My father had his gallbladder removed today.
I didn't take the day off work because my mother said it wasn't necessary. It's just a simple procedure. He would be in and out and home by afternoon.
Yesterday, my mother was fall over exhausted. My grandmother was being extremely difficult. She kept waking my mother up all through the night before. She kept shouting for her all that night and all during the day. My mother thought she might have to have me call out from work so I could drive my father to the hospital and she could rest.
So after both of us having a vague feeling of something going to happen, this morning while I was at work my mother called me to tell me my grandmother was going to the emergency room.
Long story short(ish), both my father and grandmother were in the hospital at the same time. Dad's home; he's fine. Granny's still there, and we're not really sure what is wrong with her yet. They thought it was an obstruction in her stomach but after X-rays they don't think that's the case.
Anyway, we're all exhausted and we have to be up early in the morning to go back.
Wednesday, June 20
Tuesday, June 12
Short Story/Dream Diary: The Death of Hope
There was a dream I had a week or two ago that I wanted to write down, but never got around to it. It seemed like it would make a decent short story, so I wrote it to be a story rather than a dream.
The Death of Hope
I woke up on the floor of a cave. It was cold and dark. I had a spear in my hand and I wore a short leather skirt with a jagged hem, a leather top similar to a tube top, and leather sandals that laced up to my knees. I got to my feet, groggy and confused. I was shivering and my hand shook as I tucked a strand of my long, curly brown hair behind one of my delicate pointed ears.
At first I couldn't remember where I was or how I got there. I carefully worked my way toward the light coming from the mouth of the cave. Outside it was all ice and snow, white and glimmering. There was a winding path at the bottom of a deep valley between the sheer rock cliffs on either side. The walls were coated with inches of ice over the gray stone. My head was starting to clear and I mentally cursed the men that had sent me here.
I had been sent by the queen of the land as she was advised to do by prophets. The wise men had seen that I was the only one that could save our land. It was ordinarily a beautiful place. Our city was high in the mountains, surrounded by lush green forests. Now it was under the spell of a large ice dragon. It had settled in a cave near our city and it was cold-hearted and cruel, slaughtering people without mercy. The land was overtaken by its innate magic, putting us in a state of perpetual winter.
I had been summoned before the queen and her advisers had told me that I was their only hope. It was ironic really. My name, Dóchas, meant "hope" in our language. I told them I was nothing, no one.
Of course they wouldn't listen. They were panicked and in a hurry. The dragon was assaulting the city. Our guards were dying. The last thing I remember was standing before these panicked old men and sarcastically asking them what they expected me to do about it.
"I have no idea how to stop a rampaging ice dragon... let alone kill it! Do you even know how, exactly, I'm supposed to accomplish this miraculous feat? Combat? Magic? If you don't know that, then how can you know that I am supposedly your final hope?"
They must have spelled me, because the next thing I remember was when I woke up in the cave. Swearing profusely and as creatively as I could manage under my breath and in various languages, I started down the path. I had my spear in my right hand and my left hand slid along the wall to my left. I tried to mentally dismiss the cold. It wasn't hard. At some point I just went mostly numb from the tips of my pointed ears to my bare toes. Of course those stupid old men had sent me here without so much as a magic sword. Would it have been too much to ask for some decent clothes, for pity's sake?
I felt no fear through my anger. This was completely the fault of those damned prophets.
I snorted.
I thought, "Huh. Me. The last hope. Right. Not much a hope, is it? Well, I am where I am, and there's nothing to be done about it but sit here and wait for the dragon or see this through. Besides, it's either die out here with a spear in my hand or in the city when the dragon breaks through."
After a long walk, the path turned into a large open area that put me in mind of a courtyard. There was a tree in the middle, large and old; now it was dead and bare of leaves, coated in a layer of ice. It was beautiful in a way, and sad; a visual metaphor for our land the way it was under the spell of the ice dragon. There was a stone wall, waist-high, along the edge of the courtyard. I could hear the shouts of the guards, the screams of the dying, and the roar of the dragon. The sounds came floating up from far below, and echoed around the mountains. I approached the wall and looked out and down. Below were the gates of the city.
The city was surrounded by high mountain peaks and this courtyard overlooked the main gate. Perhaps it was where sentries had stood, in happier times, watchful for the approach of outsiders. There was a matching courtyard on the opposite side, far away across the main road leading to the gates. The walls surrounding the gates were gray stone and the gate itself was black iron. Both were now coated in a shimmering layer of ice. As far as I could see down the road through the mountains was nothing but the white shimmer of ice and snow, and the red blood of my people.
Most of the guards were dead. Their beautiful gold-chased armor was rent with claw marks. Their still faces were coasted in white frost, frozen from the icy breath of the dragon. There were only a couple of guards left standing, the only thing between the ice-dragon and our vulnerable city.
For centuries we had kept ourselves separated from the world, tucked into the peaks of the mountains in our own little enclave. No one had ever thought that the very thing that kept us safe would also prove our undoing. There was no other way to get into the city, and conversely, no other way out. We had thought ourselves safe.
The guards below were valiant in the face of their certain death. They flung spears and brandished swords at the shimmering white form of the dragon. The light glinted off his white scales, glinting with a pale blue iridescence. It was strangely beautiful.
As I watched, the last of the guards fell down under the white frost breath of the dragon. I must have made some sound. Perhaps I gasped. Maybe I shifted too much. The dragon looked up and saw me just when I started to duck behind the wall. I scrambled away from the wall on my feet and hands. It was awkward with the spear, but I managed. I knew there was nowhere to go. I also knew that my plain spear, given to me by my father and possessing of no magical power whatsoever, would be ineffectual against the shear might of the dragon.
I could tell that much from what I had saw below. What I couldn't tell was what exactly I could do against such a creature.
I heard the great beat of it's wings and glanced behind me as the dragon rose up from the slaughter far below. Oddly, the thought struck me that shimmering white-blue scales of the dragon were clean of the blood that had stained the snow of the road. It's strange how thoughts come upon us at the most inappropriate of times.
As the dragon's head rose above the wall, I had just enough time to duck around the other side of the tree. I crouched down and tried to make myself as small and inconspicuous as possible.
There was a sharp chill of fear in my heart as I heard the dragon inhale deeply and exhale with a spray of white frost. I only had a split second for it to occur to me that I was going to die. The chill of fear wasn't nearly as cold as the breath of the dragon as it breathed frost and ice toward me. The tree blocked some of it, but not enough. The icy breath split around both sides of the tree and through it's bare branches. I barely had time for the thought, "So much for our last hope," before everything went to ice, and blackness engulfed me.
The Death of Hope
I woke up on the floor of a cave. It was cold and dark. I had a spear in my hand and I wore a short leather skirt with a jagged hem, a leather top similar to a tube top, and leather sandals that laced up to my knees. I got to my feet, groggy and confused. I was shivering and my hand shook as I tucked a strand of my long, curly brown hair behind one of my delicate pointed ears.
At first I couldn't remember where I was or how I got there. I carefully worked my way toward the light coming from the mouth of the cave. Outside it was all ice and snow, white and glimmering. There was a winding path at the bottom of a deep valley between the sheer rock cliffs on either side. The walls were coated with inches of ice over the gray stone. My head was starting to clear and I mentally cursed the men that had sent me here.
I had been sent by the queen of the land as she was advised to do by prophets. The wise men had seen that I was the only one that could save our land. It was ordinarily a beautiful place. Our city was high in the mountains, surrounded by lush green forests. Now it was under the spell of a large ice dragon. It had settled in a cave near our city and it was cold-hearted and cruel, slaughtering people without mercy. The land was overtaken by its innate magic, putting us in a state of perpetual winter.
I had been summoned before the queen and her advisers had told me that I was their only hope. It was ironic really. My name, Dóchas, meant "hope" in our language. I told them I was nothing, no one.
Of course they wouldn't listen. They were panicked and in a hurry. The dragon was assaulting the city. Our guards were dying. The last thing I remember was standing before these panicked old men and sarcastically asking them what they expected me to do about it.
"I have no idea how to stop a rampaging ice dragon... let alone kill it! Do you even know how, exactly, I'm supposed to accomplish this miraculous feat? Combat? Magic? If you don't know that, then how can you know that I am supposedly your final hope?"
They must have spelled me, because the next thing I remember was when I woke up in the cave. Swearing profusely and as creatively as I could manage under my breath and in various languages, I started down the path. I had my spear in my right hand and my left hand slid along the wall to my left. I tried to mentally dismiss the cold. It wasn't hard. At some point I just went mostly numb from the tips of my pointed ears to my bare toes. Of course those stupid old men had sent me here without so much as a magic sword. Would it have been too much to ask for some decent clothes, for pity's sake?
I felt no fear through my anger. This was completely the fault of those damned prophets.
I snorted.
I thought, "Huh. Me. The last hope. Right. Not much a hope, is it? Well, I am where I am, and there's nothing to be done about it but sit here and wait for the dragon or see this through. Besides, it's either die out here with a spear in my hand or in the city when the dragon breaks through."
After a long walk, the path turned into a large open area that put me in mind of a courtyard. There was a tree in the middle, large and old; now it was dead and bare of leaves, coated in a layer of ice. It was beautiful in a way, and sad; a visual metaphor for our land the way it was under the spell of the ice dragon. There was a stone wall, waist-high, along the edge of the courtyard. I could hear the shouts of the guards, the screams of the dying, and the roar of the dragon. The sounds came floating up from far below, and echoed around the mountains. I approached the wall and looked out and down. Below were the gates of the city.
The city was surrounded by high mountain peaks and this courtyard overlooked the main gate. Perhaps it was where sentries had stood, in happier times, watchful for the approach of outsiders. There was a matching courtyard on the opposite side, far away across the main road leading to the gates. The walls surrounding the gates were gray stone and the gate itself was black iron. Both were now coated in a shimmering layer of ice. As far as I could see down the road through the mountains was nothing but the white shimmer of ice and snow, and the red blood of my people.
Most of the guards were dead. Their beautiful gold-chased armor was rent with claw marks. Their still faces were coasted in white frost, frozen from the icy breath of the dragon. There were only a couple of guards left standing, the only thing between the ice-dragon and our vulnerable city.
For centuries we had kept ourselves separated from the world, tucked into the peaks of the mountains in our own little enclave. No one had ever thought that the very thing that kept us safe would also prove our undoing. There was no other way to get into the city, and conversely, no other way out. We had thought ourselves safe.
The guards below were valiant in the face of their certain death. They flung spears and brandished swords at the shimmering white form of the dragon. The light glinted off his white scales, glinting with a pale blue iridescence. It was strangely beautiful.
As I watched, the last of the guards fell down under the white frost breath of the dragon. I must have made some sound. Perhaps I gasped. Maybe I shifted too much. The dragon looked up and saw me just when I started to duck behind the wall. I scrambled away from the wall on my feet and hands. It was awkward with the spear, but I managed. I knew there was nowhere to go. I also knew that my plain spear, given to me by my father and possessing of no magical power whatsoever, would be ineffectual against the shear might of the dragon.
I could tell that much from what I had saw below. What I couldn't tell was what exactly I could do against such a creature.
I heard the great beat of it's wings and glanced behind me as the dragon rose up from the slaughter far below. Oddly, the thought struck me that shimmering white-blue scales of the dragon were clean of the blood that had stained the snow of the road. It's strange how thoughts come upon us at the most inappropriate of times.
As the dragon's head rose above the wall, I had just enough time to duck around the other side of the tree. I crouched down and tried to make myself as small and inconspicuous as possible.
There was a sharp chill of fear in my heart as I heard the dragon inhale deeply and exhale with a spray of white frost. I only had a split second for it to occur to me that I was going to die. The chill of fear wasn't nearly as cold as the breath of the dragon as it breathed frost and ice toward me. The tree blocked some of it, but not enough. The icy breath split around both sides of the tree and through it's bare branches. I barely had time for the thought, "So much for our last hope," before everything went to ice, and blackness engulfed me.
Dream Diary: Yes I Know I'm Fucked Up
It started out like a video game, but more real. I knew it was a game, but it was real at the same time. Jerry and I were together, like being in a group in an online game going on a quest. I don't know what "world" we were in. I can't remember the place we started out from but I have a vague feeling that it was a bit primitive, with wood and hide tents for buildings. Maybe it's just because of my image of the place we were heading toward that makes me think it was primitive.
We headed into a deep, dark wood; just us and our equipment, our bags, and our weapons. The place we were heading toward was up in the trees, and appeared uninhabited. There were ramps leading up to platforms in the trees, with bridges and more ramps connecting them, layer upon layer. There were large piles of bones on the ground, too large to be human. The skulls had long curving horns like bulls, but with long sharp teeth like a predator.
We climbed up the platforms and moved forward. The first pile of bones we approached formed into a large, tall entity, soundless and with bits of leather hanging from it's bones that may or not have been it's skin in life, or just old clothing or armor that had rotted away. We were strong, with good weapons and armor, and we easily tore through the constructs, working our way from platform to platform, higher and higher, until the ground was just a green mist far below us.
The skeletal constructs had pulsing targeting reticules under them, like in a video game. I could "zoom out" and look at us from above at an angle, also like in a video game. But it was still real. I don't know when it happened, but eventually I only saw from first-person and it stopped being so much like a video game.
I don't remember what our goal was. Perhaps it was to kill the originator of the constructs or acquiring an item. By the time we accomplished our goal there were more people with us. I don't know who they were, where they came from, or when they joined us; they were just suddenly there, and it didn't seem odd to me. Jerry's dogs were with us as well, but they weren't dogs. I knew they were Holly and Wonka, but they were large hunting cats. I remember Holly's appearance changes later in the dream, but at the time I remember a black panther being Holly, and a tawny lioness being Wonka. Holly was dignified and predatory; graceful and quiet. Wonka bounded from platform to platform, more playful than leonine.
We didn't want to take the time to walk all the way back down to the bottom. I remember "activating" a song like I was a bard in Vanguard that would give us a slow free-fall to the ground. I don't know where he came from, but a man that was apparently a friend of ours showed up from nowhere and tossed Jerry a nice digital camera; the kind with different lenses that you can change and manually focus. He told him it was a gift that he just picked up because he thought he would like it. I looked at Jerry in shock and envy. It was just the sort of camera that I wanted. Jerry told the man that I would appreciate it more than he would and gave the camera to me. I hung it around my neck. I told everyone to gather close and called the cat/dogs to us. After a minute of getting Wonka to behave and stay close enough for the song to hit us all we collectively stepped off the platform and floated gently to the ground.
We started back for "home", but somehow we found ourselves being chased by the natives of the region. We never actually saw them, but we knew we were being pursued. I think it had to do with us violating a sacred religious place for them. We ran full speed all the way back to the dubious protection of town.
When we got there, we found the town full of people just milling around. They looked out of place, wearing regular, modern day clothing, such as jeans and t-shirts. I don't know how we found out, but we knew that they were people from our world, our time, and they had been evacuated here to escape some catastrophe. There were hundreds of them, and I don't know why there were only that many, or how they were chosen, I just knew that Jerry's two children and my parents were somewhere in the throng. We picked a spot to meet, and separated, calling for his children. He took Wonka and I took Holly, hoping they could help track the children. I heard one of the children talking, ran to them and gave them hugs, relieved to have found them. We headed back to the designated meeting place and reunited with Jerry.
Time flashed forward and the next thing I remember we were all heading out in a giant caravan, looking for a suitable place to settle. There were no questions about going home, no questions about what happened, why the evacuees were here, how they got here. It was as if they just accepted they were there and we needed a new home. All that the evacuees had was what they could carry, and most of the children didn't have anything but what they were wearing. I don't know what we were eating or how we survived. We just did.
We started out through the jungle and when we emerged into a rocky area with lots of cliffs and mountains we looked around to see what looked like a prehistoric island with a giant volcano rising ominously into the sky. Again there were no signs of habitation; but looking around, one would not have been surprised, perhaps even expected to see, dinosaurs.
We were being led by a large tiger-striped cat-man, like the playable cat races in EverQuest and Vanguard. I don't know why, but he decided Holly was holding us back. Instead of letting her go to follow or run free as she chose, he wanted to kill her. I think it had to do with him thinking that the non-intelligent cat species were inferior to his race. I knew she was old, but she wasn't slowing us down. She was actually large enough that Jerry's youngest was riding on her back when he was tired; the other son was riding Wonka similarly. Now, in the dream, instead of being a black panther, Holly appread to be a majestic lion, with a mane like a male lion. She was standing on a small cliff ledge above us, and it was night. The sky was full of stars, bright in the sky of an uncivilized world, and the moon was large and luminous behind her. The cat-man had a gun and shot her in the forehead. In the manner of dreams, she did not die, but stood, stunned. I thought what a beautiful picture it would make, this dignified creature standing on a cliff with the light of the moon outlining her form, and used the digital camera to take a few shots. The last shot I remember taking was of her snarling and leaping for the cat-man before she, presumably, died.
Time lept forward again. As we kept walking, looking for a good place to settle, we came upon a strange town. It just seemed to spring up out of nowhere. It was not that it appeared before our eyes, but more like we turned a corner around a rock wall and there it was, all pink and white. The houses looked like a little girl's play house that had been enlarged big enough to fit an adult. The town appeared uninhabited like every other area we had been in, except for large, animated toys the size of an adult. It wasn't as if they had a life of their own, able to think and speak; only that something was animating them, making them move and play with each other, and act like they wanted us to play with them. The whole place was extremely creepy. There was a threatening feel to the place, but as we threaded our way through the small village of doll houses we found no apparent danger. The animated toys were annoying and somehow menacing; their painted smiles seemed full of malice, but they were not overtly threatening. Some of us, myself and Jerry included since we were armed, went in and out of the buildings, looking for anything; people, traps, whatever we could find.
Another flash forward in time. The next thing I remember, Jerry, the children, my parents and I were in one of the larger houses. Everyone had settled in. The house was plushly furnished, and there was plenty of rich, elegant food. There were two bedrooms upstairs, with thick comforters and fluffy pillows. There were two king-sized beds in one room. My parents were already ensconced in one of them. The other room contained another king-sized bed with another couple asleep in it, and Jerry's children had already claimed the two single beds in that room. I remember I didn't want to sleep with Jerry in the same room as my parents, but it was the only bed available. I went back downstairs to look for Jerry and there were a two or three other couples still sitting on the overstuffed couches, talking and snacking on finger foods.
There was a double glass door leading to a small deck or balcony, and I wanted to go outside and take pictures with the digital camera. It was night again, the stars were bright and beautiful over the tops of the white shingled roofs and I thought it would make a nice picture. I opened the doors and went outside to take a few shots with different lenses, angles, and flashes. My photography obviously perturbed a bitchy looking woman with long straight blond hair who said something rude about my annoying everyone with my constant picture taking and why didn't I get inside and stop bothering everyone.
There was another flash of time that went by. I was back in the room with the other couples. We looked out of the double glass doors and everything had changed while we weren't looking. Suddenly outside it looked like we were on the top floor of a tall building looking out over what I knew to be downtown New York. Now the blond woman didn't mind me taking pictures, because it was a sight we'd all thought we'd never see again after the evacuation. She insisted that I take pictures. I took my camera to go outside, as did a couple of the other men in the room. The city looked like every light in every window was lit, but again, looked totally uninhabited. There were no signs of life. No people, no cars, nothing moved.
As we were on the balcony snapping pictures, the building started to sway. It wasn't a gentle swaying like a tree in a breeze. The building seemed to bend nearly in half, and it would swing in big circle from one side and back around to the other, yet none of us felt the motion or felt like we were going to fall. It was more like the world was moving around us; that it was the world bobbing and circling and swaying while we were standing still. The sight made me slightly nauseous but it brought the tops of some of the buildings closer to us, and all I could think was that it was odd, but would make for some really cool pictures. I remember seeing the top of the Empire State building swing by almost close enough to touch. I wondered how it was that we didn't hit any of the buildings, the swaying and circling was so pronounced.
I went back inside, sliding the glass door shut behind me, to say something to the people inside about the way everything was spinning around. No one else seemed to think it was unusual. They were just chatting away like nothing was wrong. As I slid the door shut, one of the men outside ran to it. He was screaming and slammed into the door, banging on it and shouting to be let in. I saw something fall out of the sky and slam into his back. There was only a small layer of glass between us, and I could clearly see the terror and pleading in his eyes. I saw tentacles wrap around his body, his neck, his head. I saw the blood. I felt no remorse about not opening the door to let him in as more of the things fell out of the sky, attacking the other man outside and swooping around the building.
I remember thinking I knew it had to have been a trap; that the seemingly innocuous pink and white buildings were there to lure us in. I knew there was a reason why it was uninhabited, and that there was something, a spell perhaps, lulling everyone into a false sense of safety. I seemed to have been the only one that even felt vaguely like something was off. I knew there was a reason why there were no signs of life at all, anywhere.
I don't remember a lot of details about what followed. I kept dreaming about these things that flew without wings. They were large and round. The outside of their bodies was gray and hard, while the inside was like a pulsing, gaping red maw full of sharp teeth. There were gray, fleshy tentacles dangling from the edges of their armored carapaces. They had no apparent eyes or ears, but light attracted them; they looked more like armored gray jellyfish than anything. They would drop on people from above, holding on with tentacles and attacking with their sharp teeth. It was a gruesome, bloody way to die. It was unsafe to go out during the day, but more so at night, especially, because you couldn't see them coming. We were afraid to leave; afraid to stay. There were a lot of people dying, a lot of blood, and terror. I was frightened all the time. You never saw them coming until it was too late. Many people were killed right before my eyes.
I seem to remember there were a few people that got attacked and managed to get away somehow. They started to get very sick. Their bodies started to change; contorting and twisting in some areas, shrinking or expanding in others. The venom from their bite wounds was changing them into more of the flying jellyfish things. I had been bitten on the arm, and I so afraid. It was painful; red, swollen, and throbbing.
It all became a blur. I don't know what happened to everyone; Jerry, the kids, my parents, Wonka the cat/dog. I don't recall seeing them in my dream after they all went upstairs to bed. I would start to tear myself out of the dream, trying to get away from being afraid, but as soon as I fell asleep again, I was right back in the same place.
Okay so I read a lot of fantasy books and play a lot of role-playing games.
We headed into a deep, dark wood; just us and our equipment, our bags, and our weapons. The place we were heading toward was up in the trees, and appeared uninhabited. There were ramps leading up to platforms in the trees, with bridges and more ramps connecting them, layer upon layer. There were large piles of bones on the ground, too large to be human. The skulls had long curving horns like bulls, but with long sharp teeth like a predator.
We climbed up the platforms and moved forward. The first pile of bones we approached formed into a large, tall entity, soundless and with bits of leather hanging from it's bones that may or not have been it's skin in life, or just old clothing or armor that had rotted away. We were strong, with good weapons and armor, and we easily tore through the constructs, working our way from platform to platform, higher and higher, until the ground was just a green mist far below us.
The skeletal constructs had pulsing targeting reticules under them, like in a video game. I could "zoom out" and look at us from above at an angle, also like in a video game. But it was still real. I don't know when it happened, but eventually I only saw from first-person and it stopped being so much like a video game.
I don't remember what our goal was. Perhaps it was to kill the originator of the constructs or acquiring an item. By the time we accomplished our goal there were more people with us. I don't know who they were, where they came from, or when they joined us; they were just suddenly there, and it didn't seem odd to me. Jerry's dogs were with us as well, but they weren't dogs. I knew they were Holly and Wonka, but they were large hunting cats. I remember Holly's appearance changes later in the dream, but at the time I remember a black panther being Holly, and a tawny lioness being Wonka. Holly was dignified and predatory; graceful and quiet. Wonka bounded from platform to platform, more playful than leonine.
We didn't want to take the time to walk all the way back down to the bottom. I remember "activating" a song like I was a bard in Vanguard that would give us a slow free-fall to the ground. I don't know where he came from, but a man that was apparently a friend of ours showed up from nowhere and tossed Jerry a nice digital camera; the kind with different lenses that you can change and manually focus. He told him it was a gift that he just picked up because he thought he would like it. I looked at Jerry in shock and envy. It was just the sort of camera that I wanted. Jerry told the man that I would appreciate it more than he would and gave the camera to me. I hung it around my neck. I told everyone to gather close and called the cat/dogs to us. After a minute of getting Wonka to behave and stay close enough for the song to hit us all we collectively stepped off the platform and floated gently to the ground.
We started back for "home", but somehow we found ourselves being chased by the natives of the region. We never actually saw them, but we knew we were being pursued. I think it had to do with us violating a sacred religious place for them. We ran full speed all the way back to the dubious protection of town.
When we got there, we found the town full of people just milling around. They looked out of place, wearing regular, modern day clothing, such as jeans and t-shirts. I don't know how we found out, but we knew that they were people from our world, our time, and they had been evacuated here to escape some catastrophe. There were hundreds of them, and I don't know why there were only that many, or how they were chosen, I just knew that Jerry's two children and my parents were somewhere in the throng. We picked a spot to meet, and separated, calling for his children. He took Wonka and I took Holly, hoping they could help track the children. I heard one of the children talking, ran to them and gave them hugs, relieved to have found them. We headed back to the designated meeting place and reunited with Jerry.
Time flashed forward and the next thing I remember we were all heading out in a giant caravan, looking for a suitable place to settle. There were no questions about going home, no questions about what happened, why the evacuees were here, how they got here. It was as if they just accepted they were there and we needed a new home. All that the evacuees had was what they could carry, and most of the children didn't have anything but what they were wearing. I don't know what we were eating or how we survived. We just did.
We started out through the jungle and when we emerged into a rocky area with lots of cliffs and mountains we looked around to see what looked like a prehistoric island with a giant volcano rising ominously into the sky. Again there were no signs of habitation; but looking around, one would not have been surprised, perhaps even expected to see, dinosaurs.
We were being led by a large tiger-striped cat-man, like the playable cat races in EverQuest and Vanguard. I don't know why, but he decided Holly was holding us back. Instead of letting her go to follow or run free as she chose, he wanted to kill her. I think it had to do with him thinking that the non-intelligent cat species were inferior to his race. I knew she was old, but she wasn't slowing us down. She was actually large enough that Jerry's youngest was riding on her back when he was tired; the other son was riding Wonka similarly. Now, in the dream, instead of being a black panther, Holly appread to be a majestic lion, with a mane like a male lion. She was standing on a small cliff ledge above us, and it was night. The sky was full of stars, bright in the sky of an uncivilized world, and the moon was large and luminous behind her. The cat-man had a gun and shot her in the forehead. In the manner of dreams, she did not die, but stood, stunned. I thought what a beautiful picture it would make, this dignified creature standing on a cliff with the light of the moon outlining her form, and used the digital camera to take a few shots. The last shot I remember taking was of her snarling and leaping for the cat-man before she, presumably, died.
Time lept forward again. As we kept walking, looking for a good place to settle, we came upon a strange town. It just seemed to spring up out of nowhere. It was not that it appeared before our eyes, but more like we turned a corner around a rock wall and there it was, all pink and white. The houses looked like a little girl's play house that had been enlarged big enough to fit an adult. The town appeared uninhabited like every other area we had been in, except for large, animated toys the size of an adult. It wasn't as if they had a life of their own, able to think and speak; only that something was animating them, making them move and play with each other, and act like they wanted us to play with them. The whole place was extremely creepy. There was a threatening feel to the place, but as we threaded our way through the small village of doll houses we found no apparent danger. The animated toys were annoying and somehow menacing; their painted smiles seemed full of malice, but they were not overtly threatening. Some of us, myself and Jerry included since we were armed, went in and out of the buildings, looking for anything; people, traps, whatever we could find.
Another flash forward in time. The next thing I remember, Jerry, the children, my parents and I were in one of the larger houses. Everyone had settled in. The house was plushly furnished, and there was plenty of rich, elegant food. There were two bedrooms upstairs, with thick comforters and fluffy pillows. There were two king-sized beds in one room. My parents were already ensconced in one of them. The other room contained another king-sized bed with another couple asleep in it, and Jerry's children had already claimed the two single beds in that room. I remember I didn't want to sleep with Jerry in the same room as my parents, but it was the only bed available. I went back downstairs to look for Jerry and there were a two or three other couples still sitting on the overstuffed couches, talking and snacking on finger foods.
There was a double glass door leading to a small deck or balcony, and I wanted to go outside and take pictures with the digital camera. It was night again, the stars were bright and beautiful over the tops of the white shingled roofs and I thought it would make a nice picture. I opened the doors and went outside to take a few shots with different lenses, angles, and flashes. My photography obviously perturbed a bitchy looking woman with long straight blond hair who said something rude about my annoying everyone with my constant picture taking and why didn't I get inside and stop bothering everyone.
There was another flash of time that went by. I was back in the room with the other couples. We looked out of the double glass doors and everything had changed while we weren't looking. Suddenly outside it looked like we were on the top floor of a tall building looking out over what I knew to be downtown New York. Now the blond woman didn't mind me taking pictures, because it was a sight we'd all thought we'd never see again after the evacuation. She insisted that I take pictures. I took my camera to go outside, as did a couple of the other men in the room. The city looked like every light in every window was lit, but again, looked totally uninhabited. There were no signs of life. No people, no cars, nothing moved.
As we were on the balcony snapping pictures, the building started to sway. It wasn't a gentle swaying like a tree in a breeze. The building seemed to bend nearly in half, and it would swing in big circle from one side and back around to the other, yet none of us felt the motion or felt like we were going to fall. It was more like the world was moving around us; that it was the world bobbing and circling and swaying while we were standing still. The sight made me slightly nauseous but it brought the tops of some of the buildings closer to us, and all I could think was that it was odd, but would make for some really cool pictures. I remember seeing the top of the Empire State building swing by almost close enough to touch. I wondered how it was that we didn't hit any of the buildings, the swaying and circling was so pronounced.
I went back inside, sliding the glass door shut behind me, to say something to the people inside about the way everything was spinning around. No one else seemed to think it was unusual. They were just chatting away like nothing was wrong. As I slid the door shut, one of the men outside ran to it. He was screaming and slammed into the door, banging on it and shouting to be let in. I saw something fall out of the sky and slam into his back. There was only a small layer of glass between us, and I could clearly see the terror and pleading in his eyes. I saw tentacles wrap around his body, his neck, his head. I saw the blood. I felt no remorse about not opening the door to let him in as more of the things fell out of the sky, attacking the other man outside and swooping around the building.
I remember thinking I knew it had to have been a trap; that the seemingly innocuous pink and white buildings were there to lure us in. I knew there was a reason why it was uninhabited, and that there was something, a spell perhaps, lulling everyone into a false sense of safety. I seemed to have been the only one that even felt vaguely like something was off. I knew there was a reason why there were no signs of life at all, anywhere.
I don't remember a lot of details about what followed. I kept dreaming about these things that flew without wings. They were large and round. The outside of their bodies was gray and hard, while the inside was like a pulsing, gaping red maw full of sharp teeth. There were gray, fleshy tentacles dangling from the edges of their armored carapaces. They had no apparent eyes or ears, but light attracted them; they looked more like armored gray jellyfish than anything. They would drop on people from above, holding on with tentacles and attacking with their sharp teeth. It was a gruesome, bloody way to die. It was unsafe to go out during the day, but more so at night, especially, because you couldn't see them coming. We were afraid to leave; afraid to stay. There were a lot of people dying, a lot of blood, and terror. I was frightened all the time. You never saw them coming until it was too late. Many people were killed right before my eyes.
I seem to remember there were a few people that got attacked and managed to get away somehow. They started to get very sick. Their bodies started to change; contorting and twisting in some areas, shrinking or expanding in others. The venom from their bite wounds was changing them into more of the flying jellyfish things. I had been bitten on the arm, and I so afraid. It was painful; red, swollen, and throbbing.
It all became a blur. I don't know what happened to everyone; Jerry, the kids, my parents, Wonka the cat/dog. I don't recall seeing them in my dream after they all went upstairs to bed. I would start to tear myself out of the dream, trying to get away from being afraid, but as soon as I fell asleep again, I was right back in the same place.
Okay so I read a lot of fantasy books and play a lot of role-playing games.
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