Dream 6/5/22: Pride and Ego

I am an adult man. I have already graduated college. And yet, I look into my schedule and realize that I have a highschool class in the afternoon. So I drive to the school and plug in my car to the electric outlet. As I do so, I try to determine the gender of my car. I knew that cars could be one of two genders: gas or electric. But my car was a hybrid, both gas and electric. So I couldn’t figure out its gender.

I went into class. But I didn’t really pay attention. I couldn’t even tell what type of class this was: math or science or history? Any could have easily been the appropriate theme. But I felt I was above completing the menial work. I’d already graduated college, so why should I be in the same classroom as 15 year olds? The worst part was that the teacher treated me as equal to those inferior beings. Instead of acknowledging that I was so great that I deserved preferential treatment, he would give me the same work as everyone else.

I soon decided that this school is useless for me since it fails to recognize my potential. So I left the school. It was time for anyone to go home for the day anyway, but I didn’t plan on coming back for school tomorrow. My mom was there too, making things worse. I could drive myself. I’ve been driving myself for years, and she was here to pick me up from school? Sit down in an empty classroom next to the parking lot. But then the walls fall down and the roof retracts, revealing that I’ve been tricked. I’m in a dark red gas car. She drives me out of the driving space, revealing that she had parked on top of another car. She leaves the parking lot and starts driving me back towards home.

I’m angry that my mother has tricked me into being driven home by her. So before we can even go past the first intersection on our way home, I ask her to bring me back because we left my car back at school. This convinces her, and she reluctantly brings me back to the school parking lot. There, I unplug my hybrid car and drive myself home, still unable to discern the gender of my car.

…

I am in a special type of school that teaches me to enhance my innate talents and learn incredible abilities such as climbing and construction. [Now that I am awake, I recognize the “School Building” is actually my house in my neighborhood.] We’re in the backyard of the school training our abilities. We have a test: collect a fruit from the tree. The fruit looks like a peach. The big problem is that the lowest hanging branch is hundreds of feet above the roof of the school building. The suggested course is that we build a tower with a winding staircase inside, so that we can reach the fruit.

I don’t like that idea. Building a tower would take a long time, and I’m impatient. I’m very good at climbing. But, we are not allowed to leave school grounds, and the base of the tree is past the school fence. So I pick up a purple flower that has three large petals. It looks like a pinwheel. I blow on the petals and it spins like a pinwheel. And as it spins, I rise in the air. I look down and see that the stem of the flower grows, reaching downward, hitting the ground, and continues to grow downward. But since the earth is now in the way, the only way it can grow downwards is push the rest of it upwards, including me holding the flower. So I hold on tight to this flower and blow on it until I am just below the fruit-bearing bough.

Before I can grab a fruit, two other students appear next to me. The two of them saw me rising in this manner and collected all of this type of flower in the yard, causing a veritable tower of vines to grow beneath them. They laugh. One grabs my flower while the other pushes me, sending me falling to the ground. If this hadn’t been a dream, such a fall would have killed me. But since this was a dream, it didn’t hurt in the slightest.

I resign myself to my fate. I’ll have to build a tower. I craft the tower out of stone bricks. Unlike how bricks work in real life, I didn’t need mortar to get the stones to stick together. I simply laid them on top of one another and they stuck together as though cemented in place. After several minutes of quick work, I’d progressed incredibly far. The tower still lacked a roof, but it was somewhere between 10 to 15 feet tall. I’d begun crafting the spiral staircase so I could reach high enough to build the walls of the tower.

The tower wasn’t very wide. It was a little more than 5 feet in radius. Not very impressive. However, it would suffice to bring me up to the branches to collect fruit. Many people were crafting towers in a similar manner. And then I notice that one of the towers next to me is made of minecraft cobblestone instead of the real life materials that everyone else was using. At first, I thought it was a trick and illusion, but then I saw inside. It was filled with Minecraft TNT. I flee from my tower as the explosions follow soon after. After the Minecraft smoke particle effects have faded away, we can see a small crater where the Minecraft tower used to be and all adjacent towers, including min, have been destroyed. I am so annoyed. I have to start from scratch.

…

I am still at that special school to enhance my abilities with my two friends.Since they aren’t me, I don’t really remember their appearance or names. But I am talking with them in front of the school about how I think that we’re too good for this school. We are so good at the abilities we are training in  that we’re only limiting ourselves by staying at this school.

There was someone watching us from the window listening into our conversation. A student. Who? I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. I will never see them again. My friends and I go to the backyard to practice more physical skills like climbing, jumping, swinging, and acrobatics. We climb up walls of the towers we previously built, then we jump to the branches that bend under our weight and sway with our momentum. Then, like trapeze artists, we leap from branch to branch.

Eventually a student runs into the backyard, out of breath and with a worried expression “Come quick! There is an emergency assembly in the front yard!” We immediately drop what we’re doing and run to the front yard where a massive crowd of students that fills the entire block stands watching me. And the headmistress of the school stands separate from everyone else, scowling at me and my friends. “You’re late.” She says with disdain. “Sorry, Ma’am.” I say, “We’ll just head to the back of the group.” The head mistress’s scowl deepens her eyebrows slope down in between her eyes and she squints. “That won’t be necessary.” She says, “You three are to be suspended.” Only upon waking did I realize that suspension was temporary and that I had mistakenly thought the term meant the same thing as expulsion.

I was angry and immediately challenged her. “Suspended! Why? We’re as good as any other student here, better even.” I said, “In fact, watch this.” I begin to climb the chimney. “Only a few others can climb with such expertise.”

“You were late to the assembly.” She says, voice still the same as ever.

“So?” I ask, “What’s that have to do with us? You’re the one who decided to hold an unplanned assembly and only alerted us three about it after it started. ‘Being late’ isn’t the reason you’re suspending us. It’s an excuse to suspend us. So what is the real reason?”

“You three cheat.” She says, just as stiff as before.

“Cheat? Can you cite an example? Do you have any specific grievances? What makes you think we cheat?” I ask, “I’m skilled, physically talented, better than pretty much anyone else here. But it’s not cheating to win the genetic lottery. As for my friends, one of them has a crazy high IQ. Extreme intelligence isn’t cheating either. My other friend studies. If you are suspending people for studying, then you’re running your school wrong.”

“You’ve obtained perfect scores on your tests and assignments, which is not physically possible.” She says, finally budging to give evidence back her claims.

Unfortunately, this just serves to feed my ego and drives me into a frenzy. I climb up and down the chimney repeatedly. “Wait a second. Are you telling me that you’re suspending us because we’re too good?” I ask, mockingly, “In a school where we strive for perfection, you suspend students that actually achieve their goal?”

A smile creeps onto the headmistress’s lip. “Perfect? I wouldn’t call you perfect. Be careful where you place your hands when climbing.”

I frown, but then look down at my hands. My right hand is stained with bird poop. I look up at the chimney and see that there is a small stain of bird poop in a small place on it. I growl. “It makes no difference.” I say,  “You have no right to suspend us.”

She grins with satisfaction. “I have every right. My school, my rules.” She says, “But more importantly, your attitude shows that you don’t belong here. You’ve dared to insult me in front of the whole school. That cannot go unpunished. That's why you are suspended. If it makes you feel any better, your friends, since they have kept their composure, will be staying. You are the only one suspended.”

I open my mouth to retort this, but I see her smile. She wants me to talk back against her, to continue to prove her point. I lost my temper and talked down to the headmistress while everyone was gathered at an assembly. I can’t stay here anymore. I sullenly walk away with my head bowed.

…

It’s a run down wooden two-story log cabin. Multiple rooms wide and it has a basement. It’s really a very complex design for a structure made of logs. Upon entering, I realize that the logs are just an outward aesthetic. Inside, on the tile floor, I can tell that the building is made of brick and plaster. And the door latches shut behind me. It is nearing sunset. But I have nowhere else to stay. The place is even more rundown on the inside. The walls are half-stripped of paint, revealing water stains where rain will drip in through the ceiling. There does not appear to be electricity and windows give no light because there are wide boards nailed to the frame, acting to permanently block the window. So the only light comes from behind me, through the partially collapsed door that is barely holding by its hinges.

I sit at a table in what I presume to be the dining room, only able to faintly make out the cutlery in the light provided from behind. It’s foggy outside, so the light is a misty white or gray. There doesn’t appear to be anyone else living here, which makes sense. The house is in an unlivable condition. It looks like it might have been beautiful once. The floral patterns on the wallpaper in the bedrooms, the china dishes set at the table, multiple rooms and the building having both upper floors and a basement. Not to mention that it had the appearance of a log cabin from the outside.

I decided to explore the house a little bit. I find the fine mattresses in the bedrooms, rendered unusable by the stuffing having all fallen out, leaving nothing but a thin sheet over sharp metal springs. I find dressers with some of the drawers missing and old, fancy, moth-eaten dresses full of holes and littered with webs and insect eggs scattered around the room, more heavily around the dresser and closet. The closet. The sliding closet shutters are closed but not quite all the way. A thin line of opaque darkness sits at the edge of the blinds. I know there is nothing to be scared of, but that closet just creeps me out. So I leave the room. I check out the kitchen. There is no electricity and the place is very old, so I don’t suspect that there will be any food still edible here. It’s too dark to see anything in the kitchen. Too far away from the front door. The doorway and a few feet on the counters revealing a sink underneath a window frame sealed with a wooden board.

I returned back to the dining room table. The tablecloth over it had nice floral patterns, similar to the bedroom wallpaper. There appears to be a candelabra on the table. If only I had a way to light it. I shiver as a strong chilling gust of wind causes the door to shutter and quake in its frame. I feel my hair rise as goosebumps form on my skin. It’s always at that terrible temperature. Cold enough to feel chilly but not cold enough to be numb. The wind ruffles the tablecloth, causing the dishes to vibrate on the table with a clattering sound. Causing some doors to fly open while others slam closed.

In the cacophony of shutters from doors switching to their opposite state, a terrible thought occurs to me. If all doors that were previously closed are now open, then that means that the closet door… I hear the floorboards creak in a distant room upstairs. Strange, that wasn’t the bedroom where I saw the closet. Wait, this house has so many rooms, it is bound to have multiple bedrooms. And what’s a bedroom without a closet?

The noise dies down as the gust of wind fades into a weak breeze. But in the final throes of the passing air, I hear the shuffling of clothes rubbing against each other from the bedroom I visited earlier. The sounds stop as silence makes itself known. I sit, attentive in the darkness. Eyes straining to make out any movement in the opaque shroud of lightless halls. Ears keyed to make out the drop of a pin. My anxiety rose. Those sounds were just a byproduct of the rushing wind causing a ruckus in the house. I’d already checked the house. There is no one here… I hadn’t explored the basement, the kitchen, the closets, or the upstairs yet. In truth, the more I thought of it, I’d only explored two or three rooms. I’d been too scared to leave the light of the half-broken door flapping in the frame. There could easily be other squatters like me here. The thought almost made me get up and leave, run away. But as I turned my head and looked back past the door, the fog growing darker as the Sun must be dipping below the horizon now, I realized that I didn’t remember how I got here. I didn’t remember who I was, what I looked like, what the surrounding area was. I didn’t remember anything. And the terrible mist now seemed just as eerie as the darkness of the unexplored rooms.

So I sit at the dinner table. And soon the wind blows again. The slamming of doors, the shuffling of clothes, the shaking of shutters, the creaking of floorboards, the shivering of my arms, the breathe on my neck, the cries from the kitchen, the skittering in the halls, the wails from afar, the… wait a second.

I turn around, panic running through my veins. There is no one there. It was just the gentle breeze tickling the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. But it’s dark. I can barely see the swirling fog outside and when I turn back towards the table, I can barely make out my hands in front of my face or the silhouette accompanied by the sounds of shuffling clothes or shadows creaking on the stairs.

I can’t help but feel that I’m not alone in this encroaching darkness. My hearing is heightened because of my paranoia, and now I can hear every creaking floorboard louder, now that they’re coming from the base of the stairs, the shuffling of clothes nearly at the table, the crying from the kitchen now as crying at the end of the dining room, the skittering in the hall now as skittering on the dining room walls. And now, something new. I didn’t hear it before. Footsteps at the bottom of the basement stairs. Perhaps I am not alone after all.

It is now pitch black. The light is gone. The fog is as invisible as everything else. I stare forwards at the halls. The sounds are approaching slowly; but faster than anything else, are the speedy steps from the basement. From the bottom, striding to the top in mere seconds. Then the rushing wind fades and all goes silent. All goes silent.

Behind me to my right, the basement door squeaks open. I can hear the movement of multiple creatures in the darkness. How did I not notice them before? In the darkness, it is all so clear now. There are things hiding here. And I can only assume that they have terrible intentions.

The flick of a match ignites behind me. The flame is all I can see hovering in the air like a Wil-O’-Wisp. It floats gently down then hops up, leaving a candlefire behind. It’s lighting the candelabra. As the light soon illuminates a short distance around the table, I can finally see the creatures lurking in the shadows.

The closest one is just past the candelabra, having put an arm up to reach the table, it recoils in response to the illumination. But in the dim light, I can still make out its form. It’s a human woman. But there are a few things that are off about her. She’s pale and lanky. Her eyes are really big, taking up nearly half of her face, almost bug-eyed. Her eyes are all black, but reflect the candle light. Also a lattice work of lines, almost like a web, can be seen in her eyes. Additionally, she has long black hair. She is also half as tall as I would expect as from the waist down, she has somewhere around 6 to 10 insect-like or spider-like legs where her hip would normally connect to human legs. And a thick insect-like abdomen stretches out behind her. Additionally, her mouth has a pair of insect-like mandibles over it. And her pale white skin and black hair is encased in transparent chitin. In other words, she was less a human woman, and more the appearance of a human woman encased in a transparent giant spider.

What’s worse, it speaks. The concerned voice of a woman. “You shouldn’t be here. Don’t you know it’s dangerous.” She says, sounding genuinely worried for my well being, “You can never tell who is human and who is…” her voice churns like the raspy voice of a woman trying to growl in a deep voice into a fan. Her appearance changes. Her chitin becomes opaque, allowing me to clearly see her form. She is indeed a giant spider, no hint of a woman’s image inside her except for the human shaped pair of chitinous arms ending in pincers.

“This may be a church, but that doesn’t make it safe.” Her voice rasps as if through a fan. I am surprised by her statement. A church? This looked like a log cabin. How could it be a church. I suppose I hadn’t explored enough rooms to get a good feel of the building.

Crying from the end of the dining room, shambles in another figure. Another woman, much like the first one. But this one has short, disheveled reddish-brown hair. Her shoulders are slumped. She is wearing a long-sleeved hoodie jacket, but isn’t up. Her head is bowed, making it hard to see her face… well, harder. The only part of body close enough to be well illuminated is her head and shoulders. But her skin is black with lines of white static buzzing through it. She looks sort of two-dimensional because of this effect. By her voice, she must be female and very upset about something with that miserable crying. Her eyes are covered by her short hair because her head is bowed and her bangs aren’t as short as the rest of her hair. I can make out the faint shape of her nose and a thin red curved line that must be her mouth. But it’s so thin that it doesn’t appear to have any lips and almost looks drawn on. Stranger still is despite the sounds of sobbing, it’s in the shape of a smile.

Behind the spider, I see the silhouette of a tall figure out of range of the candelabra’s dim light. But I can still make out its two glowing white eyes. Behind me, the deep voice of a man whispers, “Quickly, down the stairs!” I don’t hesitate despite knowing that this could be another monster. I jump from my seat and dash down the stairs. The basement is actually very well lit. This comforts me somewhat. I lay flat on the ground and crawl out of line of sight of the stairs as a balding man follows downstairs.

“No need to be so tense.” He says, seeing me holding tight to the ground, “They can’t reach us down here. This is the chapel.” As if to prove his point, a little boy and little girl run down stairs, the spider, now transparent again to show the form of a woman inside it, crawling down the stairs after them. The children flee past me and the spider woman hisses when it comes in contact with the bright lights down here. It shrivels and flakes with dead skin, shrinking into a fluffy white and brown shape two handspans long. A rabbit.

The other monsters stop at the top of the stairs, staring down with hateful eyes. “You’ve escaped our grasp.” The rasp in deep hissing voices, “No matter, a pair of nuns are coming to investigate this ‘church,’ we shall have a fine feast when they arrive.” Now I know why the dining room table was the first thing I found. And I was sitting there? I was practically begging to be eaten.

I crawl backwards away from it. But the man just laughs, “Haha, don’t worry. She can’t hurt you.” He says, “Got over enthusiastic chasing after us, didn’t realize where she was.” I am still worried. I’m concerned about escape. I’m concerned about survival. I know that we’ll surely starve to death if we don’t get out of here. I am afraid, and I say so, describing my fears.

“We need to get out of here or we’ll starve to death.” I say, “Maybe we can run when they’re distracted with the nuns.”

“That’s a no-go. They’re more active when there is prey about. Our best chance is to wait for them to return to their resting places in a state of slumber and leave while they’re asleep.” He says, “Besides, why would we want to leave? This is such a great place to stay? And don’t worry about food. We’ve got plenty.” He points to two four boxes of cereal. I hate the thought of living off nothing but cereal for more than a day or two.

The children investigate the cereal. “There is no milk.” The boy complains. “Where are the bowls and spoons?” asks the girl. The man frowns. “Yes, that is a problem.” He grabs the rabbit, “Why don’t ya make yourself useful and get us some milk, bowls, and spoons.” He sets the rabbit down, and it shakes, perhaps a bit startled at having been lifted from the ground. He runs up the stairs. As it goes up the first few steps, out of the bright light, it crackles back into the form of a chitinous spider woman. This scares me. To think that the rabbit could have transformed back into that dreadful form at anytime, had we so much as cast a shadow on it.

Soon it skitters back holding nothing but spoons. As it enters the light, it shrivels back into a rabbit with transparent plastic spoons in its mouth. Following closely behind it are two other figures wearing absurdly large wide brimmed hats and long coats and clothes to prevent themselves from being exposed to the light. One of them is slumped and I can catch a few glimpses underneath its hat as it shambles with styrofoam bowls in its arms. Its that black humanoid with white lines of static, sobbing as it sets down the bowls. The other entity isn’t familiar. I can’t ever see it’s face, but it’s incredibly tall and the hands gripping the milk cartons have three fingers, one thumb, and are merely silhouettes. The entity is a black silhouette of a tall figure. After they set down the bowls and milk, they leave.

At the time of this dream, I couldn’t figure out why they would feed us. But now that I am awake, I can see that they could have come down here and taken us at any time. They were merely saving us for later, but they didn’t want us to die before they were hungry again. What a terrible thought. There are no beds in the basement, but I try my best to fall asleep on the carpet in the cold basement. As my eyes wander the room, I find a string of letters and numbers written in dark blue chalk on a metal beam on the basement ceiling.

I’m curious about this, so we turn on the TV and somehow type in the sequence into the search bar. And my suspicions prove correct and as it is indeed the URL to a private video. The video appears to show clips of amateur film-makers attempting to make a horror movie. With poorly made costumes and the ‘monster’ merely spreading its arms apart and saying “Boo!” or turning around to face the camera quickly. I begin to wonder if this might be related to the house I’m in. I begin to hope the monsters upstairs are really just people in costumes trying to scare us. It’s a vain hope. No costume allows you to turn into a rabbit.

We also see a clip of a basketball coach trying to show students how to shoot a hoop, but failing to make the basket. We also see footage of a forest. Then we see footage of a tall white house in the forest. But as the camera passes it, we hear a loud crash from inside it and a massive hole forms in the attic. The camera swiftly trunks back to face the house and zooms in. Two transformers, one blue and one yellow, stand in the attic slamming their fists into boxes. A reporter shouts up to them from the ground, “What are you doing?”

“We must destroy the enemy before he awakens.” The blue one responds. We’re not quite sure what that means until a black/purple transformer bursts forth from a crate and a gray lich with a long snoopy face appears hovering alongside him. “Animositron and Jackyle!” The yellow one shouts. The camera turns away as the operator begins running in the opposite direction. The camera sways nauseating along the ground as the camera operator flees in terror.

…

A young woman with purple hair draws in her sketchpad. It sort of acts as her diary. She draws her every outfit and everyone she meets. It is her way of keeping a record. She receives a call from a friend she only meets once per year. It’s a young man of similar age. They are on different worlds, but the young woman has great powers. She decides to visit him as she likes to do once per year.

The young man stares up at a towering statue of a young woman holding out her hands cupped together. A pool of water is in those hands because when it rains, the water is trapped there. The statue is gravely gray granite. Not a very pretty color or material, but the statue isn’t very detailed. The sun is setting on the horizon to the right of the statue. The pool of water in the massive statue’s hands begins to glow a brilliant white and a young woman rises from the water, but she isn’t wet. When the light fades, the water is gone. The cupped hands only hold a young woman with purple hair. It’s the same young woman that came here from another world. And looking at her standing in the hands of the statue, it is clear that the statue is of her. I wonder what great deeds she did for such a massive statue to be made in her honor.

The young man smiles and waves. The young woman sits down on the cupped hands of the statue, with legs swinging over the side. She quickly draws in her sketchpad to commemorate her meeting with her friend. Then she drops down to the base of the statue. Despite the long fall, she barely makes any impact when she lands, and she is uninjured. The two friends talk with each other, catching up after being apart for so long. As they see the sun is below the horizon and it will soon become dark. The young man asks to take a selfie with her while there is still light. She agrees and they take the picture. With the flash of the phone’s camera all goes white.

…

The young woman with purple hair wakes up in a plain white room that has nothing but a door, a bed, and a bookshelf/dresser. There are many books in the bookshelf, but the only book that the young woman with purple hair is interested in is her sketchbook. She takes it from the bookshelf and begins to draw again. She doesn’t notice, but there is something visibly strange. She draws in the book everyday, filling each page from left to right. And yet, as she flips through the pages to find the latest page, many of the pages are blank with only a few pictures every once in a while. Those pages should be filled already, why are they blank?

The young man that she met with earlier opens the door and beckons her to follow him out of the room. She follows, bringing her sketchbook with her. They walk through white halls with doors on both sides. I appear, unable to restrain myself anymore. Something is seriously wrong and I’m going to find out what. Both of them are puzzled at my appearance. But the young man is the only one that seems slightly worried whereas the young woman seems curious that I could have come out of thin air. I snatch the young woman’s sketchbook and rifle through the pages showing them the blank pages where filled pages should be. “See?” I say.

They both frown, frustrated and confused. I roll my eyes. I point at a page that is quite recent. “This page is from one year ago.” I say, “Why are all the pages before it blank? Did nothing happen until one year ago?” I ask. The young woman gasps finally beginning to notice what I see.

“And the pages after it are blank except for a few pictures every 20 pages or so.” I say, “What happened on those day? Maybe there is some sort of clue as to why they’re blank.” This causes the young woman to grimace with worry. “I-I don’t remember!” She says clutching her face, straining to recall something, anything. As of now, her mind seems to only recall the last few minutes and nothing else. And she hates that she only knows who she is because the young man knows her name.

I don’t believe she could have forgotten everything. So I open back up to the page from one year ago where she is in multiple different outfits. “Do you remember this?” I ask.

“Yes!” She says, relieved to remember something, “That’s last year when my friend here gave me new clothes to try on.” She says. I turn to the young man. “You were there, what happened?” I ask him.

“It’s like she said, she just tried on new clothes.” He says. But I don’t believe it. My gut tells me that this young man must know more about what is going on. But if he’s not sharing this information… he must be the one responsible for these strange circumstances. So I leave them be and wander the halls by myself, opening doors and looking inside them to look for evidence. I find a room that has cardboard boxes. And in them are tiny white cubes made of even smaller cubes, sort of like a rubix cube. I pick one up. It begins to buzz and I feel something being pulled from me. I drop it, feeling much weaker. The vibrating cube slides along the floor. I’m not sure what these are or what they do, but I’m certain that they’re used for nefarious purposes.

I leave the room and go after the two people again. I try to convince the young woman that the young man is trying to do something to her with white cubes. She didn’t believe me because I’m not very good at articulating my thoughts and I just sounded crazy when I did so.

“He’s my friend.” She says, “He would never do anything bad to me.”

“How do you know?” I ask, “You don’t even remember who you are? How can you be sure he isn’t harming you?”

This did not have the intended effect. What seemed to be simply encouraging logical reasoning, seemed insulting to her. She storms off. But the young man doesn’t go after her. Instead he stares at me with anger in his eyes.

“I know you’re doing something to her.” I say, accusatorily, “I’m just not sure what it is.”

He grins fiendishly and says “You really shouldn’t mess with other people’s business.” He takes one of those white cubes out of his pocket. It is vibrating and stained dark purple. He clutches in his fist and it drains of color becoming white and motionless. He, on the other hand, clenches his other hand, gripping empty air and I feel myself squeezed together, unable to move.

“You stole her powers?” I say, bewildered, “Impossible! She’d never let that happen.”

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” He says, “So a selfie is a thousand times more potent than a signature.”

I feel myself squeezed even tighter, and the air cuts out of my lungs. My mind flashes back to the pictures I saw in the sketchbook. The pages flip across my vision, with such speed, that they almost seem like an animated flipbook. Most of the images are of the young woman with purple hair wearing an outfit, a new outfit in each picture. I can’t help but wonder why she is so obsessed with clothes. This man has been with the young woman for quite some time, and has supposedly had plenty of opportunities to steal her powers. Why only now? And why can’t she remember most days? Why are most of her pages blank?

I push back against the crushing force and gas for air. “Help!” The young man gets angry. “Be quiet.” He hisses. But it’s too late. I hear footsteps heading in my direction as I lose consciousness.

…

I wake up on the wooden floor. I look up. I’m not in the same complex of endless white hallways as before. The young woman with purple hair is here. “Don’t worry, we should be safe here.” She says, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you earlier.” She’s not wearing the same outfit as before. While she was in the white complex of endless halls, she wore a plain white dress, almost like a bleached hospital gown. Now she is wearing multiple layers of different colors and styles. White shirt barely visible underneath a black vest with a high collar. Thick black bands around her wrists with triangle shapes sticking out of them almost like spikes. She also has a light purple ribbon in her long dark purple hair, holding most of her close up by her head so it doesn’t go past her shoulders. This outfit also has dark purple triangle patches scattered about the vest.

She really did like changing outfits, didn’t she. She was one of those people who would change her outfit if you didn’t seem interested or if you appear to have gotten bored of it. Thus she would change her attire if you ever lose eye contact with her clothes, even if you so much as blink.

I notice that we are in a church building and there is a ditch running through the middle of the chapel room. The room has no seats in it. I come to the conclusion that I must fill the ditch with water. So I begin to dance. I’m not sure if this is a proper rain dance. The young woman with purple hair looks at me with confusion and then teleports away. I never see her again. My rain dance is working. I see clouds gathering beneath the ceiling. Rain pours out of them and soon the ditch is filled with water. I sense that people may litter by throwing trash into the ditch, so I come to a solution. I call in an assault plane to strafe the ground around the ditch to prevent anyone from getting close.

…

The path between school and home has a bridge. Under the shadow of the bridge, terrible things happen. You must always be careful lest you be mugged. I am driving this path to school. As I fall under the shadow of the bridge, I put my car on autopilot and climb out the side window and onto the roof.

I wield my katana in one hand, and have my other hand out to balance myself as I listen attentively, blind in the darkness, only the light on either end of the tunnel to show that I am even moving. Then I hear it, a shuffling sound. Something jumps up from my right, I swing my blade down against the creature, and my blade scrapes against a hard almost metallic surface. I can’t tell whether my attacker was wearing armor, parried my katana with their own blade, or if I merely just hit another car. But the sound backs away, so I should be–Ouch! Something just hit my temple in the right side of my head. I swing wildly, disoriented by the pain. I squeeze my eyes shut, which makes no difference in the darkness, trying to stave off the pain to fight off the inevitable attackers.

I can’t take it! I can’t take it! I can’t take it! I can’t take! I can’t–the pain stops abruptly I go completely numb. It’s the type of numbness in that you can’t tell that you’re numb. It’s the numb of me not feeling my wings because I don’t have wings. I can’t feel anything. Nothing more attacks me in the darkness underneath the bridge.

When I emerge from the darkness, I can finally see myself again. I watch myself teeter on top of the car, unable to steer it atop the roof. The car’s self-driving features allow it to drive without crashing, but it doesn’t navigate to the intended destination. But now that I’m in the light again, I can see myself. And I think I might be able to see something on the side of my face–wait, I’m a girl? Looking at my body from the front, it is clear that I’m female. Somehow, I hadn’t noticed until now. Perhaps I have a concussion? I should probably rest. I’ll have cancel going to school, but I’m already almost there. I watch myself jump off the car as it passes a street a few blocks away from school. The car got me close enough, I can take it from here.

I walk straight to the principal’s office. I watch myself open the wooden double doors to the office. From behind, I see the doors close on their own after I enter the room. The doors are closed, blocking my view except for a small window in each door. I watch myself through the window. I am talking to the principal, but I can’t hear what I’m saying because the doors are soundproof and they’re in the way.

I see myself raise my fist in anger as I shout something. The principal is frowning deeply, apparently very displeased about something. I see myself turn around and storm out of the room. As myself open the doors I step backwards into the room, watching myself march away down the hall. She slams the doors behind her. I can see inside the principal’s office, but myself is long out of sight. The principal sighs in annoyance and rings up a landline on his desk.

“This is the principal speaking.” He says, gripping his short, smooth white hair with his other hand, “Send my sons to my office.” Almost instantly, a man and a little boy enter the room. They do look similar enough that these could be the sons he was speaking of. The little boy is guided by a woman in a white lab coat, a red, and blue pen in her pen pocket on her lab coat and transparent plastic safety goggles. She puts on transparent, colorless plastic gloves and instructs the little boy in a hushed voice that I can’t make out the words of.

Meanwhile, The principal turns to the man and says, “Son, I have an important mission for you. A great threat has come to my attention. I’m entrusting you to destroy it.”

“Destroy it?” The man asks, “What is it?”

The principal rubs his chin with his left hand and casts his eyes to the floor in pondering musings “I’m not sure what exactly it is that we’re facing, but I saw it myself. A monster.” He says, “I don’t know where it came from, but we must extinguish it before it reproduces.”

That’s not very helpful. What does it look like?” The man asks.

The principal furrows his brow. “A human.” He says, “A human girl, teenage appearance.”

“I thought you said it was a monster.” The man says, “Are you sending me out to kill a human?”

“It’s not human, I can assure you.” The principal says, “It has a flower growing out of the side of its face and it doesn’t attend school.”

“What is so threatening about it?” The man asks, “If it’s just like any normal human but with flowers, I don’t see why we’re worried.”

The principal scowls. “Are you questioning my decision? Why don’t you just do what you’re told without hesitation? Why can’t you be more like your little brother?” The principal says as he then points to the little boy, “I ask him to do something and he does it. Even, if it isn’t something I think is possible.”

The man sighs. “Okay, father.” He says submissively, “I’ll destroy the threat.”

The principal grins. “I hope you do. If you fail, I might have to bring in your little brother instead.” The principal says, “Did you know that it’s not actually possible to become fully invisible. When wizards become invisible, they merely make themselves more transparent and dim, but not completely so. Few people can become dim enough to be invisible to the human eye.” He points to the little boy again, “Your brother is one of them.”

…

“My Ego will catch me.” I see myself through the open second story bedroom window. I see now wearing a loose light gray shirt and dark gray shorts walking backwards towards the window with her hands outstretched to either side. There is someone else in the room other than myself and I but I don’t get a good look before I struggle to catch myself falling out of a window.

I grab myself and pull with my might, hanging onto the window to anchor myself. Dark green bark-covered vines sprout from underneath the back of my light gray shirt, which soon becomes tight as writhing vines fill my width. The vines shoot up the window ledge, stopping my fall. She dangles, held only by vines, swaying beneath the window. She looks down, I follow her gaze. There are cars passing the street below.

“Let me go.” She says. I submit, and the vines disappear. She lands on the roof of a black tall boxy black car. There is an old lady driving it. I see that there is a little boy and little girl already on the roof, trying to steal the old woman’s handbag.

The boy turns to me and asks, “Who are you?”

I hear myself say, “I’m Spiderman.”

The girl frowns and says, “No you’re not. You don’t have the costume.

I watch myself shrug and jump off the car. Can’t stop crime if you’re not in costume after all. Maybe if I really was Spiderman, things would have gone differently.

I pass underneath the bridge unscatched. But on the other side, I see police try to stop me. Now that I think of it, after being awake, the car was probably being pulled over to alert the driver that there was a girl standing on the roof of the car. But I saw myself panic and hear myself say, “Ego, get help!” A pink flower bud grows out of the car roof, but instead of blossoming, it just gets bigger and bigger until it is taller than me. Then it blossoms, and inside is the boy that I saw robbing an old woman a little bit ago. He jumps down from the car with the stolen purse and the police man chases after him.

…

Back at someone’s house, hopefully my house, I see myself get ready for bed because it is dark outside. I am worried and don’t think she should sleep here because the principal has sent his son to destroy me. As I ruminate over these dreadful thoughts, I step back in surprise as I see myself suddenly get up from bed with the determination to leave the city and hide out in the wilderness.

…

I see the principal’s eldest son walking through a muggy swamp with what looks like a S.W.A.T. team. Fully armed, wearing thick camo armor and helmets, wielding rifles and wearing sunglasses. They trudge the mud and muck, guns in arms, ready to fire. The plentiful foliage and trees make it difficult to see far.

The team stops dead in their tracks when they hear a shuffling of leaves in a bush in front of them to the left. They raise their rifles and slowly advance towards the bushes, step by step. Splashing in the water behind them, causes them to make a heel-face turn to spot the pack of dinosaur raptors as tall as humans.

The special combat team awaits for the principal’s son to give the command to attack, but just as the man opens his mouth to speak, we all hear a loud, raspy voice of a woman speaking from the opposite side away from the raptors, and far from the bush that had shuffling leaves. I watch in tense anticipation.

“Leave them alone, beasts.” The woman’s voice calls as a humanoid figure heavily obscured by branches and leaves brushes foliage out of her face as she makes her slow approach, “The humans are under my protection.”

I turn to see how the raptors will react. It’s hard to make out their expression with their reptilian faces, but one of them speaks in a high-pitched and squeaky but seemingly masculine voice, “We were just trying to warn them about the croc-”

“I said begone!” The woman says firmly, “They are none of your concern.”

The raptors curse the woman’s impolite behavior and run off into the forest. The combat team stand in awe, though it occurs to me that they did not understand what the raptors were saying. When the woman is finally in full view, the familiar figure is unrecognizable. Flowers and roots twist the right side of the woman’s face and her right shoulder down to her elbow looks like a muscle diagram where it shows the human body but without any skin. Except, her arm is twisted green vines instead of pink-red muscles. Encircling her right arm from her elbow and down are snake-like vines that drape off the end of her arm like a weeping willow tree.

The plant growth infests the rest of her body to a much lesser degree. Faint green tint and what looks like a root network just under the skin. A few sprouts break out of open wounds, some of them blossoming into flowers and some even have leaves. It’s hard to tell what type of clothes she is wearing under the foliage growing from her body. But it’s definitely something like a black shirt or sweater or vest over some white skirt or shirt. Only when the principal’s son stare at the woman inquisitively before gasping aloud do I remember why this woman looks so familiar. She is me.

…

Having followed myself with the principal’s son and a combat team through a swamp, we eventually find ourselves leaving the shade of the trees to open up to a coast. The sand sinks below the water before rising back up to an island less than a mile out into the water, which appears to either be an ocean or a lake so large that you can’t see the end of it.

“I know what you are.” The principal’s son says to the woman, me, who is leading us, “But I was told that you were a monster, a menace to society.”

“You came here to kill me.” The woman says, in a deep raspy voice, malice licking her words, “It’s why I’m out here alone in the wilderness. Civilization doesn’t take kindly to people that are different.”

The man casts his eyes to the ground. “I’m sorry.” He says, “I didn’t know you would be so human.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I hear the woman, myself, ask, “I was a student in school before the principal kicked me out. A normal human. That didn’t change just because of a few plants.”

“I went to school too.” The man says, “Did I know you?”

I watch myself shrug. “Who knows?” She says, “But it doesn’t really matter. I no longer identify as the person I once was. I now go by “Number One.”

“Number One?” The man asks, “That’s your new name?”

“Of course, I am the first of my kind.” Number One says, “It only makes sense to distinguish our people by their generation.”

The man thinks of all this. I know, since this is the principal’s son, that he is going to be in big trouble if he goes back to the principal empty handed, especially after meeting Number One and having the opportunity to capture her or rather me? It’s getting confusing. I’m just going to refer to her in 3rd person even though she is also me.

Some of the flowers on Number One’s face have started growing seeds that look like green capless acorns. After holding a face of deep concentration for a few minutes, he stoops to the ground to grab one of the acorn-like seeds that has fallen from Number One’s face. Holding in his right hand, he smashes it into his right cheekbone. The acorn burrows into his skin and green tinting colors and root-like networks begin spreading underneath his skin around the seed almost immediately.

Number One stares at him, mouth open in shock. The man smiles at her, though it is more of a grimace in pain. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.” He says, “Call me Number Two.”

Number One’s face shakes off the expression of bewilderment and breaks out into a big smile. Seeing how happy this makes her, the other members of the combat squad take off their helmets and pick up seeds of their own from the ground, each rushing to crush their seed into their face first so they can be Number Three.

The one to successfully beat the rest in becoming Number Three is an overweight young woman that looks like she has no business in an elite task force that requires great physical endurance. Despite appearances, she was the fastest to implant the seed in her face, so it just goes to show that I had misjudged her.

Soon the entire team has green leafage sprouting from their face. I don’t count them, but the last one is named Number Six. They follow Number One as she walks to the island that is less than a mile into the ocean. Towering over the island is a lighthouse? Tree? Giant mushroom? Well, that’s the problem isn’t it. There is a massive structure that takes up most of the space on the island, but I can’t for the life of Number One figure what it is? In some of my memories, it’s a giant lighthouse, such as later when Number One and Number Two leave the structure. But then right now, as they’re heading towards it, it appears as a giant tree, which becomes a giant mushroom once they reach shore. Later in the dream, it even appears as a mountain. Ugh, whatever, I’ll just have to take it scene by scene.

They follow Number One, walking across the water to the giant tree on the island as the sun begins to set. I follow them, but I feel uneasy. I look around for hidden crocodiles, but we’re in saltwater now, so that can’t be it. I get the feeling that there is something else here with us. I kind of wish Number One hadn’t so rudely driven away the raptors, I’d love to have the assurance of their keen senses alerting us of danger such as hidden crocodiles.

We arrive at the base of the island, the winding staircase that goes up the side of the giant mushroom is the direction Number One moves towards and I hear groans of protest as the squad realizes they’ll have to ascend a very long set of stairs. The journey isn’t as bad as they made it seem. We reach the cap of the mushroom and enter a doorway to find that most of the cap is hollow, leaving an incredibly wide room. In the middle of the room is a massive pillar, which is the stem continuing upwards until it hits the ceiling.

The squad is amazed and unable to speak coherently for a time out of the sheer beauty of such a spacious and mostly colorless empty dome. I am the last to enter, but I feel a breeze behind me. It’s a brief weak wind, hot and wet on the back of my neck. I watch as the squad run to the walls of the room, which appear to be in the inside of the mushroom cap. As they come in contact with the wall, a car-sized, hollow acorn-like seed grows from the side of the wall for each person. Upon entering their respective car-sized seed, they can direct the seed to move along the wall.

Some of the people customize their seedlings, causing curtains of broad leaves to give them almost like a room for privacy. Others stretch further inwards towards the center of the room away from the wall. Number One and Number Two climb up the column in the center of the room. I remain on the ground, content to watch. I hear footsteps just outside the doorway by the stairs. I look to see who is coming, but no one is there. I decide to ignore the sound I heard and continue looking over the Numbers. Strange, my body has given itself its own name. And so have the rest of them. I wonder why that is.

The Numbers on the seedlings in the wall starting to make trouble amongst themselves. I hear arguing coming from their direction, so I proceed up towards them, defying gravity because I’m no longer inside a body to hold me back. The problem stems from the squad members not remembering the Number names of their companions and thus calling them by their old names, which offends the Numbers.

“Don’t call me that! I’m Number Three.” Shouts an overweight young woman crawling down her seedling towards the offender who dared call her by her previous name. The offender is a little girl, which I could almost believe was a child if she weren’t also so clearly a squad member. The little girl, Number Five, steps backwards, nearly falling off her own seedling; she catches herself by grabbing the thick curtain of leaves she produced. “Why should I call you by your Number name if you won’t remember my Number either?” Number Five retorts.

I can see that things are getting out of hand as Number Three reaches Number Five’s Seedling and moves to push her off over the edge. I feel helpless to act, but then I recall what I did the last time a Number was falling. It was what used to be my body, Number One. Reach forward to grab Number Five. Vines stretch from the wall, a flower blossoms into a soft landing pad atop the vine and catches Number Five as she falls to what otherwise might have harmed her.

Number Five is furious and I try to hold her back. A blanket of leaves sprout from the flower like a net and traps her, though she looks like she’s slowly breaking through. Meanwhile Number Three is ready to pounce on Five again.

“Emergency Council!” calls out a familiar male voice. The Numbers stop fighting to look around the room. Their eyes land upon Number Two, who used to be the principal’s oldest son. “I need you all to gather together here by the center of the room.” He says, “I have important news of an urgent matter.”

The Numbers lower their seedlings to the ground and ride them to the center of the room where they then begin to grow up the side of the pillar, the stem. Number One frowns, displeased that Number Two is calling a meeting as if he were in charge.

“The city has recently hit a food shortage as some wild animals have been running through their crop fields, stomping out the plants growing in the soil.” Number Two says, “We need to figure out a plan as to how we can best help them without needlessly hurting the animals.”

Some Numbers murmur about this. They’re not too keen on the idea of going back to the city after becoming the very thing they were sent to destroy. Number One folds her arms in disappointment. “We are not going to help those people with their animal problem.” She says firmly.

Number Two looks at her, surprised. “What? We’re supposed to help people!” He protests, “We can’t just stand by and do nothing when we have it in our power to save them.”

Number One shakes her head. “They’d have us killed.” She says, “We can’t risk going anywhere near the city.”

Number Two flushes red with anger, he furiously leaps off his seedling. He stretches his arms and legs out as he falls and webbing grows between his right arm and leg and also between his left leg and arm. He glides down to the floor towards the only exit, a doorway. “I’m going to found my own colony starting at Two Point One.” He says, “And we will take down the corrupt government of the humans which seeks to destroy us so that we can live together with the humans in the cities.” Number One jumps after him. “Ego, I summon thee!” She calls. I appear directly below her. I close my eyes, unable to watch her inevitable demise, since I’m at a loss as to how to save her.

But as she nears the ground I feel something on the floor beneath me. It’s a small sprouting bud, I lift it upwards, causing it to expand rather than actually moving. The bud doesn’t blossom, merely get bigger. Number One lands on the bud and launches off it towards Number Two like a bouncy launchpad. She tackles Number Two to the ground. And as he  pushes up against the ground trying to get up while she is grappling him, Number One calls his previous name, the one he had back when he was the principal’s son. I don’t remember the name. It was like “Trevor” or something.

Number Two stops. He is a bit offended that Number One called him by his previous name, but he instead goes placid and curious. “You know my human name.” He says, “That means, I must have known you when you were human too.”

Number One shakes her head. “Everyone knows the son of the principal.” She says sadly, “But no one knew me. Otherwise, you’d already know who I was. I’ve been gone from the city for two months. It doesn’t seem like anybody has noticed.”

Number Two embarrassedly admits that he didn’t notice anyone missing, especially since Number One was probably a fellow student at his school if she knew that he was the principal’s son. “It doesn’t matter who you were before, you can make the world a better place now that you are a Number.” Number Two says, “The people of the city may fear you at first, but they will come to accept you just like I did.”

Number One must admit to herself that she has been rather lonely living in the wilderness for months, and even with this hit-squad that was sent to kill her now joining her, she still feels empty inside. She finally opens up, allowing herself to be vulnerable, to be hurt by daring to hope that the people of the city will see her as a person instead of a monster.

This hope is the first real emotion besides fear and resentment that she has felt in two months. The shock of emotion overwhelms, bringing tears to her eyes, running down the leaves of her face. She gets up from the floor where she had been holding Number Two to prevent him from running, and she runs out the doorway in embarrassment for being vulnerable and showing deep emotion in front of everyone.

It’s dark now. The night makes it hard to see, and Number Two feels bad for making her cry, supposing that what he did had been so offensive as to hurt her feelings now regretting his outburst earlier now that he has calmed down. He looks down the stairs from the top of the lighthouse, which sheds a spotlight in a blinding beam over the choppy waves of the night time sea. His eyes dart from side to side, searching for Number One. As the lighthouse shines its beam over the water, he briefly sees a silhouette on or in the water as the light passes over the figure. He jumps down from the lighthouse, using his webbed flaps to glide to Number One. He drops down on the rolling waves next to her.

It’s hard to hear what he is saying through the rain, wind, and crashing waves, but I stay close to them in case they need help in this dangerous weather. Number Two calls out to Number One. “I wanted you to know that I’m sorry I threw a fit and tried to leave the group.” He says, “With me as Number Two, what does it even mean to have a Two Point One? It’s a stupid idea.”

Inaudible. The wind picks up. Walking on water, they talk to each other. I’m not sure what they’re saying, but I can see reconciliation in their movements. But as the storm grows stronger, the waves pull them down under. In the water, they continue to communicate. Not through words, but through their gaze. They stare at each other in the dark of night. The window of their eyes allow their feelings to travel. But I’m not attuned to this connection. So I left alone, underwater, to swim. Not knowing what they’re thinking, I’m distracted. For I see some bubbles in the water, but not from hydrothermal vents. The water wavers down here, in a small space. I’m not sure what that means, I’m not a hydrologist. But I’m sure of no major importance. So I follow Number One and Two as they enter a romance.

A romance? At least that’s what it looked like. Why else for so long would they still into each other's eyes? No confession of love could ever define such a perfect union as those two at midnight. But nevertheless, they end their alone time and return to their base to make up their minds. What should they do? I guess we shall see, for the next thing I know, the principal I’m watching.

The principal is walking along the beach. His left out to his side, up and down its patting. I squint my eyes until I finally see. His youngest son, that head he’s patting. “Well done, junior. You did it again. I knew my eldest would lead us right to them.” With a shiver I realize that he was a surveillance. The boy was invisible, hiding in our presence. The principal readies a plan of attack, then sends his boy to recon again. But as he is swimming, across the lane invisibly, the base farther away than it did initially.

Through a marsh, through swamp, through crashing waves and mist. The boy triumphs as hge just barely cuts through. As slick as a fin, he crawls through the water and ends up on shore out of breath and worn out. Then he slowly makes his way to the base. No longer invisible, he lacks the energy. And from a distance he can see the place has grand walls, it’s a fortress. So when he arrives and sees a refutable village, at least twenty people pulling carts down a mineshaft. He doesn’t look back to his dad as he makes his choice. He jumps up to meet them and declares with a loud voice. “I’m the principal’s son. I’ve come to join you. Just like my brother, I’ve seen your virtuous attributes.” And just like that, he was part of the team. And his father looked from shore, deaf to the scheme.