Things to Run Away From Really Fast

★★★☆☆

LUCID

If my hair keeps changing colour in the pictures, it's because that's what it tends to do IRL.

09/26/10

Fragment about going to my (late) grandma's church for a Halloween party. There were some really cool decorations. A distinct lack of alcohol, however.

I'm in the front entrance to our house. Everything seems normal, and I do a routine reality check just because. I count my fingers. Onetwothreefour... new ones start sprouting. Well, that's weird. It's almost like I'm dreaming or something.

I try again, and I get to seven before I give up. Obviously I am dreaming. So... Nomad's task. I need to get to a forest. I jump out the nearest window into the front yard. My brother is there, hanging out with a DC from the Halloween party. Definitely dreaming, then, and whoa...

The dream is destabilizing. The entire world tilts on its axis, and white lines start running parallel to every object in the scene, as they do in Assassin's Creed. I stop to take a breath, keeping my eyes open, and I start touching the objects around me. I kneel down and touch the grass, the concrete driveway, a metal railing, and I'm back.

I decide that the best way to get there is to run in a straight line. There's a forest directly to the south, I convince myself. I cross the street at a run, hit the wall with one foot, and leap onto the brown-shingled roof.

I don't stop. From the first house, I jump onto the roof of the next. Keep moving. I land on some kind of antennae, and the structure sways dangerously as I make the jump to the next structure.

I'm on a scaffold. The next building - a warehouse - is an impossible distance away, several feet higher than the platform I'm jumping from, and twenty feet away. I jump the gap, and I'm suspended in the air.

I pull at my momentum, bending the dream to allow me a few more meters in height - and I grasp the edge of the roof. I pull myself up near the chimney. On the other side of the warehouse is a big camping tent set up in someone's backyard. I jump. I land on the tent, and it cushions my fall, billowing out around me. My vision is filled with yellow and red, and I think hard, imagining the demon boy I'm supposed to rescue, and the dark thing that's after him...

The forest is oppressively quiet. I can smell the pine, feel the hot mugginess created by a recent rain. Fully immersed in my character, I stand in the center of a huge clearing, waiting.

A flash of red goes zooming by. I've found Nomad's demon boy. I'm slightly disappointed. I was hoping I could use this opportunity to discover Amon's origin (a DC I've apparently mentored throughout his life). Instead, it's just a regular demon.

He's being chased by a wolf. I recognize the creature as an entity from my childhood nightmares. It's back, and I'll have to deal with that eventually. For now, I allow the demon child to distract it.

I spot a piece of paper on the ground near a pond. Picking it up, I skim the text. Instructions from Nomad on what to do next.

Did you save the demon boy? Y/N

I look up across the clearing. The demon is running as fast as he can, frantically trying to get away from my nightmare creature. The wolf is gleefully giving chase. I'm not sure whether he's actually any danger, or if he's just toying with the demon. Either way, I have no interest in rescuing the child.

Did you propose to the barmaid? Y/N

I look at the paper, and blink. And blink again. No, WakingNomad, I did not propose to the barmaid. Although, I should pay a visit to Denn sometime in the near future.

Scare Factor: 3

Also, this result amused me.

I watched The Last Exorcism last night. It was boring, and the shaky cam made me nauseous.

I'm sitting in the hotel lobby, because it's really hard to sleep after a dream like this. Everyone else in my party is still in dreamland, of course.

I just have more fun there.

09/06/10

In which I'm confronted by a creepy little demon girl.



The case contains four Books from the Akashic Records. I pull off the lid reverently, and the three of us peer into the box.

I pull out a dusty, leatherbound edition, and turn it over in my hands. The cover is blank, but the unwritten words pop out at me in red script.

To read this text is to risk eternal damnation.

I open the Book without another thought. It falls open to a spot near the center, revealing an illustration of a beast with horns, wreathed in flame. So this is the comprehensive guide to demonology. I skim the Latin text, translating automatically. The demon has a name something like "K'nushekkal". I turn the name over in my mind, not willing to risk saying it out loud.

Actually, I think about it. Just to see what would happen.

I'm more interested in the other two books.

fade

I hear movement, and wake up in a dark room. I feel like it's my bedroom, but the place bears no resemblance to anywhere I've ever lived.

The blankets are bunched up at my feet, and I sit up, bringing my knees up to my chest. I'm looking at my hands, trying to count my fingers, but I can barely see. It's just light enough for everything to take on a dark blue hue. I peer at my fingers, touching each one with the other hand.

"One, two, three, four, five, six." I mutter. The number's not right, but I think I might be seeing things.

No. I can see the pinky digits twisting into each other. I'm dreaming.

I feel a puff of breath on my ear, almost a laugh. "You're a natural," says an otherworldly voice. I can hear the smile in it.

I turn my head slowly to the left, not moving another muscle. A little girl in a white nightdress, maybe twelve years old, is leaning against the side of my bed, grinning up at me. Her irises are such a dark brown that it looks like her eyes are all black. The whites of her eyes seem to glow.

And her nails are digging into the skin of my forearm, holding me in a vice-grip.

Before I can react, she's pulling me through a tear in the dream, straight through the back of a bookshelf. Dark grey mist howls around us, and I can feel her pulling me down. Screams linger at the limits of my hearing, and a tendril of fear slithers through me.

What the hell, I think, giving myself over to the sensation. I want to see where this goes. I close my eyes.

When I open them, I'm standing in the bedroom, across the room from the demon. Her hands are clenched into fists and she's scowling.

"Hm," I say, tilting my head to the side, "You're one of the demons from The Book. I recognize you." Not by sight, of course, but the pages left an imprint.

I cast a glance around the room behind her. Like I thought, the demon is standing next to The Books. That's irritating. I really want to read the other three.

The demon tenses, and I grin as I rush her, landing a hit that sends her sprawling to the side. I keep up my momentum, going to grab the box.

She hits me from the back. I spin around to face her, but she's running at me again. We land on the ground, each trying to pin the other down. I can feel her demonic form at this point, even if I can't see it.

I have her pinned by the arms when I realize that I won't be able to contain her. Calmly, I come to a conclusion. Without a physical weapon, I start to sever her limbs from her body. I pick up an arm and throw it away from the rest of her, cut off her head and kick it away from the rest of the body. I'll scatter the pieces around the house. In the time it takes the demon to pull herself together, I'll have read at least some of the other books.

I'm sawing apart a Barbie doll. Then I wake up.

Scare Factor: 5/10
Rating: 6/10

I'm not crazy.

08/08/10

I'm part of a story in a familiar seeming place. Everything's happening out of order, events and dialogue added where I think the story needs it. As I wake up, I see the story written out on a word processor.

I wake up. As I fall back asleep, I enter HH. I'm a younger version of Dean Winchester, and there's something I still need to do. I'm still lucid, but I don't want to wake myself up, so I fall into the dream.

***

I'm a giant, fighting a tiny man as we climb up a water tower. I try to kick him off my foot, but he's holding on, trying to stab my toes.

***

I'm in prison. I'm sitting with a group of people, all handcuffed with zip-ties, our hands wound up in green mesh. My mom and dad are there, part of the dozen or so people jammed into the cell, sitting on the wooden benches where there's room.



Despite the lack of space, I'm not crowded on the bench. I'm also pretty much ignoring everyone in the room, now that the guards are gone. I'm concentrating on removing the zip-ties. I think I might have been chewing through them at some point, but with a flourish, I have them off my wrists. I hold onto the mess of plastic for a second, think about pretending I'm still trapped, but I let it fall to the floor. I'll take my chances.

Finally, we get our own cells. All of the doors are open, so I calmly walk over to the cell by the window and sit down on the bed. Originally, we were supposed to be sharing cells, but there aren't any bunk beds. There is no privacy; everything that isn't an outside wall is made of narrow bars, four inches apart. My mom takes the cell beside mine.

Lights out. A guard comes over to check that we're in bed. He stands too close, but I'm not worried. I sense no malevolence in him.

Which is fortunate, for his sake.

The guard shuffles away and I stand up, moving silently in the shadows. The locked door to my cell swings open of its own accord, and I walk, unnoticed, right out of the building.

***

I'm a hunter. Female, with long, curly black hair. I'm interviewing witnesses, trying to figure out what's going on in this town. Someone recognizes me from an earlier hunt, and claims I'm a cop.

***

Two versions of Dean Winchester sit at different tables at a restaurant. One is just barely older than the other. The younger one approaches him.

"You know, I've had a hell of a time since you got the cops after you again."

***



There are two versions of Dean Winchester, but the age difference is exaggerated. One of them is a child, and the other is an old man.

They're at the entrance of an old quanset on a farm, when I see a flash of something happening in the distance. Six plumes of light grey smoke fly from the ground and hurtle toward us.

Sam and Dean, about five and nine at the moment, are outside. A little piece of narration goes off in my head.

They're after the kids. Demons who steal away children that wander off on their own. It's part of the local folklore.

I'm hardly there at all, so the older Dean has to decide who to save: the younger Sam or the younger Dean. Of course he goes after Sam, and I stay inside, waiting, as the demons approach mini-Dean.

When they grab him, when they go hurtling through the air towards their base, I phase through the wall and take off after them.

"Omnipitus omundi patronus," I mutter to myself, sneaking into an old farmhouse. Wait, Patronus?

Just like that, I'm lucid. I smile, and crawl into the small entranceway. Bits of dust flake off of everything I touch, and I find myself crawling as the hallway gets smaller and smaller.

A woman attacks me out of nowhere. By all rights, I shouldn't be able to move in the small hallway I've wedged myself into. I won't consider myself trapped, though. I lash out, grabbing the woman by the jaw and the back of her head, and I twist.

The woman falls to the floor, her neck broken.

The house is normal sized again, and I walk into the bedroom, see the young Dean lie sprawled out over the bed. "Omnipitus omundi patronus," I repeat, but nothing happens. I sigh, and pick the boy up, ready to run him back to his brother and older self.

Claustrophobia. Scare Factor: 2.