Things to Run Away From Really Fast

Just a short nap...

07/09/10

Time travel complicates things.

I'm reading a book in bed, when my mom pops her head through a secret passageway and tells me something. I start looking around, and the entire house is filled with these secret passages.

I'm Vlad Masters, an antagonist from the cartoon Danny Phantom. Shut up, I was in their age demographic at the time.

Danny has disappeared, and I have a chat with his father (who doesn't seem anything like the cartoon version). At this point in time, the man doesn't trust me at all, as I've been exposed as an enemy at some point in time. The man asks if I really mean it when I say that I'm going to help them. I assure him that, of course, I have Danny's best interests in mind.

Strictly true, but the way he's looking at me, I almost wish I really meant it.

Unfortunately, the DC seems to hear my train of thought. He steps back, looking betrayed, before his expression hardens and he stalks away.

You know the real twist? Danny actually got thrown back in time. I'm Danny, several years after the accident.

I'm not moping. I'm looking out the window, plotting, when Serenity slams open the heavy wooden double-doors to my study. She looks around and hurries into the room, explains to me that she's hunting after an enemy DC.

I wake up.

GHOSTS! Scare Factor: 1.

07/09/10

They'll never let you leave.

I'm in a department store with a bunch of people. We're trying to escape, but a malevolent presence won't allow it. A few people find an exit sign, but when they open the door, space loops back in on itself, sending them back through a door on the opposite side of the room.

I wake up, briefly, and automatically chain myself back into the dream. I'm standing in front of a set of steps leading straight into the ceiling - a dead end. I take a breath, and hurl myself into the air, over the obstacles blocking my path up the steps. I land on my right foot, spring up over a metal bar, flipping upside down and twisting. I land at the top of the steps.

There's an attic access now. I pause to imagine blue skies, and gently push the melamine panel out of the way. I stand up, and look at the sky. It's nearly blank, with a decidedly greyish tinge. There's a bit of blue mixed in.

I decide that if I fly, the dream will resolve itself. I take off into the air, fly up and up and up. The grey shifts into clouds, and the blue becomes stronger and stronger as I get higher.

A DC joins me in my flight. He has a warning for me, but I don't remember it.

I ponder on how interesting it is that I can turn into other characters in my dreams, and then utterly become the character. I land back on the ground and shapeshift. I'm Neil Caffrey from White Collar.

I wake up again, but I fall asleep right away. I'm back in the dream, muttering about dream-chaining and going over the events of the previous dream so I don't forget them.

I talk to a DC who's supposed to be a newborn cousin. She can say her own name, but is unable to pronounce most words. It's an interesting conversation.

Sears. Scare Factor: 2.

07/08/10

Inanimate objects make for poor antagonists.

I stand surrounded by pillows, my stance guarded. I'm lucid, I tell myself, grinning; it's been a week since the last one.

The pillows remain immobile.

They're supposed to represent enemies, I think mournfully. I pick up the pillows and throw them into the air, trying to goad them into an attack. They fall in a flurry, and a few hit me on the way down. Other than that, they remain pillows. I'm very disappointed.

(Also, a dream with the Na'vi from Avatar. Earth has become entirely uninhabitable, but the Na'vi can fly through space. They twirl through the toxic orange clouds that comprise the earth's atmosphere.)

Fluff. Scare Factor: 1.

07/06/2010

During a half-asleep almost-dream, I become convinced that I am a pot. Like, one of those black with white specks pot-roast pots. As the pot, I began to dream.

In this dream within a dream, I am a person walking through a dark alley. I'm set upon by three muggers. I try to reason with them, but they aren't hearing it, since I don't have any money for them to steal. I dispatch them quickly, and fade into the shadows.

Later, I'm standing on the roof of a school building, hanging out with a parkour group. Most of the walls around me (there are higher levels of the roof) are covered in graffiti. There's a couple of hard-to-reach spots that are blank, and I try to figure out how to get a mural up there.

I go inside, but the main hallway is "Closed for Reconstruction". I walk down a hallway across from the dark, closed one. The closed hallway turns into bedrooms, and later turns into meeting rooms for visiting politicians. I get to the end of the hallway, which looks like the lobby of a bank.

There's a woman who looks like the elemental from Chronicles of Riddick. I go talk to her.

Pots and Kettles. Scare Factor: 1.

06/16/2010

The problem with world-class assassins is that everyone wants to kill each other.



An old woman hums tunelessly, pushing her squeaking cart along the grey-flecked tiles. Her nails tap tap tap against the stainless steel handle, along with a beat only she can hear. She slows the cart down, the wheels shrieking their protest, and smiles at the young man behind the desk, pointing to the ID clipped to her shoulder. He glances up, looking bored, and barely glances at the ID before waving her along.

The hospital room is single-occupancy, dim and empty except for the bedridden patient. He wakes up from a doze, looks at the woman in scrubs as she enters the room. She slides a platter off of the food cart and slides it onto the tray sitting across his bed.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Burke?" The woman smiles.

"Horrible," he manages, glancing up blearily as she injects something into his IV. "Anything good to eat?"

"Of course, dear. There's tuna sandwiches, if you like those."

He perks up a bit, and nibbles at the sandwich. It's decent for hospital food, he decides. He'll be glad to get back to his normal life, with four-course dinners and world-class chefs.

The woman is still there when he finishes the sandwich. "That was actually pretty good," he tells her.

"Well, it is my own special recipe."

His mouth is dry, and he can feel his heart beating faster. Burke frowns. He's sweating. "Excuse me," he says, "But could you get a doctor? I think the symptoms are coming back."

The woman is unhooking the machines monitoring his vital status.

"Don't worry," she says. "It has nothing to do with your heart attack, Mr. Burke." She smiles kindly at him. "My special recipe is called Chalk Tuna. The compounds I've used in your sandwich are reacting with the drugs in your IV. It's untraceable, almost completely undetectable during an autopsy... rather brilliant, if I do say so myself."

Burke's fingers twitch. He wants to reach for the button, to call a nurse, call anyone, but he can't move. He tries to shout, but his mouth won't open, his voice won't work. An icy sensation begins to crawl in from his extremities, cold and burning at the same time.

"It's also a paralyzing substance," the woman muses, "and it's an incredibly painful way to die."

She smiles fondly down at the man seizing on the bed. "Have a nice day, Mr. Burke."

The cart begins its squeaking journey back to the elevator. Burke shuts his eyes and tries to scream.

---

Matilda has approximately four minutes to return the cart and exit the hospital. After that time, the real nurse will make her rounds and find Mr. Burke dead, the machines having shorted out due to faulty wiring. The doctors will attempt to resuscitate him, but the poison in his veins will prevent this from taking effect. There will be questions for the young man at the desk in front of the elevator, but Matilda plans to disappear long before any suspicion can fall on her.

Without a suspect or a murder weapon, the incident will be written off as a simple heart attack, and Mr. Burke's son will inherit his company.

Stepping out into the sunlight of the alley, Mathilda allows herself a moment to bask in the enjoyment of a job well done. She feels a shift in the air, a chill, and a blade burrowing into her skull.

I sheathe the wrist-blade and let the body fall, watching impassively as the infamous assassin kicks up dust on the dry ground. She twitches slightly, extending a hand in a clawing motion before going still.

I leave the body where it is. There's sure to be a complicated frame-up job involving several people who want to take power, but I've done my part. As long as Matilda is dead, I can get out of here and -

I'm throwing myself to the side. A line of throwing knives hit the brick behind me. I take cover, diving behind a dumpster, throwing a fireball in the direction of my attacker.



He's on the roof across from me, I reason. I came down from the hospital fire escape, but he was hidden by shadows - damn! I don't have an escape route, and we need to get out of here before they start looking for Burke's killer. Unfortunately, the owner of those throwing knives is not someone to be reasoned with.

"Simon?" I shout, stepping out from my hiding place. He's on the roof. "I didn't know you were in town."

"Everyone's in town, Sam!" That's Simon, all right. He looks giddy, sounds like he's on a sugar high. The man's more of a sociopath than I am. "Haven't you heard?"

"Yes." Goddamned council didn't even ask before invading my city.

"And you got Matilda first! I've been wanting to take her down for ages."

"Creepy?" I ask.

"Creepy." He confirms.

My fingers twitch, ready to call up another fireball. Simon tracks the movement, and I change my mind. "Simon," I say, "Would you like to play a game?"

His face splits into a grin. "First to a hundred?" He asks.

"I was thinking the whole conference."

Simon laughs. "I like the way you think," his smile widens even further. "Shame I'm gonna have to kill you."

He lifts up a hand and I'm running before he presses the button. I round the corner and the alley explodes.

I love my job.

---



I'm on top of a mountain, looking down on the valley. The city is sprawled out below. I take a breath, feel the cool mountain breeze drifting through my lair.

Some days, it pays to be evil.

I turn around to where my mom and dad are sitting at a stone table, looking around and seeming confused. My brother is there, too, but he just looks hungover.

I go to sit across from them at the table. My mom's eyes narrow as she gets her bearings, and I can feel her light-based aura sparking unpleasantly. I try not to flinch.

"It's in our best interests," I say carefully, "to wipe out all of the assassins as quickly as possible. They'll be gathering at the convention centre. Now, we can't all go in -"

"Why is that, exactly?" my mom snaps.

I roll my eyes. "You're a Reader. They'll spot Your Holiness from a mile away."

"How exactly did you get into this mess?" asks my dad.

I paint a look of surprise onto my face. "You mean you don't know?" I ask incredulously. "Our family - your side of the family - have been Assassins going back hundreds of years! Well," I trail off, "The last one was in the sixteenth century." Good times, as I recall. Reincarnation can be so much fun.

My mom's aura is sparking angrily. I try to ignore it.

"Look, we need to wipe as many people out in one swoop as we can." I have a thought.

"Mom... isn't your cousin doing the catering?" I ask.

She looks at me suspiciously. "He is. Why?"

I let a smile form. "Have you ever heard of Chalk Tuna?"

Conferences. Scare Factor: 4.

So ends the 100th post special edition of Things to Run Away From Really Fast! I've been meaning to write this up for ages...

The only thing I can remember from last night's dream is that I had an extra pair of running shoes. They were orange.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

I scrutinize my real life appearance for effectiveness as an assassin. I conclude that I will easily be able to infiltrate the corporation.

I get an apartment in Halifax that's mostly identical to my old one. Apparently I'm subletting from someone else, though, as I keep finding old-lady clothes around the place. It's also furnished, which is nice, even if the furniture is ugly as hell.

I'm Dean Winchester. I help Sam choose a truck and trailer so he can go drive off into the prairie sunset. The theme of this dream is basically that it's time to let Sam go on his own. This is a much more peaceful scenario than the Supernatural finale.

I'm a guy with a mullet, driving a semi-trailer. I'm about to be accused of a crime I didn't do, and I'm trying to skew the evidence in my favor before they think to come after me. Maybe I had an in-dream premonition, or maybe I'm on another dream-loop.

I'm mad at the really cold weather, then I'm mad at the really hot weather, then I'm mad at the really cold weather, and oh my God, that really is freezing. Warmth now please.

I'm living with my second cousins, and also fighting my brother for one of the basement suites. His friend gets it. Damn.

One of my cousins finds out something about my character (I don't know what), and she takes her sisters and leaves.

I'm driving along the highway, now, but the lane I need to be in keeps changing, and I'm cutting people off. I end up at a McDonalds, because there's something I need to pick up there.

I'm inside. The place is empty, and isn't being used as a restaurant. Something about a box. I check my inventory and see a vat of cotton that I have to sell later.

The city is being evacuated. I have to hurry. I go upstairs, blue and red lightsabers drawn. I wonder if my cousins could have been party-members if I hadn't scared them off. Oh well, I'm still near the beginning of the game.

I enter one of the offices and fight the people inside. I win.

RPGs. Scare Factor: 1.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

I'm attacked by alligators. Then I try to figure out why I'm still in high school.



I have to swim through a swamp. On the edges are various plants and animals, frozen by the cold, black goo that touched them. I stay in the center of the slow-moving creek. Something feels off.

I see an alligator, panic for a moment. I realize that it's frozen, too. I turn away, relieved.

There's another one before me. It's alive. I can't out-swim it. I can't get to shore fast enough.

It charges, and I let it swim straight through my submerged stomach. Teeth tear into my flesh and the water turns red, but I don't feel it. The alligator is distracted now. I latch onto its back and hold on. The alligator thrashes underwater, submerging us both.

I step out of the water some time later. My mom comes rushing over, wanting to know if I'm all right.

I assure her that I am, and lift up the fabric of my shirt to see that the wound has healed over entirely, leaving no scars.

---

A dream takes me from Ixburg to Halifax and back again. I'm in high school and university at the same time, and my kindergarten teacher is very disappointed when I miss my driving lessons.

"What, you want me to fly home for the weekend?" I ask my mom incredulously.

She does.

I hide out in my studio with my brother and Matt, who ask why I wasn't at (high) school today.

"Cough. Cough. I'm sick." I say flatly.

Alligators. Scare Factor: 3.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Teleporting is hard.

I'm standing by a river. The sky is bright blue, and the dry grass is long and yellow. I'm looking up at the sky, staring at an illusion that's some kind of sculpture, a clue into my quest during this dream. (This was a long and meandering dream, but I don't remember most of it.

I'm the producer for a play. It's going well, but during the middle of it, Harley Quinn and the Joker show up and start dancing. The crowd cheers, and I'm not sure if this is part of the play or if the characters actually showed up.

"Write as if it was my plan all along." - written in journal

There's a parkour club in Quickton. I tag along.

---

I'm Harry Potter, fighting Voldemort. He sends me into an alternate dimension, and I have to get back to my friends. There are death eaters in the buildings around us, raining down stunning spells as if they're snipers. "If you get hit seven times, you're dead," says my companion. I deliberately get hit by stunning spells, counting, and they send me back to the previous dream.

The windows are leaking. We have to stop it because the magic could get in. We're holding the building against Voldemort, but it's going to be destroyed soon anyway, so we do a quick job. Hermione staples stucco wire under the windows, and I use an air nailer to keep the frame in place. The way that I'm holding it in the dream would probably break my hand IWL.

I'm either Harry or Voldemort, fighting the other one. "Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus!" I shout, matching the other character spell for spell, effectively blocking them. I realize I'm probably Voldemort. "Avada Kedavra!" Seriously, these spells are kind of hard to remember.

---

One of Ben's friends, a guy my age, is pissed because I just told him off for something. He throws a few punches my way, but always misses. He attacks me in earnest, throwing punches hard and fast. I block them easily, redirecting them in circles. One punch hits me, but I barely feel it. The guy is getting more and more frustrated.

Finally, my brother pulls him off me, and we go rob a grocery store.

---

FA. I wake up in a house that resembles my rental in Squamish. Ben and my cousin Reg are in the basement. I look at my right hand and count my fingers. They're blurry, and my fourth and fifth fingers keep fading into one another. Weird. This doesn't feel like a dream. I try to remember a more dependable RC, and pinch my nose. I can still breathe, but shouldn't I be able to anyway? No, wait. I have my mouth closed. I really am dreaming. I wonder if the boys are gonna go all nightmarish on me.

I think back to my lucid goals. 1) Talk to a DC on a phone. 2) Find Hazel. 3) Teleport. I go to pick up the landline, but change my mind and grab my cell phone beside my bed. I call someone; I don't remember who. I talk to them and hang up. I type into my contacts for Hazel, but the number isn't there. I phone information, ask for Hazel. The woman on the other end tells me crabbily that there are a lot of Hazels in the world, which one do I want?

"The one from DreamViews, obviously."

"This number is not in service."

It's night outside. My mom is sitting in the car, apparently waiting for Ben. She has some weird emo-style haircut, and I'd be more weirded out if I didn't know this was a dream. I use telekinesis to lift up the fringe over her eye, checking for zombieness. Obviously, I'm not completely lucid. Ben leaves the house, catches a ride with my mom.

Reg is still here. I have my hand outstretched, focusing on wherever Hazel might be. I'm trying to draw myself there so I can teleport. I turn around briefly.

"How do I teleport?" I ask the DC.

"How the hell should I know?" asks Reg. He pauses and sighs, "Just... stay like that for a while. Until you wake up."

"Or it works?"

"Like hell."

The dream starts fading into different solid colours, and I wake up back in the Squamish-room.

I hand check again. Most of my fingers are missing. I pinch my nose. Still dreaming.

I go outside and there are a bunch of dogs on the porch. There are also a bunch of people talking about their pets.

Telephone, Take 2. Scare Factor: 2.

July 1, 2010

Happy Canada Day, fellow Canadians.

People who walk into your life and claim to be a long lost relative are not to be trusted.

Sam and Dean are on a hunt with yet another member of their missing family unit. Let's call her Sue. I think I'm Dean for most of this dream.

The three of us are after a ghost. Sam's in danger, but Sue pulls him out of the way.

It turns out she's a demon. She uses a variation on the Enochian banishing sigil (for angels) to send us careening straight into our respective heavens. "Oh, I'll be fine." She says, "I'm going the other way."

From the third person, I'm watching Dean in his heaven, fixing cars. This weird tentacle being made of energy shows up and acts as the MS Office paperclip. You know the one.

Dean's becoming increasingly annoyed by the little helper. Meanwhile, I'm trying to force myself/him to remember what's going on so we can get out of here and find Sam.

---

I'm in Quickton, taking lessons from a guy with a rusty red truck so I can become a driving instructor. I'm driving the truck, and a guy makes fun of me for it. Then we go protest something outside of Tim Hortons.

I'm driving down grid roads with the truck. I'm going to meet someone. I have to pull over to take a piss, but I decide I should wait until I wake up.

I'm living in a house that I'm helping my parents build. We've already moved in, but we haven't finished building the second floor. My bedroom is up there, so a lot of climbing is involved.

FA. I wake up in the basement of my house in Ixburg. There are little bugs crawling over my blanket. They're about a centimeter long and they look like cockroaches crossed with shrimp. I try to ignore them, but I don't like them.

I'm a ten year old boy in boot camp. I have an upper bunk, and the ladder to get there is probably twelve feet tall. I'm having the time of my life. There's a warning on the top step of the ladder. It says that if you let your kids climb on this, you're a bad parent. The ladder falls backwards and catches on one of the other beds. I'm still hanging on.

I'm telling all my DCs that I've just had a brilliant idea. You know that holographic keyboard?



We should make a box the size of a rubix cube and project games from it. It'd be brilliant. I conjure up a prototype and place it on the desk. Then my POV runs through various games in full-screen.

Cousins. Scare Factor: 2.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

I wander a city, searching for my skydiving class.

I'm in a plane about the size of a crop duster. My mom is piloting. We're angling to land on the top of a mountain, where there's a gas station.

I'm trying to get to a weekend course on skydiving. We wonder if I have to jump out of this plane to get to the course.

We land, avoiding the cars in the parking lot (on top of a mountain). I kick off of a maroon minivan in the parking lot, adjusting our course so we don't hit it.

We talk to the people inside, but this isn't where the course is. We have to keep flying.

Back on the plane, I wonder if we have enough of a runway to take off again. My mom shrugs and we go flying off the cliff. We stay in the air.

It's a tight fit between two pillars of stone. I'm worried we might hit, but my mom effortlettly steers us through them. Wow. She's better at driving than she usually is in dreams. I mean, there was this other dream with the truck where she kept almost hitting other cars...

(How did I miss that?)

I check my backpack and find an oxygen mask and a parachute.

We're back on the ground, in a car. I still have no idea where I'm supposed to go; there's no map in the brochure. Hours fly by. I was supposed to be there in the morning, and it's now 1:00PM on a Friday.

We stop at a store. Ben says his friend lives above the shop. They're selling Halloween costumes.

Perfectly Good Airplanes. Scare Factor: 1.

A house from start to finish.

Before me is a hole in the ground, a basement that's just been dug in the middle of a field. On the other side of the basement are my mom and dad (who I work for), talking to a customer. I have to crawl under the sheets of poly to make it to the other side.

I'm in the same location, but it's shifted to become some sort of self-sufficient compound. I'm a new character, older. I feel a timer go off in my head, telling me it's time to begin classes. I'm a teacher.

Houses. Scare Factor: 1.

Monday, June 28, 2010

A couple weeks ago, I implemented a new rule: DC's aren't allowed to drive. Apparently, I'm one to talk.




I decide to give up my job in Quickton. I'm never going to have enough money for this, so it's time to leave. I hop on a bus, going west.

Calgary is on a terrorist alert; somebody tried to get into the States and do something bad. As such, travel into the States is practically cut off for the time being.

I'm on a boat, out in the ocean. It's a small boat, and I'm just sitting on a bench holding my backpack. I might be drawing on my ridiculously oversize tablet. The captain comes up to me and says we're getting close to the path of my next ship, so I should pack up. He hands me a whole bunch of change to cover the fare for the next boat.

I wander onto the second boat with my tablet and my backpack. I'm shown to my room. The room itself keeps changing. There are huge windows looking out into a hallway at first, and the whole hallway is covered in posters. Later, the windows look out over a hostel-style common room that I remember from another dream. I remember thinking that it would be really cool to have one of the rooms overlooking the common room on the second story.

I step through the wall and grab a book from one of the shelves.

---

"They're fucking cannibals! Close the door, close the fucking door!"

This has happened before, I register dimly, we're on another loop. I'm too busy slamming the door on someone's fingers to notice. I kick them free and slam the door again. I'm turning the key on the ignition - Ben, why didn't you turn the car on while I was fighting - and barreling through the two dozen people in front of us. One hits the windshield, scrabbles for purchase, and goes sliding off as we pick up speed.

We're on the highway to Regina. It's night. I'm panicked and trying to decide if I should pull over and calm down or keep driving as fast as I can.

"Slow down," says my brother, "This isn't helping." We're fairly far away from the compound.

I slow down to 110 clicks, but I'm still passing other vehicles. This shouldn't be a double lane highway, should it?

My brother gives me a look.

"Shut up," I say, "The speed limit is 110."

The road is twisty and I'm not sure where the lanes are and I'm starting to get confused. Abruptly, the car takes a random turn to the left, and I'm in the ditch, driving through a field that doesn't feel much different than the road.

We come to a stop on another highway, adjacent to the first.

"Maybe we should go this way?" No response from my brother, so I put the car back in drive and start moving at a reasonable pace.

The road ends. We go flying off of a cliff. I see everything from the third person, the camera angle far above us and looking down at the mountains below.

This wouldn't happen in real life, I reason. This is obviously a dream. I remember making a car fly in one of my previous dreams, so I try to do that now.

I'm alone, falling through the air without a vehicle. I've slowed my descent reasonably, and I land at the base of a cliff crawling with rock climbers.

I ignore them. What were my lucid goals again? Oh yeah, pyrokinesis. I bring my hands together like I'm holding a ball between them, and slowly bring them apart. Nothing's happening.

I take a deep breath, focus on all of the rage and anger and fear that I felt in the previous dream. I bring my hands apart, and this time a chain of beads of fire forms between them. I wave my hands and the fire dissipates.

Huh. Apparently it's easier to summon fire when you're actually being threatened. Good to know.

I grab a cardboard box wedged in the rocks behind me and try to do the same thing. The cardboard smoulders on one edge, but doesn't catch fire.

I climb up the cliff face and sit on one of the ledges. The place has shifted into an immense cavern, and sunlight is streaming in through the many entrances. The rock varies from pure white marble to pale grey granite.

I see a pack of wolves in the distance. They're beautiful. They're on the same level as me. They get closer, and one comes over and sniffs at me. I growl at him, and he dances back, cautious. He comes closer again.

We're standing at the ground level of the cave, trying to communicate. The wolf catches onto English quickly, and soon we're having a conversation that I can't remember.

At the same time, we hear someone approaching in the distance.

"It's a hunter," I tell the wolf. "You should run. Take the rest of your pack with you."

Suddenly, I'm a lot younger, and won't be able to stand up to the hunter.

The hunter shows up and realizes that his quarry got away. He gives me a ride back to town.

"This place is totally empty," he tells me, "You might not be able to get a ride out for a while."

"No worries." I eye the empty stretch of highway, remember what someone said on the forums. I hold my thumb out, and someone shows up within seconds.

I climb into the car with a bunch of girls - there's one seat left - and we drive off to wherever we're going. I try to pay attention to the roads so I can remember how we got there.

---

A dream about a bunch of different worlds. Apparently Aslan kicked everybody (including the animals) out of Narnia. Now talking animals and fairies and Faeries are wandering from world to world, trying to find somewhere to live. So am I, for that matter.

I knock on the door. It opens to a short old woman, who asks what my name is.

"I'm Rory."

"No, you're not," she says, sounding angry. Apparently there's a prophecy about a girl named Rory.

"I'm Rory, but I'm a guy?"

"Oh, well, that's okay then." She invites me inside.

There are fairies in cages. I can see the daring rescue from here.

---

I'm Harry Dresden, and I'm in a city... somewhere. I remember that I was looking for ways to travel in dreams, and I wonder if I can use the Ways through Faerie.

I'm reading the new Dresden Files book. My mom is in the room.

"Oh, come on!" I say. My mom looks up, questioning.

"Everyone is Michael's vessel. Dean Winchester was Michael's vessel. In that last thing I read, Lucifer was Michael's vessel. Now Dresden? This is getting ridiculous."

Besides, Dresden already got possessed by an angel.

My Driving. Scare Factor: 4.

The Ways might be an interesting way of getting around, though. Dissolve the dream, wander through the Void, find what I'm looking for.

(The Void being that blackness that seems to be behind every dream.)

Sunday, June 27, 2010

My journey from ambitious underling to rival archangel.

I'm sitting at my desk, poring over some ancient text, but my mind is elsewhere. My team has just made a fascinating discovery, a book that could unlock ancient magics unknown even to the angels. Whomever can harness its power could go so far as to take over the world.

Unfortunately, we're working for Lucifer (from Supernatural). It's not by choice, I can assure you.


Sandman!Lucifer could kick your ass.

I hear the alarm go off. Immediately, I'm running down the stairs to our secret underground laboratory. The place is collapsing; dirt is streaming from the walls and rocks are falling around me. I run to the desk where Lucifer was working earlier, and grab the grimoire, the codex (decoder), and the journal that he was translating it into. Beside the books is a black LED keychain that's supposed to be a portkey. I pick it up, but nothing happens.

I'm running for the exit, not sure if I'm going to make it. I'm at the entrance hallway, but all of the main-level exits are blocked. An old man - possibly Amon - appears beside me. He says that there's a ladder I can use.

Sure enough, there is. I climb up the ladder - Amon is behind me - and we both make it out.

Lucifer is in the common area, sitting at a table with his head in his hands. He looks really mad - probably because the grimoire is lost. I try to turn down another hallway, but he sees me and the grimoire before I have the chance to leave. Suddenly, Lucifer seems very pleased.

Once we're out of sight, I turn around and smack Amon over the head, wondering why he had to take us directly past Lucifer. Comprehension dawns on his face, and he asks me if I was trying to betray our boss.

Yes! Obviously!

Amon wants to know if I really think I can get away with it, but I shrug and tell him I'm not worried.

Lucifer corners me later and asks why I'm not grateful that he brought me back to life.

What? Of course I would be... oh, I remember now. My character was really mad for some reason.

"Thanks for that, by the way," I say. I'm still taking over.

---

I'm at some Misha Collins fan-thing. Everyone around me is all excited, but I have things to do. I go and try on jeans in a store. They don't fit, and I'm tired of clothes-shopping already.

---

On a bus, I see Lucifer again. He's avoiding me. I try to unobtrusively sit beside him, but he switches seats when people get up to leave.

I see Sally, from school, is on the bus too. This can't end well.

Why am I not worried about myself, though?

Oh, right. I'm Michael. Duh.

I tell Sally that she has to get off the bus. People are turning into piles of maggots around us, and she has to leave before she does too.

"Ask the bus driver to open the door." I say.

She points to the bus driver, who's a pile of bugs covering all the controls.

I run over to the front of the bus. I plunge my hands into the squirming mass of maggots (and I can feel them wriggling all over my skin), and pull the lever for the door to open. Sally gets off the bus and starts running.

All of the maggots on the bus are streaming towards Lucifer, somehow going to power him. He looks weak right now, though. He's lying down on one of the seats, and I go over to him.

He asks me if I'm going to give one of those good-guy speeches about love an acceptance. I tell him that just because I turned out to be an angel (again) doesn't mean I'm one of the good guys.

I call up a small amount of light energy to cleanse the pile of bugs. It starts off tiny, and gets bigger and bigger...

---

I'm in a dark hallway with the same LED keychain from earlier. The small flashlight doesn't actually create light, though. When I click it once, the lights go on. When I click it again, the lights go off. Every second time I click it, something scary happens in the hallway, and if I'm in the hallway when it happens... who knows?

Holly, from high school, shows up, talking about Sailor Moon. I'm at the top of the staircase, and I think she's one of my enemies. When she's almost at the top, I telekinetically blast her down the stairs.

She gets up and informs me that it wasn't very nice to do that. I shrug and apologize, sheepish. Apparently she actually is on my side.

---

I'm watching clips of a cartoon. It's about animals running farms. I think this is ironic, and the cows suddenly start acting strange.

There's a little yellow chick trapped in a flipped-over bus that's about to explode. The other animals are trying to figure out how to rescue him.

One of the adults holds up a diagram of a kite, which the people inside the bus can hold onto and fly out the door with.

I'm flying with the kite over a sea-side city. I'm just over power lines, and I don't want to hit them. I'm on top of a marina. I have to make it past the cruise ships, out to sea so I can fall into the water.

The Devil You Don't. Scare Factor: 4.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Apparently, psychopaths are drawn to the martial arts.

I'm in the middle of a karate class. I don't know the instructor, and I think I'm new to this dojo. The students are preparing for an upcoming tournament, concentrating especially on their kata. One man is leading a bunch of other students in a kata, but I notice that he moves with a limp.

The head sensei, an old man, shows up beside me. He explains that it was he himself who crippled the other man. You see, he explains to me, this man was my student at the time. Apparently, the other man was using what he learned in martial arts to abuse women he was in relationships with over the years, and the head sensei put a stop to it. The other man's punishment was that he would no longer be able to reach his full potential as a martial artist.

I'm talking with some of the other students, when I remember I have to check something. I sit down on the grass with my laptop. Firefox is already open, and I start to type something. Or maybe I'm clicking the Stumble button, I don't really remember.



A girl from high school shows up and sits on my lap, taking the computer. I look over her shoulder as she types something in.

I'm playing a video game that's a cross between Saint's Row 2 and Assassin's Creed 2. Why all the sequels?

I tell my brother about a bug in the game. I load my save game and see my character collapse and die. The game reloads, in a different place. I collapse and die. Cue loading screens to a bunch of different characters and places. Collapse and die, collapse and die, collapse and die.

Finally, we see a cutscene. An old woman is the queen of the land; she's bedridden and giving orders to messengers. Apparently, she was my character's mom at one point, only I keep dying and getting reincarnated, so I've been missing for the last thirty years.

"Change in next music and chocolate."

...what?

Lucid moment. I look at my right hand and notice that the three little fingers are bent, but it feels like two of them are, and the other three are extended. Wait a minute. I glance up and look around, but the dream is already over.

Sensei. Scare Factor: 2.

My dreams lately have been very fuzzy. Granted, if I remembered the entirety of this particular dream, I believe my head would explode.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

I'm the writer and the reader and the characters in the book all at once. "I finished reading the book," I tell someone, "And I was all 'I can't wait for the sequel!', but I still have to write the goddamn sequel myself and I have no idea what happens next!"

I flip over the book and look at the cover. It says, "Supernatural" at the top, above the actual title. Of course I'd be writing for a franchise, I grouse. I flip the book over again, and it's suddenly pages and pages of notes on loose-leaf paper.

Blue is Castiel and orange is someone else, a woman with an angel name. Lucifer? Samael? I'm planning a trip to Squamish by bus, but I haven't left Ixburg.

Also, notes from earlier in the night read, "You know, I actually am going to have to explain this Misha Collins obsession. I waffle on apparent evilness."

Hack Writers. Scare Factor: 2.

ETA: I have proof that Collins stalks his online stalkers. I'm very concerned.