non-lucid

02/25/10

I'm Alex and she's Nikita and – shit! I throw myself behind a set of crates as a blaze of gunfire lights up my trail.

"We have to take the south exit!" she shouts over the noise.

"They've anticipated your escape route," I shout back, "It's an ambush!"

"We don't have a choice!"

Splintering wood and conveniently placed explosives under piles of precariously stacked crates – we make a dash for the exit. Don't stop when you're in the open, I tell myself, sprinting across the lawn, It's when you're most vulnerable, and we dive into the river and Alex closes her eyes.

Caught in the slipstream, I nudge at Alex/Nikita. Don't hold your breath, I say. Breathe. It won't hurt you.

Alexandra. Scare Factor: 2.

02/22/11

Three people sit around a table. Two of them are dead.

The bodies are slumped at awkward angles, twitching. Under their skin, tiny creatures mass and swarm and crawl, and at any moment, the meat-sacks will burst at the seams and the kitchen floor will be flooded with blood and tissues and squirming maggots.

A little girl sits in the third place-setting, quietly finishing her homework.

They play hopscotch on the sidewalk, and they make fun of her. They don't know what she could do to them, what she's about to do. Calling through cracks in the sidewalk, calling up all the little things that crawl.

She doesn't realize that she's raised a hand, fingers stretched out, until another hand is closing over hers and forcing her arm down. She turns and meets the cool stare and raised eyebrows, and knows that the black-clothed child is other, like her.

This "Samael" has a job offer for her, and so she follows.

Sarcophagidae. Scare Factor: 3.

02/21/11

Door after door leading to white hallway after white hallway. "You must remember the way," he says, "For you will return alone."

The next room is an airy loft, warm lights illuminating hardwood floors and brick walls, black leather furniture and red accents. Light streams in from the windows, but I don't look outside. My focus is on the jewelry box which sits on the black coffee table.

Dark stained oak, cheap brass clasp. Approximately six inches across, four inches tall, five inches deep. I flick open the cheap brass clasp. Red velvet? Darker. Not black, too repetitive. Inside the box is an onyx pendant, oval-shaped, set in silver.



My mind filters the details automatically, but I'm focused on the brief spark of red energy, invisible threads latching onto my energy reserves and trailing through another level of the dream-world. A horcrux, then.

Dark. Underground. Cavernous. Walls drip with slime and... blood, yes. No smell, no sensory input other than sight. Area is large, but confining. Can feel the thing trapped here, straining against its bonds.

Sharp movement. Living, shapeless mass of flesh and grinding bone. Something claws its way from inside, tears the creature open from the inside. A humanoid figure steps out of the bloody, writhing thing. This is the monster.

"Run," I say to the other man. "You need to get as far away from me–"

Too late. The room goes pure white in an instant, powered by the horcrux's parasitic bond. A cloaked figure unfurls itself across the room, stands up straight and I make a sharp gesture with my ebony wand, shouting and pulling on the emotions that I need to fuel the spell.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

White noise is deafening and the room gets brighter than should be possible and - nothing.






He sits poised on the far end of the couch, staring disapprovingly at his cup of tea. Earl Grey in delicate white china, set in a saucer that he holds in his left hand. I'm on the other end of the couch, looking straight at him. I probably have a cup of tea, or maybe it's sitting on the coffee table.

"So," I say casually, "From one dark wizard to another..."

He smirks at that. "A dark wizard, Harry? You?"

"This time around, it's different." I say with a scowl, "What was the first curse I cast at you, again?"

"As I recall," he says, taking a sip of the tea, "You attempted to cast the killing curse."

Attempted–?

"You lack the hatred required to fuel the spell." He explains, and he meets my eyes. "This version of you does not love, Harry. All you have is apathy."

Trinkets. Scare Factor: 3.

02/20/11

"If I was perfect, I would date perfect."

"Wait, this isn't just about the sex. You like his personality. You like that he's conniving."

"Don't even..."

"Oh my God. You're sleeping with me."

Amber. Scare Factor: 1.

02/05/11

"You're leaving? How the hell are you planning to get out of the city?"

"By bus."

"That route's run by the gangs. Do you know what they could do to you?"

"I'd kill them if they tried."

"You'd try to kill them, you mean."

"Well, yes."

An image forms in my mind. The bus I'm on, forced to the side of the road. The leader grabs me by the arm, hauls me to my feet. Keeping center of balance low, I take a quick step past him. Use his grip against him, grab, throw, dislocate his shoulder. Follow through to the next man, punch to the solar plexus. Disarm the knife, strike to the throat.

Unrealistic? Depends on reaction time of second man. Don't underestimate.

"Fine," she says, with the look of a person with too many stubborn people in her life. "I'm coming with you."

One Way. Scare Factor: 2.

★★☆☆☆

SOLO SENTENCE ESPRESSO

01/29/11

The agent says, "You can't escape this; your fingerprints are a match," and I smirk and rub at my handcuffed wrists, shifting the patterns on my fingertips into something unrecognizable.

Prints. Scare Factor: 2.

★☆☆☆☆

SOLO SENTENCE ESPRESSO

01/28/11

I'm not wearing my contact lenses, or my glasses, but the world is in focus at the centre of my vision, and blurry at the edges.

Fish-Eye Lenses. Scare Factor: 1.

★★★☆☆

01/14/10

She pours cream in her coffee, and I know she's the spy.

The woman sips at the drink as she turns and pushes into the crowd of people in the mall. I pull away from a conversation, follow at a distance. I can make out her long black coat, her long curtain of blonde hair. She breaks into a run, and I'm speeding after her. I'm falling behind, reaching out and (force pull) she's flying back into my arms. Hair falls away from her face - the wrong face. A body double. (I'm letting go of the woman, blending into the crowd.) Good.

She's going to make it fun.

I Spy. Scare Factor: 2.

Blondes and coffee seem to be a recurring trope.

★★★★☆

01/12/11

Darth Vader is quite literally on ice, lying frozen in the bathtub. All part of your regular Wednesday morning kidnapping attempt. The plan is to free Vader from the control of the Emporer, and to take our chances with a renegade Sith Lord. (Large-scale mayhem is the most likely outcome, but to Parker, that might just be the most interesting one.)

I'm stripping the Stormtrooper uniform off of some poor, dead bastard when a man in a black flight suit rounds the corner. He freezes for a moment, processing me, half dressed as a Stormtrooper and the body half undressed... I shoot him in the head with a blaster pistol.

"Everything okay in there, Nate?" says a voice crackling through the earpiece.

"Everything's fine, Eliot." I reply, putting a hand to my ear. I scowl at the second, inconvenient body for a moment before a new plan starts to form in my mind.

"Parker, are you in position?" I say, pulling on the gloves of my uniform.

"Nate?" says Sophie, concern in her transmitted voice, "What are you thinking?"

I smile as I slip the Stormtrooper helmet over my head. "We're going to steal a Death Star."

Leverage. Scare Factor: 2.

★☆☆☆☆

01/01/11

"I'd like a triple Venti half-sweet white mocha, please," says the woman. Her curly brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and she digs through her purse for change.

I nod absently, pick up my sharpie and mark the drink, putting it on the bar next to the other three drinks that have already been ordered. My hand scrapes against the white fabric and I pause, glancing at the alarm clock on my nightstand. Two AM. Wait...

"What the fuck are you people doing in my house?" I mutter, shaking off the last fragments of the dream. Still half-asleep, I imagine that the customers are waiting impatiently in my living room. Irritated and disoriented, I curl up and try to go back to sleep.

Coffee. Scare Factor: 4.

And working New Years Day... what a nightmare.

★★☆☆☆

12/30/10

"Doctor, believe me I know. When someone locks themselves in their own mind like that, it's only a matter of time before it destroys them."

Squish. Scare Factor: 2.

★★★★☆

12/07/10

The vibrant old neighbourhood straddles the line between dilapidation and gentrification. Places like this have colour and character completely unlike the sterility of the suburbs. Walking down the street, taking in the brightly coloured fall leaves on the unkempt lawns, you know that this is a place people consider home.

It's dead now. Shadows gather where they shouldn't beneath a cloudless blue sky. Trees whisper with the cold wind, and the world seems to be holding its breath, waiting.

Utterly boring, I decide, as I stare out the window of the second floor of an old house. I'm watching the shadows dance across the vinyl walls of a building across the alley, and I know that I'm being watched in turn. If I make a mistake, one small misstep, they'll attack.

I'm wondering what that step would be, because I'd really like to get it over with.

I see movement in the corner of my eye, and I carefully ignore it. Every light in the house is on, and they don't so much as flicker. I let out a breath, close my eyes.

He asked me to marry him. There will be a wedding on Friday, and I'm a friend, and isn't it terrible what happened to his fiancee?

A blade cuts through the air where my neck was. I'm halfway across the room in that instant, flickering through the shadow-world, disappearing and reappearing between blinks of an eye.

The shadows coalesce into a lizard scuttling across the walls, held in place by the rules of gravity that don't apply to them. It leaps from the far wall to the ceiling above me, strikes at me with its scythe-like tail and shrieks.

And I stand there, waiting. I will not be intimidated.

Shadows. Scare Factor: 3.

★★★★☆

I've been working a lot. A lot.

12/06/10

I'm standing in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by white walls and pastel shades. None of my rooms have looked like this in years, but that's not something I notice. It seems like I'm awake - already, the fragments of previous dreams are falling away.

I hear a low hiss in the background of my mind, and I smile.

I thought I'd lost you, I admit. I tilt my head, listening to a voice only I can hear, and make a face. "Yeah, I'm not having that argument with you."

A flash of a symbol, the ouroboros, a snake in a circle, eating its own tail. I see green and black stripes, and the dream fades into another one.

"The walls between realities grow thinner by the day," she says, "And people continue to mine them for profit!"

I'm half-listening to the merchant at this point, waiting for her to hand me the items I'm buying from her brightly-coloured wooden stall. I need the monkshood for an attempt on the Guardian up in the mountains.

"One of these days," mutters the woman, "Demons will tear through from the world beyond, and our world will be without hope!"

Snake chuckles darkly, in the quiet of my mind. Too late for that.

I nod absently at the woman. I know how to close the gaps between worlds, but of course, I'm one of the demons that these people fear. "Do you know where I can find any explosives?"

Ouroboros. Scare Factor: 2.

★★☆☆☆

11/19/10

I'm a lifeguard at an indoor pool. We're doing drills, practicing rescue techniques. I stand at the edge of the pool, deliberately collapse into the water.

Someone from high school. He's another lifeguard. He dives in after me, pulls me up to the surface.

Surprised to be shooting up out of the water, suspended in the air for a moment.

I'm staying in a hostel with two friends. Going to our bunk beds, and I'm looking up at the inside of a dome-like structure, planning my escape. We're in a group, aren't allowed to leave at night. I plan to. Sharing a conspiratorial glance with the other troublemakers.

A school. My brother and I are sneaking in with one of the girls from the hostel trip. She doesn't speak English. I shrug, tell my brother to pin the blame on me if we get in trouble. Nothing they can do to me.

Hostel. Scare Factor: 1/10.

Yeah, I haven't been around much. Between moving to a new city and starting a new job (or two, or three), life's been a little hectic. I'll get caught up on others' journals when I get the chance.

★★★☆☆

I finally got to move away from Saskatchewan, so I'm happy about that. Haven't really been concentrating on my dreams, though.

Also, Halloween is the best holiday ever.

10/31/10



An angel and I talk economics.

"You gambled my soul away in a poker game?" Bobby growls, his voice growing louder with every syllable.

Balthazar raises his hands in a peaceful gesture, as best he can while I have him held up by the collar of his two piece suit.

break

"Look at that man over there," says Balthazar, pointing across the street. "What do you think would happen if you said to him, 'Give me your soul, and you can have anything you want in the world'?"

The sun is shining down on us; the crisp autumn breeze brushes leaves through the gutters. The man pulls his overcoat more closely around himself, hurrying his steps towards the church on Eleventh.

"He'll say no." I say in a low voice, my arms crossed over my chest.

"He'll tell you to fuck off, is what he'll do. Pop culture's done more to harm the trade than religion ever did. He probably doesn't believe he has a soul, and he still won't sign it over." Balthazar takes a breath, grins. "Look, the trick is to ask for something smaller."

The man is out of sight, now.

The trick, apparently, is to plan for the long term. Get someone to agree to a small price, a small favour in exchange for their needful thing. These agreements, they're bound to the bloodline. If the man doesn't pay back the favour, rest assured that his children will.

Chances are, we'll get our soul eventually.

break

When Dean comes to, he's leaning against a concrete wall in an underground parking garage. He doesn't know exactly where he is or what he's doing there, but he knows it can't be good.

Dean stumbles up the exit ramp, blinks a bit against the cool night air.

Click. Look up.

Sam's at the top of the ramp, pointing a gun directly at his brother.

"Sammael," says Sam Winchester, his voice cold.

Dean fades to black, and I smile up at Sam.

break

In which I try to solve a puzzle involving time travel.

Standing at the ticket counter, drumming my fingers impatiently against the arborite. The ticket-seller has my passport in her hand. She glances at the name, up at my face, at a poster I can't see behind the glass, and her face goes white. She hands me back the passport, slides two tickets under the glass, and tries not to meet my eyes. I smile and thank her, and I take my thinks and walk into the parking lot.

I open the driver's seat door to an Oldsmobile, my parents' car when I was younger, and start the engine. Zoe is sitting in the passenger seat.

"They're already onto us." I tell her. "Buses aren't running, cops'll be all over the place within an hour. We have to drive."

break

And now it's real life, and I tell Zoe I'm leaving Calgary. It's two years into the future, and I've been in one place too long.

break

"Where are we?" I demand. My voice is quiet, but the threat is there.

Daniel smiles, suddenly nervous. "This is one of the last human settlements on Earth."

"I'm waiting."

"From your point of view," he says slowly, "I suppose this is the future."

Zoe stands quietly behind me.

break

I step through the sliding metal doors, out into an oasis of footpaths and greenery, quiet places for meditation and training. Above us is a dome, given away by the subtle waves in its surface, the way it refracts the light from the bright skies above. Beyond the dome is the endless desert that the earth has become.

break

"When you say this is the future," I ask Daniel, "Exactly how far do you mean?"

He hesitates. "Well, it's been at least... it's been tens of billions of years."

He's expecting me to freak out, but I simply nod, having had my suspicions confirmed. "And physiologically, humans have remained the same for the last... tens of billions of years?"

Daniel frowns, and looks at me, searching. "Physiologically? You mean evolution."

"And there have been no significant changes." I state, daring him to contradict me. "You know what this means?"

"Someone's been breeding us."

Scare Factor: 2/10