non-lucid

March 12, 2010

Damian is a semi-immortal thief from the "real world". While evading his current batch of pursuers, he is granted a wish from the devil, who introduces herself as Sam. After sending Damian home, for a price, She proceeds to wreak havoc at the christening of the princess, by giving her the gift of infinite will. This backfires spectacularly, when Sam (the devil) is drawn into the plight of a teenaged runaway several years later.

I think it could make a very interesting series of short stories.

Also, I was three separate characters during the course of this dream. I've been Damian, Sam, and The Reader of the story at various points, while reading emotions off of everyone else present. It was all very third person omniscient. Also, not the first time I've been the devil.

Can you tell that I'm not religious at all? Protip: Satan is the good guy.

The Narrator. Scare Factor: 2. Omniscience is so much fun.

March 2010

I'm one person in a large group of people who have collectively decided to go swimming. When we appear at the swimming hole [that never really existed] outside of my hometown, most people stand around, looking suspiciously at the water. A guy who I remember being a grade younger than I was [whose name I saw in a journal entry yesterday] jumps straight in to the south side of the pool.

I'm wearing a red lifeguard t-shirt, and one other lifeguard and myself are inspecting the north side of the pool. Some days you can swim in it, other days it's really just a puddle of stinking mud. Like today. I lose my balance when the edge of the crowd jostles me. A few titters, and I exchange words with one of the bystanders.

Obviously, I'll be swimming in the clean side of the pool then, if only to clean off.

The clean side has Jay using the natural rock formations on the other side as diving boards and such. I don't pay mutch attention to him. Rolling my eyes at the group that collectively won't even get in the pool, I jump into the clean water and eye the rock formations on the other side. From where I was standing, there was no way to walk across like Jay did, so I need to do some rock climbing to get to the impromptu diving board.

I'm in my element when I get to the other side and pull myself out of the water. It's been a while since I got to do this [because it's very flat and boring where I'm living now]. There are plenty of easy handholds in the rock, and I work my way to the left, where I'll be able to climb up to the ledge.

High School Classmates Near Water. Scare Factor: 7 because I hated high school 2 for normality, with a point for the fun of rock climbing and annoyance of public humiliation.

March 2010

The underwater station might as well be in the vacuum of space. Our oxygen generators are broken, environmental systems are failing, and lights are flickering their hearts out. At least nothing's sprung a leak. Yet.

Lassiter and I are running at a full sprint down the narrow hallway, but our progress comes to a grinding halt when we reach a fork in the tunnel. Left or right? A flash of an image: I recall the unofficial layout of the station from a map I may or may not have wrangled from a drunk first mate.

"I'm sensing left!" I shout over the ambient noise of the dying station.

"How would you know that?"

"Really, Lassie, after all this time, don't ya trust me?"

A beat.

"If you're leading us the wrong way, Spencer, I will kill you myself."

When we get to the escape pods - because of course we're going the right way, don't insult me - there's a woman near us, kneeling over an unconscious woman with long, curly blonde hair. I don't recognize either of them, but I get the feeling that the unconscious woman might die if we don't get her out of here soon.

The woman - the conscious one, we'll call her Joy - spots us and points at me, "You, in the t-shirt, I need some help here. Help me lift her into the escape pod."

I hurry over to their side, and pull the unconscious blonde's left arm over my shoulders. Joy takes the right side and three - two - one - lift! Lassiter hovers over Joy's shoulder (not literally, I feel compelled to point out) in case we need help. More help.

The "escape pods" are basically miniature submarines scattered throughout the station, designed for a one-way trip to the surface. They're also very small.

Sparks are shooting everywhere, but I'm focused on the escape pod. "Hang on a minute," I say to Joy.

The door to the pod is open, possibly jammed that way. And there's something wrong with the controls. The autopilot, maybe?

"There's no way we're going to make it to the surface in that." I say.

"Are there any escape pods left?" asks Lassiter.

Flash. Two escape pods to the northwest, through a section that would be venting poison gas into the hallway right about now. That's the quickest route. I shake my head. "We can't make it."

Joy looks at me, considering. "Not with the two of us, you mean," she nods at her friend.

Lassiter and I, and Joy, even, could make it to the remaining shuttles. There's no way we could make it while dragging an unconscious woman with us. And we're not leaving her behind; we're the heroes in this story!

"We're going to have to make it work."

Somehow, we do.

When we surface in the pod, and climb out, we're not greeted by sunlight, but what looks like a conference room with a pool. Several men in suits are staring at us expectantly. From my position, balanced on top of the pod, I hone in on the man who's in charge of this whole fiasco. He's smiling. I sigh.

"I have to go down there again, don't I?"

This time, it has sprung a leak.

Doomed Research Stations. Scare Factor: 3.

March 9, 2010

My name is Lucifer, and I'm busy.

"But you have to stay here! You're the Lord of Hell!" says the ex-cherub, who seems to have been recast as my secretary.

"I don't, actually. I've left this job once, and I'll leave again once I have this place reorganized." I'm standing up at a desk, looking at blueprints.

I turn toward the ominous wooden door at the other end of the (hellish) office-space. The door leads to a dimension where damned souls are trapped. As they make their way to the door, they inch closer to the end of their torment. At which point, welcome to bureaucratic hell.

He continues to pester me, "But God wants you to-"

"Okay, look," I interrupt, "I don't care what God wants. In the actual comic book, Lucifer didn't care what God wanted. Every version of the devil, ever, actively resisted doing anything that God wanted him to do. So what makes you think that I care?"

I realize that I've broken out of character at this point, but the demon seems to actively resist the idea that this is a dream and I'm not really Lucifer. I decide to be amused instead of summoning up a gale of fire with which to burn him alive. Because, as the devil, I could totally do that.

Instead, I throw my hands up in the air, metaphorically, and walk through the now-open doorway to the realm of the damned. The door swings shut behind me, cutting off the shrill ranting of my unfortunate secretary.

I take the form of a woman with short, blonde hair as I take the first steps into the realm usually thought of as Hell. This area is closest to the exit, and as such, is actually fairly pleasant in comparison to the rest of hell. This, of course, means that it's a boring approximation of a cave that slopes slowly downward. The cave curves away in the distance, and I know that it's an infinite spiral to the bottom.

The soul nearest the door looks like a boy in his young teens, although he probably lived to be older than that. The boy is building a fence up the sloping ground, not noticing as it collapses into inexistance behind him. He is intensely focused on the task, trapped, as all the damned are, in a nightmare of his own creation. I approach, and as I do, I hear deep, threatening barking. The boy reacts in a panic, looking about wildly for the source of the noise, not seeing me.

Part of the fence has been shaped into a basket-like form, with half-rotten plywood as the bottom. A rottweiler puppy comes into existence as I look at the space, and it barks at the boy. When the boy sees it, he starts to back away from the puppy, and away from the door.

I'm standing directly beside the puppy, so I pick it up. The dog starts barking and the noise in the boy's nightmare lessens. I look at him, and he sees me for the first time. Finally, his eyes land on the door behind me...

End.

Bureaucratic Hell. Scare Factor: 3.

Spring 2008

I'm in my grandmother's old office. Shift. It's dark, and I'm surrounded by beautiful, frightening living statues made of shadow... twisted, slender, lethal. I want to remember them when I wake up, because they're mine.

The office space gives way, and I'm in the basement of my old house. I'm waking up, still surrounded by the last traces of my shadow-creatures. I'm trying to remember them, listing their traits aloud. Onyx. Jet. Shadow. Cat-like, bat-like, tribal, sharp, angular. They wouldn't have been out of place on a tattoo, if they weren't so real, so dynamic.

I hear a scream.

From upstairs. My mother? Why am I in the basement? Everything is hazy and dream, and my reactions are sluggish. I stumble through the basement and away from my dream-room. I reach the base of the stairs, which, oddly, are not located where they should be. The only light is coming from upstairs. I look up. There is a man standing there.

He's old, unremarkable. I wouldn't recognize his features if I saw him now. He's small, but not in any particular way. Not overly short, not overly skinny.

There was a scream from upstairs, but now, it's all about me. Because the man is stepping down stairs toward me, and I'm just standing there. There's no screaming - it's so quiet - and I couldn't move if I wanted to. And I want to move.

I'm rooted to the spot, affixed by an unbreakable bond to the dreamscape. I can't flex my muscles or flail, because it's not about my feet. I am stuck, immobile, immovable.

And the old man is walking down the stairs, unremarkably. Not sinister or threatening, but I need to get away. Because something horrible is about to happen.

And he reaches the base of the stairs and I haven't moved because I can't, although this is my last chance to rush him, to push past him onto the bare wooden steps.

He's standing in front of me, and of all my will, the only thing I can do is push two words past my lips, "No, please" and it's barely more than a whisper, because nothing's moving, and I haven't thought about drawing breath.

And the old man looks at me, his expression unremarkably pleasant. He places his hand on my forearm -

End.

First Appearances. Scare Factor: 9.

I'm not sure what it was about the dream that freaked me out so much. But I couldn't be alone in my apartment once I woke up. Not in the dark. It was something like five in the morning, and the Tim Hortons beside the building was open. I threw on clothes and nearly flew down the stairs. I ordered a hot chocolate, and a bagel, and sat with my back to a wall where I could see every exit, I and waited for the sun to come up.