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.