This was a dream that spanned three nights (hence the length). I had this experience about two years ago but I thought I would share it with you all.

First Night
It all began in a really huge pool. Strange when put into perspective. A bunch of us were having a party when some dark clouds started rolling in. Lightning struck the pool and a lot of the guests were fried instantly. A lot of us weren’t though. The winds came and the pool was suddenly like being in a stormy ocean, struggling to keep our heads above water. I kept getting sucked underwater, but in the Dreaming I can breathe underwater so it wasn’t so bad for me... except that I saw people around me drowning. I finally managed to swim to the surface and I grabbed onto one of the ropes holding up the decorations. I climbed until I was out of reach of the waves and looked around me. People were still in the pool, trying to get out. Some people were already up there on the ropes with me. Seri was on the ropes and so was Michael. I knew him somehow. He had long, black hair and blue eyes. The wind was powerful and the rain and lightning was blinding. I could barely see massive twisters forming in the distance.

I heard Seri yell to me, "We have to get out of here!" But I wasn’t sure what to do... I mean, there’s this big ass storm coming at you full tilt. What the hell could you possibly do to get out of its way fast enough, even in a place like the Dreaming? I don’t know if Seri heard my thought but he yelled again, "the library!"

I had no idea what he was talking about... Then there was a flash and a loud bang. Lightning struck the ropes we were hanging onto. Mine let go and someone grabbed me by the back of my bathing suit top before I fell into the pool again. Seri yelled out something like "We’re not grounded, you moron!" and at that point I think my head was spinning. What was he talking about and who the hell was he talking to? Everything was so chaotic and happening so fast. I looked up and saw that Seri was the one that caught me, although I’m not sure how he’d managed to climb over the ropes to reach me so quickly. He’d been quite a distance away from me.

Michael was there now, too, and he was yelling, "Willow, get us out of here!" I snapped back to the reality of the situation and I created a protective ball around the three of us. Sheltered somewhat from the chaos, the three of us hugged.

"The house," Michael said. I knew what he was talking about and I stood up and put my palms on the sides of the ball. I closed my eyes and willed it to move. It floated up and somehow we got to the house. It was the same house that I’ve been dreaming of since I was a little girl. I know almost every secret passageway in that house, including some that went under the house, but there was one that I didn’t know about... One of the windows in a hallway was fake. On the other side of the window was a huge library. I don’t know how Seri knew about it. Now comes an even stranger part...

In the waking world, I sleep with this stuffed bunny that I’ve had since I was in the womb (it was in my crib when my birth mother brought me home). Anyway, my bunny was on the floor near one of the bookshelves. He was all torn apart and his stuffing was all over the place. I picked up his body and head and hugged them close to me and I started to cry. (Note: I did notice the books by the bunny. They were very important books, spellbooks and informative books. Some of them were a dark red with gold lettering. Some were black with silver lettering. I was too upset to bother examining any of them.)

Michael was behind me. He put a hand on my shoulder and said, "I’m sorry. I had to do it. " I stood up to face him, still crying. He wouldn’t tell me why he “had to do it”. I looked around for Seri and I noticed that he had disappeared. I asked for him and Michael said, "He’s not here. He doesn’t like you and he didn’t want to be here with you. You’re alone now. Can you handle it?"

And then Michael’s wings unfurled... black and bloodied. His eyes weren’t blue anymore; they were red. His front teeth elongated, kind of like a vampire’s. He hit me with his fist and I went flying backwards into a bookshelf. I don’t remember anything after that except waking up with my bunny in my arms and my whole body hurt like fucking hell. I still hurt.

Second Night
I opened my eyes and Seri was there again, in the library standing over me. He asked if I was ok and I said “yeah, I guess so”. He grabbed my hand and said, “good, we’re getting the fuck out of here”.

Michael said, “you’ll go where I want you to go” and suddenly we were in a field. There were these four huge warrior things on black horses chasing us. They reminded me of the Nazghul from Lord of the Rings, except we could see their skull faces. Their eyes were purple fire. There were other people with us, too. Twelve of us all together... We all seemed to have these unique powers. One guy could walk through solid objects. There was a plump blonde woman that had a fiery ability, like a phoenix-power. Another guy could change into a wolf-creature. Seri, of course, went all dragony on the horsemen’s asses. His shifting process is actually really cool to watch, although a few of our companions threw up because their stomachs couldn’t handle seeing it. I guess I can see it being a little gross if you’re not prepared for it.

We split up and started running, figuring that the horseman couldn’t chase all of us at the same time. I ended up in a cave with the phoenix girl, the wolf guy, and the walk-through-walls guy. The entrance caved in and we got attacked by some weird creatures... they were like huge, orange mosquitoes with teeth on their legs. Somehow we managed to fight them off. Since we couldn’t leave the way we came in, we went further into the cave.

The room we entered was a puzzle. I swear it was something out of Legend of Zelda! There was a sealed door in an archway at the end of the room and about twenty or so unlit torches and braziers lining the wall and floor. There were two orbs in the center of the chamber; one was earth and the other the moon. By using the torchlight, we had to eclipse one of them. That would break the spell that sealed the door. To make matters worse, the damn torches and braziers only stayed lit for a few moments before going out again. Sound complicated? Try being the one stuck in the middle of the room trying to figure it out!

The phoenix girl was at the door freaking out and the walk-through-walls guy was trying to calm her down. The wolf guy was going crazy magically lighting the torches. Apparently there was a pattern that the correct ones had to be lit in, and he wasn’t getting it. For every mistake he made, a group of those mosquito things would come out of the ceiling and attack us.

After fighting off the fifth set of mosquito things, I yelled at him to stop lighting the damn torches so we could think the puzzle through. I heard Michael’s voice, reverberating off the walls. He said “can’t figure it out, can you? You’re not smart enough for this. You’re not strong enough and you know it. Why bother even trying. Don’t you want to die anyway?” I told him to shut up. I had part of it figured out. I’m not sure how exactly I did it now, but I figured out which braziers and torches to light. One of the walls blew out and sent me flying into the phoenix-girl and the other two guys at the sealed door.

Michael flew in from the wall and the horsemen came galloping in. A few of our other companions (the twelve people that had been with us) came running in after them. There was a pretty big battle in the chamber and it got ugly. In the archway, the wolf-guy got hurt really badly and I crouched beside him and healed him. The phoenix girl started to walk forward very slowly, and she had a massive flame surrounding her. For some reason, my only thought was “oh shit” and I somehow knew that whatever she was going to do would kill everything in a radius. I grabbed onto the wolf-guy and whispered to him, “hold on, this might hurt a little”. I felt this immense power rush out of me. All our companions were surrounded by a sparkly golden glow. I don’t know what the hell spell I had cast, but I knew that it had been a big one.

The phoenix girl exploded, taking out a bunch of the mosquito things and two of the horsemen, as well as any friendly person who happened to be in the blast zone. We died, but my golden glow brought us back to life. Goddamn that was a weird experience. I can’t even begin to describe it. The remaining two horsemen roared, and another cry joined theirs. A dragon’s roar.

Seri flew in with two of the Twelve in his arms and a little girl dangling on his tail. He dropped the two on the ground so they could help in the fight and flew the little girl to the archway. He handed her to me and flew into the fray, heading straight for Michael. Seeing the two of them fight, I was reminded of some of the more epic battles of our roleplaying days. Michael grew to Seri’s dragon size and the two of them were all wings and claws and teeth and roars.

A horseman charged at us in the archway. I threw the little girl behind me and a thought struck me. I have a sword! It wasn’t anywhere on my person, but I knew I had it. I reached to my side as though a scabbard hung at my hip and I pulled a sword out of the air. I yelled at the wolf-guy and the phoenix girl to get down and I swung the blade. It severed the horseman in two and his pieces went flying over our heads and smacked into the sealed door. I stabbed and killed the horse, just for good measure, and without even thinking, I ran out into the battle and right up to the last horseman.

Despite the urgency of the situation, I had to admit t was a good fight. It’s been awhile since I’ve felt that way, my body driven on by adrenaline. I blocked every strike and the sound of metal clashing against metal was a beautiful thing to my ears. The horseman’s blade cut me once on my side.

I touched the wound and looked at the blood on my hands... and I laughed. “Do you think such a scratch would kill me here?” and I lopped off his head. Then I was suddenly in a lot of pain. I went to the center of the chamber where the two orbs were and I yelled, “which one?” (I had to yell so they could hear me over Seri and Michael). Someone yelled back, “what?” I yelled again, “which one? Earth or the Moon?”

A couple of people answered “the Moon”, but I heard Seri growl out, “the Earth”. His answer was good enough for me. I pushed the moon between the torches and the earth and I heard a loud click. The sealed door opened. Ten ran through the door into the next room.

I stayed behind with my sword, intending to help Seri. He glared at me though, and if you’ve never seen a dragon glare... well hell, you just don’t want to, ok? He smacked me with his tail and I was thrown into the next room with the others. Damn him, that hurt like hell too. The room had a glass floor, and beneath the glass was a cathedral. The glass floor gave way and we all fell into the cathedral. Michael appeared there and started throwing magic missiles at us. We tried to fight him, but he was too big. Then Seri came crashing through the stained glass window, snarling, “I wasn’t through with you yet!” And then I woke up.

Third Night
The next time I woke up in the dream world, we were still inside that temple. Seri was still fighting it out with Michael above us. At the risk of sounding morbid, it was neat to watch, but scary at the same time. The two of them were doing so much damage to one another that it seemed like it was raining blood, feathers, and scales. They both fell to the floor, Seri on top, and Michael disappeared as soon as he hit the ground. Seri stood up and changed back to his humanoid (elven?) self again and he staggered backward and fell. He was pretty fucked up.

The phoenix girl and I ran to him. She held his head and I started to heal him with the help of the bracelet (Elli’s platinum bracelet) I had on. I heard him mumble "man, he really pissed me off" and even though I was worried, it made me laugh. He looked up at me then, as if he were noticing me for the first time, and he just stared.

"What?" I asked and he said, "You know, you look just like her. He touched my hair. It was one of those awkward moments where you’re not really sure what to say or do... so you just continue what you’re doing in silence. So I kept healing him.

The wolf guy yelled out, "Hey, Willow? What happened to your hair?" The phoenix girl said "Yeah, it’s all white now. Are you ok?" I said, "I’m fine. I don’t know what you’re talking about." I finished healing Seri and the phoenix girl and I helped him up. The twelve of us gathered in a circle and stood around looking at each other for a moment. I wish I could remember what order we were standing in. It seemed significant for some reason... A red-haired man said, "So what do we do now?" A dark-haired, dusky-skinned man answered, "I guess we find a way out of here. We killed the bad guy so let’s leave before the castle starts the obligatory crumbling." I knew him. I knew he’d lost a wife and daughter... but I’ve never met him before in my life.

Seri shook his head and said, "No, we didn’t kill it. But we do need to get out of here." There was a third woman, a woman with long, curly brown hair who I’d seen in dreams before. There was some reason that the two of us didn’t get along, but I don’t know what that reason is. It’s like whatever it was hasn’t happened yet.

The brown-haired woman turned around and started walking away. She said, "No use standing around here doing nothing. Let’s go." The rest of us followed her (me and the phoenix girl reluctantly followed her) and she led us to a massive stairway. Seri, the phoenix girl, and I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. There was something about the room beyond that was suspicious to us. Maybe we’d all played too many video games. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.

"It’s a trap," I said.

"I know," Seri agreed. He went ahead of me with the phoenix girl, leaving me at the bottom of the stairs. The brown-haired girl called me a chicken or something not quite so nice, but I ignored her and hid behind a pillar. I don’t know why, but I just had this gut feeling.

Sure enough, as soon as they reached the top of the stairs (and Seri and the phoenix girl were halfway up the stairs) a bunch of mummy things appeared. They didn’t see me though. I thought of Elli then, and I thought as she would think. I stepped out from behind the pillar and started chanting some strange words. Some of the mummy things noticed me and came after me. There must have been one hundred of them altogether... I finished the spell and most of them turned to dust. A few of them turned and ran away. Everyone stared at me and I stared back.

"Did I just Turn Undead?" I asked.

"Looks like it," someone answered. "Damn," I said. "I didn’t know I could do that!"

The way out was through a pool of water. I hated that part... A couple of the Twelve had to drag me through the tiny underwater tunnel. But we made it. And we woke up.