nightmare

One of us will win the contest and escape, and the rest of us will be doused with gasoline and burned to death.

Oh, it hurts. It hurts a lot.

I'm looking for a place to stay for the next few weeks while I take a course in a new city. I know that a certain motel/hostel/dorm has spots available for students, but they also fill up fast. So I head over there as soon as I'm in town.

Luckily, there is a place available. Unluckily, it's haunted by the victim of a mean-spirited (and presumably lethal) prank by members of a fraternity or something. We don't actually have those here, but it was a group of guys and they were terrible people.

So now the ghost violently murders people who stay in the dorms.

There's a woman screaming.

I'm running towards her as she's being dragged into a fluffy duvet or pile of pillows. I really should emphasize that they were unabashedly evil pillows, with the electrifying reek of corrupted darkness emanating from them. I grab the woman by the elbows, and she tells me No, it will get you, too!

I can't hold her, and my arm ends up dragged into the rift. Excruciating, electric pain arcs up my right arm (the kind of pain that you only feel in dreaming, where it overwhelms everything and it hurts but doesn't feel like pain in waking life). I try to pull my arm away, but there's resistance, sucking me into the rift.

I rip my arm away—

But the bleeding, rotten darkness is still everywhere and there's nowhere to go—

I wake up. I reality check, tapping my fingers against the sheets. One-two-three-four-five. Genuinely awake. Damn ghost thinks it's gonna get the better of me, huh?

I slip back into dreaming. I'm back in the dorm room, and it's quiet. Shadows whisper along the ceiling and in the dark corners of the room. I hold out a hand, and the shadows still.

The ripping, tearing thing leaps into me, but I'm ready this time. I channel the pain, force the thing out of my body until it faces me, forced to its knees on the floor.

Let's solve your problem. My terms.

It's night, and we're in a heavily wooded valley. Above us is a massive structure that resembles a dam, and there are offices in the building that's built into the structure.

The four (or five?) of us are gathered in a circle, having made camp. There's no fire. We're on the run.

And they've found us.

It's day, now. The parents and one (or two?) of their kids have found a vehicle and are driving up one side of the dam (but there are deer in the way, so they can only go so quickly.)

I'm the daughter, and insect-like attack robots surround me, their numbers penetrating deep into the forest. I feel the energy building up within me, and I lash out, striking at the robots with some kind of sword, taking out half a dozen of them in a straight line.

There are too many of them. I retreat upwards into the office building, blasting through a wall to get inside. There are men and women in suits around a boardroom table, and they spin in their seats as I rush past them, sending up alarmed cries. I get to the interior door, something hot on my heels, and everything goes dark.

shift

The man in charge has short, spiked black hair. He is arrogant, cold, as he gives his orders. They're in the centre of a city now, and he has the girl.

People are frantic. Something has gone wrong. They need to escape, to evacuate. They need to get a message to the Earl.

I laugh. I am now a man, thin-faced and shorter than the man in charge. He is angry, he grabs me by the lapels of my jacket and demands, demands, demands.

Amused, I tell him that I can get the information to the Earl. It's in X folder in his personal, secure system, right? I have the files now, I can send them.

Demands, demands.

Well, I'm a hacker, of course, I tell him. And I'm not really here. But I can help him, for a price.

I'm with the girl I was before, and we're speeding through the city in a shuttle, trying to dodge as multiple giant space worms—like the one from Men in Black—destroy the city and try to eat us, as well.

We're in an elevator. Have we made it?

---

In the church my mom took me to when I was really, really little. It's still dark, because it's winter, and the service is in an hour. I unlock the door with my key and turn on the lights.

No one is here yet. I go downstairs and turn on the lights (I'm a little bit afraid because I need to go through the dark sections to get to the lights), and I consider going home and sleeping for a bit.

I turn off the lights and stand in the darkness for a moment, quiet and still. The trees and the moon above the church create a lovely picture in the sky.

There's still one light on, though. It looks like someone is in the bathroom. I guess I should turn the lights back on and stay here until the service starts, since people have started arriving.

---

Spoiler for Content note for attempted sexual assault:

In this dream, I was at a party with an old friend. Things had died down, and a man tried to climb on top of me, and I fought him off. It seemed like he was expecting me to be out of it, and I remembered that there was one thing that my friend had had that I hadn't; I tried to find my friend.

The dream played over and over, as I tried to find a better outcome. In some versions, there were police and an ambulance. In others, we went home and didn't talk about what had happened.

Note: I think that this dream played on a situation where the same friend helped me out of a situation where two of her guy friends were being hella creepy while I was drunk.

Edit: I also had a dream that Sensei started up his comp and had ALL of the intermediates against the one person who volunteered to be on the advanced team (which wasn't me).

Adventure: 5/10
Control: 3/10
Fear: 7/10

★★☆☆☆

Samael Presents:

(your daily)

SOLO SENTENCE ESPRESSO

(the contents of which you should still)

FLEETLY FLEE FROM

(with all due haste.)


On a deserted stretch of Saskatchewan highway, after I wake up in the back of an empty car surrounded by empty cars, I watch a figure approach from the distance (I don't expect him to attack me until the door is opening and I can't wrench it shut and I barely remember to break the dream into a thousand million jagged pieces of glass).

The Road. Scare Factor: 7.

Samael's SOLO SENTENCE ESPRESSO is not at all similar to Mzzkc's ¡Single Sentence Sizzler!® and disclaims all semblance of copyright infringement thereof. That would be stealing.

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]

I was going through some old dream journals and thought I'd type up a couple for reference. The first dream occurred shortly after I heard that my family had been in a minor car accident. Everyone was fine. Well, except for the wildlife involved.

August 2009

I'm rock climbing at the local crag (but in a different city) when I get the call. Mom hands the phone off to a grief counsellor or something. She tells me that my dad has passed away, but do I want to see my huge birthday cake? Hey, do I want to have the phone held up to the body's ear so I can talk to him? I'm watching the head get cut off of the body, presumably having to do with cremation. I close my eyes, nauseous.

Scrambling down a steep trail now, made of granite and overgrown with tree roots. I'm thrown into what seems like a very vivid memory on top of the dream I'm in. I'm a black man in South Africa, and I'm brandishing a knife, trying to fend off two men who attacked my wife.


Except with roots.

My dream-ego, still looking on from the first dream, hopes that I'm not going to hurt anyone.

My strike goes wide, and I injure my wife instead, watching with horror as her blood spills to the red ground. She's dead so, so quickly. Our local equivalent of a doctor appears, and she tries to slice my wife's body down from the roots that are binding her, thinking she might still be able to save her. She won't. Our son! Our son us still here. I take him and run.

Mortality. Scare Factor: 8. I remember chalking up this one as "The Nightmare of 2009".

I didn't remember the dream until I read about it though. It's not quite so scary when I remember "Dad's fine; I saw him yesterday."

Within the dream, the dream-within-the-dream was a memory of a previous life. It was so vivid, I practically felt the same way when I woke up.

February, 2010

It's been a long night. I'm standing in a creepy, unfinished basement and a group of college student survivalists have been spouting horror movie cliches at every opportunity.

"You can't touch the jelly sandwich," the de-facto leader explains. "It keeps all the other food good. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," I say cheerily. I'm stealing from Spongebob Squarepants' logic. "Makes sense."

"No," he says, with a long-suffering sigh, "It really, really doesn't." He wanders away, morosely, muttering about crazy people. I briefly consider being a character that this guy is dreaming.

I go looking for food. I sit in the kitchen with my mom, even if she is upset about the potted plant sitting in the corner that looks like a tiger lily and is apparently called a "papyrus". At this point, I begin to tell her about the metaphors and symbolism in our current environment.

"The jellybean sandwich in the storage room is, apparently, there to keep all the other food from going bad, and the 'papyrus' is there because... you have really bad taste in fonts in real life."

"In real life?"

"Well, obviously this is a dream."

"You think so?"

"If it's not, tell me where these objects," I gesture at the flower, "Are located in your real house. Everything keeps shifting here."

The woman sitting across the table from me looks down, fighting to keep a grin off her face. She starts to laugh, and then to cackle madly. Shift. I'm standing near the door and she faces me from a few feet away. Her empty eye sockets are stuffed with bandages.

"Let me guess," I say, "You're my Other Mother."

She doesn't reply, but steps toward me. I wind back my left hand for a punch, but I'm moving so slowly.

The woman is moving in real time, and she takes another step, relaxed and confident. The punch doesn't connect. As she reaches for my throat, I desperately dig my fingers into her eye-sockets. There are teeth.

Everything is going black, facial features are twisting, and the only thing I can distinguish anymore is pain.

Shift.

I'm sitting on a deck, petting a stray cat that's wandered into the yard. Can I wake up now?

Shift.

"That rice is leftover from last night. And it's in front," Oma says helpfully, as I rummage through her fridge. I blink.

"Really?" I say, holding the plastic container. "You want me to eat this? Specifically?" I poke at the overabundance of soy sauce with a spoon. "I'm still dreaming, aren't I?"

Spring 2008

I'm in my grandmother's old office. Shift. It's dark, and I'm surrounded by beautiful, frightening living statues made of shadow... twisted, slender, lethal. I want to remember them when I wake up, because they're mine.

The office space gives way, and I'm in the basement of my old house. I'm waking up, still surrounded by the last traces of my shadow-creatures. I'm trying to remember them, listing their traits aloud. Onyx. Jet. Shadow. Cat-like, bat-like, tribal, sharp, angular. They wouldn't have been out of place on a tattoo, if they weren't so real, so dynamic.

I hear a scream.

From upstairs. My mother? Why am I in the basement? Everything is hazy and dream, and my reactions are sluggish. I stumble through the basement and away from my dream-room. I reach the base of the stairs, which, oddly, are not located where they should be. The only light is coming from upstairs. I look up. There is a man standing there.

He's old, unremarkable. I wouldn't recognize his features if I saw him now. He's small, but not in any particular way. Not overly short, not overly skinny.

There was a scream from upstairs, but now, it's all about me. Because the man is stepping down stairs toward me, and I'm just standing there. There's no screaming - it's so quiet - and I couldn't move if I wanted to. And I want to move.

I'm rooted to the spot, affixed by an unbreakable bond to the dreamscape. I can't flex my muscles or flail, because it's not about my feet. I am stuck, immobile, immovable.

And the old man is walking down the stairs, unremarkably. Not sinister or threatening, but I need to get away. Because something horrible is about to happen.

And he reaches the base of the stairs and I haven't moved because I can't, although this is my last chance to rush him, to push past him onto the bare wooden steps.

He's standing in front of me, and of all my will, the only thing I can do is push two words past my lips, "No, please" and it's barely more than a whisper, because nothing's moving, and I haven't thought about drawing breath.

And the old man looks at me, his expression unremarkably pleasant. He places his hand on my forearm -

End.

First Appearances. Scare Factor: 9.

I'm not sure what it was about the dream that freaked me out so much. But I couldn't be alone in my apartment once I woke up. Not in the dark. It was something like five in the morning, and the Tim Hortons beside the building was open. I threw on clothes and nearly flew down the stairs. I ordered a hot chocolate, and a bagel, and sat with my back to a wall where I could see every exit, I and waited for the sun to come up.