Slumberless

Back to my end of the world dreams last night.

This was all perfectly vivid.

Dream starts in a supermarket. It is not the typical sort, this one is on the first floor of a four story building. The layout of the first floor is simple, it is a perfect square and all the isles are lined up one by one with the registers all up in the front. I am in isle with the canned vegetables with my (dream) boyfriend. There is a young woman with blonde hair holding her baby, who is probably around a year old. She is farther back in the isle. Then there is an older woman by herself shopping and she is near my boyfriend and I.

The whole time we have been shopping I have been extremely on edge and trying to hide it. I feel sweaty and cold. Finally I turn to my boyfriend and try to explain to him that something is wrong. He is pretending to listen but I know he isn't paying much attention to what I am saying. I start grabbing cans of food and stuffing them in my purse. This grabs his attention. He wants to know what I am doing and I am panicking, trying to tell him that we need to get everyone upstairs (somehow I have a good idea of the building layout). I am starting to raise my voice and the older woman shopping stops and stares at me. I start trying to convince her, too. My boyfriend tells her something about taking me home and he starts trying to calm me down.

I run up to the front of the store at start shouting at people that something bad is going to happen and that we've all got to get upstairs. They look at me like I'm crazy, of course. I'm shaking uncontrollably and its all quite scary. What I am telling everyone catches the attention of the blonde woman with the baby. She wants to know more and comes closer. Then someone from outside of the store runs in and starts shouting something about water, and finally people are listening.

I have no idea if we are near the ocean or not but we can see a huge wave coming over the freeway far in the distance. It comes closer rather quickly and I get some people to listen to me and start heading for the stairs. It all happens in a rush: the waves crash in the windows, the lights go out in the staircase, and most of us are screaming. I'm trying to usher everyone upstairs.

We get to the top floor and it's just a dark, dusty space. There are nine of us, including the woman with the baby. The older woman didn't make it. I'm crying because I know everyone has died and I tried but nobody listened. We spend several days upstairs and eventually venture down to the second floor, finding it to no longer under water. The same goes for the first floor.

When I walk outside the ground is covered (and I mean covered) in small, green bugs. They look like worms. They're all puffy from soaking up the water. They're trying to climb up my legs and there literally isn't one place they haven't covered completely. We all run back upstairs. I really don't like bugs.

We spend more time there and I am convinced that we should stay, because I think it is important that nobody find us. My boyfriend is the one who decides he will go look around, for help or whatever.

We stay there for some time and eventually the bugs start to go away. When my boyfriend finally returns he is not the same. I don't know what happens in between, but I am out in a field near the supermarket, looking for the others. I am crying because I have lost them, and it felt like my responsibility to be looking after everyone. My boyfriend knocks me to the ground and starts sticking paper-clips (the ends of them, anyway) into my stomach. It really hurt in the dream.

I woke up scratching at my stomach. I wish more of my dreams were pleasant.