We're driving down the highway in a tan-coloured Oldsmobile. The driver seems to think the speed limit is optional, which really wouldn't bother me, only he doesn't actually have his license yet. Also, he doesn't seem to be in control of the vehicle, if the wildly oscillating steering wheel is anything to go by. "Whoa! Whoa!" I shout from the backseat. "Oncoming train, ONCOMING TRAIN!" "Ben, stop," says my mom from the passenger seat. Ben reluctantly brings the car to a stop before we get to the train tracks. I breathe out a sigh of relief and glare at my brother. "You know," says the fifteen-year-old comfortably, "Sam could totally supervise my driving -" "NO!" My mom and I say simultaneously. Ben slouches in his seat and gets the car moving again, now that the train's past. The car gradually speeds up, and he throws my mom a look that reads See? I can totally drive without giving Sam a heart attack. A copse of trees blocks the road a little bit farther along. It's night. We need to hike through the trees in order to get to the road on the other side. We're not a few steps in before I can feel a tingling feeling up my spine. I sense a malicious intent, which lingers, as if the blood that's been spilled here has never properly washed away. "We should hurry," I say quietly. "This isn't a good place." I should know, this is my dream after all. Vaguely, I wonder if this is going to turn into a nightmare. If it is, am I sensing evil, or creating it? There are men sleeping, haphazardly strewn over the grass-covered ground in various garishly coloured sleeping bags. I hurry Mom and Ben along, out of the campsite through a path in the bushes. I know it the moment the men wake up. "Go! Go! I'll meet you at the car!" I shout at my family. Somewhere between eight and a dozen men come rushing onto the path, heedless of my attempts to block them. I can't move, I can't shout, I'm completely helpless - "KIYA!" I lace a high-pitched shout with all of my fear and anger, forcing the men's attention onto me. I move out into the middle of the clearing, still pulling their attention, focusing on the present rather than the danger that faces the others. I need to be able to move. "KIYA!" I shout in challenge, feeling ridiculous, catching a third-person view of myself as Eliza Dushku. A man runs at me, using his momentum - and considerable bulk - to ready a skull-crushing punch. I sidestep. He misses. I use his momentum against him, throwing him out of the way. It's on. Another man rushes me. I catch him by the arm, twist, breaking it. I throw him over my shoulder and he crashes to the ground, where I aim a kick at his neck, killing him instantly. Two come at me. I send one stumbling with a kick to the solar-plexus. He trips over the corpse and I disable the other one with a ridge-hand strike to the throat, crushing the windpipe. He collapses to the ground, gasping for air, and I'm already rushing a stunned thug, sweeping his legs out from under him. I pound three high-powered kicks into his left temple before he can blink. A thug is picking himself up from beside his friend's corpse, looking enraged. I'm behind another one, hand across jaw, and I pull, breaking his neck. I don't see Trippy until he has a hand around my throat, lifting me until my toes barely brush over the ground. I twist, tearing - tiger claw - rigid fingers across his face, ripping into flesh. His grip slackens and I turn around to meet another attack, evading arms and deftly clawing an eye out of its socket. He's out of the fight. One of the smarter ones is readying an incantation - I'm in front of him. I grab, twist, tear his arm off, leave him to bleed out. Another. I aim a kick for his groin, surprised when I hit the inner thigh. Hard. Time slows for the others, and I admonish myself for losing focus. Concentrate on the dream. I pull my leg in, I lash out with a side-kick to the groin. He's down. I smash his head in. I hear a dark chuckle from across the clearing. Trippy is struggling to his feet, one hand pressed against his bleeding face. He laughs. I want to know what's so funny. "You think we're monsters." He laughs again, eyes closed for a moment. He's down before he knew what hit him. I kick him repeatedly, into the gut, into the side of his head, until he's nothing but a mangled corpse leering at me with a dead grin. I put down the others with brutal efficiency. I meet Ben and Mom at the car, which happens to be a Chevy Impala. Not meeting their eyes, I mention that we're going to have to wipe down the car, inside and outside. Apparently it was used to run over people while I wasn't looking. I'll have to dispose of these clothes, too. They're black, so I can't see the blood-spatter, but I just murdered a bunch of unarmed humanoids, and there was blood spraying everywhere, so - "I'll clean the car," says my brother. I take a deep breath. "Yeah. We should go." --- Some time later, I meet up with an alternate version of my mom, driving the Oldsmobile. We talk about the forest/campground, but she isn't entirely sure what I'm talking about. In her world, we kept driving right past the damned place. I get to thinking about alternate endings... --- They have Ben. My mom has disappeared, but they have Ben and he's a prisoner of these things and I couldn't do anything to stop it. There's a young boy, maybe ten, being carried from some kind of ceremony, half naked. I have a bad feeling about this. I take a breath, calm my mind. I can stay out of sight for now, wait for an opportunity to rescue him. I'm practically incorporeal right now; it's not like I could do much anyway. Although, I think, as I watch them drag my struggling brother out of sight, waiting could be easier said than done. --- Colourful round wooden tables are interspersed throughout the clearing. I couldn't see the place before I followed Ben in. My brother is sitting at one of the tables, eating the same grilled cheese sandwiches as all the other humans. On his left is the vampire he's been bound to, and on his right, a human slave, eying the former nervously. I get a bit of insight from the slave, who, apparently, was a member of the local Resistance before he was captured. He still hasn't quite lost the suicidal tendencies. "You realize," he says to Ben, keeping his voice low so the vampire won't notice, "That these things are just using you, right? We need to fight them." Ben snorts. "You're just saying that because they're planning to eat you." Apparently they keep humans as cattle. Charming. Also, Ben's been brainwashed. This could be a problem. --- I'm watching the loading area, a gravel parking lot leading into the back doors of the complex. An Oldsmobile drives in. I move closer. A group of three or four slaves is conversing with the driver. One of them was talking to Ben earlier. Kel, I think his name was. I recognize the leader of the group: Damon. Fanatic. "What do you want with the Aur'i, Reader?" Damon asks, as my mom steps out of the car. "Your masters have taken one of our own." Mom tells them coldly. "We want him back." Fuck me. Readers' powers are the opposite of my own, divine while mine are hell-powered, and they're positively toxic to the Aur'i (vampires). They're more of an allergy, for me. "The boy, yes?" says Damon, "What of the girl?" Ah, the Dushku persona. "Not one of ours," Mom says, "She didn't violate the Accords by attacking you." "A pity," says Damon. "I'll pass along your message to our Masters. You may leave now." Ignoring the slight, Mom tips her head and goes back to the car. Damn it. I've got to get her a message before she leaves. I take off along the side of the complex. --- "Sokka Katara Sam!" Ben gasps, clutching his head. I hear him, glad that he's finally broken through the mind control. Lay low. --- I break out into a full-on sprint, moving as quickly as I can around the back corner of the loading bay. When I stop, I hardly even notice that I'm not out of breath. I wave my arms at my mom, staying carefully out of the slaves' sight. I gesture towards some scaffolding near my hiding spot, which should be hidden from any observers. My mom exits the car and heads toward the spot I indicated, and I slink along more carefully, hidden by the various construction materials along the way. "You had to choose this spot?" asks my mom, visibly shivering. I'm surprised, but I look more closely at the wall. There's warding magic emanating from it. I smile sheepishly. "I can't feel it like you do." I tell her, "My power meshes with the place." "We'll talk about it later." She pulls an iron chain out and throws one end to me. I catch it. It feels like ice-water is crawling over my skin. Covered by the protection of the chain, I explain the situation, highlighting the layout of the compound and detailing Ben's chain to the Aur'i. I'm so caught up in the story that I don't notice the patrolling slaves have noticed us. Noticed the chain, rather, since we're invisible. "That is a forbidden magic here," says Damon, indicating the iron chain. "Is it?" I ask, adopting a really bad light Jamaican accent. "It is looped through this equipment like a spider's web." "The reader," hisses Damon. "You're Nomad?" asks Kel, indicating a nationality. I glance back at Mom, but she's disappeared along with the car. Good. I have an image of dark skin and bright colours. I take the appearance of the girl in my mind's eye and let the chain fall from my hand. I can work with this. I Am Legend. Scare Factor: 5.[/QUOTE]
I'm drinking. A lot. At a bar. I'm wondering if it's Saturday night and I missed the meetup with Vicki. I see Matt and Jen from High School on the other side of the bar, and debate over whether I want to talk to them. I've been drinking things like rum and coke all night, and now I've moved onto Pinot Gris. I guess. It tastes like champagne. I'm in the backyard of the Ixburg Inn, having been ordered to clean up the scaffolding houses by my dad. I notice movement in another yard, a brief dark flash. I watch the roof of a nearby building for another sign of it. There's a dirtbiker up there. My mom and I watch him ramp from that roof an impossible distance over the highway. He lands badly, but that was supposed to happen. He's fine. At a fair, I argue with Gus about something. I'm Shawn Spencer, and my dad (Henry) is around, too. The fair has a layout suspiciously similar to the backyard I was just in. As myself, I put the truck in park, turn off the ignition, and raise my hands slowly. I'm turning toward the man in the passenger seat, who is happily delivering his Hannibal Lecture while pointing a gun at me. It's a revolver, I notice. He explains to me that the time I was born can be flipped backwards to show the time it is right now. "You see," he says to me, "This time is the antithesis of your birth." "Yes, that's very poetic." I'm ordered out of the truck. I keep my hands up as I follow his orders, stepping onto the green grass in the backyard of my house. I know that there are kids inside the house, quite possibly my cousins. At this point in the dream, though, I think they might be mine. I try to bargain with the man, but I know that he's going to kill me. If I resist, he says he'll kill everyone inside, but I can't be sure that he won't do that anyway. We circle each other over the grass. The man tells me that these bullets were specially made for me. Don't I feel special. The gun wavers for a moment, and I take my chance. I lash out with a kick to his wrist, then grab for the gun. I pick it up and aim at my tormentor. He raises his hands and grins, daring me to do it. I can't. I empty the revolver of the gold bullets. They spill to the ground, and I scramble for the six of them. I stumble backward as the man laughs. I step inside, latching the glass patio door behind me. "Go downstairs," I order my cousins. "Get one of the adults to call 911. Ask for police!" I shout at their retreating backs. I move through the house, locking and bolting the other two doors shut. "So..." says my uncle, "We're safe as long as we don't go outside." I consider the patio door, how easily the man could get in. "We're safe." I lie. "Wait," I say after a beat, "Has anyone called 911?" I curse and grab for the nearest black portable phone. I dial three numbers. "Hello, I need police at -" Silence on the other end. I glance at the display and read 901. Great. I'm wandering down the stairs at this point, redialling the number repeatedly to no effect. I see a flash of the man, laughing. I consider that he might have cut the phone lines. "Does anyone have a cell phone?" I shout into the basement, frustrated and panicking. I begin redialling numbers on a blackberry no one gave me. 090. 901. 109. 119. My frustration reaches a peak - And I realize that this is always what happens in dreams. I look up the stairs to the side door, reasoning that I fell asleep in my bedroom and there's no way I could actually be here. I walk up the stairs, touching things (the bannister, the wall), feeling the texture in order to solidify the dream. I'm worried about waking up. I unlock the door, open it. When I step outside, it's dark, and there's a layer of snow on the damp ground. I move toward the street, making footprints as I go. I look up to the night sky, which is clear and filled with stars. "Go to the moon," I whisper aloud. "Go to the moon." I stretch a hand out in front of me, willing a portal to open, for something to happen. A pulse radiates outward from my hand, blurring everything briefly and circling behind me. I can still see the stars. The dream dissolves. I'm in some kind of afterlife realm, filled with ribbons and people and flying. I'm attached to the colour yellow, which I hate. I try flying, but can only achieve a delayed falling effect. LG's Got a Gun. Scare Facter: 4.5. Reaction: Lucidity! I did the faux-math LG was trying to tell me about. Apparently I'm supposed to die next week. Saturday-ish.[/QUOTE]
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