nightmare

I'm scaling a steep cliff on the side of a mountain fortress with a large group of medieval soldiers seeking to take over the castle up ahead. It is a difficult climb, and all progress is halted as the defenders unleash a massive deluge of boiling hot oil that spashes down the cliff. Fortunately, it's steep enough that we just press ourselves flat into the rock, and the oil flows just over us all, missing us by just a few feet. Then some sort of god flies out of the castle and levitates above the stone walls as he laughs at us. He thinks it is barely worth his concern, but nevertheless throws a few fire balls at us. Several people are killed instantly.

He looks over at me, and now seems threatened somewhat. With a spin, he disappears from sight, and I am immediately teleported to a small town inside the castle walls. Somehow we breached the castle and there is utter chaos as people are running everywhere. It turns out everyone is running because there is an army of Djinns (the kind from the show 'Supernatural') - a kind of genie that puts people to sleep, fulfilling all their wishes in their dreams while draining their blood and killing them in the process. Just one is scary, but there are over a hundred here.

I am immediately surrounded by about a dozen of them. I'm not quite sure what to do about this. Before I come up with a plan, one of the female Djinns (and quite an attractive one I may add) tells the others to step aside and watch. She holds out her hand and uses telekinesis to spin my body around. I want to fight it, but just go limp as all my muscles relax. She softly lays my body on the packed dirt ground and closes my eyes all with telekinesis. This is the part where the nice dream is supposed to start. I'm given a moment to choose, but can't decide what to dream about.

The moment is gone, and there will be no pleasant dreams for me apparently. Since the Djinns are psychic, they know that I'm awake in my body, even though my eyes are closed and I cannot move it. I can still feel everything. They take delight in knowing that I'll be able to feel all the pain of being slowly drained of blood until I die, with nothing I can do about it. I feel a sharp stabbing pain as a large gauge needle is roughly stabbed into my arm.

Rather than languish in pain as I am slowly killed, I imagine that I'm someone else. Someone very alive, and experiencing blissfully pleasant feelings. I know it's not real, but I decide to believe it anyway because the more I do, the more real it becomes, and the more this excruciating painful death seems like a distant memory than a current reality.

Right before I fully switch to being someone else, I wake up.

A girl and I are in a large tower with a spiral staircase winding up untold heights through the stone walls. It becomes apparent that there is an evil spirit chasing us. We run up the stairs for a while, then duck into a room. I run back out to distract from the girl and run up the stairs some more. But the girl doesn't hide like I thought she would. Instead, she decides to sit on a table and just face the door, waiting for the spirit to get her, as if by seeing it, things will be okay. I get a feeling of doom as I see the creepy spirit woman rush through the door and tackle the girl. My heart sinks in my chest. But there are more harmful things nearby, and nothing else I can do for her, so I try to stay hidden to fight another day.

(This was a lot cooler when I first woke up, but I went back to bed for 3 hours, then went to work, so some of the details have eluded me at the moment.)

My girlfriend turns into an evil demon creature and true to utterly destroy me in every way. She glares at me menacingly with a scary look in her eyes and dares me to do something about it. I tell her that I'm still going to look at the good in her and ignore the bad - and in that way gradually transform the effects she has on me. She develops large fangs, her eyes go black and she lunges at me to bite my face off, but I feel love for everyone, her especially, and just before she bites my face off, she is transformed into a beautify girl again and kisses me. I was expecting to die or be maimed, but this is definitely one of the best outcomes.

Now the two of us are waiting for some demonic, hellish creatures to clear out of the upstairs room. It seems like the more still I am, the more things seem to work out favorably. My girlfriend seems to be affected in some way by these creatures, and we can't just go up there and chase them out.

We lay back down in my hammock as we wait.

I wake up in my hammock and it all seemed SO real. Especially since she was next to me. Kind of eerily creepy how real I seemed. Maybe it was, who knows?

There are spiders using telekinesis type powers to propel themselves rapidly around my house, stringing strong webs as they go. I chase after them, trying to clean the webs away and close doors to keep the spiders out of the other rooms in the house. One spider in particular is really loud, and is yelling to the other spiders. He's giving a sales pitch, talking about how he has found some high quality katana swords in several colors, he has blue, candy red, and black right now, starting at $1800. They sound cool, but I don't trust the spider.

I turn a corner and find myself in a coffee shop, cornered by a salesman and woman, trying to sell me their book that tells how to make thousands of dollars a day from home. I know that crap is all a scam, so I get up to leave, but am blocked in by several tables and chairs, stuck in the corner. I squeeze by, and the salesman makes an offer for me. If I buy the book for $45, he guarantees I'll get $500 today, and if not, I can return the book for a full refund. In the stupor of the dreamworld, I accept his crazy offer and pay him the $45.

I wake up briefly and notice that infomercials are on TV, so I turn the TV off and go back to sleep.

Riding my bicycle up a really beautiful hill through a summer meadow, the road continues into a cool forest tunnel, thick with trees and vegetation. I go a few hundred feet into it, then turn around to zoom down the road really fast on my bike. I go too fast, and can't stay on the road. Trying not to crash, I go into the meadow off to my right, and bounce to a stop before walking back to the road to continue on. Lots of fun!

I reach home at the bottom of the hill, and feel a sharp poke on my hand. I look and there are several small spiders on me, apparently biting me. My hand and upper arm start to go numb, followed by my shoulder. They seem to have a powerful venom, so I try to brush them off without killing them so they stop biting me. As soon as I brush them off, I notice more on me. Using a soft leaf, I brush those off as well.

Now that I appear to be spider free, I prepare to take a shower. Suddenly, I am covered with the little spiders, and also a single other bug, not very large, but with a painful bite. It is very strong, and I can't brush this one off. I have to pinch my skin together and grab it to remove it from my arm. Tossing it aside, it runs really fast. Not sure if it is going to get me again, I am quickly distracted by the several hundred tiny venomous spiders all over my arms and legs. I also feel something on my back but can't see it.

Trying to get all the spiders off harmlessly, as they bite me, I flinch a little, and probably hurt a few of them. It takes me a while, but I manage to get all of them off that I can see, and quickly get in the shower to the relative safety of the running water. I suspect that when I veered off into the meadow, I picked up all those spiders on me somehow.

I notice I am seeing myself from the 3rd person now, I am tied to a lawn chair on the beach, next to someone else who is also tied to a lawn chair. My head is strapped to a palm tree behind me, and I have a cut in my neck. It doesn't look good. I appear to be having my neck slowly cut open. I don't want to scream because of the hole in my neck, but it seems like I only have one chance to get help. I let out a huge yell (still watching in 3rd person as I do this), and blood spurts out of my airway that has been cut open, not making much noise. The man behind the tree then swings his heavy knife, and in a few whacks, severs my head from my body. I feel sick to my stomach. As soon as my head is severed, my body starts pissing freely into the sand, no longer under conscious control. A guy nearby laughs at me because I'm peeing myself. My killer sneaks up to him, and shoves my head right in front of his face. Scared greatly, he now realizes why my body was peeing.

Traversing a rocky landscape with a friend, we descend a slope, scramble past some boulders and find a massive hole. Hundreds of feet wide, it has no apparent bottom. My friend urges me to taka closer look to see how deep it is. Nearly slipping on the steep rocks in the dark, I amble my way closer until I am right near the edge. With a flashlight, I attempt to light it up to get a sense of its size, but this doesn't work. I step even closer, dangerously close to the edge, and risk my life to look forward inside.

Far down below, what seems like a mile, I see Buddha Avalokiteshvara run past, glowing with radiant white light. Wishing to be closer to Buddha, I jump into the massive hole. Landing on the bottom, it is a labyrinth of cave tunnels, filled with demon beasts. Most of them are asleep, but those immediately next to me are awakened by my mere presence. I run before they fully awake, but the caves are thick with demons, hardly even a gap to step my foot. I know Avalokiteshvara is in here somewhere so I call out his name continually as I run, waking up a massive horde of beasts, just at my heels now.

I reach a large chamber and am spontaneously armed with a gun. I shoot many of these demons and free up some space, but countless more keep coming. I shoot to keep them at bay rather than to kill, partly out of compassion, and partly to save ammo and time. Even so, my situation starts to look hopeless as I am losing ground against them, even as I run and shoot like the best gunman who ever lived.

My meditation teacher appears around the corner where I expected to find Avalokiteshvara, and at the same time as daylight quickly dawns. He is operating a flying robot, built by google, using facial recognition software, motion sensors, and laser cannons. This machine easily obliterates all the hostile creatures in an instant. I only notice it now mopping up the few stragglers who run at us from around the corners. Really confused by all this, I notice that I feel more peaceful now that I'm not running for my life. But those demons... Were they living beings or just personifications of something abstract?

Guiding someone along a path, I send them around a river as I navigate the rocks and earth in the middle wearing waterproof boots. I slip and fall in the icy water up to my waist, feeling the water get in my boots. Happy they are dry, I ignore the accident and we move on. Reaching an adorable old city made from red stones, we take a break to eat. Many meditators are also relaxing here for a lunch break, having a good time together.

A woman tells us all that it's time to go back for the next meditation, and we all get up and start walking along the road. I follow them this time rather than taking the cold river pass.

Suddenly, I am somewhere else almost like a time traveler, but without the continuity, rather a gradual fading out and back in. I think it would be nice to go back to that town from earlier, and set out down the road toward it, this time in the evening. I find myself on a longboard, and enjoy the ease of travel along the flat road. As I approach the town, I see it is now fenced off, and a van is parked just inside a chain link gate. I roll closer and some people see me. They are doing something that would upset others and cause trouble if more people knew about it. To protect themselves, they try to kill me in case I might tell someone.

Quickly turning around, I kick off fast and tuck into a speedy position on the board. Despite going uphill now, I manage to gain speed just through willpower as I outrun those guys in their van. I turn down a dark road, and lose them. Hopefully for good. A guy approaches me as I am looking at dark places to hide along the road - in a tree, next to a fence, etc; and he tells me there is a key to the car right underneath it, and points to a car in a nearby parking lot.

I'm laying in bed, trying to fall asleep (or so I think I am), when I hear my co-worker tell me that he just lets go completely. I try this, and feel amazing as my body falls asleep while my mind is awake. I go in and out of a really cool sensation, then feel a strange presence in my room.

I sense a being that is made completely of shadows and fear - the essence of darkness and evil itself. Quite a strong presence, but not a very happy one.

It is either a spirit or a demon, I'm not sure which it is, but there is definitely a presence here, and it doesn't like me being alive apparently. I don't mind that, and try to mind my own business, but this spirit/demon seems to attack me. I am partially crushed psychically, and have trouble breathing.

I start saying a mantra to ground me in the experience of safety, but feel too intense of a presence that is trying to harm me to even remember my mantra. "Alright, then I guess I'll just feel love for everyone since I can't do anything else"

It turns out that works more or less to pacify the demon/spirit thing. I feel like I'm left alone briefly, and allowed to collect myself. But not for long, as I feel like I am having my soul ripped from my body very shortly thereafter. I'm pretty much okay with that, I figure the end has to come sometime, but it is a little surprising. Still not many options for what to do, so I just feel love for everyone again. It seems like when I deeply do this, I am invincible. Not in the sense that my body won't die, but that my mind will not cease. It feels good to love everyone anyway.

I hear it say in a rhaspy clicky kind of voice, "booooooo bohohohohp annnnnnnnd hoooooooooold Z level now" Still not sure if it is a dream or not, I decide to just get up because it doesn't feel like I'm getting much rest facing this challenge right now, and there are things I must be doing.

At the very least, I feel like I can handle these kind of things now. Not that I enjoy it, but that it's not much of an issue.

I watch a plane crash on the television as part of a breaking news story. The last part of the clip before they cut it shows the plane flying away from the crash site. It doesn't make sense to me, so I re-play the scene in slow motion. This time, the second plane is a missile. Both are in fact missiles. Nuclear missiles. I get on my computer and try to find the exact town in England where the crash happened, but can't find it. Just a bunch of English towns. Finally, I spot the wreckage.

As soon as I see the wreckage, I'm on a bus that's headed right to the crash site. My mom is on the bus, as well as my good friends. Up ahead is an unexpected building, billowing with thick gray smoke. Just pumping smoke out the top of it like it is manufacturing something. Our bus stops at a gate just before this building and a bunch of men with guns board our bus speaking a combo German/Italian language that I can't understand. Through their non-verbal cues, I understand that they must search our bus and everyone on it before they let us go on our way.

One of the men searches me, but gets upset when he sees that I'm wearing a belt. He passes me to the next guy who also finds nothing hidden. Even more upset than the first guy, he picks me up by my shoulders, and shakes me vigorously as if to get any pills to fall out my ass if I were a drug mule. Fortunately (for many reasons) there is nothing.

They finally let us all go. I sit down back in my seat, cautious not to draw any unwanted attention to myself. I see my high school sweet heart in the seat right in front of mine and we smile at each other. Then I see several layers of cloth all stacked on top of one another. The cloth itself begins to speak, telling me, "There are many ways to love a woman." Then the pile of stacked cloth lays completely flat on the bus seat, melting into it. Seems like good advice I suppose...

Looking out the window, I watch as we pass the building from earlier. It is a power plant that burns some sort of smoky fuel, powering the entire town around it. Set up like some post-apocalyptic utopia, the buildings are all caddywhompus, but well maintained McGuiver style. The bus stops abruptly in the center of the town, and everyone is forced off of it.

I am taken to the front of a tank column and strapped to the front of it as a human shield for the point tank. Definitely not a safe place to be in general, let alone for what I fear is about to happen. Meat shields make me sad, but I'm happy that it's me and not someone else. Completely bound, I tensely watch from the front row of the action as a group of fighters (who I assume are on my side) ambush the tanks. The whole ridge above us seems to have come alive with machine gun fire and anti-tank rockets. Sadly, they are all killed by the tank fire and .50 Cal machine guns.

Due to all the rough driving, my bindings come loose toward the end of the fray and I make my get away, running as fast as I can before they notice. I dart into the first building I come across and hide up in the attic. I get the feeling that ninja-assassins have seen me hide in here, and are on their way sneaking inside. I have to do something to prepare myself.

I magically find in my hand a plastic spray bottle with an enchanted liquid inside that causes whoever is sprayed in the eyes to face their biggest fear. I test it on a nearby cat, who goes completely wide eyed, and then rigid for a few moments before moving again. The cat seemed to enjoy this, and now is like my minion. I direct it to the far corner of the room to help warn me of anyone approaching. Another cat walks right up to my face and looks at me like it too wants to get the fear spray. I spray it in the face once, and it reacts just like the first. Before I decide what to do with it, a third cat approaches and I do the same.

I send one of the cats down the attic stairs to investigate, amazed that the cats are voluntarily helping me through our unusual connection via the fear spray. I am about to spray myself in the face with it, but before I do, I hear someone downstairs. Sneaking down the ladder, there are no lights on anywhere, just a mysterious blue glow. I step on the floor and it is really wet.

A creepy woman's voice whispers directly into my ear, "The true test is how well you can step quietly through a puddle of blood" Quite a sadistic test, especially since she could've just killed me right there instead of toying with me like this. I see now that the entire floor is flooded with about a quarter an inch deep of blood. I get a quick mental flash back of this same woman killing a bunch of soldiers in this room using knives and dodging their bullets, and then draining their blood everywhere.

Thinking about her challenge, my feet change from wearing shoes, to slippers, back to shoes, and then to socks before settling on barefoot as I consider how to stay quietest. Barefoot it is then... The cold, sticky blood is really creepy, and not more than a few steps in, the sticky noises give me away.

She lunges at me, trying to bite my throat in half. I get a clear look at her face for the first time, it resembles a zombie face, with dark red slime and nastiness all around her mouth, crazy demonic eyes, and greasy straight black hair. I push against her chest and stomach to hold her back and get knocked on my back over some furniture. She jumps at me, using her teeth as her main weapon as I struggle to keep her off me. Pushing against her stomach, it turns into a dark empty void like space, but darker somehow. From this void, a second pair of arms reach out to fight me. Struggling with these, I kick at her, only to find another portal open up at her waist from which a second pair of legs come through kicking at me. There is blood everywhere, and she just doubled her limbs while trying to bite me to death. This fact sinks in a bit and I wake up.

I am playing Dwarf Fortress, and mix with the game a little as I micro-manage the Dwarves to build an epic tower defense style entrance to their underground Fortress. It should be impenetrable! But I have to meet my friend A for coffee before I go to work.

I drive to the coffee shop on the North end of town in a white pickup truck, keenly aware that I don't have much time before I have to go to work, in the opposite part of town. I don't see her as I arrive, so I park in one of the open spaces and get out. There are little Dwarves around me, and a large wooden post next to the truck. I tie the truck to it with a rope as the Dwarves climb over the rope, the post, and the truck. Seems normal. Then the truck next to mind pulls away, and gets stuck on something, pivots substantially, and puts a big dent in the side of my truck.

Ignoring the dent, I still don't see any sign of my friend, so I go into the coffee shop. Immediately, some people ask me to participate in a study. I recognize most of them from when I was involved in the same study earlier. I was an auditor, checking in on their work, and never found out exactly what it was they were doing. Out of curiosity, I agree to participate. I thought I saw needle marks on some of the other participants, even though no needles were involved, so it seems like they have something to hide.

Assuring me that they just need to do a couple blood tests, a strong guy literally picks me up off the ground by my left arm and carries me down the hall. I would've walked, so I let him carry me. Then I suspect that perhaps the reason for this treatment is because what they are going to do to me should make me want to run away. I struggle to break free, but he is ridiculously strong. All my struggling has puffed out my arm veins. He stabs a big needle into my main bicep vein, and quickly draws blood out of me. I conclude that this all was just a very efficient method to get blood samples, and I relax.

I overhear a few scientists talking about one girl who they gave an injection to earlier. She has turned into some sort of monster, and is very dangerous. They have her barricaded in one of the lower levels of this building, about two floors below us. They then tell me that as part of this study, I must feed her, and they hand me a brown tray with a few unappealing plates of food on it. Apparently, she has killed all the guards, and everyone else who has gone near her. Great...

Making my way down to her floor, through some sturdy doors, and down some big stairways, I see her at the end of an abandoned hallway. Several open rooms are on either side of the hall, with no one in them. Some doors open, some closed. Blood, debris, and trash is strewn all over the floor and walls. It looks like a massacre. ...Quietly, I walk up to her from behind as she is hunched over a dead guy wearing a white lab coat. It looks like she's eating his flesh. I poke her gently in the back with the food tray to get her attention. With twitchy reflexes, she turns to face me abruptly, her cheeks and mouth covered in blood and weird black slime. Letting out a low growl, she begins to turn her body to face me as well as if she's getting ready to pounce like a cat. Basically, she's one of those scary fast zombies now...

Dropping the tray at her feet, I turn and run as hard as I can down the hall back the way I came. I hear her approach, but don't dare look back as even the slightest hesitation might be the edge she needs to catch me. I dart to my right into an open room, and close the door, locking it faster than I thought possible. A sturdy wooden door, with a very narrow window, I feel safe now.

Smashing the door right through the frame, she jumps into the room after me. I back away, and jump over a bed, putting it between her and I. She slowly walks up toward me, and climbs onto the bed. Laying down on her side facing me, she begins to speak normally. She tells me of how she no longer needs to have sex to reproduce. Having been discouraged by many males' eagerness to have sex, and concerned about that, she gave it up in favor of killing people to reproduce instead. Somehow it works for her. Almost on queue, I jizz in my pants. Yes, just like that SNL skit... "Well, now I especially am in the position to get killed by her!" I think, as I try to stay on my feet.

I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her, and am teleported to a river in the middle of the night. I am positioned precariously on a steep snow bank, that is rapidly being dissolved into this raging river. I try to climb out, but the snow is too wet and slides down the bank, nearly taking me into the river with it. It all turns to slush around me.

With a few steps, I leap across the 10 ft river, onto the opposite snow bank that looks like its in better shape, and try to climb out of that side. The top of this one is crusty snow, and large chunks of it break off, falling over my head as I try not to fall with them into the frigid rapids right behind me. However, I have no other choice but to try, so I make another leap for the edge, only to have it break away, sending me falling backwards into the river.

Now looking down on the river from up in the sky, I see that I have died, and my body is being carried by the currents downstream. I watch as it floats along. Then it is carried to a Dwarven Fortress that is harnessing the water for some sort of industry. They fish my body out of the water and pass it to the medics to see if they can revive me. I watch as they try, and then conclude that I have died.

I re-materialize in front of the coffee shop again, having just parked the truck. This time there is a parrot on the post that I have tied the truck to. The parrot criticizes me on many levels. The parrot seems to have been emboldened by being let out of its cage. I let it criticize me, not really caring, because soon I must deal with the demon girl. I warn the parrot of this girl, and how the parrot himself should be careful - as she is very quick. I perceive images in my mind of the girl transforming into her demon form after being a cat, then a demon cat, in various stages of development.

I realize that time is not linear as we normally perceive it, and get in the truck to drive to work.

Trapped in a small gray chamber, about the size of an average living room, but made entirely of stone and metal. I look up and see that this room has no ceiling, but instead a giant shaft, hundreds of feet tall with an opening to the sky, presumably to let a little bit of light in, which it does. There is a wide passageway down some rubble to a dead end room about the same size of what I'm in, and another hallway on the opposite side. I look down that hallway to see if I can get out, but my view is blocked by a man in full medieval plate armor, carrying a medium length sword with a 3 inch wide blade. He roars at me, and charges. Terrified, I run the opposite direction, and am cornered in the dead end room. I face the man, just as he rams the sword through my chest. Leaving it in me for a few moments, he pulls it out, and I crumple to the ground. All I can see are his steel boots as he stands above me, watching me writhe in pain before I die.

Having died, I appear again in the same chamber. I look for how to get out, and see the swordsman again. Seems kind of familiar. I feel like he is hostile as he again starts to charge in my direction, so I run again. Cornered, I try to dodge his sword strikes, get a major cut in my shoulder, then am stabbed through my gut. It feels like being really sick with food poisoning, but combined with a lot of burning. I fold over forward and he cuts my head off.

Re-appearing in the same chamber as before, I wonder if I can get out this time. But quickly the swordsman appears again and chases me into the dead end. This time I attack him, but have no weapons other than my fists. I dodge his strike, and punch him in the metal face shield, breaking my fist on his helmet. Ignoring the pain, I punch him more, but he doesn't seem to be phased at all by this as he slashes me in the side. I go to block his second strike with my forearm, but his swing cuts clear through my arm, decapitating me.

Having just died, I find myself in the same room as before, but this time I remember the previous encounters and ready myself. I conclude that he will kill me no matter what I try, and there is no escape. He has been coming from a dead end hallway somehow, so there is no where to go. I think about how he's probably done nice things in the past, and bring to mind feelings of warmth and closeness to him, like he is my best friend from all time. I even wish for him and everyone to be happy. A blissful tingling feeling starts at the base of my spine, then rises to the top of my head, then back down, and out to my arms. It feels amazing, but I focus more on loving this swordsman than getting distracted by this feeling.

The swordsman approaches again, but this time I do not run. I stand and face him. I can't help but smile, happy to see him. He kneels down, lowers his sword, and rams it through my foot, the long way, all the way through, splitting my toes in half, cutting through the bone, and going all the way out the heel end of my foot. I am briefly distracted by the searing pain as I fall to the floor in front of him. Remembering my love from before, the pain disappears, but he quickly withdraws the sword and slays me once again. This time I wake up.

Locked in a small, very dark room with my wife; I am assisting in her giving birth. All sorts of demonic shadows appear all over the wall. Ridiculous faces, ghosts, figures, and everything terrifying I can imagine appears in shadow form on the walls. Clouds of smoke and mist also briefly pass by out of no where. Just obscuring everything, and then gone a few seconds later. My wife and I suspect that she is giving birth to a demon baby. I am a little concerned about what the neighbors are thinking if they can see these shadows too.

The baby is born, and already has fierce teeth, a crazy look on his face, and solid, black eyes. Growling, it tries to bite both of us. I grab the umbilical cord, and swing it off my wife from there, dodging his fangs as he flies past me. While trying to swing him in circles above our heads to buy some time, he kicks a wall, causing him to fly toward me and land on my right arm. Before he can sink his teeth into me, I grab him by the back of the head with my left hand, pull him off, then grab his body with my right and just squeeze. This causes the umbilical cord to disconnect from him, and is really gross. Black liquid squirts out of it, and I jump back, losing grip on the demon baby. I feel my stomach turn to knots as he jumps down to the floor.

He runs around the room, free from my grasp, but still contained inside the room for now. Literally running really fast, while growling, and even jumping higher than I am tall, he chomps his teeth together like a dog, making loud biting noises. My wife and I skootch back on the bead some more as he jumps up next to it, biting the air, and looking at us. He seems to enjoy scaring us with his powerful jaws...

The next jump, I catch him, and try to kill this demon with a knife. But due to some dark magic, any knife wound immediately heals itself. Struggling to hang onto this creature, I grab a small axe that is hanging on the wall and sever the menacing head from the red veiny body. The demon dissolves into sparks and dust, crumbling to small ashes and then vanishing back out of this world.

I sit back down on the bed, enjoying the brief peacefulness of the aftermath.

I'm in my living room with a group of friends. One of them finds an old mirror and looks at it. They let out a yell, obviously seeing something terrifying in the mirror. She asks me if I want to see the scariest thing in the universe... Curiously cautious, I gesture for her to pass me the mirror and look at it.

Images of dinosaurs flashed before me for a few moments. Then the moment came: I've never been soo terrified and frightened before in my life! Without choice, I immediately let out a scream and threw the mirror. Then I realized it was just an image of my face. It was in a different expression than I had, but still definitely just my very own face.

Once I realized it was me, I started to laugh uncontrollably. How did I scare myself so much?

I laughed so hard I woke up, and continued to laugh in bed for a while before actually getting up.

On a boat at night, filled with other people, mostly young people. They seems like kids, but could be about 18 or so. We're expecting some enemy force to attack the town we're off the coast of nearby, but waiting for more details on where the attack will be so we can position ourselves to stop it. Looking around, there are a bunch of empty boats anchored near the shore, and some street lights near the docks light up parts of the beach. Then we see it, about a dozen boats quickly pass us, landing on the far side of town. Beast-like monsters with vicious looking weapons, huge muscles, and an overall extremely dangerous looking figure, run off their ships and amass in a large group just on shore.

Our captain brings us close, and we disembark not too far from them. I tell everyone not to shoot at them until we're well setup, because if we provoke them now while we're vulnerably half on the ship, half getting off, we'll all surely be killed. The monsters seem to notice us, but for some reason give us the courtesy to prepare ourselves. It becomes very clear that we're hugely out-numbered about 10 to 1, and this is a suicide mission. Our leader has us line up in a double file line facing our attackers. This seems stupid to me, like a sure way to set up the worst defense in history, but I can't change his mind.

To my disappointment, I am shuffled to the second row, right in the front. You know, where death is 100% certain against a huge group of beasts like this. I turn to the person on my left and choking back tears tell him, "It's a good day to die" while I think, "I don't really want to die today" It's sad because this seems really pointless. Someone announces to us that there is coffee and donuts inside just behind us. I don't like coffee or donuts, but since I'm just about to be fighting a huge number of beasts, maybe if I'm hopped up on caffeine, I'll be able to shoot them quicker, so I go inside.

There is a table set up where two people are serving everyone espresso shots and tiny muffins. I take one of each, eat the muffin in one bite, and sip on the espresso shot because it's too hot to drink. I walk back outside, finish the espresso, and find myself in the back of the line now thinking, "This is a much safer spot to be. Since I am good at shooting, I can help better from back here" But I see they have saved my spot up at the front... I solemnly walk back up to the front, and think about how no one wants to be in the front, so it might as well be me. At least I can spare someone else the terror of being amongst the first to die.

Thinking about everyone else, and how fearful they must be, I'm not so sad about our situation. I just accept my position in the front for everyone else's sake, and peacefully wait for the battle to begin.

With the sound of gunfire and screams, everything goes dark brown, I see a hideous eye get so close it appears bigger than me, then I feel like I am inside a large mouth with massive fangs, and all other sounds get really muffled, then stops. Now everything is black. That same glittering blackness when you close your eyes in the dark.