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.

Actors are running amok in my dreeeeaaaaams.

09/21/10

Don't leave your distractions up to me. Things will get dark.

I'm leaning over the stone railing of the balcony, stretched out under afternoon sunlight. The balcony overlooks the city below, with its clay tile rooftops and climbing ivy. This place is teeming with life, and I allow myself to bask in its positive energy. Looking at the roads below, I can see -

Wait.

"Is that guy riding a unicorn?" I ask.

The soldier standing next to me, dressed in forest green camo, puts a hand above his eyes and squints. "Oh, yeah. That's the pizza guy."

"The pizza guy." I repeat flatly. "Of course."

The pizza guy has convinced his unicorn to go up a flight of steps. As he turns the corner, I see his face. I bury my head in my hands.

I appear outside next to him. "Really, Misha?" I say, "You know what'll happen if they catch you?"

He says something.

I shake my head. "The stage is set." I make a grand gesture with a sweep of my arm. "Your distraction is ready."

How many pizzas would you need to feed a platoon of soldiers, anyway?

Vampires.

The girl looks maybe thirteen years old. She's quiet and sullen, and thirty vampires are following her through the darkness.

She didn't mean to turn them. Well, not all of them. As their sire, she's responsible for them, and needs to keep them under control.

I really need to kill a few, she thinks.

She keeps three.

"Rosie," she says, "It doesn't have to be this way." She's staring at the animated corpse of her friend. She turned Rosie into a vampire to save her life.

Rosie laughs, trapped as she is within the circle. Still grinning, she'll speak the words that will damn her friend forever.

Flashback.

This is the girl vampire's past. She's still human, up in the building that I just left, protected by a platoon of pizza-ordering soldiers in forest green.

The soldiers are all dead, attacked by vampires. The girl is injured, bleeding. There is one soldier left, a recurring character. He turns around to reassure her, tell her they'll be all right. He lowers his weapon.

"Look," I say gleefully. "You can see the precise moment that she turns."

She's a vampire now. She kills the soldier.

Scare Factor: 3/10
Rating: 4/10

I realize this was probably confusing. I've got nothing.

09/19/10

"No! No! Stop!" she shouts at the bizarre figures. She's the character from last night's dream, the roommate who looks like a younger Halle Berry. The girl struggles, tries to pull away, but she's strapped into the machine by strong hands holding her down.

The black tendrils bury into her wrists and she screams. Sizzling with dark energy and blue sparks, the wires grate against every nerve, causing her pain beyond what she's ever imagined. (I feel the echo.)

She's suspended horizontally, supported only by the wires on her wrists and ankles, which string her tightly over the laboratory floor. It's pure agony.

"You should be quiet." Says one of the aliens. "If you keep screaming, we'll put you in the chambers."

Images of coffin-sized capsules, each containing a human being. The capsules are filled with a liquid which burns ("like lava," whispers one of the victims) and seems to eat away at the person inside. It's a stable chemical reaction which will last for an eternity, providing power for the alien conquerors to sustain their society.

("This is hell.")

"Nonononono..." whispers the girl, trying to ignore the pain. "I'll be quiet, please! Don't put me in there, I can be quiet!"

I come back to myself. I'm sitting cross-legged on the cold floor, and my arms are suspended by the same tendrils that are causing the other girl such pain. The wires dig into my wrists, and the blue energy sizzles through my arms. I breathe out and sink into a meditation.

"Is it broken?" One of the aliens asks, curiously.

I open my eyes. The two aliens are talking quietly amongst themselves. It's unheard of for a human to be able to withstand this particular torture for so long. It's been at least twenty-four hours since I've been put into it, and the two beings in front of me seem to think that it's broken my mind.

I'm not, of course, human.

My possible futures flash before me. In one, I collaborate with the aliens and facilitate the destruction of the human race. Eventually, I'll destroy the conquering civilization itself, and move on to the rest of the galaxy. In a few futures, I'll lead humanity in a rebellion, with varying degrees of success.

I don't pick one. Instead, I play through each of them, living through each possibility until the point that all life in the universe is destroyed.

It never takes long.

Scare Factor: 5/10
Rating: 6/10