The Truth Comes Out (In A Dream)

I dreamed last night that my mother had decided to get rid of all my things, and when she heard I would be coming to go through all of it beforehand, she decided to hold a memorial for my brother and my husband.

I got there and started combing through everything -- the My Little Ponies, the baby dolls, the stuffed animals, and as I went through each of them, I remembered things, like where I got them, who gave them to me, etc. I ended up getting rid of the ones that had been given to me by people that were no longer in my life.

People started arriving, people from my past, neighbors of my parents, etc. There were single people, couples, and families, and the women gathered in the kitchen to prepare the food while the men hung around outside. I spent time going back and forth, never feeling safe in either place. I was leery of an attack, whether verbal or physical, I'm not sure.

I went back into the kitchen and overheard my mom telling her version of my story.

"And after her two roommates moved out, she married Stu! Worst. Decision. Ever."

That's when I started yelling.

"FUCK YOU! You don't know ANYTHING about him. He was kind, gentle, patient, intelligent, and wonderful. HE LOVED ME. You are such a BITCH for the way you treated him, and you don't get to talk about him like that!"

And then I ran. I ran into a mall and as I fled past the stores, weeping, I spotted him next to me, in his red shirt and white glasses. He was with me.

I didn't see him again, but I managed to regain control of myself and return to the house eventually. Everyone pretended things were normal. I gave away my Little Tyke house and kitchenware, only then my sister said my mom had wanted to do something else with it and we had to go explain that to the lady who wanted it for her little baby girl.

Later, we were being seated at picnic tables outside. I told everyone our sordid family history, finishing up just as my mother sat down next to me.

She was arm to arm with me, and I could tell she wanted to keep me close. I felt like I was gasping for air.

"Well, that's over," she said, referring to my outburst.

"Yeah," I said, "but now everyone knows what you did."

After that, the dream faded.

Stolen

Last night I dreamed that I was at a convention akin to DragonCon. It was in a huge resort area (many several-story buildings) surrounded by desert. We parked in the sand and were getting in line for the big celebration that started off the convention.

I had left my bag in the car and I went back and noticed that a lot of people weren't locking their doors, and there were a few guys who were checking to see if there were any cars they could steal from. I began opening everyone's doors and locking them, and then I grabbed my purse from our car and wanted to put it somewhere safe.

I also had a dryer with me (?!) and wanted to get rid of it at the convention. It was in a storage cube and I printed out a sign and posted it with the sale price and a time to meet me at the dryer so I could hand it over. I hid my purse in it because I was afraid of purse-snatchers in line.

Meanwhile, my friends were waiting in line and saving my place. The sun was hot overhead, and there was hardly any breeze. I told them to wait in their spaces and not worry about me, I'd just line up at the back (it was already out the door and a mile long).

So I went back to the dryer and someone had opened it. My bag was on the floor. I grabbed it and rifled through it looking for my phone.

I couldn't find it.

I knew I'd turned on the "Find My Phone" App so I could track it that way but the callousness of someone just taking my phone with all my photos and videos of Stu broke my heart and I sat there sobbing, sifting through everything, hoping that it would all be there somehow.

And then my wallet popped out. And then my other phone. And then the iPhone. Whoever had taken it out had not taken a single thing.

I dried my eyes and realized I'd missed the opening ceremony for the convention, but it didn't matter because I had my phone with the last picture of Stu on it and that was enough.

Bunnies and Hamsters and Danger, Oh My!

Two dreams from over the weekend/this week:

Dream #1:

I was in the mountains at a ski resort, on a rescue mission.

We were rescuing a charcoal grey rabbit.

My team and I infiltrated the ski resort and I spotted the bunny attempting to meet us while avoiding the authorities.

Once the authorities caught on, however, we were forced to bolt. I grabbed the bunny and we swung from the wooden pallets that turned into mountains that turned into sky and then we were falling into a train curving around a mountain and we were safe.

Mr. Bun-bun had been rescued.


Dream #2:

I dreamed I was on a boat (not a speedboat, but one size bigger, the kind that's like a cruise ship for a lake) in the middle of the night on a large, black lake.

I was below decks, watching a betting game. I was about to purchase some metal for something (I don't know what they were parts for) and I realized I needed to switch funds from savings to checking. I tried using my phone, a desktop, a laptop, and an ATM and nothing would let me log on and see my information, so finally I was told to go find a bit of machinery that would help (possibly a wireless router), but it was hidden.

In a hamster cage.

So I popped open the console while the wind was whipping through my hair, and there was the hamster, fat and happy, asleep and smiling while smushing up against the glass.


...Not sure where these are coming from. I know why I was worried about money, but everything else is pretty random.

Except now I want a charcoal grey bunny.

It Has Been A While

I haven't written personal things online in a while. I have several things I want to write about but life keeps intruding and I am still adjusting to a full-time job, a part-time job, being on medication, and living alone. But I've got two dreams to share with you and some blog posts that will make an appearance over the weekend.

Both dreams occurred this week and I think they're highly symbolic, but I'm having a more difficult time interpreting them. Maybe you have some thoughts?

Dream #1:

I was back in the Village (trailer park I moved out of in February IRL), packing. I was moving out that day and my family were there, taking the things I packed out to the moving van. I went outside to dig up the little rosebush, in full bloom with bright red roses.

I turned it upside down in a vase to protect the flowers. Stu saw that and shook his head. "You know what to do," he said. I took it out, knowing he was right, and tried to scoop some dirt into a box already half full of magazines. He looked at it and said, "dig deeper".

So I thrust my hand into the box and pushed aside the magazines and papers, scooping more dirt into the box so the rosebush would have enough dirt to survive the journey.

LATER:

I was in a hospital, wandering the halls. I went back to my room, where my body was lying on its side. It was clothed in jeans and a black tee. My mom could see me, as could the staff. They were telling me about my body, which had been stabbed.

"It wants to live," they said. "It was a long time recovering, but your body fought to survive."


Dream #2:

I was wandering a gallery/antique mall with my family in North Carolina that we had visited on a past trip. I went to my favorite gallery but discovered it was being renovated for another artist. I took down the new things (more kitsch and country than the European art I had loved before) to find my favorite, a painting of a smiling, dark-haired Duchess (IRL the painting is at El Prado in Madrid).

When the gallery/antique mall owners saw that I was trying to find a way to display my favorite while putting the kitsch and country art back up, I thought I would get in trouble, but instead they put me to work on an art installation that someone else had not completed.

LATER:

I dreamed my family and I were at a house similar to the one I spent part of my senior year of highschool in - a barn-like structure in South Carolina. I dreamed my mother was in a bedroom giving birth to my youngest brother.

When he was born, we wrapped him up but he wanted to move and he kept growing faster and faster. Soon he was old enough to start walking and I followed him around trying to get him to stay out of trouble. There were swarms of wasps racing through the porch, there were farm animals that he wanted to play with that could hurt him, and there were big farm machines that he wanted to climb into and operate.

I spent hours trying to get him to understand that there were so many dangerous things he was not allowed to interact with and he just happily kept escaping and getting into mischief. I had just convinced him that I would take him on a ride on the big tractor when I noticed he had disappeared under the house.

My grandpa was there but that didn't stop me from yelling, "F*@#$%K!!!"

Grandpa merely laughed at me, and dismissed my apology. I, meanwhile, was busy crawling under the house attempting to save my brother from certain disaster.

---

...I think I'm beginning to see some things in the first dream and the first part of the second dream, but I don't really know what to do with the information. Anybody?

Plaid Suit, Men in Black, Neighborhood Terror

I dreamed last night that I was living in a brick house in an older neighborhood with my siblings. I was tinkering in the garage (fixing a car or bike I think) when a couple of big, burly older men rolled up in a huge semi. There was something wrong with it and they asked for a part but when I didn't have that they wanted some motor oil.

I thought we had plenty lying around but I kept combing the shelves and all I came up with was a big bottle that was mostly empty. They took that and then asked to use the phone. I wasn't really ok with them coming inside (I didn't know them and it was just me and my sister and my brother) but they barged in and began canvassing the house.

I knew then they were dangerous so I pushed my siblings out the door and told them to go hide somewhere in the neighborhood. I tried to keep the men from opening the doors in the house (it was mostly empty like we'd must moved in) but they unleashed their horrific children (the kids were feral and there was something monstrous about them - they weren't really kids).

I went out into the neighborhood. No one else was around. So I climbed into an empty house and ran to a closet. I searched for a way to hide as the men had followed me and I found a secret passage in the closet that led to the top of the house. If I could hide up there they would never find me.

I found a grey and black plaid (the big plaid) suit and grabbed that and decided I would disguise myself as a male. I felt something in me switch and I was male. I had short brown hair and straight lines instead of curves. I hid in the closet passage and when the men were past the house I got up into the attic and changed while I kept an eye out via the small octagonal window with shutters at the back of the attic.

I don't know if they ever found me because I woke up immediately after.

Black Mass and Vampires in Paris

Last night I dreamed that my mother, sister and I were in Paris and we went to a house that had been set up at as a museum. It was a tall, thin house with brightly colored walls and paneled floors, big windows and empty spaces. We trudged up and down winding wooden staircases, talking to the curator and the museum workers about the house. I did some sketches of fashion designs based on the rooms (an outfit per room) and even made a mixed-media portrait using a piece of jewelry my friend Lydia had made for me.

I left my phone and purse in one of the rooms behind a piece of furniture and we were about to leave when I remembered my wallet and phone. I went to get them and when I came back downstairs, the curator was asking if she could keep my sketches to put up on the walls. At first I was willing to give her all of them but then I saw a few that I wanted to keep, including the one with the jewelry.

So we worked out a deal where I would keep my favorites and give them copies and they would send me copies of the ones they kept. We stayed around talking and then I realized it was late and they left and I was alone.

A tall, thin, dark-haired man in a waistcoat and jacket swept in and looked at me with piercing black eyes. He had a long, pale face and I knew he was dangerous. He sat down on a bench beside me and leaned over to brush his mouth over my neck and I fell into darkness.

I woke up and there were several people that were being prepared for human sacrifice. The man was a vampire and he was doing a Black Mass. And a man and I were dead but had come back as ghosts and we exacted our revenge on the vampire. I think I choked him to death.

Creature Care

I dreamed I was visiting my mother in Colorado at their new place. It was night and we were going out. When we got back, she revealed that she had bought me a lot of new pets. I felt overwhelmed at the responsibility and rushed around taking care of them.

The two new fish needed to be put in separate tanks and one needed a different, bigger tank. I cleaned out the tanks and tried to make pretty, healthy new homes for the fish.

Then I got the turtle and made him a nice comfy bed in a box and fed him. For some reason, turtles always talk in my dreams. He was a sweet little fellow.

There was some sort of furry creature that I tickled until it curled into a ball and fell asleep.

There was a monkey, too, that kept hooting and swinging around. I finally calmed it down and rushed to the next furbaby, wondering, "With all these new things to take care of, how am I going to take care of myself?"

From Rebirth To Rape

I dreamed a few nights ago that I was at my grandparents' house. It was dark and silent. There wasn't anyone there except for me.

And my dead grandfather.

He was lying facedown on the couch and he'd been there a while. He was deteriorating, becoming a cold, white mass of clay.

I kept staring at him, thinking about him - his big ears I always liked so much, his beard that made him look like a gnome, his laugh, his twinkling eyes. I loved him.

And then his face turned.

I saw his eyes. They were open. He was breathing again.

He slowly turned back into the grandfather I knew. He was alive. He got up and we talked about this miracle, that he had been dead and now he was alive again.

---

Last night I dreamed that I told one of my friends something about me, something personal about my sexual nature (or rather, the irony of something scientific and sexual about myself when I am an asexual). They teased me about it and I left shortly after.

That night, they came into my room and got on top of me, holding my neck with one hand and kissing me, attempting to replicate something I had told them about myself. I struggled and struggled, but they were bigger and heavier than me.

Before it got worse, they got off of me and thought they had succeeded in what they had wanted to do but they hadn't and I told them so.

And then the room went dark and I woke up.

---

I hate dreams like those. They color my interactions for the next several days and I never reveal what the cause is behind the awkward interactions. It's yet another reason to be afraid of people, another layer in my trust issues.

---

I've never been raped except in my dreams. I always wake up before the worst part but it was so real (I can feel them on top of me and I can feel them touching me) that I feel like I have been raped. Why does my brain torture me like this?

---

I grew up assuming I would be raped one day. I've never even come close in real life to being raped. Two of my siblings were molested but I was never even approached.

In the back of my mind, I've always thought, "Am I not desirable enough?"

How creepy and twisted is that?

---

I had a dream once about someone I knew. They raped my sister and I was so fucking enraged that I cracked their ribs while I screamed at them, "WHY DIDN'T YOU WANT ME LIKE THAT?"

---

It bothers me, this repetition of rape in my life. It's  horrific and I don't know why it keeps popping up. I hate that people are so cruel and evil that rape happens. I hate these crimes. I hate that people are raped. I think it is one of the most evil things a person can do to another. But I wish it wasn't such a big part of my life. I wish I could forget that this happens. I wish I could forget my dreams where it happens.

I don't really know what to do about it.

Dark Night of the Soul's "Whiff Of Death"

I've had two dreams lately about my mother dying - one literally and one figuratively.

The first dream happened in a ranch-style home. The blinds were drawn and I was shepherding my mom around her new home because she couldn't see very well. We'd managed to patch up our relationship and it was going quite well but as I tilted the blinds to let light in, the thought struck me, "Is God just doing this because He's going to take her away and wants me to get closure?" I started weeping then because I knew what was coming.

The next dream took place back in our old log cabin (the first one - in Cosby). My sister and I were upstairs packing. I was telling her about a story idea I'd had, about an Indian mother and daughter. They had moved here to start a fashion/style business and the daughter was very good at it. She was doing well and going above and beyond, but her mother could never let her be and always double-checked behind her. She got her daughter to order a vehicle to transport some fashion for a show but she couldn't bear the thought that her daughter might mess that up, so she went on foot to check on it and the daughter accidentally hit her while backing up.

"You see, it's a metaphor," I explained to my sister, who didn't like the story very much. "She always second-guessed the daughter and came up behind her to check on her work, but in the end it killed her."

---

There's a beat in movies called "Dark Night of the Soul" (as explained in the incredibly helpful Save The Cat! book by Blake Snyder). It's headed toward the third act of the movie, when everything has gone wrong. The hero sits and contemplates their failure, sure that they are doomed. Every good film has the 'whiff of death' element, the seeming certainty of the end looming near (even, Blake points out, stories like Elf).

I've been thinking about that a lot as I prepare to write yet another draft of this story I've been working on for the last six years. What is my character's Dark Night of the Soul?

This of course leads me to reflect on my own life. I, on the one hand, know that my story isn't a straight, linear narrative. It can't be. Life isn't cut and dry like that. It has a beginning and an end, but the middle parts are all jumbled up and it's a miracle if people even make sense of a piece of that and figure out how they want to spend part of their lives and who they want to spend it with.

I have had many Dark Nights of the Soul. Most recently, everything in me caved when I got really ill and stayed alone for several days. I finally reached the bottom and thought, "Why am I still here?"

I didn't become a phoenix, reborn out of the ashes. I didn't experience an epiphany. I merely kept breathing.

Life isn't a story (which disappoints me greatly). Life is a wreck. You've got to keep treading or drown. People get tired. People die. They can't keep moving.

I don't know what this means for me or how it will impact how I tell stories.

I'm still muddling through it.

But I am curious about how my brain chose to work through something like this in multiple dreams this week.

Bats In The Belfry, Terror in the Tower

I dreamed my father, sister and I were in my trailer packing up my things. There was a cat, and it scratched me. I immediately began to grow old, wrinkling and my hair turning grey. I ran around, attempting to curb the oldness before I died. I had been cursed.

I finally reversed the curse but couldn't quite put my finger on what had worked. We moved my things into a tower, one with a ceiling all the way up and a staircase winding all the way around. It began to flood and we began to get very sleepy and I realized I'd been cursed again.

I wracked my brain trying to figure out how I'd reversed the first curse. The water grew deeper, sloshing against my legs. Bats were flying up high, but I knew even if we climbed to the very top, the water would drown us. We would die, drowning in our sleep.

I finally realized that I'd drank something with oranges in it at the trailer. "IT'S CITRUS!" I screamed. I ran to the microwave, barely above water level. I squeezed some lemon juice and made hot lemon water. When I pulled it out of the microwave, I smelled it and instantly felt more awake.

I passed huge cups of the stuff around and before the water got any higher, we managed to stop it and find a raft.

Then I woke up.

Purring Cats and Panic Attacks

I had a dream last night that a bunch of friends and I were on a trip. We were staying at a hotel-like place, but it was owned by a familiy we all knew. Their little kids were very destructive and I was afraid for my stuff - I'd brough some electronics, some art stuff and a very beautiful glass piece (there was a reason I brought it but I don't remember). It was sort of shaped like a boot and it had gold swirling around in some kind of liquid inside it. It was really beautiful and something I treasured above all else.

I was walking through a room when I saw my friend K and his new girlfriend (in the dream - he is single at the moment in real life). His girlfriend was carrying what looked like a big, flat dragon claw. They were coming into the bedroom I was in so I panicked and left. I wondered if they were going to be messing around and what the dragon claw was for but it freaked me out so much I couldn't think about it.

Instead, I went to another room where people had gathered and started petting a cat. I sat down and the cat brushed itself against me and let me hold it tight. It pressed into me and started purring and I giggled because it felt funny and the cat felt me giggle and purred even more, a circle going round and round of mutual delight.

After I felt better, I got up and packed some of my stuff. I went downstairs and saw that the kids had used my computer to watch something but hadn't hurt it. However, the glass piece I carried with me had been cracked, and poorly repaired. The liquid wasn't seeping otu of it yet but it was only a matter of time. I was sad but tried to tell myself that it was my fault because I had left it alone.

When K reappeared we had a talk and I broke down, shaking and crying because the dragon scale had reminded me of punishments I'd received as a child. He assured me nothing had happened.

And then I woke up.

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes

I had perhaps the cruelest dream yet last night.

I dreamed that Stu was alive. I dreamed I was visiting his grave and suddenly, there he was. He explained what had happened - the doctors wanted to try an experimental surgery and so they put him in a coma-like state but they were unsure if it was going to work so they let me think that he had died since they weren't sure if he was going to survive anyway.

But he did. And he'd lost a bunch of weight and was almost at his goal weight. He looked so happy and I just hugged him and gave him a kiss and told him I was sorry for those last days when I was so angry and hurt and wild and helpless.

It was just like it used to be. We were laughing and joking and holding hands and we never stopped touching. I knew how precious this chance was and I was not going to let him go.

We moved out of our one bedroom CIU apartment and moved into a beautiful two-bedroom in the city and it was the beginning of something new and beautiful...

And then I had to wake up.

Thor, Loki, Hera & YHWH

I had a dream a few nights ago that I'm still puzzling out. I...don't quite know what to make of it. I think part of it is just stuff I've been thinking about, normal brain-putting-puzzle-pieces-together type stuff, but some of it was pretty wrapped up in something that has been bothering me for a while. I'd appreciate any feedback if anyone has an idea about what this or part of this could mean.

I dreamed I was at a friend's old house, but it had a basement. I was there with some people and dogs and it was raining outside. We were having a party, I think, but I needed to be alone and think so I went down into the basement.

Then I found myself on a ship in the middle of a storm, and Jane, Thor & Loki were there. I was hopelessly in love with Loki but didn't want to tell him because I'd heard stories about how unfaithful he was. I wanted to protect myself and wanted our love to be pure and everlasting. So I struggled up to the deck to speak to Thor.

"Thor, I need to talk to you," I shouted into the wind. Jane was somewhere else on the boat and Thor's face indicated that he thought I would be haranguing him about his relationship with Jane. "It's not about you and Jane," I reassured him. "It's about Loki."

I told him how I felt about his brother, but all Thor could say was that he wasn't sure if Loki wanted that kind of commitment and that I'd have to speak to him directly. Loki was belowdeck and I knew that I needed some more advice before taking this step. I decided to seek out Hera, Goddess of the Hearth.

I went to a cottage in the woods at night - I opened the door and stepped into the kitchen, where a fire was roaring. I imagined Hera there, a tall, slim golden-haired woman. I sank to my knees and asked Hera for help. At first, her image was pure fire, but then she became a short, stocky African woman who looked both tribal and modern. She had a gentle face.

I apologized for imagining her like myself. "No matter," she said, "You believed in me."

I told her about my troubles and she presented me with a thin golden chain with a bright shining golden object on it, like a charm. It looked a bit like a chess pawn. She showed me how to wrap it around a Corgi and she wrapped another around another Corgi and told me that they would run together so long as no one destroyed the gold pieces.

This wasn't what I wanted. I wanted something that could last forever. But not even Hera could promise me that. So I decided I would have to watch the necklaces and took them off the dogs. I had to spend a lot of time untangling the necklaces, but at last I got them undone. Then I held the necklaces in my hands, hiding the shining light from everyone.

-

Isn't that a strange dream?

I don't feel like I was actually visited by Hera. And Thor and Loki were definitely Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston's interpretations. But I feel like sometimes God uses imagery in dreams to help me figure something out.

Maybe I need God to be Mother for a while.

Zombie Nightmare

I've been dealing with a rough situation the last few weeks. I'm not so good with relationships, especially when one hits a rough patch. I get scared, I hide, I shut down, I freak out, I have nightmares. It isn't a pretty sight. I did art therapy almost all day yesterday and quickly figured out what was going on (which is in itself a miracle) but am still having a hard time with being angry, figuring out how to say how I feel, and still managing to be a good, responsible person while at the same time letting someone know that they are acting like an asshole and it has to stop.

So last night, having worked through some things in therapy (and crying all morning), I had this nightmare:

The world had been taken over by zombies. There were pockets of non-zombie humans living in parts of cities, shuffled to and fro from work by guards and soldiers. I went to work in an old brick building downtown with lots of other people and I got an odd feeling about one of my friends' husbands. I avoided him and let someone know that I suspected he'd been bitten and was coming down with the virus. Someone asked me why and I shook my head. "I just have a feeling about him."

Then, zombies battered in our big wooden office doors. One of them was Stu. I started screaming and crying, hiding away until he left. I crawled out and saw a woman standing in front of another zombie. I recognized him as her late husband. She flew into his arms and he dragged her away. "She's a romantic," said a guard. "She'd rather die than live without him."

I was instantly plagued with guilt at the thought of living without Stu. I started weeping and someone started to play piano. I sat down and played the theme from "Beauty & The Beast" and pleaded with Stu to come back. I wanted to prove that I couldn't live without him either. But he never came.

The guards got angry with us for making so much noise, but it was time to leave so they shuffled us into an elevator so we could go down to the parking lot and carpool home. I was supposed to ride with a friend but I got caught up watching three people dressed as demons tiptoe into the building and when I got to the parking lot I realized my friends had left. I desperately searched for a ride and tried to get into a car with a mother, father, and child. I grabbed the man's arm and saw that in the future, he would sell both his wife and child to the zombies.

I did manage to catch a ride with a red-headed CIU student and we went into the forest to where some of us had built a hidden town. There were cobblestone streets and little houses up a hill to where I lived in a big apartment complex. The mayor was giving a speech, explaining that the new theme park was almost complete. I had a bad feeling about it, like he was plotting something evil but I couldn't put the pieces together.

It was nighttime, and the theme park workers were wandering around dressed as zombie clowns. People were freaking out so the workers had to show them their eyes so that people would realize they weren't actual zombies.

I ran into the mayor's son and saw that he was wearing my favorite hoodie. He had also stolen one of my shirts. I got them back from him and we started walking. He began telling me that he was transitioning (transgender) and that his father was furious at him. I invited him up to my apartment to look through my clothes.

We got to my apartment and I started cooking spaghetti for dinner. I showed him both closets. And then we stared out the window, down the hill at the little town, wondering what his father was planning.

Then I woke up.

Second Best

A few nights ago I dreamed this rather unsettling (yet enlightening) dream:

My siblings and I were in a bedroom in our first log cabin in Cosby, TN. We were standing around a full size bed with a quilt bedspread. The roof was low and the room cramped. My mother appeared and all of us panicked.

She was different.

She had black holes in place of eyes. She couldn't see, but she could hear like it was her superpower. We were all afraid of what would happen if she caught us so one by one we sneaked around her and ran downstairs to get out of the house and away from her.

I realized I didn't have any pants on and knew I couldn't go back upstairs. I grabbed a folded set (a pair I still can't find in real life) and raced out the door. We got on horseback and road away down the street, away from our screaming mother.

We decided to live at a mall/flea market because there were so many people there that our mother couldn't possibly zone in on us. We stayed there long enough for my sister to make a friend (his name started with a J). Then we realized that there were cameras everywhere, and while my mother couldn't see us, someone would tell her where we were.

We raced out to the parking lot and stopped when my sister and I realized we were the only ones. "What happened to Ethan and Andrew?" I panted. Somehow, we discovered that my sister's "friend" was a kidnapper. We found his car and there were my brothers, wrapped in dark plastic sheets and tied with ropes.

Unfortunately, a crowd of people were running toward us and we knew we were out of time. And then Castiel (yes, Castiel from Supernatural) appeared. He got into the driver's seat and we hid in the backseat with our brothers as Cas drove our getaway car.

Later, Cas took us to a small, beautiful farm in the middle of nowhere. My friends were there - Kyle, Patti, William, Davey, Shane. We were all hanging out in an above-ground pavilion (I have no idea, my brain likes to imagine itself up high) when I noticed that everyone (excluding William) was surrounding my sister, talking to her, flirting with her, wrestling, etc.

I watched as they all laughed about which guy should marry her, and they said, "Well we can't all marry her - someone has to marry Kate!" and then they went, "Hahaha! Ew..." I stomped toward them and screamed, "WHY AM I ALWAYS SECOND BEST?!" and ran away. I found William (who was loitering by himself on the staircase down) and told him about the dream...I thought I was awake.

Later, we were at my godparents' house and there were a man and woman who said they would help us get away from our mom.

I found out that they were actually in contact with her and were going to hand us over. I flew into a rage that we had been betrayed and that I could trust no one. I grabbed the redheaded woman by the hair and knocked her against the table, twice, until she blacked out.

And then we ran.