Once again, I have to fight through my own mind to get to the asylum. Prior to that, I'm twelve years old, sitting at a desk in a classroom, working on an in-class assignment that of all things involves counting, organizing, and cleaning a box full of my own shoes. At first, I totally lose myself in the assignment, performing the requirements to the exact specifications given on the instruction sheet. I'm doing this, and thinking about how, when I was a little girl, I used to gather everyone's shoes in the house and clean and polish them when I was stressed. I've never understood why that makes me feel better. It just does.
Suddenly, I realize I'm a little girl, thinking about when I was a little girl. This is a distraction. I need to talk to the "doctor." I'm probably using this to keep from confronting things I'm afraid to see.
As the thought occurs to me, the shoes begin to fade away. The desk I'm in becomes softer, and then the top of it disappears. I'm sitting in that chair in the room I'm staying in at the asylum. He's sitting across from me, and seems to be studying my face. He looks doubtful and a little worried. I feel like he doesn't think I can handle this. I don't feel like I can, either, but I know that if I don't, bad things are going to happen.
The wedding album sits on the table. Other books are there, but I don't think they'll work the way it did. At least, I hope not. There is still a deep, throbbing ache in my chest from learning from that book.
He tells me I should not try to do this so quickly, that I should rest a little. The petite lady/nurse comes around from behind me and brings me a huge cappuccino mug. It smells like there's hot chocolate in it, and when I look, I see marshmallows floating on top. I'm grateful for the concern, but I feel so impatient, and I'm overwhelmingly annoyed at the suggestion of a delay. Yes, it hurts... a lot, actually... but being kept in the dark drives me nuts. Also, it hurts to not know why, after clinging so hard, and trying so hard to not let go, she would turn against me like this.
I tell him I have to know at least that - why is she working with him? I want to know what he's trying to do, what he wants, and what he is, too, but right now I need to know why she is cooperating with him. Why, after working so hard to protect me, would she try to make me vulnerable to someone so obviously harmful and evil? Somehow, thinking about that hurts more than the memories brought back by the book.
He looks like he's trying to figure out what to say. He looks exasperated, too. Three times, he opens his mouth and shuts it again. Finally, he says, "You have to understand, she doesn't see what you do. She sees only what he presents to her, and she knows only what he feeds her."
I don't understand. Is the doc telling me that she could be so easily conned? I can't believe that. My confusion must show on my face, because he shakes his head. "It's not a simple thing. He's using her pain, twisting her emotions. He's not like a whole being - it's like he's made of lies and deception. He doesn't just hide the truth. He banishes it. If he can, he destroys it."
I have an overwhelming sense of deja vu right now. Huge. It feels like I'm being pulled at by that sense. I feel dizzy, and for a moment I close my eyes. When I open them, I'm in the meeting hall where the men dragged in the corpse of the monster.
There are thirteen of us here. We're arguing about what to do. My lady looks horrified, but determined. I feel the same way. We had them beaten, pushed back to where they had broken through, until it came along. It seems to have rallied them, and organized them into something we aren't equipped to confront. We've never seen anything like it, this towering, heaving mass of darkness. I am of the opinion that there's someone inside the dark, hidden, and that is our enemy. One of my allies, traveled here from the outside, thinks otherwise. What he's just told us is creepy. How do you destroy truth? What is left behind when you do? Is that how those monsters were formed?
No, my ally explains. They were what they are before it came along. They're pretty simple, by comparison. They are just hungry. The thing that is darkness is hungry, too, but what it "eats" isn't physical, and it has to poison everything first, for compatibility. If it succeeds, we won't recognize anything around ourselves any more - not even each other, and then he'll keep going. At the edge of my mind, I feel myself thinking about a hidden place, and a people in their infancy as a race. They don't understand. They wouldn't stand a chance. The discussion takes a turn; we are talking about accepting a quarantine. It seems that we have no choice.
I feel the weight of what he's saying slam into me, and it jolts me back to the moment, sitting in that chair at the asylum, looking at him as the doc, thinking about "what he's feeding her." My mind races.
I didn't come back to her, no matter how hard she tried. I didn't even say goodbye. He's made of lies and deception. He has to poison everything. He wants to get through the door. I'm the door.
I feel freezing cold. My whole body shivers. Goose bumps rise on every inch of my skin. Without thinking about it, I sink back into the chair, draw my knees up to my chest, and sip the cocoa, trying to feel warm.
The doc looks worried. "Do you understand? She doesn't know you've changed. She thinks you left. He latched on when she tried to bring you back, and no one knew it had happened until too late. He's been inside the whole time. She doesn't see what he is. She sees something else. She doesn't see how things are. She sees things as being how he can use them to make her do what he wants. She thinks you've let yourself be fooled into some kind of dark allegiance, and abandoned her. He's pulled her pain into anger at you for leaving. He's twisting everything she remembers, everything she feels. He's filling her with resentment and bitterness, poisoning her, so he can use her to get through your defenses. He has made her think that if she wears you down, she can save you from the enemy he's convinced her that we are, and make you return to her. He's using her to try to open you up, and he's making her into an entirely different person than she was. When he gets what he wants, he'll consume her, and discard the empty shell that will be left behind. And he's going to keep poisoning her and twisting who she is, until either you break the connection you made with her, or she breaks you open."
A fiery, liquid rage rises in my chest, and I'm not cold any more. I can feel heat in my face. There's a pounding in my head. Even my eyes feel hot. I want to break things. I want to burn things. I feel my grip tightening on the mug. I'm shaking even harder than before. I can hear someone growling, and for a moment I think they're here, but then I realize it's my voice. I'm going out there right now. I'm going to kill him.
I stand up, and a wave of dizziness hits me. I ignore it. I've got to get out that door. I start stumbling forward. There's a blackness around the edges of my vision. I feel like I'm on fire.
I feel a sharp sting in my left arm. The nurse is standing beside me, eyes wide, brow creased with worry. In her hand, I see a syringe and a hypodermic needle. I look behind me, shocked and angry. What the hell is she doing? I have to get out there. I'm going to burn everything.
My head is heavy. The doc has gotten up from his chair, and is running toward me. He hooks one shoulder under my right arm, and I feel the nurse slide under the other one. I try to push them away, but my limbs won't obey me. They feel like rubber. The cup with the hot chocolate falls from my fingers, but instead of crashing to the floor, it disappears. It feels like I'm falling, too, but I'm not. They're supporting me, guiding me back to the couch. I feel totally impotent, and completely desperate. I have to get my lady away from that thing.
The doc tells me, "Please, don't panic. Don't be angry. He won't do anything while you're here. You will get your chance at him, but you have to heal first. Don't rush in and throw everything away." The last thing I can understand sounds weird, like there's an echo. He keeps talking after that, but it sounds like I'm hearing him through a heavy blanket. I feel the soft cushions of the couch under me. I feel like I'm underwater, struggling to reach the top, except that I can breathe.
It's dark, and I don't feel anything.
When my husband woke me this morning, I had the sense that it had been hours since I lost consciousness. The anger momentarily returned, and I had to fight with it because I didn't want to lash out. I'm still tired. My neighbors were setting off fireworks and shooting guns in the air last night. I have only had a few hours of sleep, not long enough to have experienced the dream I had.
This is starting to fall into the category I think of as serial dreams. I've had them before. I thought that was something I was done with, because it's been a few years. I'm going to have to dig out my old journals and start going through them. There are some similarities here, things I remember. I'm sure that if I read the older entries, I'll find more.
A couple of weeks ago, I started working on a story based on one series of dreams I had as a teen. It involved different dimensions, and powers that would seem magical in reality, but weren't. I wonder if revisiting those dreams is part of the reason this is happening to me now. It feels like I'm working through something huge that runs really deep.
I don't know, though. Maybe I'm just nuts.
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Him again
I'm walking along the side of a lake that is bordered by a lot of big rocks. There isn't exactly a path, just an area that is kind of more flat than the rest, made by smaller rocks and stones. There are also trees and bushes around me, and I can't see very far ahead, but I can hear the repeated sound of something patting against the water.
The foliage starts to thin out as I continue moving forward. I can see a guy up ahead skipping stones along the water. Something about him makes me mildly uneasy, like I'm hanging out with people who are going to get caught doing something unacceptable, and I'm going to be implicated by association. I seriously consider going back the way I came, just to avoid him.
Before I get the chance, he speaks up with my voice, sounding simultaneously petulant and reproachful: "Don't bother, stupid. You can't get away from me."
He flings another stone across the water. This one really goes, traveling quite far and getting several hits before sinking. It moves so fast leaving his hand that it makes a whistling noise.
For a moment, I feel scared because of what he said, but I don't get the feeling that this guy is going to physically harm me. I can tell that he is angry, but he's not acting aggressive. He's sulking. He's also right, I realize. I can't avoid him. If I walk back the way I came, he'll just be somewhere along that path, too.
As I approach more closely, I can see who he is. I've met him before. He's me, but he's not me. I used to try to keep him on a leash, but now I can't do that without destroying part of myself. I was right about my uneasy feeling. This guy gets me into trouble all the time.
I am just a few feet away from him. Now that I know who I'm dealing with, I know I need to get him to talk about what is bothering him. I start to ask, and he cuts me off with "Why are you asking questions without wanting answers?"
He turns and walks away from me. I chase after him, and he runs. The chase takes us into a little brick building. From the outside, it looks unimposing, like maybe a little storage building. Inside, it's quite large and ornate. I can't help but stop to look around. When I do, I realize I'm in the lobby of a courthouse.
He enters a room at the other end of the lobby. I follow. Inside, there is a hearing going on. The judge is me, in a powdered wig, with half-sized bifocals , a robe, and a sledgehammer as a gavel. The prosecutor is also me, in a pantsuit, with a briefcase, rectangular glasses, and a really severe looking bun in my hair. The defense attorney is me with wispy curls, a whimsical tie-dyed hippie dress, and huge, bookworm glasses. There is a "me" baliff, too, a six-foot amazonian thug with short hair, bulging muscles, and no glasses, dressed in a uniform and standing with crossed arms glaring down at the defendant, my boss. There are several versions of me sitting where a jury should be. Most of them don't stand out, but one is dressed in my work uniform, and another is completely naked, though no one seems to notice.
The judge looks up and says, "Is this the witness?" The male me says "Yes, I brought her."
Suddenly I'm on the witness stand. I can see the seats behind the participants, where my family and some of my friends are sitting. The prosecutor gets up and asks me questions about things my boss has done to me and how they have affected my family. As I talk about my experiences with her all in one sitting, I begin to understand why the male me is so upset. The jury is glaring hatefully at the defendant by the time the prosecutor says there are no more questions.
I'm sitting in the audience with my family. The judge is talking, but the boss is turned around and glaring at me. She keeps throwing little things at me, and missing. When one lands close, I realize what she is throwing is little round turds. She is laughing, even though she looks angry. When the turds don't hit me, she pulls a bunch of little knives out of her purse and starts throwing those. They are hitting my family.
I yell for the bailiff, but before she can get there, the male me jumps between my family and my boss. He has a huge club, and begins pounding her while I move my family away out of her reach. He is shouting obscenities as he strikes again and again with the club. She stabs him in the ribs with one of the little knives, but it's tiny and barely does any damage. His club, on the other hand, is leaving huge bruises and even broken bones.
I send my family into another room where they will be safe, and shout for the bailiff to stop the beating. The bailiff rushes over and grabs the male me, pulling him back just as he swings the club at my boss's head. The club grazes the top of her head, and there is blood, but she will survive. Behind her on the desk is one of the cash registers from work. I realize that in the process of beating her, he has smashed it, too.
He looks at me and says, "Really? You're defending her after all she's done?" and then we are back at the lake, and he's skipping stones across the water again. I see several of my co-workers swimming near the edge of the water, and they don't look happy. One of them tells me that they have to just keep swimming here because there is no place else to go.
A shark fin appears behind them, and I tell them to climb out of the water. They look at me sadly, and I realize they can't get out. The shark swims closer, and my male self starts skipping stones at it. It shies away from those, but it is still circling the swimmers. I can see parts of bodies floating in the water, and I realize these are her previous victims.
On the ground beside my male self, I see what looks like a cannon with a harpoon sticking out of it. I tell him to use that on the shark. He gives me a sharp look, and very quickly says, "I have your permission?"
Somehow, I feel like I'm giving him permission to do something much bigger and more complex than this, but if I don't give it, that shark is going to eat the swimmers. I realize that there are versions of me in there, and worse, members of my family as well. Frightened, I tell him, "Yes, do whatever you have to do! Just stop that shark!"
He drops the hand full of little flat stones and grabs the cannon, turning it to aim at the shark. He fires it, and makes a direct hit. The water around the fin darkens with blood. Grabbing the attached rope, he hauls the shark over to where he is standing, then pulls it up out of the water onto the ground. I move closer so I can see it, even though I am terrified of sharks. I see the tail, the back, and the big fin on the top, but above the fin is a manager's uniform shirt from my workplace. Above that, a warped version of my boss's face stares at me. It has human eyes, but a shark's mouth, complete with teeth. The mouth is opening and closing as if she's still trying to bite, but she can't move from the spot where she is, so I am safe. There is a huge gash along the side of the shark body, and the rocks are covered with blood. Down the way from us, the rock border around the lake turns into a beach. One by one, the people in the water pull themselves out onto the shore, including the versions of me, who work together to pull my family out of the water.
The male me looks at her, then at me. I realize that if I don't let it happen this way, she's going to just keep eating people. I have to let him do what he thinks will be most effective, even if I am going to feel bad about how it turns out for her.
The foliage starts to thin out as I continue moving forward. I can see a guy up ahead skipping stones along the water. Something about him makes me mildly uneasy, like I'm hanging out with people who are going to get caught doing something unacceptable, and I'm going to be implicated by association. I seriously consider going back the way I came, just to avoid him.
Before I get the chance, he speaks up with my voice, sounding simultaneously petulant and reproachful: "Don't bother, stupid. You can't get away from me."
He flings another stone across the water. This one really goes, traveling quite far and getting several hits before sinking. It moves so fast leaving his hand that it makes a whistling noise.
For a moment, I feel scared because of what he said, but I don't get the feeling that this guy is going to physically harm me. I can tell that he is angry, but he's not acting aggressive. He's sulking. He's also right, I realize. I can't avoid him. If I walk back the way I came, he'll just be somewhere along that path, too.
As I approach more closely, I can see who he is. I've met him before. He's me, but he's not me. I used to try to keep him on a leash, but now I can't do that without destroying part of myself. I was right about my uneasy feeling. This guy gets me into trouble all the time.
I am just a few feet away from him. Now that I know who I'm dealing with, I know I need to get him to talk about what is bothering him. I start to ask, and he cuts me off with "Why are you asking questions without wanting answers?"
He turns and walks away from me. I chase after him, and he runs. The chase takes us into a little brick building. From the outside, it looks unimposing, like maybe a little storage building. Inside, it's quite large and ornate. I can't help but stop to look around. When I do, I realize I'm in the lobby of a courthouse.
He enters a room at the other end of the lobby. I follow. Inside, there is a hearing going on. The judge is me, in a powdered wig, with half-sized bifocals , a robe, and a sledgehammer as a gavel. The prosecutor is also me, in a pantsuit, with a briefcase, rectangular glasses, and a really severe looking bun in my hair. The defense attorney is me with wispy curls, a whimsical tie-dyed hippie dress, and huge, bookworm glasses. There is a "me" baliff, too, a six-foot amazonian thug with short hair, bulging muscles, and no glasses, dressed in a uniform and standing with crossed arms glaring down at the defendant, my boss. There are several versions of me sitting where a jury should be. Most of them don't stand out, but one is dressed in my work uniform, and another is completely naked, though no one seems to notice.
The judge looks up and says, "Is this the witness?" The male me says "Yes, I brought her."
Suddenly I'm on the witness stand. I can see the seats behind the participants, where my family and some of my friends are sitting. The prosecutor gets up and asks me questions about things my boss has done to me and how they have affected my family. As I talk about my experiences with her all in one sitting, I begin to understand why the male me is so upset. The jury is glaring hatefully at the defendant by the time the prosecutor says there are no more questions.
I'm sitting in the audience with my family. The judge is talking, but the boss is turned around and glaring at me. She keeps throwing little things at me, and missing. When one lands close, I realize what she is throwing is little round turds. She is laughing, even though she looks angry. When the turds don't hit me, she pulls a bunch of little knives out of her purse and starts throwing those. They are hitting my family.
I yell for the bailiff, but before she can get there, the male me jumps between my family and my boss. He has a huge club, and begins pounding her while I move my family away out of her reach. He is shouting obscenities as he strikes again and again with the club. She stabs him in the ribs with one of the little knives, but it's tiny and barely does any damage. His club, on the other hand, is leaving huge bruises and even broken bones.
I send my family into another room where they will be safe, and shout for the bailiff to stop the beating. The bailiff rushes over and grabs the male me, pulling him back just as he swings the club at my boss's head. The club grazes the top of her head, and there is blood, but she will survive. Behind her on the desk is one of the cash registers from work. I realize that in the process of beating her, he has smashed it, too.
He looks at me and says, "Really? You're defending her after all she's done?" and then we are back at the lake, and he's skipping stones across the water again. I see several of my co-workers swimming near the edge of the water, and they don't look happy. One of them tells me that they have to just keep swimming here because there is no place else to go.
A shark fin appears behind them, and I tell them to climb out of the water. They look at me sadly, and I realize they can't get out. The shark swims closer, and my male self starts skipping stones at it. It shies away from those, but it is still circling the swimmers. I can see parts of bodies floating in the water, and I realize these are her previous victims.
On the ground beside my male self, I see what looks like a cannon with a harpoon sticking out of it. I tell him to use that on the shark. He gives me a sharp look, and very quickly says, "I have your permission?"
 | |
| Employees are friends, not food! |
He drops the hand full of little flat stones and grabs the cannon, turning it to aim at the shark. He fires it, and makes a direct hit. The water around the fin darkens with blood. Grabbing the attached rope, he hauls the shark over to where he is standing, then pulls it up out of the water onto the ground. I move closer so I can see it, even though I am terrified of sharks. I see the tail, the back, and the big fin on the top, but above the fin is a manager's uniform shirt from my workplace. Above that, a warped version of my boss's face stares at me. It has human eyes, but a shark's mouth, complete with teeth. The mouth is opening and closing as if she's still trying to bite, but she can't move from the spot where she is, so I am safe. There is a huge gash along the side of the shark body, and the rocks are covered with blood. Down the way from us, the rock border around the lake turns into a beach. One by one, the people in the water pull themselves out onto the shore, including the versions of me, who work together to pull my family out of the water.
The male me looks at her, then at me. I realize that if I don't let it happen this way, she's going to just keep eating people. I have to let him do what he thinks will be most effective, even if I am going to feel bad about how it turns out for her.
Another World
Before last night, I hadn't had this one in a long time. I'd almost forgotten about it.
Growing up, I used to dream all the time that parts of my house were actually portals to another world. I would just walk through the wall like it was an illusion, and I'd be somewhere else. Sometimes, these were just good dreams about going somewhere nice. Other times, the other world was an escape from something that was chasing me.
There was one particular spot that was always the same. I had it again last night, and even though I haven't lived in that house for years, that was still the setting. Everything was as it had been when I was in school.
I am running from a monster that wants to hurt me. I can't see it, but I can hear it thumping and bumping through the house. I outsmart it by running down the hallway, and trying to circle back around to the living room so that I can go out the front door. Unfortunately, the path is blocked, and I cannot get out that way. I turn and go back down the hall, through the foyer, and up the stairs. The monster is falling behind. It can't find me, and it's still downstairs. I can hear it going the wrong way, getting further from where I stand. If I just stay still, it won't know where I am, but it's going to run out of places to look in the downstairs eventually, and then it will come up here anyway. I might as well make a run for it while I have a head start.
I can hear the monster banging around at the furthest part of the house from the stairs. It's right under the room where I'll be going when I run. I have a plan. Carefully, I set myself as if to start a race, and then bolt down the hallway to my parents room. As I near the door, I hear a crash and a series of thumping noises from downstairs as the monster tears through the house toward the stairway.
In my parents room, I jump over the bed and open the window. I quickly turn the lock to hold it open, so that the monster will think I went that way. Then, I run to the closet, enter, and shut the door. The door has a little push-button lock, which I engage. Then, I turn toward the back..
I walk through the wall.
Turning back, I see a screen-and-glass storm door, with a little hook-latch to secure it shut. I engage the latch.
Then, I turn away from that door. I am in kind of a tunnel. In front of me, about three running steps away, is a cheap, thin wooden door, the type you would put on a closet.
I push the door open and go through, turn, and lock it. It has a little twisty button in the middle of the knob.
I turn away from that door, and face the next one. It's another wooden door, but heavier and sturdier. It looks like it would be tough to break this one. Even the hinges are thicker and heavier. I push it open, and go through. On the other side, it has a deadbolt lock and one of those chains that attaches to the wall. I engage both, then turn and face the next door.
I can hear the monster in the bedroom. It's really noisy, pounding on the furniture and stomping around. It roars loudly. I hear it smash the window and the window frame. It steps out onto the roof of the family room, where I hear it thudding around. There, it will discover that there are only two ways down, climbing on the UHF antenna tower that someone put in years ago, or jump. The monster weighs too much to climb that. I don't, but I don't know if it's smart enough to figure that out. It may come back into the room. My heart is beating so loud, I'm sure it must be able to hear it.
I keep going, facing the next door. This one is metal. I think it's aluminum, but it's thick enough that I can feel some serious weight to it when I push on it. I go through, close the door, and turn around. This door has a push-button lock, a deadbolt, a chain, and a metal bar that swings down to block it. I engage them all. It goes well, until I move the bar. That makes a noise, and the monster is instantly quiet. I can't hear anything.
I am terrified. It knows where I am. I can only pray that it doesn't realize it can go through the back of the closet. There is no use trying to be quiet now. In a split second, all hell will break loose on the other side of those doors.
I bolt to the next door. It's much heavier than the last one, and sounds like it's made of steel. Even if I had not made a noise with the bar, the sound of the metal grating against the floor would have gotten the monster's attention. I slam it shut with a loud, echoing thump, turn the deadbolt, engage the extra large, heavy chain, draw the bar, and pull handle that is beside me on the floor. A slim steel panel in the ceiling opens, and a three inch thick, iron portcullis the height and width of the door falls to the floor, inches from my nose. I can't see the top of it. At that, the monster roars loudly enough that I can hear it through even the door I just closed.
I hear the first door crash open, then the second. As the monster begins pounding on the third, I turn away and run. There is a good twenty yard hallway in front of me. There is no discernible source of light, but I can see another door in the distance. I run.
I hear the monster crash through the third door. It slams into fourth with a resounding gong sound. That is not going to hold for very long. As I cross the short distance to the hallway, I can hear that the fourth door is beginning to warp under the pounding it is taking.
I don't go through this door. Here, there is a trap. On the other side is a weapon that will fire hot oil at whoever opens it.
I find a crack in the wall, stick my fingers in it, and pull open the front of one stone. There are two small levers. When I push the first one down, the base drops out from under the last fifteen feet of floor I just crossed. The floor is still there, but anything weighing more than a cat will fall through upon trying to cross. I push the second lever down.
A section of the wall opens. I close the stone. It looks just like the rest of the wall. If you didn't know what to look for, you would never find it.
I go through the opening. On the other side, there is another stone I can open. Inside, I push down another lever, and that closes the wall. It looks as if it had been undisturbed the whole time.
I hear the fourth door give way. The monster roars, almost a scream. The sound sends shards of ice up through my back.. I could begin to cry. Instead, I quietly pray that my tricks will slow it down.
I run down another long hallway toward yet another door. This one is smooth, and it's standing open. There is light on the other side. I hear the monster slam into the steel door with a thunderous crash. I only get one chance to do this. I can hear the door breaking free of the wall, and I can only hope that the portcullis buys me some time, but I have no such luck.. The sound of the portcullis giving way seems distant through the wall. Right after, I hear the surprised yelp of the monster as it falls through the floor, followed by grunts and groans as it hauls itself out of the hole.
I slip through the opening. The vault door is two feet thick, steel-reinforced stone, and is built into an equally strong steel door frame that runs along the wall for a couple of feet on either side. It is incredibly heavy, but the hinges are well oiled, and it's made to assist in closing it. It will be harder to open than it is to close.
Once it is closed, I face a huge wheel in the middle. Turning it counter-clockwise, I activate several rows of two inch thick metal bars which extend out of the middle of the door's thickness, and into the frame on either side, into the ceiling, and deep into the floor. I can hear the monster's angry bellow as it bashes open the last door, and is hit full on by the oil. I hope that in its flailing, it will fall back down into the hole, but instead, I hear it pounding on the walls. Soon, it discovers the secret door, and begins to bash its way through.
I have two final touches. The first, I activate right away. Pulling a lever mounted in the wall, I drop another iron portcullis across the door, and I hear an identical one fall on the other side. I wait. Beside the lever is a handle attached to a chain that hangs from the sloping ceiling. I take hold if that, but do not pull until I hear the monster's footsteps approaching the door. As soon as I hear the metal straining as the monster pulls on it, I give the chain a good hard yank, and sparks jump across the door as thousands of volts are fed through it. On the other side, the monster screams a terrible, thunderous shriek that would put the Bean Sidhe to shame. There are huge clangs and crashing noises as it thrashes around trying to break itself loose from the hold of that current.
I turn from the door and run again, this time into a great hall. There, waiting for me, is a band of knights in armor. They give me a welcoming look, as if I am returning to my home instead of fleeing it.
Each of them is armed with at least three weapons, and they tell me to suit up and arm myself, but to stay back.. Behind them, on the walls, are various medieval weapons.
I'm strong, but not incredibly so. I know I'm not going to be able to handle any of the bigger, heavier weapons enough to do any good. The bow is equally useless, because without having practiced with it, I have no way to predict my aim. I choose a shorter sword. It's still pretty heavy. Between the handle and the blade, it's as long as my arm. Next to that is a suit of armor, but I'm afraid if I put that on, I won't be able to move. Instead, I grab a silvery chain shirt. It's too long, the body reaching my knees, and the sleeves falling down over my hands. I wrap a belt around my waist, sliding a sheath for the sword into place.
On a table, there is what looks like a chain ski mask.. I put that on, as well. It feels weirdly cold against my skin, and I expect it to pull my hair, but I can feel that there is fabric underneath that part of it.
This is as ready as I am going to get. I stand behind my guardians, and listen to the creature bash its way through the door to our world.
The metal doesn't just give way. It explodes into the room, chunks of debris preceding the biggest, most bizarre looking thing I've seen on two legs. He stands twice as tall as the biggest knight in the room. I can feel my stomach drop to my knees, and I momentarily have to fight the urge to heave.
Atop his massive head is a scraggly mess of sporadic strands of hair jutting out in all directions from various points of origin. His upper face, nose included, looks like a Neanderthal man, but below that is more of a huge dog's mouth, including the teeth. His huge, glaring eyes are red, with tiny black irises and black veins that stand out. He has tusks like a warthog. His upper body has the shape of a gorilla, with a massive, hairy chest - much more hair that is on his head. In fact, the further down his body I look, the hairier he gets. His broad shoulders lead to long, muscular arms that end with huge, fuzzy, clawed hands. Below the waist, his legs are bent like those of a four-legged animal. His long, thin feet look catlike, with long, sharp claws sliding in and out under huge tufts of hair on his toes as he moves. A scaly tail snaps back and forth behind him. At the tip is another cat-claw-like appendage that I have a sneaking suspicion would inject poison if it hits anyone.
He leans forward in an aggressive stance, and his jaw unhinges, dropping nearly to his chest, as he shows all of his teeth and lets out a massive roar. He pulls his second pair of arms out from behind his back.. Each of those two hands holds a huge club. Next to his massive size, they look like bowling pins.
The monster rushes forward, and so do the knights, bellowing war-cries of their own. As much as I was afraid for myself moments ago, I now am desperately worried about them. How can they survive fighting such a terrible beast? Yet the first to reach him lands a resounding blow to the gut with a huge morning star, and the creature loses its breath and its momentum.
The second knight uses his shield to shove the monster back further, and then stabs at him with a sword not much longer than the one I chose. The monster swings one of his empty hands, and knocks both knights halfway across the room. They flounder, trying to get back on their feet in their heavy, ungainly armor. I flinch, watching the impact. This is terrible!
The whipping tail comes around and nearly hits another knight, who cannot get out of the way. The biggest knight saves him, slamming his claymore into the claw and knocking it back at the monster. With a howl of pain, the monster grabs at the sword, and swings a massive club at the knight. The knight slices off all of the fingers on the monster's one hand, and he lets out a high, angry shriek..
The battle continues, knights and monster exchanging blows, but it soon becomes clear that we need more knights. The monster is able to stand up to terrible damage, and though the knights are armored well, their armor is slowing them down. I am sobbing with fear and anger as he batters my friends. Soon, he will take one of them down who will not get back up. They are showing signs of fatigue and pain.
The only thing I can do is join the battle, and I'm not very confident that the addition of my hand is going to make much difference. The smallest of my knights is head, shoulders, and chest taller than me. All I have is a glorified dagger, and barely a hint of armor.
Then, there is a break in the action. The monster pounds his way through the line and charges at me. I brace myself, ready to slash at him with the short sword, but I know that there is no way this little toy is going to stop anything that big.
The knights attack from the side, and the monster twists and turns, shoving and throwing them aside with his hands. One knight manages to disarm the hand on his side that is holding a club. On the other side, three knights grab one arm. The monster stretches toward me with his free hands, and wraps that tail around one of the knights. They let go of his arm to help their comrade, and he lunges toward me. I am so startled that I drop the sword.
Thinking quickly, I grab two of the fingers on the hand closest to me and pull as hard as I can, leaning back and hauling his weight around to my left. The monster stumbles, staggers, and falls forward past me as I let go. I have to jump away to the side to avoid getting hit by his flailing legs and that tail, which has whipped its way loose from the knight. I grab the sword and bring it down as hard as I can, not on the monster's back, but on the back of its ankle, slicing through the tendon. The muscle above it immediately snaps up, and the monster screams. Before it can react more than to draw into almost a face-down fetal position, I slice the other ankle, too, and then slash the sword across both of its exposed butt-cheeks. Dark, thick blood oozes from the wounds. It looks like half set up black cherry gelatin.
The knights thrash forward pounce on the creature, bashing and stabbing, before it can get to its knees. That tail comes down into the crowd, but one gauntleted hand grabs it and with a jerk, breaks it off. Then, it's all over, and the pommel of that claymore is sticking out of the back of the beast.
At that moment more knights arrive, bursting in through two big wooden doors at the other end of the room. With them is a lady about my age, who is a little taller than me. She's kind of muscular for a woman, but not so much that she looks like a man. She runs over to me and grabs me by the arms. She looks me over like a mom checking out a kid who just missed getting hit by a car. Her face looks worried.
Her hair is really long, hanging down around her like a golden shawl. She is wearing something that looks like a simplistic but elegant prom dress, and she has jewelry all over. She seems both relieved and disappointed. She proclaims thanks to multiple deities that we are all uninjured, though with the knights that statement is slightly questionable. At least no one was hit by the poison tail, but the men are definitely beaten up.
When I look at her, I realize that I have to go back through that passageway. The longer I am here, the more this place feels like the place where I belong, but if I stay, there will be many more monsters, and many more battles, and they will get hurt. She does not want me to go, but she does not want me to stay, either.
I pull the mask off and lay it on that little table. The woman lays one hand on my cheek and opens her mouth to say something.
This morning, I woke before she could get the words out. I've had this dream periodically from shortly before my teen years. Back then, the lady was just a girl. She didn't have quite as much jewelry, and her hair was shorter.
The last thing she always does is ask me if I am going to stay this time. I can't remember ever having the dream without that happening, except when I am awakened before she speaks to me.
Often, the dream goes past that point. I tell her that I have to go back, until I learn what it is that draws "them" to me. Until I can solve that problem, I am a danger to everyone here. It isn't always the same monster as the one I dreamed of last night, but it is always something horrible and scary.
My friend always insists that I at least have some time, and she is right. I can stay there for a few hours without incident, especially since we've just defeated one. Another won't come along for days.
If I don't wake up before we are done talking, a dinner is laid out, and though the knights are banged up and bruised, we all sit down at this long table and eat. There is an amazing amount and variety of foods at this meal, every thing I've ever eaten and enjoyed. Needless to say, if I get to the dinner, I totally pig out. If I do not wake up before then, I always wake up at some point during that feast, but I can't feel too badly about it. I know they expect me to disappear.
It seems odd to me that in these dreams, I always run to this place, at first to escape, then to receive help, yet at the end, I always have to leave to avoid further endangering everyone there. It seems to me that I've ended up there that way many times, yet it doesn't make sense to me that I would go there when I'm being chased if I'm worried about the safety of those people. Once or twice, there's been some hint or inkling that there is a reason, something to do with having control over where the monster goes and who encounters it... but I've never come to any definitive conclusion, and I still run there whenever I have that dream.
Growing up, I used to dream all the time that parts of my house were actually portals to another world. I would just walk through the wall like it was an illusion, and I'd be somewhere else. Sometimes, these were just good dreams about going somewhere nice. Other times, the other world was an escape from something that was chasing me.
There was one particular spot that was always the same. I had it again last night, and even though I haven't lived in that house for years, that was still the setting. Everything was as it had been when I was in school.
I am running from a monster that wants to hurt me. I can't see it, but I can hear it thumping and bumping through the house. I outsmart it by running down the hallway, and trying to circle back around to the living room so that I can go out the front door. Unfortunately, the path is blocked, and I cannot get out that way. I turn and go back down the hall, through the foyer, and up the stairs. The monster is falling behind. It can't find me, and it's still downstairs. I can hear it going the wrong way, getting further from where I stand. If I just stay still, it won't know where I am, but it's going to run out of places to look in the downstairs eventually, and then it will come up here anyway. I might as well make a run for it while I have a head start.
I can hear the monster banging around at the furthest part of the house from the stairs. It's right under the room where I'll be going when I run. I have a plan. Carefully, I set myself as if to start a race, and then bolt down the hallway to my parents room. As I near the door, I hear a crash and a series of thumping noises from downstairs as the monster tears through the house toward the stairway.
In my parents room, I jump over the bed and open the window. I quickly turn the lock to hold it open, so that the monster will think I went that way. Then, I run to the closet, enter, and shut the door. The door has a little push-button lock, which I engage. Then, I turn toward the back..
I walk through the wall.
Turning back, I see a screen-and-glass storm door, with a little hook-latch to secure it shut. I engage the latch.
Then, I turn away from that door. I am in kind of a tunnel. In front of me, about three running steps away, is a cheap, thin wooden door, the type you would put on a closet.
I push the door open and go through, turn, and lock it. It has a little twisty button in the middle of the knob.
I turn away from that door, and face the next one. It's another wooden door, but heavier and sturdier. It looks like it would be tough to break this one. Even the hinges are thicker and heavier. I push it open, and go through. On the other side, it has a deadbolt lock and one of those chains that attaches to the wall. I engage both, then turn and face the next door.
I can hear the monster in the bedroom. It's really noisy, pounding on the furniture and stomping around. It roars loudly. I hear it smash the window and the window frame. It steps out onto the roof of the family room, where I hear it thudding around. There, it will discover that there are only two ways down, climbing on the UHF antenna tower that someone put in years ago, or jump. The monster weighs too much to climb that. I don't, but I don't know if it's smart enough to figure that out. It may come back into the room. My heart is beating so loud, I'm sure it must be able to hear it.
I keep going, facing the next door. This one is metal. I think it's aluminum, but it's thick enough that I can feel some serious weight to it when I push on it. I go through, close the door, and turn around. This door has a push-button lock, a deadbolt, a chain, and a metal bar that swings down to block it. I engage them all. It goes well, until I move the bar. That makes a noise, and the monster is instantly quiet. I can't hear anything.
I am terrified. It knows where I am. I can only pray that it doesn't realize it can go through the back of the closet. There is no use trying to be quiet now. In a split second, all hell will break loose on the other side of those doors.
I bolt to the next door. It's much heavier than the last one, and sounds like it's made of steel. Even if I had not made a noise with the bar, the sound of the metal grating against the floor would have gotten the monster's attention. I slam it shut with a loud, echoing thump, turn the deadbolt, engage the extra large, heavy chain, draw the bar, and pull handle that is beside me on the floor. A slim steel panel in the ceiling opens, and a three inch thick, iron portcullis the height and width of the door falls to the floor, inches from my nose. I can't see the top of it. At that, the monster roars loudly enough that I can hear it through even the door I just closed.
I hear the first door crash open, then the second. As the monster begins pounding on the third, I turn away and run. There is a good twenty yard hallway in front of me. There is no discernible source of light, but I can see another door in the distance. I run.
I hear the monster crash through the third door. It slams into fourth with a resounding gong sound. That is not going to hold for very long. As I cross the short distance to the hallway, I can hear that the fourth door is beginning to warp under the pounding it is taking.
I don't go through this door. Here, there is a trap. On the other side is a weapon that will fire hot oil at whoever opens it.
I find a crack in the wall, stick my fingers in it, and pull open the front of one stone. There are two small levers. When I push the first one down, the base drops out from under the last fifteen feet of floor I just crossed. The floor is still there, but anything weighing more than a cat will fall through upon trying to cross. I push the second lever down.
A section of the wall opens. I close the stone. It looks just like the rest of the wall. If you didn't know what to look for, you would never find it.
I go through the opening. On the other side, there is another stone I can open. Inside, I push down another lever, and that closes the wall. It looks as if it had been undisturbed the whole time.
I hear the fourth door give way. The monster roars, almost a scream. The sound sends shards of ice up through my back.. I could begin to cry. Instead, I quietly pray that my tricks will slow it down.
I run down another long hallway toward yet another door. This one is smooth, and it's standing open. There is light on the other side. I hear the monster slam into the steel door with a thunderous crash. I only get one chance to do this. I can hear the door breaking free of the wall, and I can only hope that the portcullis buys me some time, but I have no such luck.. The sound of the portcullis giving way seems distant through the wall. Right after, I hear the surprised yelp of the monster as it falls through the floor, followed by grunts and groans as it hauls itself out of the hole.
I slip through the opening. The vault door is two feet thick, steel-reinforced stone, and is built into an equally strong steel door frame that runs along the wall for a couple of feet on either side. It is incredibly heavy, but the hinges are well oiled, and it's made to assist in closing it. It will be harder to open than it is to close.
Once it is closed, I face a huge wheel in the middle. Turning it counter-clockwise, I activate several rows of two inch thick metal bars which extend out of the middle of the door's thickness, and into the frame on either side, into the ceiling, and deep into the floor. I can hear the monster's angry bellow as it bashes open the last door, and is hit full on by the oil. I hope that in its flailing, it will fall back down into the hole, but instead, I hear it pounding on the walls. Soon, it discovers the secret door, and begins to bash its way through.
I have two final touches. The first, I activate right away. Pulling a lever mounted in the wall, I drop another iron portcullis across the door, and I hear an identical one fall on the other side. I wait. Beside the lever is a handle attached to a chain that hangs from the sloping ceiling. I take hold if that, but do not pull until I hear the monster's footsteps approaching the door. As soon as I hear the metal straining as the monster pulls on it, I give the chain a good hard yank, and sparks jump across the door as thousands of volts are fed through it. On the other side, the monster screams a terrible, thunderous shriek that would put the Bean Sidhe to shame. There are huge clangs and crashing noises as it thrashes around trying to break itself loose from the hold of that current.
I turn from the door and run again, this time into a great hall. There, waiting for me, is a band of knights in armor. They give me a welcoming look, as if I am returning to my home instead of fleeing it.
Each of them is armed with at least three weapons, and they tell me to suit up and arm myself, but to stay back.. Behind them, on the walls, are various medieval weapons.
I'm strong, but not incredibly so. I know I'm not going to be able to handle any of the bigger, heavier weapons enough to do any good. The bow is equally useless, because without having practiced with it, I have no way to predict my aim. I choose a shorter sword. It's still pretty heavy. Between the handle and the blade, it's as long as my arm. Next to that is a suit of armor, but I'm afraid if I put that on, I won't be able to move. Instead, I grab a silvery chain shirt. It's too long, the body reaching my knees, and the sleeves falling down over my hands. I wrap a belt around my waist, sliding a sheath for the sword into place.
On a table, there is what looks like a chain ski mask.. I put that on, as well. It feels weirdly cold against my skin, and I expect it to pull my hair, but I can feel that there is fabric underneath that part of it.
This is as ready as I am going to get. I stand behind my guardians, and listen to the creature bash its way through the door to our world.
The metal doesn't just give way. It explodes into the room, chunks of debris preceding the biggest, most bizarre looking thing I've seen on two legs. He stands twice as tall as the biggest knight in the room. I can feel my stomach drop to my knees, and I momentarily have to fight the urge to heave.
Atop his massive head is a scraggly mess of sporadic strands of hair jutting out in all directions from various points of origin. His upper face, nose included, looks like a Neanderthal man, but below that is more of a huge dog's mouth, including the teeth. His huge, glaring eyes are red, with tiny black irises and black veins that stand out. He has tusks like a warthog. His upper body has the shape of a gorilla, with a massive, hairy chest - much more hair that is on his head. In fact, the further down his body I look, the hairier he gets. His broad shoulders lead to long, muscular arms that end with huge, fuzzy, clawed hands. Below the waist, his legs are bent like those of a four-legged animal. His long, thin feet look catlike, with long, sharp claws sliding in and out under huge tufts of hair on his toes as he moves. A scaly tail snaps back and forth behind him. At the tip is another cat-claw-like appendage that I have a sneaking suspicion would inject poison if it hits anyone.
He leans forward in an aggressive stance, and his jaw unhinges, dropping nearly to his chest, as he shows all of his teeth and lets out a massive roar. He pulls his second pair of arms out from behind his back.. Each of those two hands holds a huge club. Next to his massive size, they look like bowling pins.
The monster rushes forward, and so do the knights, bellowing war-cries of their own. As much as I was afraid for myself moments ago, I now am desperately worried about them. How can they survive fighting such a terrible beast? Yet the first to reach him lands a resounding blow to the gut with a huge morning star, and the creature loses its breath and its momentum.
The second knight uses his shield to shove the monster back further, and then stabs at him with a sword not much longer than the one I chose. The monster swings one of his empty hands, and knocks both knights halfway across the room. They flounder, trying to get back on their feet in their heavy, ungainly armor. I flinch, watching the impact. This is terrible!
The whipping tail comes around and nearly hits another knight, who cannot get out of the way. The biggest knight saves him, slamming his claymore into the claw and knocking it back at the monster. With a howl of pain, the monster grabs at the sword, and swings a massive club at the knight. The knight slices off all of the fingers on the monster's one hand, and he lets out a high, angry shriek..
The battle continues, knights and monster exchanging blows, but it soon becomes clear that we need more knights. The monster is able to stand up to terrible damage, and though the knights are armored well, their armor is slowing them down. I am sobbing with fear and anger as he batters my friends. Soon, he will take one of them down who will not get back up. They are showing signs of fatigue and pain.
The only thing I can do is join the battle, and I'm not very confident that the addition of my hand is going to make much difference. The smallest of my knights is head, shoulders, and chest taller than me. All I have is a glorified dagger, and barely a hint of armor.
Then, there is a break in the action. The monster pounds his way through the line and charges at me. I brace myself, ready to slash at him with the short sword, but I know that there is no way this little toy is going to stop anything that big.
The knights attack from the side, and the monster twists and turns, shoving and throwing them aside with his hands. One knight manages to disarm the hand on his side that is holding a club. On the other side, three knights grab one arm. The monster stretches toward me with his free hands, and wraps that tail around one of the knights. They let go of his arm to help their comrade, and he lunges toward me. I am so startled that I drop the sword.
Thinking quickly, I grab two of the fingers on the hand closest to me and pull as hard as I can, leaning back and hauling his weight around to my left. The monster stumbles, staggers, and falls forward past me as I let go. I have to jump away to the side to avoid getting hit by his flailing legs and that tail, which has whipped its way loose from the knight. I grab the sword and bring it down as hard as I can, not on the monster's back, but on the back of its ankle, slicing through the tendon. The muscle above it immediately snaps up, and the monster screams. Before it can react more than to draw into almost a face-down fetal position, I slice the other ankle, too, and then slash the sword across both of its exposed butt-cheeks. Dark, thick blood oozes from the wounds. It looks like half set up black cherry gelatin.
The knights thrash forward pounce on the creature, bashing and stabbing, before it can get to its knees. That tail comes down into the crowd, but one gauntleted hand grabs it and with a jerk, breaks it off. Then, it's all over, and the pommel of that claymore is sticking out of the back of the beast.
At that moment more knights arrive, bursting in through two big wooden doors at the other end of the room. With them is a lady about my age, who is a little taller than me. She's kind of muscular for a woman, but not so much that she looks like a man. She runs over to me and grabs me by the arms. She looks me over like a mom checking out a kid who just missed getting hit by a car. Her face looks worried.
Her hair is really long, hanging down around her like a golden shawl. She is wearing something that looks like a simplistic but elegant prom dress, and she has jewelry all over. She seems both relieved and disappointed. She proclaims thanks to multiple deities that we are all uninjured, though with the knights that statement is slightly questionable. At least no one was hit by the poison tail, but the men are definitely beaten up.
When I look at her, I realize that I have to go back through that passageway. The longer I am here, the more this place feels like the place where I belong, but if I stay, there will be many more monsters, and many more battles, and they will get hurt. She does not want me to go, but she does not want me to stay, either.
I pull the mask off and lay it on that little table. The woman lays one hand on my cheek and opens her mouth to say something.
This morning, I woke before she could get the words out. I've had this dream periodically from shortly before my teen years. Back then, the lady was just a girl. She didn't have quite as much jewelry, and her hair was shorter.
The last thing she always does is ask me if I am going to stay this time. I can't remember ever having the dream without that happening, except when I am awakened before she speaks to me.
Often, the dream goes past that point. I tell her that I have to go back, until I learn what it is that draws "them" to me. Until I can solve that problem, I am a danger to everyone here. It isn't always the same monster as the one I dreamed of last night, but it is always something horrible and scary.
My friend always insists that I at least have some time, and she is right. I can stay there for a few hours without incident, especially since we've just defeated one. Another won't come along for days.
If I don't wake up before we are done talking, a dinner is laid out, and though the knights are banged up and bruised, we all sit down at this long table and eat. There is an amazing amount and variety of foods at this meal, every thing I've ever eaten and enjoyed. Needless to say, if I get to the dinner, I totally pig out. If I do not wake up before then, I always wake up at some point during that feast, but I can't feel too badly about it. I know they expect me to disappear.
It seems odd to me that in these dreams, I always run to this place, at first to escape, then to receive help, yet at the end, I always have to leave to avoid further endangering everyone there. It seems to me that I've ended up there that way many times, yet it doesn't make sense to me that I would go there when I'm being chased if I'm worried about the safety of those people. Once or twice, there's been some hint or inkling that there is a reason, something to do with having control over where the monster goes and who encounters it... but I've never come to any definitive conclusion, and I still run there whenever I have that dream.
Saving the Children
This dream is not a recurring dream, but it is part of a recurring theme. Every so often, I dream of having to rescue, or having rescued, a group of mostly inept or helpless people. I have to get them from where they are to a safer place. Sometimes I'm removing them from the vicinity of a natural or man-made disaster. Other times, there's an enemy or a monster (or several) chasing us. This time I was rescuing kids, and there was a group of people chasing us. The enemy's function and motive were undefined. I just knew that they meant the kids, who they had taken from their families, some kind of harm, and that it had to do with some goal they were trying to achieve.
The kids I am rescuing had been kidnapped by the other side in a war. I don't remember why the enemy wanted the kids, just that whatever they wanted them for was even more harmful and dastardly than the act of taking them away from their families in the first place, which would have been bad enough. I am the only full adult, but the oldest kids are in their mid teens. They are helping me keep track of the younger kids. I am terrified for all of them, afraid that they will get separated from the group, or that one of them will be injured or killed as we hurry away from the site of their captivity. We are being pursued, and even though we can't see anyone, it feels to me like our enemy is right on our heels. I keep trying to look everywhere at once.
I have taken the children from the facility in which they were being held. It was bigger than a house, but I all ready cannot remember what it actually looked like. We are fleeing through a wooded area, where we have to avoid fights between small groups of men. Some of them are so close that we can hear them shouting between bouts of gunfire so loud it is hard for us to hear each other over it. We cannot tell who is on what side, and even if we find some of our own troops, they may not be able to help us. In fact, we would be endangering them. We must avoid everyone. We listen carefully and change direction often to avoid running into combat areas. I am afraid one or more of us could be hit by a stray bullet, but we have no choice except to keep going through this area.
We are headed for our known safe point, which is the home where my parents-in-law live, about 80 miles away from the area where we're fleeing, near where I live now. My mother-in-law is waiting at her house for us with food and a place for the kids to rest. The distance seems impossible, but there is no place closer that would be safe for us to even rest for a few hours. We have to get there, or the kidnappers will catch us... if their allies don't find us and shoot us first.
In responding to what the evidence I can see, hear, and remember from our escape tells me the enemy is or should be doing in pursuit of regaining the rescued children, I keep finding myself actually a step ahead of them. We go through heavily wooded areas instead of areas that would be easy to pass. We come across a scared deer, and send it off through the woods. We go a different direction than it does, but still maintain a close connection to our course.
To avoid leaving obvious footprints, we are walking through brush, rather than on dirt paths. We have fabric tied around our feet up to our knees to keep poison plants (ivy, sumac, etc) from causing rashes. Taller kids are carrying littler ones through higher patches of brush. I am carrying a little boy. We find a dead enemy soldier. We can tell he's one of them by the symbol on his sleeve. It looks like a fat white capital letter U, woven through a red and blue infinity symbol, over top of a black background.
At one point, I am watching enemy searchers from a vantage point of being one of them. They are totally inappropriately dressed for being a wooded-area search party. Most of them are in business formal dress; suits, or slacks and pressed shirts, ties, skirts and blouses, all in blacks, grays, whites, and dark blues. All of them are wearing various highly polished black dress shoes. Some of the women even have pumps on with high heels. Their hair is neatly styled. All of them have that same patch somewhere on their upper-body clothing. They appear to be ignoring the difficulty they should be having moving through the woods dressed like that.
One searcher has a black brief case with a wire sticking out of it, but I can't see where the wire goes. He is looking for us on a path and figures out our trick, so he starts searching among the plants. While examining them closely, he realizes that he has exposed his legs, arms, hands, and face to the poisonous weeds. He panicks and tells everyone he is extremely sensitive, and they all get these gravely serious looks on their faces. He turns a pleading look at another searcher, a severe-looking lady with a perfectly coiffed brown pageboy cut (not a hair out of place) and a totally church-lady outfit. I get the feeling she knows something about him beyond what has just been said, something the other searchers somewhat know, but do not understand as fully as she does. She looks sympathetic, and pulls a gun from a totally out of place camouflage-patterned duffel bag she has over her shoulder and shoots him in the head. He actually looks relieved as he falls. It is like he is grateful for being shot. I get the feeling she has spared him an extremely torturous ordeal that would have killed him in the end, anyway.
The scene goes back to us. I know we are close to the city that is our destination. We have traveled over 70 miles, mostly through woods and across farmers' fields. We are filthy and tired, but no one has gotten hurt. The kids are scared, but not as much as when we first left, because we have not had any big scares along the way. We know that we still have some way to go, and the people chasing us are still not far enough away for us to rest. Older kids are carrying younger kids on their backs.
We come to an area where we have no choice but to go in the open for a while, through an area with grass and weeds that only come up to my knees.. There is no one within sight, and the sky seems clear of flying vehicles. I admonish the kids to listen for jet or plane engines, or the chopping of a helicopter. I tell them to keep their eye on me. I show them a signal to watch for, and if they see it, they should lay down in the brush. Our clothes are dirty and stained enough to blend in from that far away.
On the other side of the brush there is a creek. We can easily cross it. Once we are on the other side of it, something about that area will make it much more dangerous, but not impossible, for our pursuers to continue to chase after us. There is something about the kids that would make it worth risking their lives to come into that area, but the risk to us will be much less after we cross. We start across the field. We are too far away from any action to hear people shouting. Off in the distance, though, we can hear gunfire coming from various skirmishes. It sounds almost like firecrackers.
I did not dream the scene of getting to where we were going, but I do not have that "unfinished" feeling that comes with dreams like this when I don't finish them. It feels like we got there and were put in touch with the next step of our journey - connecting the kids back to their respective parents. Basically, it felt like I managed to do the right things along the route we took, and we were "out of the woods," but I didn't get to dream the sequence of the story's happy conclusion.
The kids I am rescuing had been kidnapped by the other side in a war. I don't remember why the enemy wanted the kids, just that whatever they wanted them for was even more harmful and dastardly than the act of taking them away from their families in the first place, which would have been bad enough. I am the only full adult, but the oldest kids are in their mid teens. They are helping me keep track of the younger kids. I am terrified for all of them, afraid that they will get separated from the group, or that one of them will be injured or killed as we hurry away from the site of their captivity. We are being pursued, and even though we can't see anyone, it feels to me like our enemy is right on our heels. I keep trying to look everywhere at once.
I have taken the children from the facility in which they were being held. It was bigger than a house, but I all ready cannot remember what it actually looked like. We are fleeing through a wooded area, where we have to avoid fights between small groups of men. Some of them are so close that we can hear them shouting between bouts of gunfire so loud it is hard for us to hear each other over it. We cannot tell who is on what side, and even if we find some of our own troops, they may not be able to help us. In fact, we would be endangering them. We must avoid everyone. We listen carefully and change direction often to avoid running into combat areas. I am afraid one or more of us could be hit by a stray bullet, but we have no choice except to keep going through this area.
We are headed for our known safe point, which is the home where my parents-in-law live, about 80 miles away from the area where we're fleeing, near where I live now. My mother-in-law is waiting at her house for us with food and a place for the kids to rest. The distance seems impossible, but there is no place closer that would be safe for us to even rest for a few hours. We have to get there, or the kidnappers will catch us... if their allies don't find us and shoot us first.
In responding to what the evidence I can see, hear, and remember from our escape tells me the enemy is or should be doing in pursuit of regaining the rescued children, I keep finding myself actually a step ahead of them. We go through heavily wooded areas instead of areas that would be easy to pass. We come across a scared deer, and send it off through the woods. We go a different direction than it does, but still maintain a close connection to our course.
To avoid leaving obvious footprints, we are walking through brush, rather than on dirt paths. We have fabric tied around our feet up to our knees to keep poison plants (ivy, sumac, etc) from causing rashes. Taller kids are carrying littler ones through higher patches of brush. I am carrying a little boy. We find a dead enemy soldier. We can tell he's one of them by the symbol on his sleeve. It looks like a fat white capital letter U, woven through a red and blue infinity symbol, over top of a black background.
 | |||
| (Kind of like this) |
One searcher has a black brief case with a wire sticking out of it, but I can't see where the wire goes. He is looking for us on a path and figures out our trick, so he starts searching among the plants. While examining them closely, he realizes that he has exposed his legs, arms, hands, and face to the poisonous weeds. He panicks and tells everyone he is extremely sensitive, and they all get these gravely serious looks on their faces. He turns a pleading look at another searcher, a severe-looking lady with a perfectly coiffed brown pageboy cut (not a hair out of place) and a totally church-lady outfit. I get the feeling she knows something about him beyond what has just been said, something the other searchers somewhat know, but do not understand as fully as she does. She looks sympathetic, and pulls a gun from a totally out of place camouflage-patterned duffel bag she has over her shoulder and shoots him in the head. He actually looks relieved as he falls. It is like he is grateful for being shot. I get the feeling she has spared him an extremely torturous ordeal that would have killed him in the end, anyway.
The scene goes back to us. I know we are close to the city that is our destination. We have traveled over 70 miles, mostly through woods and across farmers' fields. We are filthy and tired, but no one has gotten hurt. The kids are scared, but not as much as when we first left, because we have not had any big scares along the way. We know that we still have some way to go, and the people chasing us are still not far enough away for us to rest. Older kids are carrying younger kids on their backs.
We come to an area where we have no choice but to go in the open for a while, through an area with grass and weeds that only come up to my knees.. There is no one within sight, and the sky seems clear of flying vehicles. I admonish the kids to listen for jet or plane engines, or the chopping of a helicopter. I tell them to keep their eye on me. I show them a signal to watch for, and if they see it, they should lay down in the brush. Our clothes are dirty and stained enough to blend in from that far away.
On the other side of the brush there is a creek. We can easily cross it. Once we are on the other side of it, something about that area will make it much more dangerous, but not impossible, for our pursuers to continue to chase after us. There is something about the kids that would make it worth risking their lives to come into that area, but the risk to us will be much less after we cross. We start across the field. We are too far away from any action to hear people shouting. Off in the distance, though, we can hear gunfire coming from various skirmishes. It sounds almost like firecrackers.
I did not dream the scene of getting to where we were going, but I do not have that "unfinished" feeling that comes with dreams like this when I don't finish them. It feels like we got there and were put in touch with the next step of our journey - connecting the kids back to their respective parents. Basically, it felt like I managed to do the right things along the route we took, and we were "out of the woods," but I didn't get to dream the sequence of the story's happy conclusion.
Time Warp
This one is a recurring dream. I have a lot of recurring dreams, some which are and/or should be much more upsetting than this, but this dream always leaves me with a huge feeling of loss and distress.
I'm in the doorway of a building. The building itself is made of big stone bricks, each probably about two feet long. The original door frame is made of slabs of the same stone, but there is a wooden door frame inside that. The door is big and heavy, and is standing part way open, just enough for me to lean out. Either I am short, or the door is very tall (and the ceiling very high).
The handle, which is long and curved rather than a round knob, is next to my shoulder. The street I'm looking
out at is made of cobblestones rather than paved, and there are big pot holes in it. There don't seem to be sidewalks, or at least I don't notice them. I don't see any grass, either. I am wearing a dress that feels like something out of Little House on the Prairie, but without the bonnet the girls on that show always wore.
Outside is chaos. Fire falls screaming from the sky. Everywhere it lands, there is an explosion. People are running, trying to get into buildings, with a few running from one building to another, and some just running down the street.
My main concentration is on a woman running toward me. Much about the way she looks reminds me (when I am awake) of Ma Kettle (Marjory Main) if Ma Kettle weighed more. She is moderately heavyset, but her face isn't fat. She's chesty (gravity has taken its toll) and has her dark hair up in a loose bun. The front puffs out just a little too much, and some strands have come free in front,
and are flopping around her face as she runs. Her dress is of a mostly plain style with long sleeves, but there are flowers on it. Her flat-heeled boots, the fanciest thing about her, lace up and are taller than the hem of her skirt, even though she has it hiked up so she can run. She has no jewelry.
I am yelling at her. By how fast I put the syllables together, I'm yelling two words. The first fast group of syllables is HAH-dah-sah, with all of the "a" sounds being like the a in ball. The second fast group of syllables was LOW-fin, with the ow in LOW sounding like the ow in brown and "i" in fin being so short it almost isn't there. I said the first fast group a lot more than the second. The woman is running right for the door and is only about ten yards away when fire lands on the back end of a big green truck - it is about the same size as one of the smaller U-haul trucks - and it launches into the air, turns over, and falls with the big flat back on top of her, covering her completely so I can't see her. I know she has been crushed. I yell the first three syllables again, drawing out the last "ah" sound and I'm going to say something else, but that is when I always wake up.
I don't know where the heck a dream like that would come from, except that maybe I saw it in a movie when I was a little kid - I used to sneak out of my room and hide and watch whatever Mom and Dad were watching - but in the dream I can feel the cold of the stone wall against my hand, wind blowing on my face, and the warmth of the indoors against my back, and I can smell smoke and dirt, and I always wake up from this feeling heartbroken.
I have posted about this dream before, in another blog. I was informed by a couple of commenters on that blog that the words I couldn't identify may have been real. One said that the word HAH-dah-sah is probably the name Hadassah, the Hebrew name of Queen Esther. Another agreed, then told me that Lowfin may have been the German word, laufen, pronounced the way I wrote it. Laufen means to jog, the commenter wrote, and theorized that I may have been yelling for Hadassah to run. He said the way I pronounced it as a command addressing someone formally such as a boss. It makes me think that maybe I am dreaming a scene I saw in a movie. I wonder if maybe the woman was the little girl's family member, or nanny.
I'm in the doorway of a building. The building itself is made of big stone bricks, each probably about two feet long. The original door frame is made of slabs of the same stone, but there is a wooden door frame inside that. The door is big and heavy, and is standing part way open, just enough for me to lean out. Either I am short, or the door is very tall (and the ceiling very high).
The handle, which is long and curved rather than a round knob, is next to my shoulder. The street I'm looking
out at is made of cobblestones rather than paved, and there are big pot holes in it. There don't seem to be sidewalks, or at least I don't notice them. I don't see any grass, either. I am wearing a dress that feels like something out of Little House on the Prairie, but without the bonnet the girls on that show always wore.
Outside is chaos. Fire falls screaming from the sky. Everywhere it lands, there is an explosion. People are running, trying to get into buildings, with a few running from one building to another, and some just running down the street.
My main concentration is on a woman running toward me. Much about the way she looks reminds me (when I am awake) of Ma Kettle (Marjory Main) if Ma Kettle weighed more. She is moderately heavyset, but her face isn't fat. She's chesty (gravity has taken its toll) and has her dark hair up in a loose bun. The front puffs out just a little too much, and some strands have come free in front,
and are flopping around her face as she runs. Her dress is of a mostly plain style with long sleeves, but there are flowers on it. Her flat-heeled boots, the fanciest thing about her, lace up and are taller than the hem of her skirt, even though she has it hiked up so she can run. She has no jewelry.
I am yelling at her. By how fast I put the syllables together, I'm yelling two words. The first fast group of syllables is HAH-dah-sah, with all of the "a" sounds being like the a in ball. The second fast group of syllables was LOW-fin, with the ow in LOW sounding like the ow in brown and "i" in fin being so short it almost isn't there. I said the first fast group a lot more than the second. The woman is running right for the door and is only about ten yards away when fire lands on the back end of a big green truck - it is about the same size as one of the smaller U-haul trucks - and it launches into the air, turns over, and falls with the big flat back on top of her, covering her completely so I can't see her. I know she has been crushed. I yell the first three syllables again, drawing out the last "ah" sound and I'm going to say something else, but that is when I always wake up.
I don't know where the heck a dream like that would come from, except that maybe I saw it in a movie when I was a little kid - I used to sneak out of my room and hide and watch whatever Mom and Dad were watching - but in the dream I can feel the cold of the stone wall against my hand, wind blowing on my face, and the warmth of the indoors against my back, and I can smell smoke and dirt, and I always wake up from this feeling heartbroken.
I have posted about this dream before, in another blog. I was informed by a couple of commenters on that blog that the words I couldn't identify may have been real. One said that the word HAH-dah-sah is probably the name Hadassah, the Hebrew name of Queen Esther. Another agreed, then told me that Lowfin may have been the German word, laufen, pronounced the way I wrote it. Laufen means to jog, the commenter wrote, and theorized that I may have been yelling for Hadassah to run. He said the way I pronounced it as a command addressing someone formally such as a boss. It makes me think that maybe I am dreaming a scene I saw in a movie. I wonder if maybe the woman was the little girl's family member, or nanny.
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