Dream
1/?/23
Ripples in the Darkness
My first “nightmare” in years— that is, the first time I remember feeling the fear and not “witnessing” it as a watcher, and even waking up stressed. It’s a WW3 dream, the city is being bombed, everyone sheltered together and scared, my family particularly. “It never said Leon (dads friend) made it back on his train safe” my Mom says. He’s dead, I think, remembering his train was attacked. “Your Dad is worried.” I need to be strong for them, but looking back from the waking world, I know it was only false arrogance. I don’t exactly remember what happens next, I think we begin getting bombed, but I “wake up” one level closer to reality and it is no longer a dream within a dream, but just a dream. I’m in my old bed in my old room, and it’s before I moved out, yet I’m still 22 and I wake up, nervous, and go to find my handgun to calm me as in this dream WW3 is also still a thing. My cousin David walks in, catching me off guard. He looks different and it’s not exactly him, but I know it is at the same time. The war has changed him. My eyes pass back over my gun, but I notice it had changed, now seeming to look like an auto pistol from an old CoD game. My cousin tells me a few random facts about it as if he recognized it as well, but at that exact moment there’s a distant boom, and we look out my window to see missiles flying through the skies. One makes it right outside, and dives down outside the building. It happens in an instant, but in the half instant before the explosion, I think we might be ok. Nope. There’s a boom and everything explodes, in another half instant I’m thrown by the force, in the next half instant, I’m dead. Everything goes black, and my last sight is of white color in the center of darkness fading/rippling into nothing, as if I'm witnessing my own consciousness fade into the void. Picture below.
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Dream
1/9/24
Thirst for Blood
I was a vampire, and the only way to prevent myself from turning into one occasionally was to eat insane amounts of food, but what really prevented it was an inhaler I seemed to have. My family and I were in the middle of nowhere, and then suddenly I realized the inhaler battery (?) died. I start freaking out as the house for some reason has no plugs, and there is nowhere near enough food to keep me from changing. To represent my time left, there were these ancient six-sided dice that I would roll, and it would show me how long I had left till I turned. Only my friend Henry knew I was a vampire, but I hadn’t seen him in forever. And of course, I can’t tell my family. But the inhaler is dead, and the clock is ticking, so while my mom is driving us to the store, I make up some reason to get out of the car at a stoplight and plug in the inhaler into a light post extension cord. My family seems to have no idea. On our way back, I tried to create another distraction as the dice kept flashing in my head, and I could see an imagined timer running out. But before I could think of something, the light turns green and we’re on our way home. As I’m getting more and more anxious, my mom begins to get mad at me for continuing to try and make her stop for seemingly no reason. Eventually I give up, but then when we get home, she parks blocking my car in. After getting one more inhale in and going inside, I am forced into some family event for hours, and can feel myself slipping. I keep getting up to eat, to drink, but these things are so insignificant compared to the inhaler, I’m merely buying myself minutes, or even seconds. Finally I can feel myself start to sweat, and my mind gets cloudy, I’m running out of time. So in the middle of game night I shoot up without a word and burst out the door. At this point it’s taking every ounce of will not to turn, and the worst part is that my family chases me as they have no idea what’s happening. I get in my car, but it’s blocked in, so I have to reverse through the yard and fence to get enough room to get around the cars and out on the road. I’m driving and it’s as if I'm drunk, I’m sweating, my vision is doubling, but I just keep looking for the orange extension cord that marked the charger on the lamppost. Finally I find it, and at this point I’m barely conscious, and as such fail to stop at the right part exactly and go a little bit past. I get out and am practically crawling towards the lamppost. Cars are beeping at my idled car in the middle of the road. And as my vision nearly fades to black, I can see my family’s car approaching. Finally I make it to the cord, plug in, and use it. Everything is ok. For some reason, Henry then shows up, who I haven’t seen in years, and I tell him how close of a call I just had. He looks concerned yet relieved, and hugs me in reunion and relief. The dream ends.
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