The Other Woman – 12/14/16

I was at a beautiful gathering; a gala maybe? I wore a gorgeous floor length gown that glittered when I twirled and was dancing, slow dancing, maybe the waltz in a grand hall with a marble floor. The hall had giant intricate pillars that lifted for miles and I truly would have felt like a princess except for an aching feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me something was wrong. Servers carried platters of champagne and finger food by me as I danced with him. I looked over his shoulder anxiously, looking for anything suspicious, but all I saw were happy party goers minding their own. It was nearing the time I had to leave. I had a work party or something I needed to make it to, but I wasn’t planning on going. He was up to something, something he didn’t want me to know. I had been with him for a while now, and my gut told me there was something he was hiding. My head did the rest, thinking the worst, as I searched the room, looking for her. Nobody looked out of place. When it was finally the last moment I could leave and get to my other engagement on time. I excused myself, parting with a hug and words of well wishes. I headed toward the door, but ducked behind a magnificent pillar, he didn’t seem to notice. It didn’t take long for her to appear. Her gown was beautiful and she seemed a bit younger, but I was too far away to get a good look. Her long blonde hair looked natural, but as I got closer, I could see her darkened roots.

With all the stealth of a graceless bull in tap shoes, I marched to his side, placing m hand on his arm while they danced. He gave me a surprised look, but didn’t appear alarmed. Neither did she. I began to question if I had been wrong the whole time, and cut in, lying that I’d gotten a text message saying my meeting or party or whatever had been postponed. The other girl stayed close at my heels as we danced, waiting for the moment I stepped away, a moment I didn’t plan to give.

After a while, my manners got the better of me. I turned to her and introduced myself as Amy. She smiled at me. A genuine smile, like one you’d see on a kid usually picked last for kickball being the one chosen first for a team. My man stopped dancing and looked at me, his face clearly embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have told you a while ago.”

My stomach turned to knots as I anticipated the gut punch I already felt coming.

“This is my daughter, Suzie.”

And with that, before my eyes, Suzie transformed from the beautiful young woman that she was into a small, child; sweet, adorable, and full of life. I smiled at her, a real smile.

“It’s great to meet you.”

I shot her dad a look that I was hoping said “Why didn’t you tell me?” but he just smiled and shrugged.

~Awake~

Infiltration and Sky Base – 11/1/16

My trial, to prove I was who I said I was, was to walk through a hallway, riddled with Indiana Jones style booby traps. The floor tiles would depress if I put too much weight on the wrong ones. If they fully depressed, then the walls would spit arrows at me. Or at least that’s what I believed would happen. As I walked tile to tile, I prodded the next stepping place, testing it with some weight to see if it budged. After making some nearly fatal miscalculations and having a great deal of luck on my side, I made it through on a very unceremonious path. The time it took me, however, gave me away, and soon, my escort was calling for guards to take me away and imprison me for both impersonation and treason. I ran. I knew that there were others in my group, like the redhead woman, whose long wavy hair looked black when she pulled it into a tight braided bun. The other man with me decided to run as well. We quickly scaled the wall of the mansion’s courtyard and made it to the outer edge of the palace before we were stopped. Apparently word had not yet spread to these men, as we were able to convince them we had be exiled, and not charged as treasonous prisoners. They sent us to be marooned on a small sand island, that was really more of a sand bar than an actual island. As the tide came in, it became clear that the whole island would soon be underwater, and the nearest landmass was too far to swim to, especially fully clothed in noble attire. Just then, I remembered I had the ability to fly, and scooped up my comrade and carried him to the next nearest island, one that had trees for shelter, didn’t look inhabited, and most importantly, wouldn’t go underwater with the tide.

After a short while, the locals who were hidden at our arrival found us. When they realized we were not actually of the royal guard, or whatever it was we were attempting to infiltrate, they explained to us that they too were part of the resistance, and this was one of their bases. I showed them my rank and explained to them that I believed the redheaded agent had double crossed us and was working with the enemy. They disagreed, telling me that she’d gathered a great deal of intel that we’d since been lacking, including the coordinates that the enemy had of all of our bases. I was shocked to find that my base, the floating sky base, was one of the ones listed as known, and it was scheduled to be raided and destroyed soon.

Frantic, I needed to warn my people, but fortunately, the islanders had already beat me to it. They told me that they’d sent for an evacuation and that the inhabitants were headed toward a secret sky base, one that I didn’t know existed. I sent my captain, the man I’d saved from the water, to go lead the sky ships safely to their new location, speeding up time for them to ensure their success. Meanwhile, I was also able to see that the enemy captain’s ship would transform each night, changing it from a floating ship with sails to a luxurious modern building, that floated. I remember thinking something about a worker’s union, but that was about the extent of that.

Nearing the end, my vision flashed over to what appeared to be the third member of my initial group. The woman with dark red hair. She was in a beautiful, bright room, with mirrors and high ceilings. I heard someone ask “When did she get those tattoos?” When I looked at her back, I saw what they were referring to, but it didn’t look like tattoos to me. My view honed in on what I finally realized were the laces of a corset, the corset of a white wedding gown, with names scrawled across them. When pulled tighter, the names changed, and I finally realized that they were credits, to my dream…

~Awake~

Pokemon Mountain – 10/20/16

Preface:

It’s been about a month since I’ve had an interesting dream, but my dream last night had a tiny bit of structure, so that’s what I’ll write about.

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It was late in the afternoon on the island when I began looking for them, the Pokémon that is. I wasn’t a trainer, more of a breeder or caretaker working for the professor. I didn’t know exactly what he was the professor of, but that’s what we called him, or at least what I called him. There was nobody else on the island. I walked out of the gated valley area where I had taken my nap and looked up the mountain at all of the adjacent, fenced in squares over its winding trail. Most of the pens were empty with the gates open, but a few of them, particularly over the grassy areas, had gates closed with a few creatures that were not quite Pokémon caged inside. The one I could see looked more like a pen of quadrupedal raptors with long feathered tails that ploofed at their ends. I shivered, and opened what I could only describe as my Pokédex in attempt to locate the other Pokémon I needed to get to their pens. By the time I found and returned a few of them, I got a call from the professor asking me to create a new Pokémon, which didn’t strike me as odd at all.

He wanted something powerful, but kept naming Pokémon that had abilities that would not combine to be as extraordinary as he was expecting. I told him that I’d come up with something, and hung up. After looking at a chart of Pokémon on my Pokédex, I decided I wanted to go with something that had a lot of flair, and that knew Hyperbeam, naturally I chose Gyarados. It took me a while to think of what to combine him with, however. I wanted something that would help to eradicate weakness as well as strengthen his Hyperbeam overall, and instead of choosing Dragonite (which I only thought of once I woke up), I went with Venusaur. Since during the dream, I didn’t realize, or care that Venusaur knew Solar Beam, not Hyperbeam, I decided they would be a magnificent combination, and began getting to work on how it would look, how to create it, and what to name it.

While trying to come up with a name, I got a call from a young colleague of mine, who heard about my predicament and what I was attempting to do. She came up with the name “Garysaur” but I could only have it if she was allowed to draft the email to the professor, begrudgingly, I said yes, and regretted it immediately. When I finally read the letter (after she’d sent it) I realized that she’d tried to take credit for the entire creation, not simply the name. Fortunately, he’d already agreed upon the Pokémon combination, so I didn’t have to worry, but I felt a sickening combination of betrayal and aggravation before I woke up.

~Awake~

Stolen Recipes at the Cafe – 9/15/2016

The world was made of Legos… or something like it. I remember there was a reason, like something I did, or somewhere I came from led to this, but I don’t remember what exactly. I do recall that there was some sort of co-ed fraternity that I was a part of. I found our box of decorations after it had been put away. I was helping clean up after a party, and the box was put away too soon. I carried the final decorations to where it was stored, only to find the box was already quite full. I remember being upset at how so many of people’s personal belongings were in the storage box, but was told that they were used as costuming only, even though they belonged to individual members and not the group as a whole.

As I was leaving the area, I went through a pixel or Lego land. It was a very strange area with a toxic river and little things that seemed to be stop-motion animated. The whole thing felt rather surreal. It was at this point that I controlled a small rocket with a little handheld controller I found. It was shaped a bit like the SNES controller. Making the rocket fly got the attention of some others in the area, something that I neither expected, nor wanted. I had to jump on a small log-like thing and rode through the river before I got to a miniature Japan area.

I walked through the streets, seeing Japanese characters and realized that it really was a weird mini clay seeming Japan that I found by steering a log through a stop motion river, passing through an industrial area, and surviving the toxic waters. The islanders had no idea they were miniaturized nor did they seem to realize that they appeared to be clay. They went about their day as if it was business as usual. As I got closer to the island to inspect it further, I realized that rather than looking down on it’s people, I had become them. As I walked and moved among them, it became more and more difficult for me to notice that they looked clay, or maybe their features were just getting more detailed. Soon, I too began walking the streets as if I belonged there. I saw a kid on a skateboard and couldn’t help but wonder if it was a Tech Deck, that toy from the 90s. Before long, I had no idea why I would think something like that, and pushed the idea from my mind completely.

The world around me seemed so real that I soon wasn’t able to tell if it was stop-motion, or reality. I found myself in a small bakery, but rather than everyone speaking Japanese, everyone talked in English. I went up to the counter and ordered a cookie. While I was waiting, there was a young woman, about mid 20s, yelling at the lady behind the counter and accusing her of stealing her grandmother’s recipes. She had wild curly blonde hair, that shook when she spoke, and was livid. She hollered at the employee,claiming that the cute cupcakes and pastries their company claimed to have created were stolen from her family and how they should be shut down. I finished paying another worker for my cookie and sat at a small round table munching on my treat and watching the drama unfold.

The cookie wasn’t all that good. I remembered thinking I could taste the baking powder… Or was it baking soda? I could never remember which of those is which. A woman with long dark hair took the seat across from me. She was holding a strawberry filled roll, not like a pastry roll, but like a hotdog roll or maybe it was a baguette, and staring at it intently, like she may have expected something from it, or from me? Finally, she spoke, saying that she knew she knew how to make it (I assumed she was referring to the strawberry roll), she just couldn’t remember. She continued that if her mother were around, she’d know what to do, but she’d be very disappointed. I stared at the woman a little longer. She looked to be in her late 40s but the way she was talking she sounded like a little girl.

“What’s the matter?” I finally said to her.
“Oh,” she said looking up. “It’s just that this shop stole my mother’s recipes and they’re not coming clean about it. The media keeps spinning it as if we were the ones who are in the wrong, meanwhile our shops keep getting closed down.

I looked at the strawberry roll in her hand then back at her. “You know, I just ate a cookie here and it tasted awful. Too much baking powder, or soda… I said”
“Baking soda,” she said definitively, looking at the remains of the cookie I still had sitting on a napkin. “That’s not our recipe,” she continued, her voice hard.

“So, maybe go after a bakery that has better tasting goods?” I offered helpfully. “I mean this one is internationally recognized, but…”

“Yes, I know,” she interrupted, “but their bread rolls, and cupcakes those are ours, my… Amy (I don’t remember her name) gets a little carried away. The media follows her and her accusations, we really have no proof aside from the taste.”

I looked at her, unsure what she wanted me to say.

She looked back down at the roll “But now, I’m not even sure I know how to bake,” she said, unable to hide the anguish on her face.

“You could try to gather evidence, build a real case. If a shop actually stole your, mother’s recipe, I’m sure there’s some proof around,” I said, more as a question than an outright statement.

She gave me a hopeful smile as we both heard Amy at the counter, yelling and screaming about something before standing over us at the table. She didn’t seem to notice my presence as she fumed at the dark haired woman I was speaking with.

“We’re done here,” she said, grabbing the older women by the arm and dragging her out of the cafe.

I stared at their backs as they left, then considered if I should take another bite of my cookie, before deciding not to.

 

The dream then flashed over to a third person view to the two women. They were in what I assumed was either their home or their bakery. My view panned, something like a dramatic scene in a movie, over to a strange pod. Inside was an older women, wrinkles at the corners of her gently closed eyes. Still, as if time itself was frozen with her as she slept. Her face greatly resembled the woman with dark hair, as if looking into what her future self would be but with one distinct difference. Rather than straight dark hair, this woman’s curly blonde hair was wild, and more untamed than the blonde’s from the cafe. Both women kneeled in front of the pod and quietly said, “Soon, soon we will be able to bring you back.”

~Awake~

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Dreamer’s Note:

This was the third dream I had in a series of (at least) 3 dreams last night. I got as many of the details down as I could remember, but as always, there may be some things that were changed or left out from the actual dream.

A Deadly Walk – 3/27/2016

Dreamer’s Note: So, I haven’t been recording my dreams lately (bad, I know), so this one is one that I wrote about a few months ago. The details are hazy so I’m just going off of what my half asleep past self was able to jot down.

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It was a brisk evening for a walk, but I didn’t mind. I followed the path in the park to where it curved around a large grassy area. I wasn’t really paying attention when a man stopped me. His expression was frantic, or maybe angry, but he gripped my left arm so tight that I gasped from both shock and pain while I struggled, to no avail, to get it free. With his free, left hand, he threw a wide punch at me, which I reflexively blocked with my right forearm (thank you karate lessons).

He froze for a moment with a dumbfounded look on his face, unsure what to do next, as he’d never been stopped this way before. Luckily, I was able to flip him onto his back, using his own grip on my arm against him and pulling his tall but average frame over my shoulder and onto the walking path. His grip slacked on my arm, clearly stunned from the maneuver and I dropped a knee into his chest and began punching.

With the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I wasn’t able to get an accurate read on exactly how long I was punching him, or exactly how little I was holding back. Eventually, the man stopped fighting back altogether. Weary it may have been a trap, or that maybe I had gone a hair too far, I slowly got off of my attacker and watched with relief as I saw his chest slowly rise and fall as his lungs filled with air.

Without thinking about it too much, I turned and ran down the path, the way I came from, fumbling for my cell phone to text the police. I didn’t even know the number I would need to text, so thinking better of it. I dialed 9-1-1.

I found a large gray electrical box to hide behind and I ducked out of site of the man, but not too far that I wasn’t able to see him if I had decided to peek my head around the box. When the operator answered, I whispered into my phone that I had just been attacked. “I was able to incapacitate the guy, but I’m afraid that when he gets up, he’ll be after me,” I didn’t dare speak any louder than a whisper, fearing that my now unconscious assailant might wake up and figure out where I was if I was too loud. I continued to explain to her that I was on campus and that I was hiding behind an electrical box looking thing near gate 14.

When the operator responded, it wasn’t at all what I had expected. She told me that she’d call it in, but she had to use the restroom first. Confused and frustrated, I told her to hurry, before hearing the click of the receiver and the line going dead.

I crouched with my back leaning against the cold metal box, not daring to peek around the corner to see if the man was still there. A few minutes felt like hours as they passed, and nobody walked down my path. Nobody was coming to my aid. Finally, a woman with curly red hair appeared down the path, near the gate marker 14. She was walking with a man and they were heading straight toward where I had knocked the guy unconscious. I wanted to warn them, to warn her, but I couldn’t muster the courage to move or speak.

I peeked around the corner to see if the man was still there, he was. Lying as still as when I left him, only his chest rising and falling. I let out a soft sigh of relief, but it was too soon. I saw the man begin to move and get up, and suddenly all the reluctance that had kept me frozen vanished. I sprinted toward the two of them, not even realizing that the man she had been with was nowhere in sight. When I got close enough to see and hear what was really happening, I stopped dead in the path. In my attacker’s hand sat a small revolver. He had it aimed at the woman, who was not at all defenseless while she aimed a pistol of her own at him. In a loud, commanding voice, she was shouting for him to drop his weapon.

I took a few small steps back, hoping none of them noticed me. As she shouted again, I saw the man she was with appear out of the bushes with a pair of handcuffs. He parroted the woman, telling the man to drop his weapon, and at this point, he finally does. He handcuffs the attacker and I wonder if these could be the 9-1-1 responders, even though they were wearing civilian street clothes. As the woman passed by me, I thanked her, and then she turned away from me and thanked another redheaded woman, who I hadn’t noticed, for being a decoy.

“How weird.” I thought to myself before waking up.

Dream Log Entry #3 – Dare to Dream… About Pirates?

Dream from the night of 3/16 (so pirates and St. Patty’s Day?)

 

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“I know it’s here somewhere,” I mumbled as I threw random stacks of paper from my dresser. My mind flew into a panic when I couldn’t find the small copper Spanish coin, about the size of a nickel. I shuffled my jewelry boxes and necklace stands looking for anywhere it might be hiding on the now chaotic dresser top. My mind reeled, she’s going to be here any minute and the stupid thing just grew legs and walked off!

Desperate to find it, I rushed to my older brother’s room. Before I could even ask, I saw the battered old copper coin hanging from its leather cord around his neck. I shouted his name, but he didn’t seem to hear me.

My head drooped as I began to question the power of the coin. Was it really just creating some sort of illusion? Was I just crazy and saw what I wanted to see? No, I told myself. It’s real, and Emily has to see it!

“Hey!” I called out to him again. This time, he turned to look at me from where he stood in the middle of the room.

“What?” He asked in a flat tone.

“That medallion coin thing…?” I replied, pointing at the coin hanging at his chest.

“Oh, yeah, I saw it in your room and I liked it. Do you need it back?” he said, his tone almost apologetic.

“Please. I need to show it to a friend.”

“Sure,” he replied as he pulled it over his head and handed the cord to me.

I thanked him before returning to the couch and staring at the coin. It looked like just a regular old antique coin, nothing special. My thoughts wandered to what I had seen when I held it, and I couldn’t help but wonder if my brother had seen it too.

Unaware of how much time passed, I heard the doorbell ring. I opened it to a smiling, yet confused, Emily.

“What was so urgent that I had to come here now?” she asked, her arms folded across her chest while she displayed her ever prevalent smile.

“I had to get this back from my brother,” I told her holding the coin out by the leather cord at arm’s length.
“You didn’t need to get it for me if he had it,” she replied, her smile morphing into a scowl as she stared at the coin. “It’s so old… what is it?” she asked after an uncomfortably long silence.

“It’s worth it,” I told her. “Trust me.”

She wouldn’t have believed me if I told her. I wouldn’t have believed her if she’d told me. She sighed and rolled her eyes but it seemed like she was on-board with my flavor of crazy, for today at least. I took in a deep breath and told her she needed to touch the coin. She looked at me as if I was asking her to poke a dead mouse, but she finally did. Then, so did I.

The world whipped around me. The air had a new coldness, and dampness before I could see clearly. We were out at sea. The deck of the ship rocked below my feet. She saw the flag before I could point it out. Black with a white skull and crossed swords. I took another deep breath in through my nose and could almost taste the salt in the air. It was real.

 

Dream Log Entry #2 – Ambrosia Street

I was making salsa. The kitchen was older and cramped, especially with all of us crowded around the counter. I’m not sure how many of us there were, but I remember using some left over salsa in the salsa I was making. I didn’t think it was weird at the time to put beans into my salsa too, but the people around me complained about it. I really didn’t think it was a big deal, so I grabbed a plate for my salsa, my bowl of finished salsa, and a martini then left.

I don’t remember walking to my car, but I do remember that once I was in it, my martini glass was full and placed in my cup holder. As I drove it didn’t slosh around or spill, although I was worried it might. I had chips and salsa on my front passenger seat that I ate as I drove, swerving noticeably as I was paying more attention to the food than I was to the road, but it didn’t seem to matter. The sun had already set and I was the only car on the road. The whole time, however, I was worried that I would get pulled over for drinking and driving, since the martini glass was completely out in the open. I sipped on it as I drove, and I seemed to be going for hours, although I wasn’t exactly sure of where I was heading.

Finally I came to a street called ‘Ambrosia.’ I put the salsa plate in the back seat of my car and downed the rest of my drink just in time for a motorcycle cop to pull up beside me at the Ambrosia intersection. I dropped my glass and the officer didn’t seem to notice, because when the light turned green, he drove off and I turned left and parked my car on the side of the road. I walked over to the other side of the sidewalk and followed it down the street.

As I continued down the street, which looked fairly unfamiliar to me, I had a memory of a woman that claimed she got powers of premonition or some other magic at one of the abandoned shops. I peered in through the glass and the place was barren. I wasn’t sure how old the memory was, but it was clear that nobody had occupied the store for a long time.

Suddenly, the woman from the memory was beside me. She warned me not to go into the empty shop front. That there was something evil lurking behind the glass doors, but I couldn’t feel any presence. It was finally apparent to me that I was some sort of exorcist or medium. I followed a feeling of an evil presence down the street. I was guessing the woman had been mistaken and this was where she really meant her powers came from.

I came to a stop at the end of the block. There was a very dark presence in a small L shaped hallway lined with cabinets and other large objects. It appeared the entire store was a simple L shaped hallway with 2 entrances and what appeared to be some sort of storage center in the corner keeping the room from being a simple square. The presence grew stronger as I entered the room, and I saw mouths form on the walls and objects that lined the shelves and cabinets. They began to speak while people appeared out of nowhere to chant along with them, mimicking every word they said.

Eventually the mob grew too large to fit in the small L shaped room and began flooding the streets. I had no idea where the mob had come from or if they were even human, but I stood there at one of the shop entrances and watched as the crowd, in unison, obeyed each command the disembodied voices gave.

Dream Log Entry #1 Murder at the Spare House

2/16/2015

image obtained from: psychicsuniverse.com

I started off as an observer, like a camera person, or an audience member magically looking in onto another’s life. I did not know who the girl in her early 20’s was, but I had a strange connection with her, understanding her thoughts, but distanced enough to be unable to affect them.

She had been pacing her room since before I’d arrived, wondering how to gain the attention and affection of a boy she’d just started crushing on. This irritated me immensely, as I somehow knew she also had a boyfriend. She kept telling herself that if she only had another room that she could use, she would be able to convince her crush to date her, and that would solve all of her problems. Her room was a pastel pink. Like something you would expect a young girl to live in, ruffles everywhere. I rolled my eyes as she made her way to the windowsill, one of the ones that had a sitting area under the window that popped out just a bit, typically seen in a Victorian styled house.

It was something like this, but there was no water, and the stilts were straight, no angled bars for support. the staircase to get to the door just straight out at a 45% angle down.
Image obtained from: floridamemory.com

She stared at the carcass of the abandoned house that sat outside her window. It was a small, two bedroom home that was a dark wooden brown color, possibly because the entire thing was made of an unpolished, unfinished wood. The entire house sat atop stilts that held it up 2 or 3 stories in the air. It had a long single 45 degree staircase that was a straight shot from the ground to the front door. The house was abandoned long ago, and to me it looked structurally unsound, especially with how skinny the pillars it sat on were.

It was immediately apparent that she did not share my fears about this house, as she grabbed her backpack and raced up the rickety old stairs, which didn’t have a handrail, and up to the door of the tiny house. It wasn’t until she opened the door and stepped into the living room, that I realized the entire house was smaller than my first apartment. The living room was about 10 feet by 15 feet and seemed to also include the kitchen. The room was very dimly lit though, so I really couldn’t tell. Straight forward, about 10 feet from the front door, there was a small bathroom, and to the right of the room, in the center of that wall, maybe 7 feet from where the girl stood, was a door to a bedroom.

I followed the girl through the door and into a small dusty bedroom. Carefully, she placed a pearl necklace on the bed and took out her laptop to video chat with her crush. I had a very uneasy feeling about all of this, like I was not supposed to be there, like I was somehow invading someone else’s space, but another glance at the bed reassured me that nobody had been here for a while. Even though the house wasn’t lived in, and the bed was made and fairly clean, but everything else seemed to be dusty, the way a movie would portray an old abandoned room or house.

Around the time I finally relaxed about the trespassing thing, I heard the front door open and close quickly followed by the girl telling her crush that she had to go and that she’d talk to him later. All of her panic and worry flooded into me as soon as her laptop snapped shut. It mixed and stewed with mine as we both heard two distinct sets of footprints flood the tiny wooden living room.

Before either of us had time to reach the door and peek out at whomever just entered this supposedly abandoned property, we heard a deafening gunshot. Without thinking, I cracked open the large wooden door of the room we were in and saw a balding man in his mid 50’s. He was standing over a woman in her late 70’s who was writhing in a pool of her own blood on the hard wood floor. The man had his back turned to the doorway that I was staring from, but I could clearly see the handle of a pistol sticking out of the back of his pants. The man stepped around the woman and grabbed her arms, dragging her to the bathroom while her body twisted in pain trying to resist him.

I must gasped or made some sort of noise to alert him of my presence, which shocked me, as I wasn’t really aware I could be seen, or heard. I mean it made sense that I could be seen, but up until this point, nobody had paid any mind to me, especially the girl I had been following. He held his finger up to his lip in a shushing manner and told me in a deep, calm voice that I would die too if I so much as hinted to what I’d seen. I nodded, promising that I wouldn’t speak, fear creeping through my entire being as I saw the woman twitch on the floor. I closed the door and sunk to the hard wood paneling that seemed to spread through the entire house, unsure what to do.

image obtained from: wikimedia.org

I pulled out my phone to dial 9-1-1, but I wasn’t sure if that would just make things worse. I didn’t know if they could get worse, but I sat there, imagining the police trying to storm the place, but getting shot one by one as they entered the small shanty on stilts with only one narrow entrance. Besides, I thought, after he killed them, I knew this girl and I would be the next targets, with no hope of escape.

I decided to tell the girl who was with me what I had seen. We were both hiding behind the bed, knowing that it would block anyone’s view of us if they were to open the door. Apparently, she could see me too. Her eyes grew wide and wild when I told her what I had seen, and what the man said to me. We decided to run, to bolt for the front door at the same time and hope we could make it down the stairs with our lives. I pulled the door open a crack. I didn’t see the man, but the bathroom door was closed. I could still see the puddle of blood in the middle of the living room floor. It was at this point that I noticed the other bedroom of the house, on the right hand side of the wall opposite the room we were in, had at least a dozen people huddled in it.

A sad state of knowing loomed above me and I wholeheartedly regretted not calling for help. There wasn’t much I could do about it now though. I followed the girl out the front door and we raced down the old steps of the house. There was a lush green lawn that lay between the abandoned shanty on stilts and her home. We had somehow made it all the way to her house without any more shots being fired, locked the door behind us, and took a deep breath of relief. Once safe in her kitchen before I told her what I had seen in the other bedroom.

Her face dropped, she was horrified. She told me that we couldn’t go back, and that if we called the police, they would all be dead as soon as the man heard the sirens, and that we might all be. I hadn’t realized it, but in the kitchen with us was a larger man in his mid twenties. He had been listening to our whole conversation, I think he was the girl’s cousin, or brother, but I really didn’t know for sure. He told us that we were being ridiculous and that the old house on stilts had been abandoned for years, and he would prove it. We told him not to and tried to stop him, but he was much stronger than the two of us combined and simply shrugged us off before beginning his trip to the house.

By this time, the girl’s entire family had gathered around the kitchen’s screen door, which had a direct view of the front door to the house on stilts. I told them to close the door and get away, but they all just stood there and watching the young man climb the steps to the house and disappear behind its front door. I could feel my voice crack as I yelled to them to run, to leave this house to flee to safety, but my cries went unnoticed, or just ignored. I stood about 5 or 6 feet back from the crowd, still able to see the grass between the houses.

By the time I had heard the family’s gasp of horror, it was too late. The young man was sprinting across the lawn yelling for his family to run when I heard the gunshot, watched as his shirt turned crimson and saw him slump to the ground. The man from the abandoned house was behind him barreling towards the door. I yelled for the family to run, to lock the door, to flee, but none of them moved. It was like they were stuck there, frozen in time. By the time the man had reached the front door, I knew I needed to leave.

image obtained from: uwpd.wisc.edu

As I was inching toward the door on the opposite side of the house, I looked over my shoulder and saw the man had produced a large knife from somewhere and the floor near the kitchen door was splattered red. I threw open the screen on the opposite side of the house and began running. I wished I had been wearing shoes as I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed 9-1-1. I cursed myself for not doing this sooner, when I was in the house on stilts, and couldn’t help but feel responsible for the slaughter that was probably still going on at the girls house, the girl who was my age.

When the operator picked up I whaled at her that I needed help immediately. Screaming that there was a crazy man murdering people and that I was running for my life, but he had a gun and I didn’t know if there was anywhere I would be safe. The woman calmly asked where I was and I screamed something about my cell phone having GPS and that she should use it to find me. I then realized I knew the address of the house I was running from, and told the lady on the phone where to go. I also told her the name of the gas station that I was approaching, that I planned to hide in.

When I got to the gas station the clerk looked at me in horror. I didn’t blame him though, I frantically explained to him the situation, as he stared at the bloody footprints I was leaving in his store, apparently the ground was in worse condition than I thought. The clerk had a shotgun and a handgun, the later of which he handed to me, and let me hide behind the desk, knowing my footprints would be a giveaway. I told the clerk to be careful, and that it might be best just to hide. He heeded my warning, ducking behind the counter-top on the other side of the station.

The cops were taking too long to get to me. I heard the door open and the armed man enter. I knew he was trying to eliminate all of the witnesses, and that he wouldn’t rest until I was gone. I crawled out of my hiding place behind the desk when I saw him approaching the clerk’s hiding place. He shot at me, and somehow missed. Instinctively, I shot back, aiming for his hand. He dropped his gun, but had another in his other hand that I hadn’t noticed. He shot at me again, I thought he missed, but I couldn’t be certain, too much adrenaline was coursing through my veins to pay enough attention to if I had been injured. I shot at his other hand and his knee. He dropped to the floor of the store and I, still crouched down, leaning against the counter, heard the sirens of the oncoming police. I squeezed my eyes shut, the nightmare had ended, and I was finally awake.

Image Obtained From: public.media.smithsonianmag.com