Darkness Calls

It's really dark, and there's something wrong with my eyes. My eyelids hurt and feel swollen. I can't open them enough to see even if it weren't dark, but the dimness makes it even worse. I can barely make out what's in front of my face, a rough wall of stone masonry, ending about a foot away from me in a flat edge. Beyond that, about another six inches, is a dark metal bar, probably iron. I lift my hands up to my face and see that my fingers are stained with blood, and the fingers on my left hand are swollen to twice their normal size, flesh puffing around the delicate, ornate ring I wear on that finger. I can't get any of them to bend. They just won't obey my commands. The clothing I'm wearing - not my clothing - is torn and also stained.  
  
My head hurts. The skin on my back burns. I can't breathe with my mouth closed. I can tell by the all too familiar pain radiating from the bridge of my nose down into my front teeth and out to the sides under my eyes, it's broken.

Every breath is a struggle anyway, a sharp ache stabbing into me each time I try to inhale, even sharper when I try to let it back out.

Where the hell am I, and why am I so battered?

I can't remember. I can't remember coming here, can't remember anything before this moment except the image of a face, and a sense of urgency. That urgency still pounds inside my heart. My friend needs my help. Someone is hurting her, and someone she loves is in even greater danger.

Mixed with the urgency is a sense of helpless frustration, and behind that, a terrible, profound anger that will mean death for whoever has disabled her, just as soon as she gets free.

I have to find a way to get up and get out of here. I have to get where she is and undo whatever it is that's being used to keep her in check. If I can just do that, it'll be all that's needed to get us out of here. She'll destroy this place, and those who run it, and no one will ever be held here again.

I focus on the ring on my left hand. Through it, I can feel a channel almost like a phone line, letting me send my state of mind, my emotions, and some thoughts to those who wear the other two just like it. Trying to feel the connection, I instead run up against a wall of sheer, solid, white-hot agony.

My head explodes inside, and for what seems like an eternity, nothing exists except brightness and fiery, cutting torture shooting down my back, across my shoulders and hips, down my arms and legs, and my mind is screaming at me

no god no please make it stop make it stop make it stop
and I just want to die, stop feeling, anything to make this go away.

I can hear someone screaming, the voice slamming through me like a blast of winter wind, vibrating in my chest and ripping over my raw, dry throat. When I feel it, I realize it's me, my voice coming out of my body, completely out of my control, ending in a ragged, whining sob as a long, jagged crack splits the light, and the punishment starts to fade.  
  
I'm cold. Freezing, shivering on the stone floor, I listen to the sound of deep hissing laughter on the other side of the bars. Sounding almost like the stage whisper of a baritone, the voice on the other side invites me to try again, praising the flavor of the energy produced by my suffering and begging me for another taste. Nausea rises in my throat, and I shrink back against the wall in despair, until a quiet answer comes through the back of my mind.

"Shhh...  I hear you. Be still, but don't give up. I'm on my way."

I don't dare hope, don't dare believe that isn't my imagination. It's too much. I've been here before... not in this building, but in this place. I know that whiteness, that pain. I'm blocked. I can't call out. No one can hear me, and that voice is just wishful thinking.

Except...
Except the whiteness has never cracked like that before. 'Maybe' tries to bloom in my heart... but maybe won't do the job. Maybe is a drug, and I can't afford to be that weak, not if I'm going to help her, and if I don't, we're all sunk.

I drag myself forward, sitting up, and my tormenter laughs again. "Come on, now." The voice may come out as a whisper, but he can still sound snotty. "Did you really think I'd let you call for your friends? How many times are you gonna do that? What do you think is gonna happen if they show up? There are hundreds of us, and only a few of you. You're hopeless."

I don't think so. Defiance and rises in my chest, peppered with resentment of everything that voice represents. I struggle to sit up, push my eyes open as far as I can, glaring out at the thing on the other side of the bars, watching it enjoy my anger and hate as much as it savors my pain. The dark shadow of a robed form stands tall, barely defined against the greater darkness behind it, highlighted only by the depth of the crimson slits that stare back at me from under its broad cowl. The darkness below those narrow eyes splits into a wide, toothy grin. "Stubborn child. Why don't you just give up and come home?"

Black, bitter acrimony floods my heart. This again? I said no. I meant no.

Leaning forward until my face nearly touches the cold metal, I force my sore throat to produce one more time, then another, spitting the words through lips that feel parched, chapped, and swollen.

"Fuck."

"You."

Pushing hard with the second word, I throw what little energy I have left at the shadowy figure. It stumbles back with a surprised grunt, then laughs again, and raises an arm draped in darkness. Knowing it is probably going to hit me with something awful, I brace myself against the bars, closing my eyes against the anticipated blast just as two more pools of bright redness approach from behind my tormenter. Two of them... I can't take two. I am going to die. This is it. If they can't force me to do what they want, they'll kill me for resisting.

What else can I do to defend myself? I have no weapon, no way to call, nothing left but my greatest weakness of all, the void that hurts to maintain, yet hurts more to fill. I see no other choice. If I'm going down, I'm at least taking one of them with me.

Opening myself to the blow, I lift my chin and let myself take the full force of it right in the face. When it hits, lifting me from the floor and throwing me ten feet back against the wall, I grab onto the foul, repugnant essence and pull with all of my hunger, feeling it pool inside my heart like a pile of contaminated soil. The redness within the cowl widens in surprise, and the toothy grin drops into a pained grimace.

God, this thing's energy is disgusting... feels like I'm swallowing rancid food. I struggle to stop myself from throwing it back yet, knowing I'm going to need it to save myself when the next one attacks. The monster outside my cell begins to struggle and scream, trying to pull back its malevolent attack, but I am determined to hold on. Digging in, I open my eyes to try to gage the effect of this tactic on my enemy and the potential threat of its approaching ally.

That tiny, budding hope that I'd crushed moments ago blazes through me with my second look at the other red eyes, now rushing forward as his black sword falls across the monster's shoulder, slashing through the darkness to reveal the thunderous glare I hadn't dared to expect to see. The monster's shocked face falls to one side, his body to the other, and my companion steps over the corpse, slamming that blade through the steel barrier between us and shattering the bars. I feel myself falling, prepare for the pain as my legs hit the stone, but instead, I tumble over his arm and shoulder. Darkness tries to close in on my vision, my mind ready to collapse now that the immediate danger is gone.

No! Not yet...

"They took..." I start to tell him where she is, but he interrupts.

"The others are there now. We're going," he tells me, but he's giving me an odd look, studying my aura. Setting me on my feet, he asks, "You all right?"

He's looking at my face, bruised and inflamed, my two overly respectable shiners, and my broken, bleeding nose. I can see his heart breaking yet again, just like it does every time they take any of us. Hurt pinches his red eyes, his fingertips brushing my jaw as he gently runs his thumb across my swollen, dried out lip.

No, I'm not all right. My friends are in trouble, and I'm in pain, and it's happening over, and over, and over. This is hell. We keep going through this again and again... they take her, or they take me. They do terrible things to whoever they have, while the rest of us scramble to the rescue, fighting off the darkness to bring our loved ones back to safety and home. We try to rest up, plan to hit them back so they'll know not to keep messing with us, but before we're ready, they always strike again. I'm sick of it... so tired, and so angry.

"Not yet, but I will be." I tell him, touching his wrist with the broken fingers on my left hand, totally forgetting until the pain shoots through my bones. Seeing me flinch, he draws back under the assumption that it's him setting it off, until he sees the flesh puffing out around the ring. His eyes flick back to mine, and I shrug, ignoring the daggers that shoot through my ribs when I do. "I told them no again."

Stepping around him, I head down the dark hall in the direction from which I feel her call. He shouts at me to stay back, that I've had enough. I should let my friends handle this... but I can't. I'm furious, and I've swallowed a ball of that monster's hatred and fear, and I can't get it out. My friends are in danger, and we're all stuck in this awful place until we beat down whoever it is this time that had the nerve to meddle. I reach back with my good hand, grab one of his, and pull him along down the hall, listening to him trying to talk me out of it until he realizes how pissed I am. When he stops talking, I stop walking for a moment, and look back to see that he's resigned to the situation. "It's okay," he says. "Just don't overdo it, all right?"

I nod. I'll try, at least. That's the best I can do.

In the distance, I hear a gurgling sound, and I know that's where she is. Turning back, I head for the noise, moving as quickly as my beaten up old body will allow.

The hall opens into another, wider corridor. At the other end, through a set of double doors, we hear that gurgling getting louder, and then there's a tormented scream. His eyes widen, and he grabs me around the waist. "No time!" he growls, and suddenly the walls are a blur, then the doors are in my face. I hear him slam them open, and we're standing in what looks like the operating room of a hospital from hell. Blood cakes the floor, and is splattered across instruments on the walls that seem to serve no purpose but to inflict pain; twisted hooks, long, sharp blades, tweezers with strangely shaped points, bone saws, and circular blades with jagged teeth and dark, mysterious stains.

I see my friends struggling against smaller shadows, and people in dark clothing with knives and clubs, trying to beat their way through guards and lab assistants to rescue those they've taken. In the midst of them, I find that one set of wide blue eyes, flashing angrily at the shadows, turning her power into charm, mesmerizing, and then tripping them into defeat, each attack moving like an exotic dance across the dark and slippery floor. She falters when she spots me, almost failing to dodge the strike of a shadow's blade, and then she is spinning away, blue eyes darting back to give me an uncertain glance before sinking her own dagger into the creature's hidden throat.

In the middle of the room standing next to a dark metal table with a supine figure on it is a shadow like the one from outside my cell, looking bizarre in the white coat and green scrubs of a hospital surgeon. On its cowled head is a band with a mirror to reflect the light down onto his 'patient,' my distraught and writhing friend.

Laying on the table in a pool of her own blood, she is split open from her jaw to her groin, and that monster has his hands inside that opening, pawing at her heart like it belongs to him. We've gotten there before he could take anything out this time, but just barely. On the other side is another of those monsters, probably an assistant, emitting a dark, liquid energy from his hands into her head. That must be what is keeping her alive and awake.

Beyond her there is a cage hanging from the ceiling. Inside is the kid, clinging to the bars, screaming and sobbing that she'll be good, she'll be good... just please stop cutting and let her go. She is as battered as I am, and I can see burn marks on her skin from trying to use her own power to stop this. I know that cage, and I know the blinding torture that has hit her every time she tried. I know what they're doing. They think she's theirs, and they want her back, want to make sure she doesn't run again, so they're teaching her a lesson. Don't love people; if you love people, we'll have to hurt them. And they've hung her up to watch, made her helpless, subjected her to this. She's battered herself against the bars and the block so much that she's barely conscious, exhausted and in obvious pain, but she's still begging these monsters to spare our friend.

Suddenly, the whole of existence is shifting sideways in front of me. My vision snaps, blurs, darkens, then disappears for just a second as cataclysmic fury boils up through my gut, over my chest and throat, to fill my head with pressure and heat. When I can see again, everything is deep, searing red. I can feel myself getting taller, my teeth scratching against my lips, my head getting heavier, my limbs twisting and churning as my body tries to hold in whatever shape the rage is taking. My fingers, my ribs, and my nose unbreak, the bones lengthening and fusing, claws extending from my hands, and a low growl building up in my rapidly expanding chest.

I look at my companion. He's actually looks like he is going to back away from me for just a moment, but he doesn't. "Get them out of here," I try to say, but can only manage to growl the words. Understanding slowly makes its way across his startled face. I glare around the room, taking in the battle and the injuries my friends have once again suffered, and move forward, ready to address the monster with his hands inside my friend's chest. My head pounds with stored energy that was not there before, and I feel myself drawing more, sucking it out of everything in the room; the floor, walls, and ceiling, the equipment, the monsters... this place is going to come down.  
 
My treasure glances back at me as our companion shouts at everyone to grab our friends and get out. Her blue eyes fill with dread and tears, and she stumbles away from me, grabbing the one we call the Doc by the arm to keep from falling. Seeing me, then her, he turns away and launches her toward the iron cage and the kid, telling her to bring it down and get the girl.

The monster hurting my friend lifts his dripping hands and turns toward me, head cocked in confusion and surprise, unaccustomed to being interrupted or challenged, and the Doc takes that opportunity to grab the table and pull it toward the cage. My companion puts his hands on the other end, as the rest of the team rushes to their aid, everyone avoiding the sight of my warped and still-changing form. It looks like the monster, my friends, the tables and equipment... everything in the room is getting smaller. Or maybe I'm growing, I think... that must be it.

A flash of crystal blue stuns the guy blocking the mechanism that raises and lowers that cage, and controls the block on her power. One of the guys beats the machine to shards and chunks, and the door of the cage is opened. The group grabs both of them and then there is a flash of deep, golden light, and they're gone, out of my way so that I can let go. Turning back to the monster, who is now fully facing me and beginning to advance, I drop my jaw as far as it will fall, take a deep breath, and howl at him, letting the rage, pain, and hatred flow into that sound.

It strikes him right in the chest, throwing him through the wall full of torturous gadgets, several of them stabbing through him on the way by. Chaos descends upon the room as the guards and assistants scramble, some to escape, others to attack, but they're too late. They should have hit me before I had the chance to see their crimes. As the monster slams through the wall, I reach out again, breathing deeply and drawing in more of the ambient power, making the whole building brittle and cold. We were all together before they disappeared. We were all at home, minding our own business, just being us. We hadn't done anything to these freaks. The fury burns into the energy, growing as I reach out and drain the ones nearest me until they drop to the floor, dead.

Outrage fills my being, and I let it burst away from me in all directions, feeling the heat move against every object in my sight. Flammables begin to ignite, slowly at first, until the second wave goes out and everything bursts into flame. Screams erupt from the living, the men beating on themselves, and the shadows falling to the ground, writhing. The monster caves in on himself, howling in agony and pulling at his clothes, trying to get out of the burning fabric, but it's too late. I let the third wave out with a scream, "Stay out of my HOUSE!" 

The blast that follows propels every single thing away from me; bodies of the dead, the living, the still flaming monster with the bloodstained hands, the tables and stands, tools, and the stones that made up the floor, walls, and ceiling. Everything blows out, flying away, falling away, and I drop through the space where the floor was just in time to avoid the backlash from that last boom. The sound of thunder over my head reminds me that there is more building above, and I look up to see it falling toward me.

Not there... no, there's not a building. I don't want it. I want it gone. The thought sends out the last of the power I absorbed, and I watch as the stone disintegrates into dust, taking the support from beneath more of those shadows and rough looking men, dropping them past me onto the ground below with a horrible round of solid, wet, smacking noises as they hit the rubble of the building's bottom floor.

I feel myself falling, the ground floor and the debris gaining size rapidly as I begin to diminish, the distortion of my form fading along with the rage and the power that I no longer need. It's over, and I'm done, spent and exhausted. I want to go home, crawl into my house, snuggle up to my companions, and drop out of all awareness.

In that second, I'm hit with the pain of seeing her last look at me - eyes wide with terror and rebuke - before she was sent away to help our friends. It had taken a huge leap of faith for her to accept me the last time I went off like this, and the only reason she'd come back was that she couldn't bring her self to hurt someone she loved. She told me she was still afraid, but she couldn't tear my beautiful heart. My mind latches onto that memory, but it doesn't still the growing fear. Will it be enough that she thinks that way of my heart... enough to keep her from hating and fearing my ugly, twisted soul?

Instead of landing in the rubble, I fall face down onto the beach outside my house, longing having brought me as close to home as I dare to go. From inside, I can see two golden lights, one from the Doc, and the other belonging to the little girl. I know that my friend will be all right. They're healing her wounds now. Doc must be teaching the kid how to do what he does. She's certainly capable. Glad, I rest my face on the sand. I'm here... I plan to go in when my courage returns.

I don't get a chance to make that choice. Running out into the sand, my companions fall beside me, turning me onto my back and rising with me, pulling me to my feet. I am surrounded by the two of them, his patient, long-suffering sigh, and her sobs. Surprise and aching relief keep me silent, spilling over my will and onto my face. She draws back, using her thumb to wipe away my tears. I try to tell her I'm sorry, that I didn't mean to get so mad, but she shakes her head and pats me on the cheek with her fingers. I don't know if that means it's okay, or that I shouldn't bother, but with exhaustion taking its toll, I don't have the strength to ask her. I let the two of them turn me to face the door and guide me inside to rest.

Rips and Chains

I'm chained to a rough stone wall, not stone blocks but solid like the wall of a cave. The room I'm in is round, feels rough-cut (except the floor,) and is poorly lit from holes near the ceiling.

Realizing this means I'm in a bad predicament, I pull on the shackles to see if they're solid. They are, and pulling on them hurts the raw skin on my wrists and the raw muscles in my back and shoulders. I'm not getting out of this with brute force. I can hear movement, and I look around (which hurts my overworked neck) to see that the whole room, which is round, is bordered with people chained to the wall just like me. We have wrist and ankle shackles with a length of chain attached to each, so that we can step about 3 feet from the wall, but none of us can escape.

 I look at my neighbor's wrists to see that the lock is covered, so that we can't even try to pick it if we find something to stick in there. She pulls away from me like I'm diseased.

Before I can say anything, the one empty space opens, and someone strides in. He's dressed in street clothes, but it's hard to see much else about him because the light is so dim. He walks around the room slowly, sniffing at the prisoners.

The sight of that sends chills down my spine. I have no idea why he's doing that, but it strikes me as primal and predatory, and I get a sense of deadly strength from him. When he gets closer to me, I can see that he is savoring the scent of each person before passing to the next, and each prisoner he sniffs looks horrified at his closeness, then incredibly relieved as he passes by.

When he gets to me, he does that thing cats do when they really like a smell. His lips part a bit more than half an inch, and he breathes in and out slowly through both his nose and mouth at the same time, looking a bit drunk. I can see his teeth now. His canines are long, and sharply pointed.

I realize there's a vampire standing in front of me, and he likes the way I smell. He's going to bite me, and it's going to hurt. He's going to bleed me to death, and that's going to hurt. The last thing I'm ever going to feel is pain and fear. My stomach cramps and lurches, and I fight the impulse to try to run, knowing that the vampire is a predator, and running will be a trigger. I'm actually focused on clinging to however many seconds I can of not dying in pain before he attacks.

The vampire steps in, and it feels like a warm blanket has been placed over me. I try to pull energy, but there is none. I try to zap him, but nothing happens. It almost feels like I've been drugged, and I can't focus well enough to use any of my usual tricks. The vampire's lips are so close to my neck I can feel his breath on me. He's breathing heavily, and his fingertips touch my waist. My heart is pounding really hard, and I can't breathe. I'm so terrified I'm sure I'm going to lose control and try to run anyway. Tears are streaming down my face, and I feel cold all over. My skin crawls as the vampire's fingers slide around to my back and grab hold of my shirt in an almost passionate manner, pressing me into an embrace. I feel those sharp teeth grazing my skin, and then there is a loud voice above us shouting, "No! Not that one. She's off limits."

The vampire lets me go and springs backward to the middle of the room, suddenly looking like a dog that had its chain yanked and got yelled at for barking at the wrong person. He turns a hungry, lustful stare at me that turns my blood to ice, then darts across the room. There's a sound like biting into an apple, and someone I can't see screams. The scream is cut off, and I can hear others in the room sobbing the same way I am. I'm flooded with relief at not being bitten, but also with guilt over feeling that way when it means someone else would die instead. The horror of the situation floods my senses, almost cutting off every other feeling.

Unable to use energy or get out of the chains, I know there's nothing I can do to help. I turn away, looking at the person on my left. I reach to try to at least offer the comfort of human contact, and she pulls away from me again, telling me it's not fair. I'm only here to get scared into doing what they want, while the rest of them are here to feed the monster. Confusion hits me hard enough that the other feelings are eclipsed by it.

I woke from this feeling cold with terror, and totally confused. It's been about an hour, and I still can't think of it without chills. I'm terrified of vampires. If it happens again, I'm going to focus on me and everyone else nearby smelling yucky and see what happens.

Well, that was strange

This one needs a little background, or you won't understand why I'm weirded out.

Last weekend, I went to my parents' house to help move furniture and stuff so they could use a downstairs room for a bedroom instead of the upstairs. While I was there, my Mom told me she's been having nightmares like mine, and she described some of them. It's highly unusual for Mom to even have nightmares at all, much less involving specific things that have been present in some of my weirdest ones. 

Mom isn't used to this, and she was really shaken up by some of the painful attacks she'd experienced. Unable to help her get past what she'd dreamed, I decided the best route was to help her get the tools she needed to deal with future nightmares, instead. We spent hours, while working in the room, talking about techniques I use in my dreams to fight monsters by using things that can't be done in the real world, like magic and flying. Mom can fly in her dreams, so I know that she can use other lucid techniques. I told her that when she gets ready to go to sleep, she should repeat to herself over and over that she'd be strong and capable in her dreams, that she'd know she could fight and win. Before going to sleep, she should focus on being aware that she's not in the real world, and that she can do anything. It's what I learned from the lucid dreaming book I had in high school, and though I haven't been able to completely make use of the techniques, that one thing (being able to fight back) got through.

I told her that if worse came to worst, when impossible things are happening to her and she gets really scared again, if she can't fight back she should focus really hard on me, and I'd fight for her. I went on to describe some of my battles, and how I am able to move and shape things.  If it comes down to that, by telling her that, I've given her the image, figuring that when she did have a nightmare, if she "called" me, she'd experience the defense I described, because that would be the image she had of me. 

Then, with Mom's consent, I did some energy work, using a candle as a focus. I designated the candle's energy to represent the forging of a connection between how she feels in her dreams and how I fight in mine. I linked that to how she fights in real life, given that she never backed down when she was in city politics, even when the local police were stalking her. I charged that as the candle burned, it would release energy that would bring out Mom's own strong will, and would bring up in the part of her subconscious involved in the dream state some automatic defenses that would stop anything scary or painful from happening. If the nightmares were a psychic attack, the connection would call me to her, and I'd be able to handle it from there.


All week, she's said she's been fine, no bad dreams or anything. Then, last night, just as I was drifting off, it felt like someone who shouldn't be touching me was. In my semi-conscious state, I visualized and half-experienced reaching out and grabbing someone by the shirt with my left hand, and punching the shit out of his jaw with my right, so close to dream-vivid that I actually heard the smacking sound my fist made against his skin and the grunt of his voice. Then, when I was all the way asleep, I had this.


I'm on that stretch of beach again, city off to my left, water on my right, and that little snack shack that doesn't sell snacks, looking smaller than ever in the distance ahead. My first thought is to wonder why I'm here, but that doesn't last long, as a confused, irritated voice calls out from behind me. "What the... Where is this place? Who the hell are you?"

I spin around to see a group of rough looking men, all huge, standing together on my beach. They look really out of place, staring at the white sand, dark sky, and choppy water. Glaring at the one nearest me, who by virtue of having spoken seems to be their leader, I demand to know who they are, and what they're doing here. It's weird... they actually feel foreign to me, not like from another country, but like invaders.

The men begin to move away from each other, spreading out to form kind of a half-circle in front of me, all giving me cautious looks. The 'leader' says my mother's name like it's a question. He's half-crouched, like he's going to pounce on me any second, but he still looks confused and very nervous. Chills go down my spine, followed by anger rising in my chest. These guys are looking for my Mom.

"Who wants to know?" I ask, digging my bare feet into the sand and drawing energy for a fight.

I can hear the guys muttering to each other behind their leader. They seem like they're coming to a consensus that I'm guarding Mom, and they have to defeat me to get to her. This idea is reinforced by their having seen a different landscape prior to finding my beach, and having experienced some kind of explosive attack that they believe blasted them into this place. Trying to regain control, their leader steps toward me, telling me it doesn't matter. I'm not who they're looking for, but I'm in their way. He says, "We won't hurt you if you just let us out of here. We're just passing through."

I can feel the guy's energy moving, searching for an opening that will take him where he wants to go. When he realizes the opening is me, his eyes narrow, and he tells the others, "Looks like we're going to have to do this the hard way."

Suddenly, every single one of them is holding something nasty. One has a machete, another a baseball bat with nails pounded through it. I see a straight razor for shaving, several knives, a small axe, a metal pipe, and a pair of brass knuckles. The entire crowd begins advancing on me at once, the majority of them circling around to attack from the sides and behind me.

I ignore the sight of them, feeling outward around me for energy that signifies their individual presences, waiting until they're all about ten feet away from me and ready to jump. As soon as the energy around me tenses like they're about to spring, I raise a spiked, energized shield around me and shove it out to a radius of about six feet. Every single one of the guys slams into it, getting impaled, shocked, and thrown into the air around me. Most of them go flying back into the sand. Seven land in the water. Three of them are out at least forty yards. As soon as they splash down, the dorsal fins poke up and start heading their way.

The three begin to swim, desperately trying to get away from whatever is underneath those fins, one guy lagging behind the others as his heavy workboots and the metal pipe he won't drop slow him down. Their comrades watch from the beach, shouting at them to hurry as the sharks close the distance. I can hear one voice nearby bellowing, "Drop the pipe! Drop the pipe and swim, you dumbass!" It doesn't look like the guy in the water can hear him.

The sharks forget about the other two, changing their angle to surround the slowpoke. Seeing the dorsals in front of him, he stops swimming and begins treading water, gripping the pipe in his hand, ready to swing, not realizing that fighting in water isn't going to be the same as fighting on land.

His comrades watch, sickened and dismayed, as he is ripped apart by the sharks, his ragged and gurgling screams echoing across the beach like the soundtrack of a horror movie until one of the sharks bites through his chest and silences him. I look at the leader of my remaining assailants. "Go home," I growl.

The leader barks obscenities at me, and starts to get bigger. Looking around, I can see that all of them are changing, becoming larger and darker, less human looking. Their faces, arms, and legs are a little too long. Red eyes flash from beneath heavy brows, looming at me over wide mouths full of sharp, pointed teeth. The feeling of opening a curtain tells me that their earlier appearance was a disguise they had ready for whatever nightmare they had prepared for my mother, and they've just figured out that it isn't going to work on me.

The weapons are gone, replaced by bare hands and close-fitting leather that looks like it might be some kind of armor, though I'm not sure. Growling, the monsters close in on me again, careful to stay far enough outside the radius of my shield to avoid another hit, but close enough for me to see they still mean business.

From behind me, the force of someone's energy strikes my shield. Nothing compared to the power of the last opponent I fought here, it ricochets off and spins away harmlessly over the water. Feeling out from the place where it hit, I realize that the sender has left a trail back to himself. Without turning around, I focus on the spot where he stands, and send a jolt back along that path. I feel it hit home, throwing him sideways, so that two of his comrades have to dive into the sand to avoid being hit by his flying body. The leader sneers at me. I sneer back, and take a step forward, bringing my shield with me.

When I move, I see the ones in front of me, and feel the others around me, all flinch away. Feeling confident, I stir up the weather a little more, raising my arm and waving it over my head for effect as lightning flashes across the sky. The tall, thin leader, now much closer to me than the rest of his men, looks up, then looks back at me, determination eclipsing the fear on his face. I understand his position. He is the only thing right now keeping his men from breaking and running in a panic, now that they have realized they aren't dealing with an uninitiated dreamer, but a fighter who has learned to manipulate and use the elements of the dream. He has to show that he is strong, or he'll lose them all.

Outside my shield, I feel his energy building up around him, dark, dank, and foul. It's like sensing an influx of raw sewage gathering on my beach. Disgusted, I push against it, feeling polluted and cruddy. As soon as I touch that filth, I feel my opponent twist it and shove, impacting against my shield in just one tiny little spot with the force of all of his power, making a sound like a knife hitting glass.

The spike continues to pound, tapping rapidly against the surface, moving and down in an arc along the curve of my shield, as I try to get a grip on it. Slippery and revolting, it evades my grasp, and suddenly there is a loud pinging noise as it hits the same spot over and over until a crack formed.

Annoyed, I slam a wave against the spike from the side, shoving it away from my shield. The force of the boss's attack sends his energy into one of his own guys, right through the chest. The impaled monster falls to the sand, dark blood pouring from the wound, body thrashing.

I decide I'm not putting up with this any more. These wimps were going to attack my mother, meaning to scare the crap out of her and maybe even do real harm, and I can feel that if I don't take enough action, there will be more attacks, and more monsters. They will never leave her alone.

Reaching up into the storm again, I pull down bolt after bolt of lightning, striking the remaining grunts down. I feel like I'm playing whack-a-boogie-man with them as they break and run, scrambling over the beach like cockroaches fleeing the light, until all that is left is the leader. Advancing on him, I drop my shield. It's not really needed against such a lowlife piece of scum.

Horrified, the leader backs away from me. I raise the sand behind him, and he trips, falling onto it as I continue to shape it into shackles around his ankles, arms, forehead, and throat. He now looks like he's sitting in a sand version of an electric chair. Desperate and trapped, he lashes out, his nasty energy shooting out at me over and over again. Each time, I feel it coming and slap it away with little effort.

Stepping forward, I get right in the trapped monster's face, my nose inches away from his, and call all of the energy I've drawn into my aura so that he can see it. I can feel the storm flashing in my eyes, and he shrinks back in his makeshift seat. Not satisfied, I draw lightning across above the clouds where it won't be seen, letting thunder roll in, build up, and crash over our heads. A whine escapes him, and suddenly the smell of ammonia and minerals is floating on the wind in front of me.

I poke a finger into his pale, gaunt chest, punctuating a word with each impact, backing the statement up with more thunder behind me, building the volume of my voice as I go.

"Don't.
Fuck.
With.
Me."

The last  word comes out as a roar, right in his face, complete with a blast of hot wind. The monster closes his eyes, crumpling in terror, hands balled into fists. It's all he can do to shut me out. He can't turn away. I've got him pinned in that seat.

Seeing my enemy cringing in front of me, wetness spreading across his lap and the sand beneath him, I feel like a total louse. I'm bulling something that's far beneath me, driving home a point that was likely made before he even attacked my shield; that he'd messed with the wrong person. If this had just been an ordinary nightmare with an ordinary boogie-man attack, I'd have wiped them all out and left it at that. But it isn't. They started out thinking they were here to attack my mother, and I have to make sure that never happens again.

Standing up, I poke my finger at the monster's body one more time, in the fleshy area between the collar bone and the neck, where I can almost see a major vein flowing beneath the skin. Using energy, I burn my initials into his sallow hide, red welts rising in stark contrast to the nearly gray flesh. The monster screams and writhes in pain at the first touch. Feeling sorry, I put my other hand on his throat and block the sensation with more energy until I am done, then heal the burn into deep, dark scars. Feeling the numbness, he opens his eyes and stares in confusion as I finish branding him.

Getting down to his level again, I scoop up some sand and melt it to produce a mirror so that he can see the marks. "You know what this means?" I ask him. Understanding flashes across his face, and then resignation. What is he going to do, argue with me? He has no choice but to accept the situation and be glad I didn't just kill him outright. My stomach turns, cold rising in me as my spirit objects. This isn't my way. I don't want to do this. I hate doing this... but I know that if I don't, there will be more of them, and I will not let them come after my mother again.

"You now belong to me," I tell him roughly. "You're my property, subject to my will and my whim. Get up." I dissolve the chair and the bonds, so that the monster must either stand, or fall on the beach. Even slouching in defeat, he towers over me, standing on trembling legs rather than let me see him fall. Misery and fear in his eyes, he waits to hear the rest of his fate. I steel myself against my aversion to what I know has to be done, then I continue to explain.

"You are now my mother's guardian. Stay just near enough to know if anyone else like you approaches. Don't try to interact with her at all. Just protect her. Nothing harmful gets to her, ever, without killing you first, understand? You can use every ounce of your power to fight and defend yourself against attackers, but only in the course of protecting her. You will warn anyone who runs away that if they come back, they'll end up like you. You will destroy anyone who doesn't run. And..." I let my voice become more harsh and ragged as I speak. "...if you ever even think about trying to harm her, or anyone else I love..." Here, I send a fiery spike of energy down through the brand on his shoulder into his bowels, knocking him screaming to his knees, doubled over at the gut, head thrown back in anguish.

The sight and sound tears at my heart. Immediately, I stop, putting a hand on his bony shoulder to stabilize his weight, once again healing the damage done by the energy. Relief shapes his features now. "I'll know, and I'll come for you," I finish, disgust with myself and my actions cramping my gut, making my words sound all the more vicious and cruel. "I'll make you wish you never existed."

The monster's mental state breaks entirely. He reaches out and grabs my clothing, pressing his forehead against my chest and babbling, promising me his loyalty and obedience, but then begging me to either kill him or go away. Pangs of guilt and shame stab through me at the sight and sound of what I've done to him, anger trying to follow them in as my mental defenses try to blame him for my terrible actions.

I can't do this. I'm not domineering. I don't even like to fight. I was just trying to protect my family. Fighting tears, I close my hands over his long, twisted fingers and shush him, telling him it's all right now. The fight is over, and I'm not going to hurt him any more, just as long as he doesn't try anything dumb.

"Yes, Mistress," the monster begins, the name punching me right in the chest, bringing those tears even closer to the surface.

"Ma'am," I quietly correct him. I'm no one's mistress, even if I have forced him into servitude. I can't take that title. It'll kill me. "Ma'am will do. Don't call me anything else. Now, do you have any other injuries?" Without waiting for an answer, I start looking him over, feeling for anything that is not as it should be, ignoring the return of that look of confusion on his face as I work on the places where my spikes went through in the initial assault.

"Why?" he asks, the confusion deepening, edged with faint hope that I can see him trying to quash. I want to tell him not to give that up, but I don't know enough about this guy to have that much trust. Instead, I lie, pushing back my own moral objection to hurting him in favor of the impulse to protect my family.

"You're not any good to her damaged like this." But I can see the wheels turning. The hope goes back under the surface, but it's still there. I'm going to have to keep consistent watch on him, using the brand like a mark, or he'll turn on me. Uneasiness settles in as I go over every hurt, using the same power that defeated and dominated him to heal my new slave. No... servant. Just a servant, a prisoner of war, paying for his crime. I'm not an enslaver. I'm not!

God, what have I done?

Fool me twice

It's dark, and I'm running. I don't know what's behind me, only that if it catches me, I'm going to wish I were dead. Terrified, I pick up the pace, trying to lift off from the ground, but the oppressive atmosphere seems to be holding me down. A tree root reaches up and snags my ankle, tripping me. I go down hard, smacking my face on the packed dirt of the path, and I hear a familiar laugh behind me. Turning, I realize it's not a monster. It's him, not someone I have to fear. I sit up and reach out, sobbing with relief as he wraps his arms around me, telling me it's all right now. He's not going to let anyone take me. I only have a moment to feel safe before he sinks his teeth into my throat, and I realize the mistake I've made.

I'm jolted out of the nightmare, waking in my room, tucked under the covers and surrounded by darkness. Sitting up, I look at my alarm clock. It's past time to get up. I'm going to be late, and everyone will be mad. I jump out of bad and dig for my clothing, intending to drag it all on at top speed. I hear a noise behind me as I grab for things. Turning, I see him standing in the doorway. He asks what I'm doing, reminds me what day it is, and I feel silly for panicking. I don't have to be anywhere. It's tomorrow that I have to get up early. He crosses the room quickly, pulling me into a gentle hug, telling me he came in because it sounded like I was crying in my sleep.

As I hesitantly tell him the nightmare, he responds with soft kisses to my forehead and words of comfort and reassurance, that he would never let anything hurt me. When I finish talking, he kisses me deeply, taking away the last vestiges of  the night's terror. Feeling better, I lay my head on his shoulder, briefly opening my eyes as the sun starts to come up. He's there, standing in the doorway, shock and hurt on his face as he watches me holding onto someone else.

I turn toward the monster in my arms. It's laughing. I shove, then push energy into my hands, jolting it over and over until it's burnt to a crisp, nearly blinded by tears of shame and horror at the realization of what I've been kissing crashes over me. I turn to run to him, but he turns away from me and begins to walk away, shoulders slumped, sadness in the voice that floats back to me, "If you ever really loved me, you'd have known the difference." I run after him, but by the time I reach the doorway, he's gone.

In his place is the monster I was just attacking. I turn and look, and there on the floor in my room is my love, crumpled in a heap, his final pain still showing in his dying eyes. My shoulder is clutched in a huge hand. I feel myself spun around by the force of it, to face my attacker. The monster draws back and punches me hard in the chest.

I woke from this with pain in my chest, and palpitations like I haven't suffered in years. I have an irregular heartbeat, but it's been determined that it's non-life threatening. It doesn't usually hurt. 

For several moments, I could hardly breathe as my chest alternately pounded and squeezed. I focused my mind on it slowing down, slowly forcing one breath at a time using a breathing technique that is normally for singing, pulling the air in with my belly instead of my shoulders because I couldn't get my chest to expand. 

Finally, the feeling passed, and everything settled, but that was really scary. I probably should go to the doctor, but the last time this happened (and it has been a few years,) they couldn't find the cause, and I have no insurance, so I'm not going to be able to afford it. 

Anyway, the pain is gone, and now all that's left is the guilt of having not been able to distinguish which character in the dream was whom. I can't seem to shake that. 

Oh, and for the record... I don't even have an alarm clock. When I need an alarm, I use my phone.

Multiple nightmares

I don't know what it was... stress, maybe, or something I ate, but last night really sucked ass.

I'm ten years old, riding in the back seat of the car, feeling kind of sleepy, so I decide to lay down. When I do, and I see the back of the driver's seat from that angle, I realize where, and more importantly, when I am. This is the night of the car accident that changed my mother's life. We're going to be hit, and she's almost going to die. She's going to be in pain for the rest of her life. I know I'm having a nightmare. Wanting to wake, I shake my head back and forth really hard. That never fails to wake me, ever.

Except... this time, I don't wake up. Terrified, I try again, and again, until it hits home that I'm not getting out of this. I'm going to watch her suffocating again.

I think that maybe I came here to dream about changing it. I tell Grandma not to turn down that road, but she does. I tell her not to pull into that lot, but she does. I tell her to wait a minute, that there's danger down the road, that she can turn around after he passes, but she smoothly turns the car around and pulls back out onto the road.

I feel the car turning right, a sign that the accident is impending. I hear the tires squealing as the other driver loses control. I scream at Grandma to hit the gas, get out of this space, but it's too late. Suddenly, there's the sound of metal crashing and screaming, glass breaking, tires screeching, and we're moving sideways faster than we'd been moving forward. I hear Mom's head hit Grandma's as I am thrown on the floor, covered in beads of broken glass.

Then, it all stops. For a second, everything is still, and then I can hear Mom trying to breathe with two collapsed lungs, a high pitched whistling, wheezing sound coming out of her throat. I know what is going to happen. A bus driver is going to call an ambulance. It's going to feel like an eternity until they arrive and use the jaws of life to get my mother out of the car. They're going to separate us, taking her to one hospital, and me to another, where Grandma and I will pray for hours, worried the whole time because we are unable to get any information on my Mom. Mom will live, but her doctors aren't going to be able to figure out how. She's going to be in terrible pain for the rest of her life, and she's always going to be discriminated against because her disability is invisible.

Except, this time, there is no bus driver. Instead, a tall man in dark clothing comes to the window and calls her name. I can see two of my mother, one overlapping the other. The bottom one is wheezing and struggling to breathe. The top one is looking at the man. He holds out his hand, and she cringes away from him.

The man howls in fury, pounding on the outside of the car, bellowing that no one escapes him, and it's her time. I realize that what I'm seeing is some kind of monster trying to steal my mother's soul out of her body. I climb out of the broken window, onto the hood of the other car, and scramble across. I throw myself onto the tall man, kicking and punching, trying to defend her. He tries to shove me away, and I grab on tighter. I can see the bus driver who is supposed to come to the window and then call for help. He's trying to calm the kids on the bus, who are yelling and pointing at us. I let the man push me away. I drop to the ground, crouch down, and grab his knee, pulling so that he loses his balance and falls. When he does, he drops out of the kids' line of sight, and they get quiet. The driver gets out of the bus, and starts walking toward the car.

The man tries to get up, and I start stomping and kicking at him, intent on keeping him away from Mom's door. I'm screaming and yelling, "No! You can't have her!" over and over, as he keeps shouting her name and telling her she has to come. When he tries to sit up, I tackle him and try to hold him down, biting into his arms and shoving my knee into his gut, anything I can do to save Mom.

I can hear sirens coming in the distance, but it seems to be taking forever, prolonging the wrestling match for my mother's life. The man, who is bigger and stronger than me, finally pins me to the ground, looking triumphant. Before he can do anything else, the EMS is there, ripping open the car and taking my Mom out into the ambulance. I've delayed him long enough; she's going to make it.

Enraged, the man glares at me, calls me a thief, and tells me that I owe him, and one day he'll show up to collect.

*********************************

I'm sitting in a courtroom, next to a man in a suit. I figure out right away that the man is my lawyer. I'm accused of murdering a neighbor who I can clearly see is very much alive, sitting on the witness stand talking about how I "killed" her. I am thinking that this case should be dismissed, but my lawyer is actually arguing instead, questioning the woman's credibility based on flimsy crap that I know isn't going to stand up, instead of just pointing out that - hey, there she sits, alive, so I can't have killed her!

Witness after witness comes forward to describe heinous acts I never committed against this woman, acts that would be evident if I had, by anything from leaving scars to causing her death. By the end of the trial , I'm incredulous. I can tell by their faces that the jury is convinced I'm a brutal murderer.

They leave the room. I ask my lawyer why he didn't just point out that the woman is not dead. He tells me that doing so would violate her privacy rights, and that if she says she's dead, no one has the right to question that. Again, my jaw is hanging open. I ask, what about my right to a fair trial? Don't I have the right to have all of the facts presented in my defense? I'm told that no, if it involves someone's medical status as living or nonliving, I don't.

I ask how everyone can ignore the obvious, that she is up and moving, talking, coherent, and even testifying in the case. Isn't all of that evidence that she is not dead? According to my lawyer, only an expert such as a doctor is legally allowed to diagnose someone as being alive or dead. Since no such diagnosis was offered, the jury is required to disregard any evidence of the victim's living status.

Finally, the jury returns. The foreman reads off the verdict: Guilty.

Totally shocked, I sit and listen as the judge sentences me to be executed for my crime. The method of execution is that I am to be tied between two posts and chopped to death with a machete. Horrified, I turn to ask my lawyer how many appeals I have, but he's white as a sheet, and there's a bailiff grabbing him from behind. He tells me that he has to serve my sentence with me, and it's going to happen right now. He thought we'd won the case by proving that the woman had been caught lying repeatedly, but we've lost, and there is no appeal. I'm dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the courtroom by a large man. Outside the window, I can see three tall wooden posts. My family, sitting behind the defendant's table, are sobbing and holding each other. I feel like I am going to puke.

The big man starts shoving my hands into looped ropes that tighten around my wrists. I know if I don't get out of this, it's really going to happen. I'm going to feel that blade cutting into me over and over until I die.

I can hear the sharp, wet, squishy sound of the blade slicing into my lawyer, followed by his first of many screams. Another man grabs me, and I know it's too late. I'm done for.

*********************************

I'm at work, at my old job instead of my new one. It's about halfway through a full shift, and I'm getting hungry. I step into the back room and grab the quart of milk I bought to keep me going, and guzzle about half of it. When I come back out to the front counter, my coworker is crouched down on the floor, reaching for a dropped pack of cigarettes. She doesn't pick up the pack, but instead, stays in that position. I call her name. She doesn't answer. I get down to see if she's all right, and I see that her skin has kind of a gray tint to it. As I watch, her cheeks begin to crack and sag, and then her lips, and her lower eyelids. Her hair falls out, and her ears droop out to the sides. she falls over sideways. I back away, looking around for help, but there's no one.

I grab the phone and dial 9-1-1, listening to the phone ring on the other end. No one answers. I run to the cooler to get my boss. She's draped over the drinks, her flesh dripping down onto the floor. I flee the store, heading out to my car, which won't start. Cussing and slamming the door, I run the three blocks home to my apartment, passing wrecked cars and rotting neighbors along the way.

When I finally reach the complex, there's no one outside. I have no idea if people here are all right or not, because I've only seen people inside my store and outdoors. Bursting into the apartment, I see my husband and son sitting on the couches, watching anime online. Relieved, I start to tell them what is happening outside, but as soon as I start to talk, my son's jaw drops, and his tongue rolls out. My husband's lower eyelids begin to droop, and I notice that both of the guys are gray. There is hair all over the cushions around them, and bald spots are forming on their heads.

*********************************

I'm in a shopping mall. It's really crowded, like around the holidays. Everywhere I go, people are staring at me with angry looks on their faces. Whenever I'm not actively shopping, they're running into me on purpose. I'm trying to avoid being in the hallway outside the stores very much. At least when I'm shopping, the other patrons leave me alone.

I find something that I want to buy, take it to the counter, pay, and walk out of one store, headed for another. When I get into the hallway, all of the people there converge on me. Someone takes my bag and runs. I try to go after him, but there are dozens of hands on me, people hitting and kicking, biting, and spitting on me.

I'm screaming and struggling, but I end up on the floor. I realize I'm going to be trampled to death, but I have no idea why everyone is so mad at me. The only feeling I have is that I'm an outsider, and they're attacking because I'm not one of them.

*********************************

That was the last remotely coherent dream I had last night. After that, it descended into a night of faces and noises, and the feeling of things pinching and biting me. I kept almost waking up, then finding myself confronting yet another horror. The last thing I remember before waking was having a sleep paralysis dream where I was in my bed, but I couldn't move. I could see part of the room, but not the whole thing because I couldn't turn my head. Off to the side, I knew there was something waiting for me to stop paying attention so it could attack and eat me. 

All day today, I've been haunted by last night's experiences, mostly the decaying dream and the car accident, with the feelings from the night of the accident cropping up at bad times, like when I was working with customers.