Recent DJ Posts

Some quick backstory, for context.

Selina is a girl I knew in high school. She showed up once in a previous dream. The two of us never spent much time together, but we got along fine. From what I remember, Selina is a very nice person.

Jesse, I also went to high school with. We didn't get along, and though we're distantly related (small towns, eh?), we really don't share any of the same viewpoints. At all.

I met Zoe Killion a few years ago, at a fine arts-related event. We've been friends ever since. She has a younger sister, whose name is (not really) Ava.

This dream relates to Nomad's RPG. Vaguely.

09/18/10



The good of one, versus the good of many.

We are in a forest, surrounded by tall, black-barked trees. The edges of the clearing are choked with thick underbrush, and the lilac leaves and tall grasses tickle against the back of my t-shirt. The sky is streaked with the orange of the setting sun, which is hidden by the trees ahead of me.

The group is gathered in a large circle, sitting cross-legged on the ground and facing inwards. I look around the circle, cataloging each face. I know all of these people. All of them are my age, and they're from all over the world, these people I've met in waking life.

We've been stranded here, I realize.

"It'll be one of them," says Jesse, pointing at me and - Zoe, sitting to my left. "Look at you two! Your spots are right next to the forest! Anything could come by and grab you."

I'm lucid, not even feeling the need for a reality check. I frown. I can feel the dark, wolf-like presence lurking in the shadows behind me. Wordlessly, effortlessly, I call up a wall of mirrors on the other side of the clearing, confident that I'll be able to see the creature coming.

I recognize the mirrors as a part of Nomad's first task, and I decide to stay here to play out the rest of the game. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror: short blond hair, black clothes... everything gets a little fuzzy.

Who cares about the many? I just don't want it to be -

"- anyone," says Zoe, a bit sharply. "All we've been told is that one of us is going to die."

"And if that happens," says Jesse, "Then the rest of us will be safe until tomorrow night!"

Half of the table stands up at these words, shouting at each other. They're leaning across the round, stone table, ready to escalate into violence.

The sunset is fading into darkness.

Selina is standing up, ready to play the mediator. To get everyone to calm down, and work together, and I see my opportunity.

I squeeze a hand into a fist under the table, and Selina collapses, dropping to the ground like a marrionette whose strings have been cut. Her internal organs have been liquefied, some of her bones have been ground into dust, and I'm pretending to panic along with the rest, pushing through the crowd as someone yells "WHAT HAPPENED!" and "Did you see?" and I'm pressing two fingers against her carotid artery, checking for a pulse that I know won't be there.

"She's dead." I say quietly, and the faces around me reflect both horror and relief.

The rules don't apply to monsters.

I twist open the back door on a blue van, crawling in the back to reach for a case. It's orange, and the outside is covered in foam. My fingers sink into it as I lock it, latch it, make sure nothing is going to open it by accident.

"Everyone's still trying to figure out what happened," says a voice from behind me.

I crawl out of the van, resting the case upright on the bumper.

"I mean, one second she was alive, you know?" says Ava, rubbing her left arm with her other hand. "Everyone thinks it was something supernatural, a new kind of monster from the forest."

"It probably was." I say.

"That's the briefcase." Ava nods at the orange case I'm holding. "The one that'll kill us if we go near it. So, it's safe now?" She makes a grab for it.

"Don't touch that!" I snap, hitting her hands away. Idiot, of course it will still kill you! It's just that nothing is going to attack you outright - at least for now.

I slam the door shut on the van, and walk away from the camp, still carrying the orange case so I can hand it over to my employer.

I'm on no side but my own.

"We're leaving!" says the Matron as she paces the inside of her ship, the flowing fabric of her dress trailing behind her. "Get the rest of the crew."

"And the survivors?" I ask.

The Matron growls. "I meant to capture all of them, but we're on a deadline."

I nod, and turn to leave.

"If you should happen across Miss Killion, of course," says the Matron coldly, "Bring her to me."

I pass Ava as I leave the ship. She has her arms crossed, and is guarding the gangplank. She winks at me, and I allow myself a small smile.

I'm certainly not on yours.

I hit the drunk crewman over the back of the head with a bottle. It shatters over him and he collapses to the ground, dead weight. His equally drunk friend, who was about to attack me, looks from the unconscious man to the razor-sharp bottle neck in my hand. The man stumbles away, apologizing, and promising to go back to the ship.

I sigh, and pick up the unconscious man, swinging him into a fireman's carry over my shoulders. I turn to Zoe and nod in the direction that the man just ran in. We start walking.

"So let me get this straight," says Zoe. "We're working with the bad guys. Who want to kill me."

"Because the Matron has the only transportation off the island."

"Who wants to kill me."

"She won't," I say, grinning.

You really should have seen this coming.

"You can't touch her." I say. I'm feeling gleeful, and I'm sure that I'm radiating an air of smugness that's setting the Matron on edge. Well, that and the fact that I stole away her first prize in manipulation.

"You can't do this." She hisses.

Except that I can. If I own Zoe's soul, the Matron can't touch her. I would be obliged, even within all of the complicated truces and agreements we have with one another, to pay back any harm threefold.

I don't actually own Zoe's soul. But the Matron's not about to question my integrity. She has too much to lose.

The Matron's sulking is so pronounced that I have to laugh. "I'm the devil!" I tell her, "Did you really think that I wasn't after anything for myself?"

Scare Factor: 4/10
Rating: 7/10

I'm in a familiar place, messing with the controls on a high-tech piece of equipment (possibly the Stargate). My partner is a girl named Susan.

The building is a small house with fake-wooden paneling on the walls. There's old and worn furniture scattered throughout, mismatched and comfortable. There are a huge number of people in the house, milling about and chatting, but the atmosphere is mournful. Apparently this is a funeral or a wake.

I'm trailing beside Susan as she moves through the room talking to people. Suddenly, she half collapses, sobbing. I turn to our boss and tell him I'll take her away from the crowd.

I tell Susan that we're going into the lounge. I support her weight as we walk into the room and I have a strong feeling of familiarity with the location. I help her over to a couch and she lies down. I go over to sit on a recliner.

When I look up, I see that Susan has come to stand beside my chair. She asks if she can sit with me. I move over, and she sits down with me. I imagine the chair laying back and the footrest coming up. Susan and I lay down together, and I drift off to sleep.

I wake up, curled on my side in the chair. Susan is gone. I get up and pad through the living room that was full of people last night. I pop into my head into the den, and ask my dad (who's watching TV) where Susan is. He says she's probably sleeping in one of the bedrooms.

I stare at all of the people in the room, whose faces I can't really see. I notice that some of the people seem to be disembodied heads under various blankets all over the room. I dismiss the phenomenon as being normal for a dream, and go to find Susan.

Susan is, in fact, sleeping in one of the bedrooms. I close the door quietly, trying not to wake her.

When I step away from the door, I decide it's time to double-check my suspicions. I do a hand RC for the first time in a dream, staring at my left hand until the fingers move separately from my will and thick red blood begins to foam over the knuckles of my ring and middle fingers.

I'm somewhat disturbed, but I decide it doesn't really matter. I look at the digital clock on a VCR, which reads 1:45 PM. I decide that the time isn't unreasonable, since it was around 11:00 AM when I last woke up, and I had time to sleep in today.* I will the time on the clock to change, and it flickers. I repeat the hand RC.

I stretch out a hand in front of me, willing open a portal to a skyscraper. Instead of a portal opening in front of me, the door across the room to my left opens with a bang, letting the bright morning sunlight stream into the room.

I step out of the house and look around. There are mountains surrounding the town. The mountain I can see between buildings is a sloping, tree covered hill, and I'm happy to be on the mountainous west coast. The buildings are probably a couple centuries old. The church I can see has a spire reaching up toward the blue sky.


St. Paul's Church, the oldest building in Halifax, NS.

I repeat the hand RC, hoping to extend the dream. The ring finger on my right hand is missing, but when I look closer, I realize it's still there. The light seems to bend around it so that it's just barely visible, like the non-existent puddles on the highway in the middle of the summer.

There's nothing resembling a skyscraper nearby, so I throw open a few doors, hoping for a portal to a bigger city. I go through one, into brighter light, but I'm still more or less in the same place.

I'm just outside of town, looking at a delapitated building. There are no doors that don't have shelving inside, so I focus on the people who are there. Selina, a girl I graduated with, and an old man who looks kinda like one of my art school professors (Mike) are the only characters who don't fade into the background. They're picking things up, working on repairs to the heritage site.



Mike and Selina greet me, and ask what I'm planning to do. Mike says that if I'm planning to go into the woods, I should avoid making deals with the beings there. They can offer a lot, so it's a hard temptation to resist - the creatures could bring back any of my relatives from the dead.

I wryly assure him that I've had a similar dream before, where someone warned me not to bring back the original Elaine. By this point, I'm well aware that anyone I try to bring to life will come back wrong.

Mike is wistful, saying that if they would come back right, all of us would be willing to live without our souls, and to hell with the consequences.

I remember to do another hand RC, but I'm waking up. Everything fades and when I wake up, I already have my eyes open. I do another digital-clock RC, but I'm really awake this time.

Girlfriends, Dead People. Scare Factor: 2.

*It was around 12:45 PM when I actually woke up.[/QUOTE]