onderdonk

It was like a whole movie. The dream begins with me sitting in a movie theatre, watching a movie, and there are several other people watching too. But the theatre isn't full, just a quarter full. All of a sudden, some kids, mostly very young maybe a few teenagers, all running in from the back of the theatre, past me, and up around the back of the stage. There were about thirty to forty kids, but the speed of the stampede was other than natural. And I sensed extreme fear.
They had just passed, and disappeared behind the screen, and no one else in the audience seemed to care, but I got the feeling that whatever scared them into moving like that, it might threaten me, too, if I just sit in my seat, so I got up and ran to catch up with them.
So I go behind the screen, up several flights of stairs, running and getting more scared myself. The kids all reach a bunch of theatre seats way at the top and at the end of the line, so everyone tries to hide. Nobody's really hiding too well, just in their seats, with their heads down.
A moment later a few adults come in, and turn on the lights; they see everybody, and start picking out different ones and calling lo each other, and also yelling out some chant at everyone. These are the people the kids were running from. I get picked, among other people, and I'm asked, or told, to do an operation on someone, and asked if I can be ready in three minutes. I'm handed, as are some of the other kids around me, a packet, with maybe a scalpel and a syringe and some medical-looking stuff, and the chant at us now is something like "we give you the power of life and death, but you have to use it for us and do what we tell you."
I'm getting worried and ask if I can make it ten minutes from now instead of three, thinking I'll try to escape. My offer is contemplated, and rejected.
I decide to make a run for it. Apparently we're about ten levels of balconies up in this movie theatre, all behind the screen, and each lower level is a little farther out, and there are big golden bars, so you can jump, holding on to the bars, and it's a series of small leaps, not a huge fall. I start leaping down, and I'm getting away, but there's a middle level that's much bigger than the others, like the concession stand area. I get that far, and they catch up with me. I'm not the only one who tried to get away, there are two or three others, and we're all cornered on this large, middle balcony. The chasers stand in the middle of the floor talk calmly to us, then pull up chairs and sit down and lecture us, calmly. It's like a manager disciplining an employee in his office.
But I and one or two other kids are in the corner, standing on top of something, and there's a big glass punch bowl. I smash the glass punch bowl, and we all start throwing the sharp chunks of glass at these 'managers'. Most miss, but two out of the three managers get up calmly, looking disappointed, and walk away. The one main guy walks forward, walks straight up to me, talking sternly and more forcefully. I put one huge shard of glass right into his forehead. Blood comes out, but he continues talking and talking, like nothing happened.
Now I and the other two kids are really scared, and we must have looked confused, because he breaks his monologue for a second, pulls the glass out of his head, and says "oh, this?" Then he starts pulling all the flesh of his head apart and off, and his skull is showing through, and he's still talking, saying something like "this doesn't matter, I'm beyond this." We're totally frightened by this, and we're corralled, brought back to the top floor where everyone else is.
I'm not sure what happened next. Some time went by, but I decided to make another run for it. I start swinging, jumping, holding on to the bars, going down the different levels again. They start chasing me again, but not that hard, just like I'm a nuisance, but they're right behind me. But I'm trying harder this time, and I have more momentum going, and as I'm getting near the bottom levels, I see some people on the side I recognize. I touch their faces as I go by to make sure they’re real, and they are, and it feels reassuring, at least I have witnesses, and they cheer me on. I make it to the bottom and I come out a door into the lobby of the real movie theatre, out of that whole supernatural realm.
The three pursuers are right behind me, and they follow me out into the natural realm. But several movie theatre employees see them, and it's like they've always known who they were but couldn't chase them into their own realm. They see these three guys, and they gather around each and stamp them to death on the floor of the lobby, chanting "flesh and blood, flesh and blood". It's like as soon as they followed me out into the lobby of the real movie theatre they were mortal, and totally vulnerable and easy to kill. I looked at the splattered bodies on the floor in the lobby.
The dream went on a little while longer, just me hanging out in the lobby and doing stuff. And when the shift was over, all the employees gathered by me smiling to say goodbye, and congratulations. And I looked at all their faces and I recognized them from somewhere, but I don't know where. It's not the story I would have liked to see happen. I would have liked to see reconciliation, not the killing. I thought there were no 'demons', and no fear, but I reverted to feeling fear. I hoped to do better in my next encounter.