memorable

Heyyy, it's been well over a year since my last entry. So here's a fantastic one from today (hopefully the first of many) to get this DJ active again.

I wasn't really trying for a lucid, I just kinda fell asleep while watching YouTube videos. But as soon as I was dreaming, I immediately know it is a dream (or at least, I don't really remember any one point where I became lucid). The dream is all about this sport for lucid dreamers that I can only describe as a combination between Blitzball from Final Fantasy, and sumo wrestling. There's a big spherical playing area, marked out by several semi-transparent triangular panels forming a dome of sorts (think like the dome at Epcot, but much smaller, with fewer triangles), all supported by four large poles, one on each corner, with smaller poles extending to hold the panels in place. Several of the panels are retractable, to serve as doors into the play area. Each panel is somehow slightly padded, although it managed to remain at least mostly see-through.

The sport was played between 2 participants (apparently both lucid dreamers). Both contestants start at the center of the sphere, and at the sound of the whistle, have to use any means necessary to push their opponents into one of the panels, which scores a point. No special dream powers can be used except for flight. A sensor on each panel can detect when contact is made and from which competitor. The game is played for either some total time limit or point limit (I never actually saw a full match, so I don't really know).

As an apparent celebrity in this lucid universe, I am selected to go against the current champion on the first ever televised broadcast of the sport. Of course, since I've been out of lucid practice for some time (and not really that good at sports), I'm scared that I will be swiftly defeated. Luckily, since the first televised event is a pretty big deal for the sport, the league has provided me a team of trainers to prepare me for the big match. We have several training sessions at my grandma's old house.

For one of my exercises, I practice focusing my strength by trying to punch the ground with enough force to crack it. But the first 5 or 6 times I try, my fist moves very slowly, almost like I'm trying to punch at something underwater. Getting slightly frustrated, I remind myself that this is a dream, and focus my attention at remembering that I am in control and can punch with as much force as I like. I take a deep breath, focus for a bit, and try punching once more. This time, my fist moves at normal speed, but it feels like a normal punch, and the ground doesn't break from the impact (though thankfully, neither does my fist). I'm a bit disappointed, but one of my trainers comes over and grabs me by the shoulders. He looks me in the eyes and says, "Listen to me: forget about the punching. Can you fly?"
"Of course," I say, as I lift myself up and start to hover.
"Then you can fight."
I realize he's right, and begin to focus on practicing my flying.

The scene fast forwards to right before the fight. The entire atmosphere is on edge, as a lot of TV crew are rushing around making sure everything is set up perfectly for our broadcast. I'm backstage behind the main entrance to the stadium, and I finally meet my opponent - he's actually incredibly nice. "No hard feelings man - now whatd'ya say we go out there and give them a show." The intense music starts playing in the stadium, and we start to walk out. One of the stagehands shouts at me to come back - I'm supposed to be coming in from another entrance on the other side - but it's too late to fix, as I'm already out in the spotlight. I try to play it cool, but I'm a tad embarrassed that I messed up the production.

We end up meeting in the middle, right outside the sphere, with the announcer, who interviews us both (I don't remember what is said). After that, we prepare to enter the dome. I apparently mess up the production again - we were supposed to walk around opposite sides of the dome for dramatic effect, but I accidentally walk the same way as my opponent. Maybe they should've had a rehearsal if they were gonna make it this complicated. Somehow, I end up getting lost on the way and end up in the audience, where I hear a rather old lady complaining. "Why do they have to have pads around the ring now? I remember in my day, we didn't bother with stopping people against them, we just let them keep flying away." I realize where the dome is, so I try walking to it up what is basically a mountain of foam padding. I start getting exhausted on my way up, when I remember that I'm dreaming, so I can fast forward if I like. I blink my eyes, and I'm now standing in front of the door to the dome with my opponent.

We both enter. As we prepare to fight, the announcer drops one final "twist" on us. In order to spice things up for the TV viewing audience, they added a few "gimmick" rounds. The first one was the "Foam Round", and the sphere was quickly filled with tons of large foam blocks (kind of like the ones used in safety pits in gymnastics). A few of them were colored blue, and according to the announcer, if we managed to grab any of them, we would be give a special power we could use in the fight. The whistle blew, and I immediately started frantically trying to "swim" through the pool of foam. I didn't seem to get anywhere, as the foam was firm enough that it was difficult to push against, but small and fluid enough that my arms couldn't gain any traction against them. This went on for a few minutes, but judging by how long my flailing went undeterred, I imagine my opponent was struggling to find leverage as well. This really can't be good television...

I falsely awaken - or rather, I "awaken" by removing a VR helmet from my head. I look around to see a large camera crew around me, with a green screen behind me. I realize that I'm part of some documentary on the technology behind VR. I also realize that I'm standing well outside of the safe playing area for the VR headset, and if I had flailed any more to the side, I would've knocked over one of the cameras. I apologize profusely, although I am also a bit disappointed that perhaps what I had experienced was not a lucid dream. At least, until I woke up from that dream to find that it was!

I’m on a Youtube gaming show where we play terrible video games. We’re trying to decide what game to play next, when we stumble across a Barbie-branded ripoff of Rocket League, that’s apparently so badly made that it will break your Wii if you try to save your game.

I’m apparently trying to make a chess board out of M&M’s to send to a friend in prison. My brother (a policeman IRL) comes in excited about getting a jury summons, because he knows the case that it’s for. He drives me and him down to the DMV so he can turn in some jury-related paperwork. It doesn’t take long, because apparently this DMV has a drive-thru.

I’m back at college. The main building for all the classes (which is notoriously known for having an incredibly confusing room numbering system) has been reorganized, so all the rooms are sorted into letter and color codes to find them easier. I’m walking with my mom, trying to help her find some classroom she’s looking for.

I’m riding in a car with a woman from my church, and just about everyone on the road seems to be swerving or generally driving recklessly. I look out the window and see the same woman in another car, with all of her family riding with her. “Strange, that seems like something that would happen in a dream.” We then start talking about lucid dreaming, and I say something along the lines of, “Yeah, if this was a dream, I’d know because this car would be driving in the grass or up a wall or something.” That’s when I finally realize that we are driving in the grass, and become fully lucid.

The car somehow just kind of dissolves, and I find myself walking in these ancient ruins that I seem to think are Roman architecture. I’m kind of being drawn into this dark temple-like building, but I stop myself, and realize that I’ve complained for a while about how not enough of my lucids are outdoors. So instead, I turn around and decide to explore my surroundings. I rub my hands to stabilize a bit, but already the dream is incredibly clear - possibly one of my clearest lucids in a long time. As I pass between some overturned pillars that had begun to sprout grass out of their cracks, I come across a bright golden statue of a knight on a pedestal in the middle of a clearing. As I approach it, it comes to life and extends its sword to hand it to me. I take it and try swinging it around - it feels very solid, but it’s about 6 feet long and awkward to control. “Got anything smaller?” I ask. Without saying a word, he takes his sword back and hands me smaller sword that’s much more manageable. He also hands me a shield, but it feels more like a pie tin in the shape of a shield - it doesn’t even have a handle to grab it, so I just kind of awkwardly hold it by the side.

This whole interaction with him seems incredibly symbolic, so I ask, “What exactly do you represent?” Just then, he gets into a fighting stance and starts attacking me. He slashes me once across the legs, which knocks me down at first. But after the initial sting goes away, I feel no pain and get back up again. We fight for a bit, until I finally get a swing it at his legs. He falls hard to the ground, writhing in pain. His helmet falls off from the impact, and I see him crying like a little kid as he starts throwing a tantrum (which I find somewhat humorous). I kind of lose lucidity at this point, and the dream turns into more of a movie. The character I was playing is apparently a teenager who was diagnosed with cancer, and because of his treatment was incredibly bedridden and unable to walk. Because of this, he uses lucid dreams to be able to walk again and experience that freedom. The knight is touched by his story, and mentions that he will grant him a fresh start. The main character then wakes up in his bed and suddenly realizes that he is 5 years younger - apparently back to the time the cancer began to develop, giving him a chance to get it treated in the early stages.

4 NLDs - 4
WBTB - 2
DILD - 10
Stabilize - 1
Interact w/ DC - 2

Night Total - 19 pts

Night 3 didn't have much to report, but I think Night 4 made up for it.

I’m in this super fancy hotel, standing near one of the balconies overlooking the lobby. Suspended from the ceiling is a ton of panes of glass in a bunch of different angles, like some piece of modern art. I’m apparently a secret agent, on a Mission Impossible-type stealth mission, and our target is two floors directly above us. The stairs and elevators are heavily guarded, and the only way up is to climb the glass chandelier-thing up to the balcony above. I suit up, while my partner, this brown-haired woman in a business suit (it may have been Vi, in retrospect) keeps watch for guards. I equip these super-grip gloves like in MI: Ghost Protocol, and these gravity shoes that attract to the nearest surface, so I can transfer my body weight to the surface I’m gripped onto and sit in a Spiderman-like pose. I grab onto the first pane of glass, and then spin around so my feet are now on the next pane. I hang upside-down and watch my partner walk off, nervously talking into her headset microphone.

I maneuver my way around and through the glass panes, stopping every once in awhile to look around and determine which way is up. After a good amount of twisting and turning, and a bit of disorientation, I’m finally one jump away from the balcony, but then a lady on the floor spots me climbing and starts screaming. I am kinda stuck in an awkward position, so I can’t stop her, but suddenly my partner sneaks up behind her and pistol-whips her unconscious. She looks up at me, shrugs her shoulders, and helps me down.

I switch into my own business suit, and the two of us walk into the complex undercover. We make it to a large security door, where my partner scans her fake fingerprint to let us in. I look around and notice the different security systems. Motion detector above the door, laser grid to the side (powered down for now), and several cameras pointing in several different directions. All have the same logo on them - GL, a security organization that is a known front for one of our rival organizations. When our target finds out they’ve been broken into, GL will recognize our faces immediately from the tapes and set up a counterattack. The fingerprint is finally accepted, and we walk through the door.

We find ourselves in a back courtyard, fenced in by huge concrete walls, 40 feet high and about 10 feet thick. Our mark is standing next to a huge fountain with his henchmen and waves us in, so we walk towards him. There’s a very short conversation before there’s a loud explosion, accompanied with one of the exterior walls collapsing. The smoke and fog cover the fountain area, and me and my partner both run off to the outside of the smoke screen. There’s a huge hole in the wall, and through it crawls Tails the Fox from the Sonic games. He runs over to us shouting.

“You guys have to hide! They’re bringing the whole place down!”
“What? That wasn’t part of the plan!”
“Well it is now! Quick, the smoke’s almost clear, go hide!”
“No, we can’t blow our cover. I… I’m sorry about this.”
“Sorry? About wha-”

I land a hard right hook to Tails’ face that knocks him to the ground. I then pull out my pistol and point it at him. About this time, our mark and his henchmen run over to where we are. “We’ve been compromised, they know we’re here. We’ll have to move this rendezvous somewhere else. Suspect apprehended.”

I grab Tails by the wrist and pull him up, slapping my handcuffs on him before quietly whispering in his ear, “Don’t worry, buddy, I’ll get you out of here somehow…”

I’m now back in one of my engineering classes. My friends and I are talking, but I realize my phone’s almost dead. I grab my phone charger, but realize the wires are sticking out of the end of it. I’m trying not to electrocute myself with the ends of the wires, but one of my classmates sees this and purposely shoves the wires into my chest. It makes a very unpleasant tingling, but it’s not horribly painful. I politely laugh and tell him not to do that again, but he doesn’t listen. He grabs the wires from me and stabs them into me at different places on my body.

Spoiler for Dirty bit:

After several seconds of this, he eyes my crotch. “Don’t you dare.” I start kicking him, but two other classmates hold me down to the ground. He takes the wires and stabs them into my testicles, and I feel some intense pain and start having bad spasms. I shake so much that I wake up, heart pounding. My testees feel fine at least…

I now am driving in a car at a high speed down a highway, but I’m swerving a lot, no matter how hard I try to stay in control of the car. For the first time ever, I remember that driving is a dream sign of mine, and I become lucid. I start to slow down, but then I have an idea. The highway in front of me is incredibly straight, so I think it’ll make the perfect runway. I slam on the gas, and once I get up to speed, I pull back on the steering wheel, and the car leaves the ground. Sweeeeet. I maneuver the car around, enjoying the feeling of flying. I even roll down the windows and feel the wind blow through the car. I notice that the ground is covered by fog, and I decide to turn around, making sure that I have some visible ground so the dream doesn’t destabilize. The car’s still kinda hard to control though, and I actually start heading for some buildings. Just before I crash though, the buildings become slightly transparent, almost like holograms, and I phase right through them. I fly around like a crazy person for a bit, and watch as the scene around me keeps changing, at one point turning into a wireframe version of itself. I continue until I wake up.

After my WBTB, I WILD into my living room at home. I realize that I’m an idiot and didn’t pick anything to do for this lucid (maybe because I wasn’t entirely expecting another lucid so close to the last one). I try to think of anything that might be interesting to try out. I somehow recall a lot of people on the forum saying that meditating in a lucid is an awesome experience, but considering how I don’t meditate in real life (and when I try to, I get too distracted by my ADD thoughts), I’m not sure if I should try. But, no better options come to mind, so I figure, what the heck. I sit down in the classic meditation pose, and I actually start to levitate off the ground a bit. The sights and sounds around me seem to get much clearer. So far so good, I guess. Surely this’ll be easier than in waking life with all of its distractions.

In this case I was wrong. My dad walks in the room. (Story Time: Whenever I’m home on break from school, I’m basically full-time tech support for my parents. Apart from fixing computers/phones/TVs/cable boxes/etc., my dad will often interrupt whatever I’m doing about every 10 minutes to ask me some question about his phone/computer/Facebook. The answer is always something so simple that he could’ve Googled it himself, but he insists that I help him. As you’ll see, this habit of his has carried over into my dreams…) He sits down and immediately starts blabbing something about his phone acting up. I remind myself that this is a dream and try to ignore him, but it seems to make him louder. I finally get up and walk out of the room, but he follows me out, still talking about his phone. I run upstairs, go in my room, and lock the door. I can still hear him outside the door, now raising his voice to a shout. Ugh, this is ridiculous. I crack open the window, get a running start, and jump outside, flying off away from the house. Unfortunately, before I can get back to meditating, the dream destabilizes and I lose lucidity.

I’m now in this movie theater with a couple friends to see the latest Disney-Pixar movie. It’s supposedly an IMAX movie theater, even though it’s really just a really wide curved screen that stretches across the entire front of the room. The room is much larger than an actual movie theater, and it looks like it seats a few thousand people. Me and a couple friends are off to the left side, about 10 rows from the front. For some reason, though, the seats are angled off towards the left wall, so I only see a small portion of the left side of the screen until I turn my head really far to the right to see the rest of the picture.

We sit through the first few minutes of the movie, when the movie pauses. Some lady walks to the front of the theatre, and 3 more flat projector screens lower from the ceiling, showing a slide about some charity organization. I can somehow see her nametag from where I’m sitting, which says Hanna on it. She introduces herself as Hanna Montana. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m missing the last ‘h’. So no, I’m not a widely-adored pop superstar.” I turn to my friend next to me. “To be fair, neither is Miley Cyrus.” My joke made 3 rows around me start cracking up, and my friend even spit out his drink from laughing so hard.

We sit through the movie (which amazingly is only about 10 seconds long), and me and my friends kind of hang out in the theater for a few minutes afterwards. A police officer walks up to my friend Joel and tells him that he’s gonna have to come with him. I try standing up for him. “What seems to be the problem, officer?”
“Well, this hooligan was spotted last night causing a ruckus during a showing of Star Wars, and so he’s been banned from the building. Yet somehow, he managed to crawl his way back in here past our security.”
Joel walks out into the aisle, with the cop behind him. He gets to the top of the stairs, and suddenly makes a run for it. The cop quickly pulls out his taser and shoots him before he even gets out the door. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see Joel falling to the ground (because man, that would’ve been hilarious to see IRL).

After the movie, I head home, jump on my computer, and play some Minecraft. It’s a weird version of Minecraft in that it’s played from a top-down perspective, making it kinda hard to see what you’re actually building. I somehow discover a secret passageway that leads under this nearby lake, but when I travel down it, I get stopped by this massive scorpion. I’m now fighting it in first person, but I realize all my weapons are gone. The scorpion has pretty strong armor too, so it’s gonna be impossible to fight him in this state. Still, I give it my best shot. I run around him, dodging his tail strikes. He charges towards me, knocking me down, though I do manage to land a few punches on my way down. It doesn’t hurt, obviously, since it’s just a video game, though everything else about the experience feels pretty realistic. After a trading a few more blows, I’m down to one health, while the scorpion has barely taken a scratch. Oh well, it’s not like I had anything valuable in my inventory, guess I’ll just die then.

Suddenly, a glowing arrow shoots from the entrance of the passageway, one-hit killing the scorpion. I look in the direction the arrow came from, and see this guy with jet black hair and a leather jacket standing at the entrance, bow extended toward the monster. I go to thank my mysterious savior, but he just raises his nose at me. “Ha, how could you even come into a level 12 cave without any weapons? Maybe you should go back and do the tutorial levels, you noob!” The world around us fades out before there’s a bright flash of light.

Fair warning, the next part reads like a novel. It was a pretty long, detailed section of the dream. I don’t remember all the dialogue that occurred, but I do remember most of the emotional connotation of it, so I based the dialogue on that.

I’m now in this huge wooden cabin, getting out of this strange white capsule on a metal track. As I get up, I have a rush of false memories in my head that give me a context of what’s going on. I don’t really know how I know these facts, I just kinda suddenly know them. I’m somehow 50 years in the future - I have no clue how I got here, but I’m here. Much like in the book “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline, the world thrives entirely off of virtual reality. People basically live their entire lives in their personal VR capsule. The cabin I’m in is an “access point”, a place where people can bring their capsules and connect directly to the “hub”, the worldwide center of VR activity. The tracks on which my capsule was positioned were used to physically take users to the hub, and during the journey, the capsules would begin the boot-up process before finally being connected at their destination.

Speaking of capsules, mine wasn’t the best. I seem to recall getting one of the cheaper ones - it was enough to successfully connect to the hub, but it wasn’t meant for the incredibly realistic experiences boasted by VR companies. The screen in the eyepiece wasn’t that high of a resolution, and haptic feedback - the equipment that simulated a sense of touch - was pretty terrible. Everything you touched, from a hard granite countertop to the soft fur of a kitten, registered as the same stiff poke - there was no variance on how hard it poked you, you just knew you had touched something because you were poked. But I was fine with it, I couldn’t really afford much more than that.

And of course, my “mysterious savior” was Johnny Blade. Of course, that wasn’t his real name, but he had used that username to climb the e-sports ranks, so it was what everyone knew him as. Because of his gaming success, he had a ton of sponsorships from all the major e-sports advertising companies, and was on the cover of just about everything. He was a pretty big celebrity. Unfortunately, he was also a pretty big douchebag too. His hair color - which was reflected in all of his video game avatars - was an obnoxiously dyed shade of black that apparently made some sort of fashion statement. That, tied with his signature leather jacket, made him look like a mix between a 1950’s greaser and Biff Tannen from Back to the Future - with just about the same attitude. Lucky for me, he exited his game of Minecraft shortly after I left, and just so happened to exit to the same access point as me, conveniently on the track next to my capsule.

“Well, the least you could do is thank me. I saved your precious level 1 armor,” he sarcastically remarks. “We all know you must have spent a long time on acquiring it, so I didn’t want you to have wasted your life. Lord knows you don’t have much of life to waste.”
“Oh, rest assured, if I had half as many sponsors that you have kissing all over your disgusting feet, I could’ve just bought all the armor in the shop. And I guarantee I wouldn’t be half the snob you are about it, either.”
“Jealous, much? Maybe if you spent as much time practicing as you do whining, you might be able to make a name for yourself. Anyway, I don’t have time for this. Network interviews, photo shoots, you know how it is… Oh wait, no you don’t. Adios, peasant!”

Oh man, I want to slap him so bad. I don’t care if he has lawyers at his beck and call, someone needs to teach him a lesson. I walk back over to my capsule, ready to go back into the hub, when I spot Johnny’s capsule still on the track, unlocked and open. I hesitate for a moment before walking over to inspect it. As to be expected, his capsule was state-of-the-art. Stater-of-the-art than state-of-the-art, in fact, as his sponsors often gave him plenty of new equipment prototypes months before they hit the markets. Well, if someone needs to teach him a lesson, I think I just found my curriculum.

I size myself up - we have pretty similar builds, even though I’m about an inch shorter than him. I lay down in the body-shaped contours of the capsule. It’s a tad snug, but it’ll work. I sit up to press the launch button on the side of the track. I always thought that was kind of a design flaw - that you or someone else had to press the start button on the track outside the capsule before it would launch. I guess I never had that problem on my capsule, since the door closed pretty slowly on it anyway, giving me plenty of time to position myself correctly. Unfortunately, the capsule door shuts almost immediately once I press the button, shoving me into it in a weird, squatted position. My head didn’t even make it to the head portion of the machine.

This is bad. For one, I’m quickly feeling uncomfortable, as the cramped position I’m in is putting a ton of pressure on my arms and neck, so I don’t know how long I can stay stuck like this. Second, I can feel that the capsule has already launched down the track, meaning in a few seconds I will be connected to the hub. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but in my current position, I have no way to get to the controls to close the connection, return to the access point, and exit the capsule. Meaning I will most likely be stuck there a very long time, with no way to escape.

I manage to tilt my head upwards towards the head hole, and push upwards with my legs until I can kind of wiggle my way upwards. Thanks to the anatomy of the human body, and the human-body-conforming shape of the capsule, I can’t squeeze my head through the neck hole. I can barely look up through the hole and see the boot-up screen on the display. It’s fairly simple - a plain black screen with some green text in the top left corner, probably to show version info and all that. I also manage to see some kind of emergency-release latch in the neck area. Hoping that the latch will help enlarge the neck hole so I can slide my way up, I pull it. The capsule door flings open, and I’m quickly thrown out of the machine. I quickly realize what’s happening, and try to grab onto the door as I’m flying out. My hand just barely scrapes the edge of the door, but I ultimately miss and watch as the empty capsule continues rolling down the track out of view.

I take a moment to assess the gravity of the situation. Or rather, the lack of gravity, because I soon notice that I’m just floating, almost like I’m helplessly drifting through space. The track that the capsule was on simply fades away, and I’m left floating in a sea of black, with nothing around me. Until I notice up in the sky, off in the distance, floating green text. The boot-up screen? But, I’m not in the capsule. And even if I was, I shouldn’t be able to see this, I’d still be cramped in the bottom half with the display out of sight. Yet here I was, floating in a surreal sea of nothingness. I pondered this until a bright flash of light brought me back to my senses.

I’m now riding a motorcycle down this street in a suburban neighborhood. Behind me is a cop car with its lights on behind me. Oh great, they found out I stole Johnny’s capsule, and now they’re taking me in. I contemplate running, but I decide to play it cool, it could just be whatever game Johnny was playing last (besides Minecraft, I guess). It’s probably best to just wait it out and see what happens. I pull over to the side of the road, and the cop pulls up behind me. He exits the car and walks over to me.

“Johnny Blade?”
I stay silent. I don't want to say anything that might give me away.
“Your presence has been requested. Follow me.”

He gets back in his car and pulls ahead. I follow behind him for a bit, until we pull into a driveway in front of this red and white dojo, which seems somewhat out of place in a suburban town. The cop gets out and motions me towards the front door. I dismount my motorcycle and walk up the stairs of the porch, and slowly open the door.

The inside is a bit of a pig sty. The carpets are covered in cigarette burns and assorted stains, some of which look to be of questionable origin. I walk into a room to the right, where there’s a group of men wearing white suits and sunglasses. The leader of the group, who looks slightly like Mark Wahlberg with a beard, laughs and motions to his cohorts, who quickly point their weapons at me. “Well well well, Johnny Blade.” Why does everyone keep calling me that? “I haven’t seen or heard from you in years. Didn’t think you had the nerve to show your face around here.”

He stands up and walks slowly towards me. “Did you finally decide to hold up your end of the deal? Or did you already forget?”
Holy crap, what did Johnny get himself into? I have to keep up the charade, since everyone seems to think I’m the real Johnny Blade, just because I stole his VR capsule. But I have no clue what he’s talking about. I should probably play it safe, just say something non-threatening to disarm the situa-
“Well it was kind of hard to remember it in the first place, considering all the bull crap you were spewing last time I was here.”
Of course. Let me just piss of the first guy I meet here, with all his friends ready to blast holes in me with one innocent flick of a finger. I rest assured in the fact that I’m still in the VR capsule, so any “pain” will be nothing more than a few shocks or prods to my chest from the haptic feedback.
The guy laughs again, and motions to the guy next to him, who pulls his trigger, firing a paintball into my ear. Paint splatters all over the side of my face, and my ear starts ringing from the impact. I wince in pain - that actually did hurt quite a bit. “That was a warning shot. Kind of a warm up for my men. Rest assured the next bullet will be very much real.”

I reach up to wipe the paint off the side of my face, when a very scary thought crosses my mind. See, VR capsules, no matter how advanced, don’t have haptic feedback around the ears or face. This is both a safety measure (you don’t want people poking each others’ eyes out in VR) and a technical limitation of the equipment (there’s too much stuff like visual/audio/olfactory equipment and oxygen tubes in the way for there to be any haptic equipment there). Yet I definitely felt that paintball hit and splatter, I definitely feel the paint running down my face, and my ear is definitely ringing. There’s no way to simulate that. This has to be real.

But wait, what about Johnny Blade? They all called me Johnny Blade. I definitely don’t look like Johnny Blade; how could anyone make that mistake? Plus the whole boot-up screen. This couldn’t be real - I’m still in the machine. Aren’t I?... aren’t I? I am saved from answering this question, as I soon wake up.

A couple friends from school were over at my house. For some reason our water wasn’t working, so we had to use a litter box. Several of the friends got in an argument about something stupid, and my RA had to break it up once they started shoving. I went outside for some reason, and got in a conversation with some Hugh Laurie and some other British people about the strange quirks in American and British vocabulary.

Did a WBTB after 4:45 hours, then stayed up for 30 minutes.

I found myself in this white room, and instantly knew I was dreaming. After having a conversation on IRC on why Vi has been acting so strangely to me, and reading some of Hyu's DJ, I decided to change up my approach. Instead of searching for Vi, I was going to go to her. I tried summoning a portal, which in retrospect I've never actually done in a lucid before. I stretched out my hand, pointed my finger at the wall, and kind of drew a circle in the air for a few seconds. Then I grabbed in the air and pulled back, and a blue portal began to stretch out on the wall. I was pretty impressed with myself, since it felt so natural. However, I was hesitant to jump in, since it seemed to extend into complete darkness, and I had no idea where it would lead.

I decided instead that I would pull Vi through the portal to me. I reached into the portal with one hand and tried to feel around inside. I felt a few strange things, like plastic toys and wooden blocks, but then I felt a hand grab mine. I knew it was her, so I pulled as hard as I could. She came tumbling out of the portal. I fell to the ground, and she landed fairly close next to me. I looked over to see if she was alright. At first she gave me her usually disapproving look, like "Why do you keep bothering me?" But then I noticed she started to smile a bit, and then started to chuckle and shake her head. We sat there for a minute or so, not really saying or doing anything. It kinda felt awkward for me, but I didn't really have anything to say.

I woke up to my mom yelling at me, something about "the longest nap she's ever seen." I figured she meant my WBTB, so I told her that I just got up to go to the bathroom, I wasn't actually planning on fully getting up. She continued to berate me, since I had a haircut appointment at noon and it was already 1:45pm. I got up with a start and rushed downstairs. However, when I got to the bottom step, I remembered that being late is one of my dream signs, and maybe I was still asleep. I did a quick nose plug, and sure enough, I was still dreaming.

Given this lucky second chance, I decided to try the portal again. I drew the portal again, but this time it took me a little while longer before it worked. A nice round orange portal appeared (nice video game reference there, subcon...). This time, I could see a dark purple fog inside. I ran towards it and jumped in, but (or should I say butt) I got stuck halfway. I didn't make the portal large enough, so my hips got stuck in the entrance. Before I could start self-loathing for how fat my subconscious thinks I am, the portal started to close slowly, pushing inward on my stomach. It wasn't painful, but it was definitely uncomfortable. I tried to wiggle my way through, and even had considered leaving my legs behind and growing new ones. But then a hand reached out and grabbed me, pulling my whole body into the portal. However, the dream destabilized.

I felt my body in bed, but I realized quickly enough that I was able to DEILD. I tried to imagine the white room I started in. Sure enough, I found myself back in the white room, although now there were more white rooms attached to it. It was fairly dark, but in each room was a different piece of furniture that emanated a very bright colored light. They almost worked like glow sticks, illuminating a small part of each room with enough light to make my way through. It was a neat effect, and almost felt like Mirror's Edge, where the inside of each building has the same white walls but with a different accent color.

I knew Vi was nearby, so I looked around the building for her. I came across two elevators, so I pressed the button between them. The right doors opened, but instead of an elevator, there was a hallway with a metal garage door partially open on the other side. It looked like it led outside, so I decided to search somewhere else. I started to walk away, but suddenly I heard the footsteps of two guards coming towards me. I ran back to the elevator and opened it, and then ran down the hallway. I slid under the gap in the door (you know, just in case you were doubting this dream was Mirror’s Edge-related) and then continued into this new hallway, where crates and cardboard boxes were stacked on each side. I slowed down a bit, as I was sure I had given them the slip, but then a siren went off. “Intruder Alert in Sector 5. Commence lockdown.” That can’t be good.

I turned the corner to this area that had more large crates stacked up everywhere. It looked like a giant warehouse, so big that it looked like the outside world, but I could see the walls way off in the distance. There were people running around everywhere in this area. I wanted to make a break for it, but I had a better idea. I came out of hiding and started shouting at everyone. “Come on, you heard the voice! Lock this place down! I don’t want this intruder escaping!” Amazingly, in the confusion, all of them heeded my orders and took off to their stations. Once I had an opening, I ran off in search of an exit before they locked them all on me.

I hid behind some boxes for a bit, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Vi shushing me. She waved for me to follow her, so I did. She made each turn through the maze of crates and boxes like she knew what she was doing, so I followed her without asking any questions. We finally made it to a fence on the outskirts of the warehouse, and quickly jumped over it. There was a nearby shed, so we both went into it. Vi locked the door after we made it inside, and then turned around and gave me a high five.

“You’re starting to get this whole stealth thing down, I think.”
“Thanks, I guess.” She smiled, and for the first time I felt like I did something right around her. At this point, I kind of felt a desire to get freaky with her, but I decided against it, since this was the first time she had been cooperative, and I didn't want to ruin it. I figured I better take advantage of her current mood. “So tell me about yourself.”
She started saying something, but it was so fast I couldn’t understand it. And she just kept talking. I was somewhat amazed that this was the same DC who two weeks earlier gave me one word answers and judgmental glares, and now she was talking at 200 mph, expecting me to keep up. I probably could’ve, but I was also distracted by the fact that she was kind of floating in the air. While I was sitting on the corner of a table, her body was reclined, almost like she was seated in an invisible dentist’s chair. I kind of just stared at her as she kept talking, and as a result the dream started to destabilize, so I rubbed my hands together. She noticed, and stopped talking. "Maybe we should go out. I know where we can get some treats."

We walked out the door. The dream seemed stable again, so I asked one more question. "So what exactly is a dream guide?"
I don't remember exactly what she said, but she mentioned something about an "all-seeing eye" and a "tree of life". At this point, it felt less like she was being cryptic and more like she was just screwing with me now. She then took off with a running start and parkoured over the fence. I did the same, although I scraped my arm on the way over. She kept running, and I tried to keep up with her until I woke up.

I was in a dorm room playing the new Super Smash Bros with some friends. After I lost (which happens a lot for me, unfortunately), I was talking with a friend and showing him some new apps on my phone. One of them was involving 50 Shades of Gray with characters from Legend of Zelda. I tried to keep him from seeing it, but it kept popping up. I told him I was only interested in the plot, and he gave me a disapproving look. I then played another app, which involved a flying bunny stuck in a pinball machine.

(WBTB here)

I was at a real life DreamViews Academy, a school dedicated to teaching the art of lucid dreaming. Thankfully, I was mostly lucid from the start (because missing lucidity in the college of lucidity would've been embarrassing…). My friends J and D were with me, and they had no idea what this place was. I explained to them all about DreamViews and what lucid dreams were, including the fact that we were in one right now. They seemed to have trouble wrapping their heads around it.

The scene changed to some kind of parking garage. To demonstrate that I could do anything in this dream, I held out my two fingers like a gun, pointed them at a random car, and “shot”. There was a loud bang, and then the car exploded. Both of them seemed astonished, but soon the dream kind of faded.

All three of us woke up in the middle of the floor back in the academy. I turn to look at them. “So that was a lucid dream.”
J turns back. “I think we might still be in a dream.”
D chimes in. “No, I think that’s impossible. We just woke up, right?”
Curious, I do a quick nose-plug and find I’m still dreaming. “J’s right, we’re still dreaming.” Unfortunately they don’t seem too interested anymore and start talking about going to see some movie. I have other plans, however. “You guys go, I still have some things I want to do.”

They head out a glass door to the street, while I turn and head down some stairs into this large library area. The entire architecture was gold-colored stone, and the floor tile was a checkerboard style. I walked to a clearing and then started to summon Vi. However, as soon as I said “Vi”, a brown-haired girl sitting at a table with two guys in front of me turned around to see me.

The feeling I felt when I saw her is fairly indescribable. I felt this strong, pleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach, like an instant connection with her. It wasn’t like any kind of sexual desire, but it just felt like when I saw her, I felt happy - too happy, in fact, as I completely forgot everything I wanted to ask or say to her. I kind of froze because of how beautiful she seemed. It felt less like I was meeting a new friend, and more like I was trying to ask a pretty girl out for a first date. I finally mustered up some words.

“Vi? So you’re my dream guide?”
She gave me a confused and somewhat disapproving look. “Yeah.” She seemed like she was not amused.
“Oh, okay cool…” My mind was a total blank. The awkward silence felt like an eternity. “Well, I just wanted to tell you that you’re beautiful.”
Her expression didn't really change at all. Completely embarrassed, I walked away.

I felt like a complete idiot. Maybe she wasn't my dream guide. But then how do you explain the feeling that I had? Then again, why did she seem so uninterested in helping me? Why did she seem to be judging me? Wait, this is my dream, why am I so scared of what one of my DCs thinks of me? I have to go back.

By this time, I had already walked a ways away from Vi, so I decided to fly back to her. I tried to take off, but didn’t get very high, so I stopped, bent down, and shot up fist-forward like Superman. This got me much higher, and after a few more arm flaps, I was able to stay aloft. I turned back towards the tables, but the dream scene changed.

I was now in a game of Halo, wearing one of the suits from the game. My teammates and I were waiting for the fight to begin. I noticed that if I looked right at my teammates, their names would appear floating above their heads, just like in the game. I quickly set out on a search for Vi. After checking all of my other teammates, I finally found her. She was wearing a red suit which seemed much thinner and more feminine, much like Samus’s suit from Metroid.

“Good, you’re still here. I was scared that you didn’t like me or something.”
Before she could say anything though, the alarm sounded, and the match had begun. I started to run forward, and immediately shot two enemies. Another enemy appeared around the corner and shot at me, and there was no way for me to dodge the bullet. Before it hit, however, I heard Vi shout “Wait!” and the scene froze. It then rewinded back to the start of the match. Vi held me back from running this time. “This game isn’t all about brute force. Let me teach you a little about stealth.”

We ran along a wall in the shadows, making sure that no one was coming. We crept along like this for a while, until we heard footsteps coming from down the hallway. I started to pull out my sword, but Vi grabbed me and pulled us both into the wall, literally. We both turned into a kind of drawing on the wall, like from Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (if you haven’t figured it out by now, I play a lot of video games). We were hidden in the shadows well enough that no one noticed when they ran by. We came back out of the wall and kept moving forward.

I came to a small area outside. This now looked less sci-fi and more like current architecture. I was in a small alley-like thing between two buildings. There was a balcony overhead, and small rocks covering the ground like some kind of garden decoration. I realized Vi was no longer near me, so I pulled out my pistol to be safe. One enemy appeared on the balcony, so I shot him. He fell to the ground, and some bystanders that were walking by stopped and yelled at me for killing him. Another enemy appeared behind them, so I shot him too. They continued to yell at me, until the dream eventually destabilized and I woke up.

I haven’t gotten very much sleep this past week due to events and projects that require me to stay up late. So after falling asleep in my last class today, I came back to my room and decided to take a 2 hour nap – hoping for lucids, but knowing that the primary goal was rest. Little did I know that I would stumble upon the greatest lucid experience of my life.

First, let me preface this by saying my recall grossly fell behind my dream control on this one. It was so long, that I forgot most of the scenes and events during the first part of it. I tried Dreamer’s method of just staying calm, not rushing to do tasks, and affirming to myself that this will be a long dream experience. Well, I’d say it worked pretty dang well…

Nap Time: 5:15p

I laid down, and almost fell asleep instantly. I had a short dream that I don’t remember before waking up. It hadn’t been very long – less than 45 minutes, since my binaural beat lasts for that long and it was still going when I woke up. I tried to lay motionless, and eventually, I started to feel like I was being pushed and pulled into the bed. At one point I tried to focus on it, but then it completely stopped. I wasn’t sure if that meant I was in the dream, but I just decided to wait it out. Eventually they came back, and next thing I knew, I was in a dream.

Again, most of the beginning stuff is a blur. The main thing is that I repeatedly woke up and laid still. Then I felt like I was floating, followed by being pulled into the bed, which repeated until I then found myself in a dream. I must have done this at least 7 or 8 times, but since I think some of them might have just been FAs, I’ll go with the benefit of the doubt and count 5 of them. I commonly entered in this black school building, which was pretty dark on the inside. Each chained dream lasted what felt about 10 minutes. Here are a list of things I accomplished during the first part that I do remember.

• Flew… a lot.
• Stabilized by rubbing my hands together once - the dream was incredibly stable other than that
• Tried to create a song that I would remember upon waking – didn’t work.
• Did a superhuman leap through the ceiling, which I thought was one of the lucid dares for anyone – it wasn’t .
• Received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from some random professor – followed by a master’s 5 minutes later.
• Almost had sex, but forwent it in order to accomplish some other tasks (maybe , maybe )

As for the rest of the dream that I remember, I got some major things done. Here they are, in what I think is the correct order:

I was in a larger than average dorm room. I remembered my remaining 2 steps for the 3-step task in the competition. The first was super strength, so I grabbed one of the bunk beds and hoisted it over my head. The ceilings were kind of low, so part of it phased through the ceiling. The final part was mass telekinesis. I remember thinking to myself that I’ve never actually used telekinesis in a dream at all, so this should be fun. I kind of tried to use the force on a shelf on the far side of the room, and I managed to lift a small cup of office supplies until it kind of floated in the air. I jerked my hand back, and it flew towards me so I could catch it. Easy enough. There were a couple pens and erasers in the cup. I threw the cup into the air so all of the contents spilled out, and then quickly tried to catch them in mid-air with telekinesis. I caught about 6 or 7 of them, while the rest fell to the ground. Feeling quite proud of myself, I sort of force threw the pens toward the wall, and spent a few more minutes doing random things with my new telekinesis powers, like picking up and throwing random objects around the room.

I was at this bowling alley type place with my friend James. He apparently also knew that I was dreaming, so I told him that my next task to complete was one of my lucid dares – transform into a cat and kill a mouse. He asked how hard it was, but instead of telling him, I showed him. I quickly squatted down on all fours, and I was a black cat! My form didn’t feel very stable however, and within 5 seconds, I was back to human, just sitting on the ground like a cat. He laughed at me, but I was determined to get this thing right. I tried one more time, and this time I was able to hold my form much better. “Alright, find me a mouse.” James went behind the main counter, and within a few seconds, I saw him shoo a mouse towards my direction. It came straight to me, so I bent down quickly and grabbed it with my mouth. Its fur felt very soft on my lips, but for the most part it didn’t seem as gross as it probably was. Happy that I completed the dare, I spit out the mouse and changed back.

Finally, I was in some alley that looked like a level from Counter Strike. James was there again, and at this point, I had already been dreaming long enough that I was certain that I had slept through my alarm and was going to be late for my meeting afterwards. I was just about to force myself to wake up, but then I remembered one of the biggest personal tasks that I wanted to complete – meet the brown-haired girl that might be my dream guide. The dream did start to destabilize, but I remained calm, looked into the sky, and basically shouted "Just give me five more minutes, and then I’ll be done." Apparently it worked, because the dream went back to normal fairly quickly. I told James to be on the lookout for a brown-haired girl. We split up to look in different parts of the streets. I tried to visualize the girl standing there, and soon enough, I turned around to find her over by a fountain, walking in almost slow motion towards me. I walked closer to find she looked a lot like Princess Jasmine from Aladdin. I asked her the question that I had been waiting to ask.

“So, is this it? Are you my dream guide?”
“No, but you’ll see her soon enough.”
I was disappointed, obviously, but I kept asking. “Do you know her?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Can I at least get her name, so I know who to look for?”
“Vi.” (pronounced with a long i, like the English word vie)
“How do you spell that?”
“V-I. It’s pretty simple.”
“Oh yeah, I guess it is.”

I think I asked a few more questions until the dream destabilized (maybe my 5 minutes was up). I could’ve probably DEILDed again, as I felt the sensation of floating and being pulled again, but I decided that I had accomplished enough for one dream, and I was still concerned that I missed my alarm, so I got up.

Wake up: 7:00p

I didn’t miss my alarm. In fact, I still had about 15 minutes until my alarm was set to go off. It was a little disappointing, but since I hadn’t expected such success, I didn’t really have any more intentions to try.

First WILD - 10 pts
Chain a Lucid Dream (x5) - 10 pts
Stabilization - 1 pt
Flying - 4 pts
Telekenesis - 4 pts
Super Strength + 2nd Step - 4 pts + 10 pts
Basic Summoning - 4 pts
Mass Telekinesis + 3rd Step - 10 pts + 15 pts
Full Transformation - 10 pts
Personal Dare ("Transform into a cat and in that form kill a rodent") - 10 pts

Dream Total - 92 pts
Competition Total - 146 pts

I had an extra hour this morning since my college's convocation was cancelled today, so what better thing to do than take a nap.

I woke up in my house. I knew instantly I was dreaming, since I woke up in the guest bedroom. I had already decided before I fell asleep that I wanted to do the blood TOTM, and preferably with dragon blood that would transform me into a dragon. I exit the room and head for the stairs. My mom is in front of me saying something that I don't remember. I think of sucking her blood instead, but I decide against it, as that would be creepy. I start to follow her to the kitchen, but the kitchen wasn't there, and instead I found myself in the bathroom. On the counter were what seemed like hundreds of little bottles of all different shapes, sizes, and colors.


I found myself smack dab in the middle of a Macy's perfume department, basically.

I try to find one that looks like it's blood of some kind, but nothing stands out to me. I can't even find one that was red. Okay, let's just try to make it appear. I start to visualize the bottle, from the bottom up. As I imagine the glass pattern and red liquid, I realize the bottle I'm envisioning is right in front of me. How convenient. I pick it up, but as I shake it, the red liquid slowly turns to blue. Neat. The top, which I hadn't visualized yet, was a cheap plastic trigger-spray thing. I open wide and spray a couple times into my mouth. It tastes metallic, exactly like blood. I keep spraying until I feel like I've ingested enough. Okay, so now to just let the dragon blood do its magic. Within a few seconds, my arms start twitching, and then shaking, and then convulsing. My back tenses up, and I feel something churning inside my stomach.


Kind of like the last time I ate Taco Bell.

I start to lose vision in my right eye, and then my left. The scene goes completely dark, and soon the convulsions stop, and there's a deafening silence. A few seconds pass. Suddenly, the scene reappears. I look in the mirror, and notice my snazzy new wings behind my back. They kind of looked like Charizard wings, but were more flesh-colored. Cool, it worked! I was honestly excited, as I haven't had any transformation work for me even that much. I try to decide where to take these babies for a spin, but I quickly wake up from excitement.

I don't remember if this was a false or real awakening, but I lost lucidity. Still, I had a pretty amazing non-lucid at this point. Beware, it's pretty random at times, with lots of changes happening really fast, but it gets really good at the end. Just a glimpse into my ADD, I guess.

I was at a waterpark with some friends. I went down this slide into this small pool at the bottom. I get out and stand a ways away, as another girl comes down the slide. She kind of stays in the pool for a while, as she's waiting for a friend to come down. I look over to the left to see an old lady in her 90's on a motorcycle. She's at the top of this dirt ramp a distance away, and closer to me was another halfpipe. At the sound of a horn, she takes off down the ramp and heads toward the halfpipe. Unfortunately, she crashes, but the motorcycle continues, shooting wildly off the ramp and careening into the pool next to it, where the girl still is waiting. It lands right on top of her, and she goes under the water a bit. Her head comes back up, but the water starts to turn red with blood. She doesn't have much of an expression on her face, but I know instantly that her legs have been severed off. I wave for someone to come help. Paramedics soon rush in. I see my friends on the other side of the pool. I walk over them, and one of my friends says that we need to pray for the girl that just got hurt. I agree, but I first need to put away the towel that I (suddenly) have in my hands.

We are now on some kind of yacht. My friends are gathered around the kitchen table to pray, and I head to the sink to wring out my towel. I turn around to find I am now on a much smaller boat, and my friends are now tied up and sitting on a different boat. I run over to the edge to get a better look, and see this evil blonde lady standing on the other boat. She laughs maniacally at me.


I originally thought it was some lady from my church, but now that I've googled "evil blonde lady", frick, I think it was Ann Coulter. This expression and everything.

"I'm afraid I can't have you following me."

She points behind me. I turn to see a Heavy from Team Fortress 2 dumping a bunch of gasoline into the bottom of my boat. The gasoline quickly comes up to my chest, at which point he steps out of the boat onto the dock. I remain cool and calm, as I know that "I've played this level of the game before." I walk to the back of the boat to a small white button that reads "Press here to exit." I click it, and the gasoline starts to drain. Well that was easy. I turn to my side to see the other boat speeding off into the distance. "Oh no you don't!" I jump into the driver's seat and give chase. We drive off the lake, down a river, and through the sewers. Meanwhile, the boat appears to get smaller and smaller, until it's about the size of a go-cart, just barely getting around my body. Still, it keeps me afloat, and apparently can fly, as I find out as I drive up a ladder in the sewers. It looks like I am in Counter-Strike, climbing the ladder while carrying the boat in front of me. I drive the boat until I come to a massive room that looks like a level from Portal. I walk down a hallway to my right.

I don't remember at what point he joined me, but my buddy Mike was now with me. We walked through a couple dark office rooms that looked like they were abandoned.


This is not Portal as far as I know, but it looks pretty dang close to my dream.

"So, why are all these rooms dismantled?" Mike asks.
"Oh, I cut the power to these rooms in an earlier level, so nothing in here works. It was optional, but it makes this part a heck of a lot easier."

We come to another large Portal-like room. Lasers line the far walls, stretching diagonally at different heights. About fifty feet up is a small room surrounded by glass with the exit inside. There was a hole in the glass, and the wall on the other side was portalable, so it was a really simple solution. As I'm about to portal up, I hear footsteps around the corner. "Shoot, we gotta hide." We duck in a small recessed area in the darkness. The footsteps get closer and closer, until I'm certain we're going to be killed. Suddenly, I hear a quiet voice whisper,

"Move closer, I can't talk very loud. If she knows I'm here, she'll kill me."

I look up to see my friend Matt, who looks like he's turned into a half-man half-machine cyborg. There's wires running off of him connecting to different places on his body. I somehow know that he was on the boat that was kidnapped, and that he has been forced to work for the evil lady as her slave. He hands me a strange device.


This is a barcode scanner. It's also apparently a futuristic flash drive of sorts.

"I don't have much time to explain. She's set the facility to self-destruct in a few minutes, with all of us trapped inside. I've downloaded my conscience onto this drive. If you can connect it to the mainframe, I can override the explosion and get us out of here."
I continue to stare at the device, somewhat confused as to what all is happening.
"One last thing. If you are caught and capture, be sure to know four things. One, I was never here. Two, we do not know each other. Three, I am not American. And four..." He pauses for a moment, and a single tear runs down his face. "I always loved you."

I embrace him for a hug, tears streaming down my face. "Thanks for everything, Matt. I'll never forget you." He turns and walks down the hallway we just came through, and Mike and I head towards a different exit at the floor level. We enter in what looks like a break room. It's dark, but I can still make out some things. I walk into the closet, and find all of my friends still tied up. Mike and I start untying them and tell them to stay quiet and hidden. Meanwhile, I look for some kind of computer or power box connected to the mainframe. Then, there's a noise.

I turn around to see the evil lady walk into the room with a mug in her hand. She turns on the lights, looks up, and freezes. My friends and I all stare with a deer-in-headlights look. She quickly turns and presses the emergency button on the wall. The lights turn red, and I hear a computerized voice.

"EMERGENCY! Intruder detected. Self-destruct initiated."

She then rushes me. I grab the first thing I can find, a plastic fork on the counter. I stab her in the side, but the prongs of the fork break off and do no damage. She immediately retaliates and stabs me in the side. I flinch, expecting pain, but realize nothing happened. She pulls back her arm, and in her hand is another plastic fork with broken prongs. Looks like she had the same idea. She pauses for a second, and then humorously remarks,

"We just had to get the cheap forks, didn't we?"

She throws the fork over her shoulder and runs out the door. Meanwhile, a few guards rush in the other door and start firing. I duck behind an overturned table. The sprinklers overhead start spraying, until it's absolute chaos everywhere. So this is where it ends, I guess. I look to my side to see a very out-of-place port in the wall that fits Matt's drive perfectly. It's quite a ways away, and would be practically suicide to try to get to it. A voice comes over the intercom.

"Explosion imminent. Evacuate the facilities. Destruction in 30 seconds."

Yep, this is where it ends. No time to waste. I dart out from behind the table and dive for more cover, slowly inching my way towards the port.

"Destruction in 15 seconds."

I try to decide my next move. The port is still a good 30 feet away. I try to take into account the location of the guards, the positions of Mike and the rest of my friends, the odds that the sprinklers would give me just enough cover to make it.

"Destruction in 10 seconds."

Nope, I should probably just go! I pull out the drive and dart towards the port. Everything moves in slow motion. I can see the bullets moving towards me in bullet time. I can see my friends looking on in disbelief. I can see each drop of water pouring from the sprinklers overhead. Just a few more feet. I stretch the drive out in front of me. Time slows to a stop. Until suddenly, I wake up.


I know, random WWE wrestler, I felt the same way.