Sorrow

I'm at our family property, only this property is different from the property my family owns in real life. The forest is all around, as in real life, but a larger house occupies a smaller open area. The house is two storied, with a steep roof and gabled windows. There is a wide porch coming across the back, which faces a thick forest.

Between the house and the edge of the forest is a small building made from unfinished tree limbs and rough hewn logs. The limbs seem to be tied to the main frame of the building, and there are wide open windows of air. From one side of the grass, I can see through the openings of the building and through to the other side. This building is obviously very old and I walk towards it in awe, as if I'd never seen it before.

As I leave the porch and walk across the grass, I notice that I'm surrounded by family members, though I recognize none of them. They are all holding cups and chatting amongst themselves, as any family would at a reunion or holiday. One of them, an older woman, comes to me and starts to relate to me the story behind this wooden building. The building had been built by women in our family many generations ago. I don't know why the fact that only women had built it was important, but the woman tells me this in deep reverance to her ancestors and I feel pride mixed with sorrow; the building takes on the feeling I would have towards a tombstone.

As this woman finishes the story, I notice my real life cousin Julie in among the other family members that I do not recognize. Someone then yells out from the side of the house and we all turn to look as one of the older men of the family leads a large brown Ox out towards us. He's bought the animal from overseas, and will use him to help around the property.

Fast forward, my dad comes out of the house carrying a load of old sheets of yellowed glass with another man. They're extremely heavy and thick, but the men carry them over to the little wooden building and place them down on the short set of steps leading into the building, explaining that they'll be used as windows. The Ox is tied beside them to one of the support posts of the building.

Suddenly, something happens. I can't see what it is because my vision blacks out for a moment, but everyone screams and it seems as though there is alot of movement. I can only guess there was an earthquake. We try to collect ourselves and see that everyone is okay when we hear deep moans from the Ox. With the movement of the earthquake, the sheets of glass were dislodged from the building and slid down onto the Ox, slicing a deep gash into the animal. We all rush to help stop the bleeding, but we know it's too late. As the Ox bleeds to death, many of us are crying and I'm filled with a sadness I've never felt outside of waking life.

I woke up more disturbed and depressed than seems reasonable.

I actually had this dream a week ago.

Mistake

I was in a forest, thickly wooded and dark. Two friends were with me, neither of which I recognized from real life. I was young, a teenager and I had the distinct feeling that I was in a time far before this one.

We were hiding in the bushes all around a wide oak tree, peeking out at a stone house. The building was old, the stones covered over with thick green moss. We were all scared of the house, but in that way that teenage boys are, where they want to get as close as possible to what scares them, so as to see who is the bravest of the group.

I leaned out from the tree one last time to look once more at the house. As I looked at the right side of the house, a black figure appeared suddenly, as if conjured from the air itself. Before I could react with anything but surprise, the figure disappeared and then, in the same instant, reappeared closer, then again, and again, covering the distance between us in less than a second, but without walking or even physically moving at all. As the figure appeared directly in front of our tree, my friends shrieked and I was filled with utter terror. All I could see before I tore off into the forest were black eyes and long black hair and a pitch black mouth, permanently fixed in a scream.

Fast forward. I'm walking through the same forest with a girl, dressed in the same old sort of clothes I and my friends were dressed in before. The terror of the dark figure has deserted me and I feel as though it's only a memory, nothing more than a hallucination. My friends are lost, having run in different directions as I and now I'm searching for them with this girl. I carry a gun with me, and walk in front of the girl, in a protective position. The dark figure is merely a myth from the town in which we live, and we're sure we will find my friends. The gun is there for assurance, nothing else.

Something is disturbed in the bushes to my side and the girl behind me screams, I turn, leveling the gun at the brush. A dark figure appears and I fire at it in the same instant that I turn, grabbing the girl by the hand and retreating back to town, terrified that my hallucination from before had returned to me.


One of my lost friends returns to town a day later, dirty and scared. He's in a state of shock, completely terrified. He'd found our other friend in the midst of bushes drenched in dried red blood, a fatal gunshot to the chest.

I wake up.

Beach Tower

I was in an elevator with my sister, Hilary, and my cousin, Chelsea. The elevator we were in was at the bottom of a tower, many stories in height. The tower was familiar to me, though I've never seen it in real life. We were all in a good mood, laughing and joking, as we'd done in childhood. We were hitting random floor buttons, though I only remember four and six. At six, we got off the elevator and stepped into a small circular room, with a hallway connecting entering and exiting at our right and left. The hallway curved around in front of us and connected into a larger room. The walls were shades of blue and made of a sort of opaque glass. In the center of this larger room was a glass desk with a writing lamp sitting on it. As we stepped into the room, a woman stepped out from the hallway in what looked like a nurse's uniform.

She turned towards us and we retreated quietly back to the elevator, like children wanting not to be seen. We were stifling our laughs and looking around at each other as the elevator door shut and I suddenly got the distinct feeling we were in my Uncle Billy's office, where we were not supposed to be.

The elevator descended, but when the doors opened, we found ourselves at the top floor of the tower. All around us the sky stretched forever and we could not see the ground. The wind was blowing fiercely, and seemed very loud. We walked to the edge of the building and suddenly stairs opened up before us, leading down to a beach.

The roof of the tower suddenly became the wraparound porch of a beach house. It was still made from the same opaque glass material, though now it was considerably darker, a steely gray. The beach was filled with celebrities, all very good looking, and all happy to see Chelsea and Hilary. I then noticed my girlfriend, Ashton walking and laughing with Jennifer Aniston, both wearing beach sarongs and flip flops. I didn't talk to anyone, just surveyed the beach, presumably looking for someone who wasn't there.

The sky turned very dark, and the howling wind from the tower roof returned. Trees all around were blowing hard and everyone scattered, gathering their things and piling into their cars to evacuate. The celebrities had all vanished and all the people were family members, some I recognized and some I didn't. I went from group to group, making sure everyone was accounted for and seeing that everyone left before whatever was threatening to happen happened.

I watched the last car leave and then ran to the porch of the beach house. My aunt, Laura, was there, forgotten in the panic to leave. I helped her to gather the things she was picking up, clay figurines and black and white pictures. The wind grew stronger, the dark more complete and from there everything clouded until I woke up.