are camping near a lake. Getting out of a car, they bicker with each other. Ron, Hermione, and Draco Malfoy are all members of the group.

Malfoy is concerned about his haircut (blond and spiky). He thinks it's just great the way it is, but they've been camping for so long that he's starting to need another haircut.

Ron can cut hair, but Malfoy doesn't trust him not to mess it up on purpose.

The Beast. Scare Factor: 4.

07/19/10

I contemplate world domination/destruction. Fortunately for the planet, I still can't teleport.

Note: As of July 21, this is no longer true. Watch out, world.



I look down at my right hand and count my fingers. "One. Two. Three. Fourfivesixseveneightnine." I get distracted and start counting off random numbers, but I'm lucid by this point, and looking around.

Dream goals... right. I wanted to go to Walmart and open a portal to hell. No reason, I just thought it would be fun.

I try to shift to a new location, attempting to bring my companion along.

I wake up in bed. Except for the part where I'm still dreaming. I know it automatically, but I still do a quick count of my fingers. The ring and pinky fingers are alternately multiplying and fading out of existance, so that's normal.

I "wake up" again, but I still know I'm dreaming. I go outside and decide to along the sidewalk at a sprint, just to see how fast I can go. I run up a hill that doesn't exist in real life, surprised that I can actually feel a physical drag slowing me down.

I consider the possibility of using running as a reality check.

Fragments: I'm driving a Bentley. I'm either Crowley or Aziraphale from Good Omens. Something about one-ways and suburbs. Or maybe that's Suburban (the truck). I can't read my writing.

I find my keys. They're hanging from the doorknob of my bedroom.

False Awakenings. Scare Factor: 1.

I wake up. My keys are still missing. Damn you for giving me hope, Id.

07/22/10

I'm travelling all over the continent. I think I'm driving through the US with some family members. We're passing a city on the freeway when I realize that I've been here before. We pull onto an exit and stop for lunch.

I explain to Oma what the buildings around us are, and mention about three restaurants I know by name that I've been to. We go inside one of them. I see a picture of myself on an indoor climbing wall.

I'm in a small town where my grandma used to live. The population is probably under five hundred. I'm moving in to one of the houses there, because I'm good friends with a few of the neighbours, all of whom are under thirty.

Now I'm getting ready to go back to school in Halifax. I'm planning to fly out the next day. I hear a knock at the door. I answer it, and a man hands me a pile of books, that I apparently ordered. I bought one of them, but the other two are from the Chinook (Saskatchewan) library system. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to read them in time.

The dream shifts and I'm in the Ixburg library to return the books.

I'm part of a group now. One of us might be Buffy Summers. A thin man with short dark hair and dark clothing is showing us an Egyptian hieroglyph, holding up a book that it's illustrated in. He explains that the hieroglyph is the symbol of a demon that's plaguing the town, and we have to stop it.

"If you ever encounter this symbol, run away really fast."

Hey, I think dimly, That's the name of my dream journal.

Library Fines. Scare Factor: 2.

07/21/10

I try to figure out this teleporting thing. Hazel helps out.



The scene drifts into focus. I'm sitting on the cool, freshly trimmed grass outside the Ixburg Inn. My surroundings are hazy, and I feel half-asleep.

It's one of those late-morning, about to wake up dreams. I dig my fingers into the soft grass and soil. I'm dreaming, I tell myself. I'm lucid.

I stare at the yellow metal siding of the warehouse beyond the fence, trying to remember my lucid goals. I can't remember the first one, so I go down the list until something pops out at me.

#2. Find Hazel.

I feel for my phone in the front left-hand pocket of my jeans. The colours around me start to grey out, and I slowly lower my hand to the ground. I grab fistfuls of grass and breathe deep, watching the sky get brighter and bluer as I calm down. Sunlight beams down from the sky. I'm facing the other direction, toward the back of the motel rooms. There are apple trees beyond the fence.

I slip my hand into my pocket (left-hand, right-hand, there isn't any difference) and pull out my phone. I think I should try this method one more time before I give up on it.

Leaning against the red fence, I mash seven random digits into the keypad (one of them is an "8") and hold the phone to my ear. It rings twice.

"Hello?" says a female voice on the other end.

"Hazel?" I ask. "Are you asleep?"

"Obviously." She seems amused.

I shake my head. I'm still not sure this is really Hazel. "Want to try to meet up?"

"Can you teleport?"

I hesitate.

An impatient noise from her end of the phone, and Hazel is standing in front of me. The chin-length black hair is her dream-avatar's most distinctive feature, and I doubt it's what her hair looks like in real life.

We're standing on the other side of the fence, drifting slowly westward without my knowing. A DC lurks at the periphery of my awareness, and I think it's a childhood friend.

We discuss the best way to get back to her dream. I explain an idea I've been putting together, that instead of opening a portal or a door, I just need to imagine the new setting and drift slowly into it. The danger is in how easily this could trigger a false awakening.

Hazel says she wants to try something. She touches my forehead with two fingers. I fall back onto the tall grass, frozen in place. I can't move, and the scene is fading into black. I'm not worried, though. She starts talking, describing the setting of her dream.

I pop back into existence between one second and the next. I can still hear the words, but they sound like nonsense. I'm surrounded by orange wooden cabinetry, and I think I'm in a basement. The narration starts to describe the exact kind of cupboard exists across from me, and I snap, "Okay! I get it! I'm here!"

I'm sitting down on a bunk bed when Hazel appears again. The dream destabilizes.

I "wake up".

I'm in the basement of a church, or maybe my late grandma's house (she was a minister). I'm trying to find a bible, because the narrator has apparently been quoting bible verses at me.

I'm flipping through the book, but I don't remember the order. "Where was Ecclesiastes, again?

"Near the end," says Grandma.

I mutter something about having had these memorized at one point.

The dream ends.

I'm the commander of a fleet of ships, taking shelter in an empty harbour. A woman with long, blonde curly hair stands beside me, asking about the clouds on the horizon.

"Those are pure ozone," I tell her. "They're poisonous, but they won't come up onto the coast."

"I wish we could go out to them," she says wistfully.

Looking at the swirling mass of dark clouds, I almost agree with her.

Hazel. Scare Factor: 3.

Haaaazel, you're being all mysterious and otherworldly. Stop it.

Also: Facebook, guys? Really?

07/20/10

I take invulnerability for granted.

I'm chasing after a kid on skis, speeding down a snow covered hill in Ixburg. Since when does Ixburg have hills, anyway?

When I get to the bottom, the kid is jumping onto the nose of a helicopter. The helicopter sways dangerously, the kid's weight moving it off balance. I'm the pilot now, trying to keep the machine on course.

I'm in my high school, in English with my eighth grade class. Our homeroom teacher says we have to get our heads in the game, as we'll be in grade twelve before we know it, and that'll be goddamn hard.

"Grade 12 was easy," I mutter.

A couple classmates look at me incredulously.

"Time travel." I shrug.

I go outside. I'm standing in the courtyard in front of the school when Mal Reynolds swoops in, shouting that we've lost Zoe - she's been kidnapped.

I call Zoe's cell, not really expecting her to pick up. The phone does get picked up, though, and I hear a male voice on the other end. We chat about kidnapping and hypothetical ways that everybody can get what they want, like our first mate back in one piece. We get along very well.

I tell Mal that he can land Serenity (the ship) on the top of the Ixburg apartment block. Wait, do my parents still live there? It's really hard for me to remember where in the timeline we are. I know that I'm dreaming, but it doesn't really register as important.

Walking along the top of the hill, I look at the horizon, and am surprised to realize that it's suddenly a lot lower. I'm walking along the cliff side of the Stawamus Chief, looking out over Squamish.

I happily run through what seems like a set freerunning route, making impossible jumps and pushing myself farther than I ever would in real life. I aim for a two-inch stick jutting up for the ground, try to land on the top -

Later, I poke around outside of a missile launch site. Some kind of shuttle is getting sent up into the air, and I'm informed via comlink that anyone outside is about to die a horrible and painful death. The countdown has already started.

I see two more people snooping around, both guys dressed in black. They seem clumsy and incompetent, and I wave at them when they finally notice me. They stalk towards me threateningly.

...three, two, one, lift off!

The air is filled with swirling shards of glass. White light burns down from above, refracted by the bloody glass and singeing the ground below.

The moment ends. The two thugs are a charred mass of bone, strewn about the untouched grass.

I wander down another hill, into an alley. I'm with a group of boys, and we've all joined up our bicycles into a chain that we've lit up with Christmas lights. Another bike speeds down the alley, lit up with neon, and I take a moment to appreciate how awesome it looks.

The boy at the front of the chain doesn't notice, though. He cuts off the neon-lit bike, and the rider crashes into the second and third bikes in the chain.

The four boys are swearing at each other, and the situation is about to escalate into violence. Calmly, I go over to the broken neon bike, and fix the chain and the broken cables. The owner notices that I'm touching his bike, and it distantly occurs to me that he might try to pick a fight with me next. I'm not worried.

The light sputters back into life.

Hills. Scare Factor: 2.

I wrote a couple interesting dreams in my handwritten journal this weekend. I'll make time to type them up sometime this week. I had a really vague string of lucid FAs, too.

ETA: "rocket launch, people die" was scribbled in the margins of my notebook. I can't believe I missed that. I bet it was exciting.

07/14/10

I'm running through a room with a sword, slashing at zombies. I feel like Zorro, only with more stabbing.

An allied DC gets grabbed. I slice apart the zombie holding him, but I scratch him with my blade. We hope for the best.

He thinks something might happen to me. I make an offhand comment, "I don't die." I'm not worried about myself.

I step into the next room. The door slams shut behind us.

I don't have my sword. A voice informs me that I'll have to meet its challenge, or the zombies on the other side of the room will be set free. A handful of neon orange-pink guitar picks appear in my hands. I have to throw them into a 3-inch gap on the other side of the room, in front of the zombies.

I throw two, but they go wild. The creepy childlike voice informs me that if I miss again, we're all going to die.

I hold one pick in the palm of my hand. I will it to float, and slowly send it toward the bucket. It lands perfectly.

I grin at the creepy ghostlike girl that appears out of the wall. She gestures sullenly toward another door and it opens with a creak.

"At least this isn't a dream," I say to my partner, "If it was, I'd have to wake myself up. I have a doctor's appointment in the morning."

I stop and feel for dreaminess. "And now I'm lucid," I say. "I really ought to wake up, though."

I focus on dismantling the dream, aiming for a new location. We'll see if this works...

---

False awakening. I beg a friend for a ride to work. Apparently, I work at a pizza place part-time. News to me.

One of the managers says that the new guy seems depressed and it's all my fault. I sigh, and go over to talk to the guy, who's standing in the kitchen.

"Look, it's not that I don't like you." I lie, "I just move around so much, I don't like getting close to people." I kindly leave out the fact that I'm friends with the DC managers, owner, and various and sundry employees.

The creepy fucker smiles at me. I really want to punch him in the face.

Zombies. Scare Factor: 4.

07/12/10

Do motorcycle chases ever end well?

I hop on my motorbike and speed toward the highway, mindful of being chased. It's been far too long since someone tried to kill me.

I pass my exit, turn sharply onto the next ramp. I'm going against the flow of traffic. I don't have time to do an RC, but since this is a dream, it's the perfect time to try out a trick from Saints Row... go against traffic, and it's harder for anyone to catch up to you.

At least, I think it's a dream. I'll risk it.

I'm pedaling my bike up a hill.

I take a sharp turn onto the exit, shift gears and find myself on the open highway. I speed up, watching the colours blur around me, faster, faster! Something's wrong, though. I'm on the right side of the road, going the right way! There goes my advantage.

I'm catching up to a row of semi-trucks. I focus on them, trying to force the images to turn around and come this way -

A truck hurtles toward me. The grill gets bigger, and closer, and I swerve into the far lane. The truck drives by me, honking. I skid over the pavement, tumbling head over heels. When I've stopped, I find myself staring up at the blue sky, trying to calm my breathing.

I get up and pick up my bike. I hop on. It's still running, but it's going really slowly up the next hill.

Someone taps me on the shoulder.

I spin around, catch the faintest glimpse of a man with curly hair before I'm back on my bike and pedaling fiercely down the exit ramp. This feeling is elation; I'm speeding down the steep ramp without a care for the wall that's suddenly appeared before me - what?

I brake and abandon the bicycle on the ramp. I'm inside of a mansion, which I know is the headquarters for my enemy. I peer around the corner, and snap back. There are two guards inside. One of them might have seen me.

"Hey," says a voice from beside me.

I jump and turn around. Shego is leaning on the wall next to me, filing her nails.

"You coming to girls' night?" she asks boredly, "We can get an action movie in if you're there."

"Sure," I say, risking a glance at the guards around the corner.

"I never saw you," she says, rolling her eyes.

I pick up my bike from the ramp. It's a stunt bicycle at this point. I peek around the corner again, looking at all of the interesting obstacles that are in there.

Minutes later, I'm ramping through the lobby of a movie theatre, being chased by out-of-breath security guards.

Zero CCs. Scare Factor: 3.

07/11/10

I go to Halifax. Nothing happens.

I'm downtown, trying to sell a lamp from my old apartment to a thrift shop. It's not worth ten bucks, but they give me about a hundred and fifty for it. I'm staring at it, wondering if I should buy it back, when an old woman swoops in and grabs it off the shelf.

I wander downtown, looking at other thrift stores for something in particular. I enter one store, and apparently it's a high school reunion (for my graduating class).

I hear that a bunch of illustrators just retired from their company. I see a flash of a marina. Light bounces off the farthest point, where a woman who used to be an illustrator lives. I decide I want her old job.

I talk to River, from Firefly. She tells me she was married at one point.

I'm back in the prairies. The ground is soaked, and some of the fields are flooded. I'm standing on dry ground, behind a dike that's keeping the flood waters out.

Back in Halifax. I'm part of a group that recreates classic photos and paintings in a modern setting. There are five of us arranged in a hallway; all of us are guys. At one point, we have to say our names for the video that's rolling.

"Okay, Anton!"

I take that as my cue, and repeat, "Anton" for the camera.

"Cut!" says our director.

"Anton, Anjon, John..." I mutter to myself, frowning. Odd. I can't remember my name.

Lamps. Scare Factor: 1.

I just remembered this as I was walking home.

07/10/10

May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.

The first time I woke up last night, I had such a feeling of contentment and happiness that it was unreal. I couldn't remember the dream that I had, but the feeling followed me throughout the day.

In another dream, I was cradling a piece of wood in my hands. A little piece of the wood was on fire, but the rest wasn't catching. I had to keep the flame going.

I order a DC to find me some kindling, so we can get the fire going properly. I maintain my focus on the spark, keeping the flame alive. The DC comes back with some bark and twigs, and I carefully set down my prize, and feed fuel into the fire.

At one point, the spark goes out, but I will it back into existence.

A Spark. Scare Factor: 1.

I had such a great night, guys. Still, this only slightly counts as a drunk post.

Happy feels like warm red dancing through the darkness.

07/10/10

I'm an employee at a convenience store or pharmacy. I have to restock the book section; there are fewer books on the shelves every time I look back at them.

I grab a box from the back and open it up in the comics aisle. It occurs to me that I have no idea what went where, or even which books were out here to begin with. Rather than call my boss over such a trivial matter, I happily start arranging my own favorites on the shelf.

Oddly, the comic books seem to be about 15x15 inches across, and the shelves are sized to fit them. Even in the dream, I think this seems a little off.

Later, I find out that Quickton has enacted a new law: hair colour has been declared illegal. I immediately dye my hair blue.

---

I'm at a lake. A girl dares me to swim under the dock and pick up a pebble she just dropped in. I jump into the water. Beneath the surface, it's perfectly clear, and I look around, exploring the caves and crevices that make up this underwater world. Finally, I grab the odd-coloured stone - it's pink or purple - and head back to the surface.

Standing with a group of people in the woods, I watch Dumbledore give a speech about a competition that's going to happen. It's similar to the Triwizard Tournament from the fourth book, but more people are involved. Each of the houses gets representation, and there are a whole bunch of different areas - including chess tournaments - that not everyone will be competing in. Furthermore, you can be selected to represent a house that you're not a part of.

I'm Harry Potter, and obviously, I'm in Gryffindor. I already know how the rest of the dream is going to turn out, though; I'm going to be chosen for Slytherin. There's no other possible outcome.

I observe Hermione freaking out over something, but I'm feeling very calm and cold, and so I leave her be. I'm much more interested in the competition.

Later, as myself, I talk to a family friend at the campground I spent most of my summers in. It's windy, and she's worried about their tents flying away. I tell her that the storm is about to get a lot worse. I know this because I'm from the future.

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"As long as I don't step on any butterflies."

Butterflies. Scare Factor: 1.

ETA: I took this as a sign that I should die my hair blue today. So I did.