Dream Journal Ultimate
Date: 5/4/2020
By ItsABlackCat
The dream starts with my family and I moving temporarily into a really nice vacation home. It’s a beach house and big enough to fit my parents, my siblings and I, my three grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and my cousins with comfortable space. I never see the outside of the building but know that it’s right by the ocean. It’s consistently sunny, and our lighting is always from the windows, we don’t have to turn on any lights. We’re just moving in, assigning beds/bedrooms, stocking the bathrooms and kitchen, and unpacking. The adults are chattering about adult stuff and the kids are darting around, arguing over beds and closets and “you can’t put your suitcase there, I’m gonna put my dolls there!” I choose a simple bed in the corner of one of the bedrooms- my little cousin and my sister both sleep in the same room in a bunch bed. All of the beds are made of bamboo with super soft mattresses and hempen blankets, with pillows stuffed full of feathers. I sit my suitcase down on my bed and plan to unpack it later, once everyone else has chosen their closet/dresser/where to put their clothes- I don’t wanna get involved in any arguments. I hear my cousin and my brother already wrestling over something in the next room over. My granny and pop-pop have chosen a room to themselves, as has my grandad, and none of the kids dare to try and argue over their rooms. My parents and aunt and uncle share the master bedroom(s?) which have two king sized beds, separated by one of those pull-out walls. The bathrooms are simple but there’s enough for all of us. I walk out of the door of our house and instead of emerging outside, or even in a garage or something, I find myself in a long stretch of empty hallway, with white walls and red carpet. The door closes behind me. And just like that, the dream changes. The hallways stretch so far I can’t see what’s at either end, but there are no other doorways except for the one I just came from. I turn back around to the door, and find it oddly imposing. It looms over my head, the slightly-peeling white paint curling from the shaved bamboo doorframe like skin slipping from bone. I place my hand on the handle and find that it immediately sticks to the cold metal; I try to pull my hand back but it won’t budge. As I pull and pull a red liquid slowly drips from the top of the door, running down the sides and staining the white paint. I start to panic and push and pull my hand to and from the door, hard, trying to shake it loose. It peels from the silver knob with a loud sticky sound, and part of my skin stays stuck to the handle. I look at my hand which is now raw and bleeding, and tuck it into my shirt on my stomach, probably looking like I’m about to throw up or something. The door was cracked open by my pushing and pulling. Ignoring my slab of skin still on the doorknob I push the door open with my foot. The entire house is black. I can barely see the room in front of me. A single one of the lanterns swings over top of the doorway, no longer cute and outdoorsy seeming. The flame inside of it is real, instead of electric like it used to be. The wax runs down to reveal something red inside of the candle. I choose not to look at the lantern and instead peer around inside. I want to call for my family, but something tells me that I shouldn’t pull a basic-horror-movie-white-girl-move and shout, “hello? Is anybody there?” to the demons or murderer or whatever else is in the room. So instead I creep forwards, squinting. I think, usually this is the part where the door slams shut behind me. I turn and it’s wide open. I step forward again and hear the soft click as the door closes; I still jump despite knowing it was gonna happen. I walk into the main room, a living room sort of area with a little fireplace and benches and everything. It’s pitch black but my vision adjusts a bit. My family is nowhere to be seen, and I can’t hear anything else either, besides the creak of the wooden lantern swinging and the ocean rumbling outside. I wonder how the sunlight is being blocked, and approach where I remember a wide window being. When I touch it I feel something sticky and warm and think, yeah, nope, bad idea, let’s just not do that. I hastily wipe my fingers on my jeans and, holding my breath, creep forwards. In hindsight it wasn’t the smartest move, going deeper into the now-definitely-haunted house, but what else could I do? I didn’t want to go out into that long, dark hallway- somehow it made me feel exposed, lost. And I also didn’t want to stay in one place, because that would make me easy prey for whatever demon and/or murderer was here. Plus, I was scared for my family. I wanted to see if I could find them. I go first to the right, which leads to a bathroom. I look in the mirror and nearly have a heart attack because my little sister is in the mirror right beside me. I turn and even swat the air but there’s definitely nobody there. I look back at my sister in the mirror and notice that she’s scared. I creep forwards and she catches my eye and then comes right up to the mirror, and starts banging on it- I can even hear soft thumping on the glass. She’s frantic, horrified, and her mouth is moving like she’s screaming for help. I wonder if maybe it’s some sort of two-way-glass with my sister locked inside. If so, maybe I could free her. But something about the situation unsettles me, and I hesitate to even approach her- I feel like a horrible person, freezing up when my sister is clearly in danger, but some deep instinct inside of me is telling me that I do NOT want to help her. Even though I feel like a completely horrible person, I follow this instinct. It’s not just some sort of survival instinct, because I know I’d be able to ignore an instinct like that to save a family member. This instinct is deeper and stronger. I back up slowly, shaking my head at her: I mouth, “I’ll come back.” She seems shocked, then begins banging even more frantically. I suddenly think that my sister didn’t seem like the type to act like that; whenever I’ve seen her at her most scared, she freezes up. In fact, I would’ve thought that, instead of BANGING on the glass, she’d be huddled in the corner of whatever room was behind the mirror, and would catch my eye. Screaming and crying would be the most she’d do. But it seemed plain weird for her to be acting this frantic, this crazed. She just wasn’t like that. Not to mention, mirror-Grace wasn’t even crying. As soon as I realize that she’s not crying, I move away from the mirror to the other door to the bathroom. Grace might act strange in a situation like this, after all I’d never seen her in one to be sure of how she’d act, but I know for a fact that she’d definitely be crying- or at least would have cried. But in the mirror her face is clear, just fine other than the worry and fear etched into it. I stare at the mirror Grace and grab the handle to leave, keeping my eyes on it. It looks at my hand and then to my careful, fearful face. Suddenly Grace stops banging on the mirror. Her face goes slack and she stares at me, expressionless, one hand at her side and the other resting on the glass. My stomach twists with horror. I turn the handle to leave and she grins, and then her grin stretches into something more sinister; I watch as she pulls her lips tighter and tighter, until finally the skin at the corner of either side of her mouth splits and tears, and her smile hangs open to show all of her teeth- even her molars. Her eyes give off the initial expression of happiness but really it’s not a happy expression- it’s an emotion that’s much crazier, much eviler, something I don’t know how to describe. I push the door open and hurry into the next room, and there’s a split second where I’m debating over whether or not I should close the door- on one hand, I wanted as much as possible between myself and that mirror-THING (which definitely wasn’t my sister), but on the other hand, if there was something worse in this room I didn’t want to close myself in, in case I needed a fast escape. My nerves are making me act almost like my uncle, who has ADD; I can’t stop moving, need to be doing something. My eyes dart around everywhere and my fingers twitch on the handle. I settle on leaving the door partially cracked. The room is the one which my brother and cousin had chosen for themselves. I see their suitcases and clothes scattered everywhere, along with my brother’s iPad. I feel my hopes shrinking when I see that. Something in me was insisting that they might not be dead or hurt, they might have all decided to leave and then something happened to the house AFTERWARDS; but if they were going to leave then my brother would have taken his iPad. I tell myself that there’s still hope- maybe they were here when something started happening, and were forced to exit as fast as possible, leaving behind their possessions and stuff. I notice that dark red liquid (it doesn’t have to be blood, I think firmly. It doesn’t HAVE to be blood...) is dripping from the ceiling and running down the walls the same way it dripped from the front door. I know this isn’t a good sign but the closest exit to the house besides the front door I came in is past this room. I creep past the first bed and it’s all fine. When I creep past the second bed, I hear soft shuffling- the shifting of those hempen blankets on the mattress, I can tell from the sound. I think, yeah, maybe there’s a really high chance that what I just heard was another murderous thing like in the mirror, sure... but there’s always the chance that my youngest cousin was hiding under the blankets, right? She’s small enough that I wouldn’t notice her, right? So I can turn around and look at the beds because it’s just gonna be a normal, maybe freaked out Lily? Right? I turn around and at first I think, well, maybe all of that was wrong and I’m straight up imagining things. But then I hear it again and my ears hone in on the sound- it’s coming from under the bed. Of course. That’s where every single monster to ever exist hides. There’s like a 99.999999999% chance that that noise is NOT my little cousin, or even my siblings for that matter. It’s totally fine, I tell myself, while creeping away from the sound. I don’t need to investigate it because I don’t need to die. If it was someone in my family they’d cry out or something, so it’s no use checking what’s under there to look for them. And I can always come back; yeah that’s a good point- I’ll come back once I have my dad’s loaded shotgun, a flashlight, protective clothing (at least more protective than flannel and jeans), and a bunch of strong backup people to help me out. And also an exorcist or something. So if it turns out to be a family member they’ll be fine either way. My chain of thought is cut short right before I’ve reached the door- of course, that’s always how it works. I think, we’ll maybe HERE’S where I die? From underneath of the bed a thick, not human leg has emerged. It looks like a spider leg. I think, NOPE, that’s definitely not okay, if this is a giant spider then I’m calling bullshit on this entire cliche horror house and I’m just gonna start running as fast as I can to the exit. It occurs to me that, if this is gonna be the way I think it is, then the exit I’m looking for is gonna be locked, shut off, or will lead to something even worse. The leg slowly pulls out from under the bed and yep, it’s a giant spider. With hundreds of thousands of spider babies on its back. I try to think of everything I’d learned about how to handle spiders but the only spiders I knew how to handle were the NICE, and the CUTE ones, tarantulas and shit. I didn’t know how to handle a fucking black-widow-deadly-venomous-giant-morphed-mutated THING or whatever this was. I stare deeply into its eight eyes. Which is kind of hard because I can’t choose an eye to focus on- my gaze flickers from one red orb to the next, almost exactly the same way as when I’m talking to someone I don’t know and start to have a mental breakdown. We kind of just stare at each other for a bit which is really awkward. The entire time this thing is making a weird hissing rattling sound and I can hear a bunch of it’s babies clicking on its back. I’m afraid to move as if that’ll trigger a reaction. My hands are shaking. I tell myself that I’m totally fine and that eventually I’ll look back on this one day, as a distant memory. And I’ll have a girlfriend. And a house. And a bunch of cats. Yeah, exactly. The thoughts calm me down a little bit, mostly just because they’re distracting me from the fact that I’m facing down (or rather up, because this thing is taller than me) a giant spider, alone, in the dark, with literally nothing to defend myself with. Which, first off, wasn’t that like- NOT supposed to happen? I think about all the horror movies I’d seen and I’m like, alright, this is complete bullshit. The characters are always able to get their hands on something to at least try and defend themselves with- even if it’s just a flashlight to bash the murderer’s head with or something. But I had NOTHING. And the kitchen was in the next room, but even then the knives in there were like butter knives and whatever. Where was my machete, huh? I couldn’t have at least stumbled upon one of my dad’s baseball bats or something? A flashlight without batteries? Anything? Of course not. Because this horror house was fucking cheating. The closest hard item was my brother’s iPad- I’d have to find a way to break it bad enough to shatter the glass, then use the shards of glass as a weapon. And probably slice my only good hand open in the process. And besides it was all the way on the other side of the room. The clicking grows louder and I’m still frozen in place, hand extended as if to grab the doorknob- but I don’t dare reach the final few inches. I start hearing that rattling hiss intensify and the giant spider takes a single, halting step towards me with one leg. And that’s when I decide that maybe I shouldn’t just stand there. In as quick a motion as I can manage, I grab the door handle, turn it, and bash into the door with my shoulder. I actually shout “ow!” without thinking because I hit my shoulder so hard. I’d expected the door to open like a regular fucking door, but naturally, it was stuck. Not locked though, because I could turn the handle. At least I had that. As soon as I moved, the hissing rose to a roar almost like the ocean, which would be a strangely beautiful concept if I were watching the scene fold out from my couch instead of living it. I jerk the handle and push harder and the Big Daddy Spider(TM) starts crawling towards me, taking massive steps. The door still isn’t budging. I give one last shove before deciding I needed something to defend myself with. My eyes land on the lamp nearby- it wasn’t ideal, but neither was this entire situation. I run to it, taking only three or so steps, and yank it from the wall. There’s an electric crackle despite the fact that the power was supposedly out. Nice try demons, I think, but I know you planned this all out. The Big Daddy(TM) has almost gotten over to me, although thankfully the babies (which, by the way, are only babies in comparison to the Big Daddy; in reality they’re regular sized spiders) are staying in place, if not shifting and clicking agitatedly. I grip the lamp like a weapon and think, it’s just like baseball, only instead of hitting a leather ball you’re hitting the leathery, rotted flesh of an abomination. Same thing, kind of. Sort of. I try to edge around the walls of the room to get back to the door but I’m afraid to get within range of the thing’s pincers. I get an idea and steel myself, then run past it to the door. It turns quickly and I hear a loud click. I stand at the door, and it turns so it’s facing me fully again; that is, facing the door. Then, like a dumbass, I start hooting and slamming the lamp against the door, and waving it around near the spider’s field of vision. I hear the clicking get suuuuuuper agitated and I’m like, PLEASE don’t set your spider babies on me, I just want you to charge me so I can have you bust open the door. I continue and it starts towards me and I force myself to stay in place; as soon as it lunges as me I throw myself to the side, literally. I don’t give a fuck about my probably already injured shoulder, I’m outta there. The spider’s pincers smash against the door and now the clicking and hissing sounds PISSED. It manages to stop itself before its full weight slams against the door though. But on the bright side- no pun intended considering the lamp still in my hand- the door seems cracked open now. The Big Daddy(TM) charges at me again and, regretfully, I slide underneath of it so I can get to the door. It’s underside is all hairy and bulging, and a few spiders are hanging from the hairs. One of the hairs touches my face, which just. Ew. I get to the door and kick it with the heel of my foot, hard, and it opens. I run through still carrying the lamp and immediately use the back of my foot to catch the door and close it behind me. I hear angry clicking and inhale sharply through my teeth- the door doesn’t have a lock but it still closes, and I doubt the ability of the spider to turn a doorknob. I look around the new room which is dark but also seems empty at first. I find a rug right near the door I just came from and I roll it up and stuff it under the door, because I’m thinking about those ‘small’ spider babies and how they could definitely still reach me, even if the Big Daddy(TM) couldn’t. It seems to hold, although the constant clicking and tapping on the door makes my skin prickle. Surprisingly there’s nothing in the next room, which I’m thankful for. When I open the door to leave everything goes black- to the point where I can’t even see my own hands in front of my body. I extend my hands and reach around to find the wall, something to guide me, but it’s gone. Like it was definitely there, right behind me before, and now it’s literally missing. I take a tentative step forwards. Out of the darkness there’s a tiny speck of light, mostly white but tinted just the tiniest amount blue. It grows larger as I walk until it’s the size of maybe a pinhead. I go to step forwards and the light changes. In under a second it grows, expanding, and changes to the shape of a life-size version of my mom, only ghost-ified; she doesn’t have legs, rather her body emerged from the dot of light, until she was a torso, arms and head. She’s the color of the light and a bit transparent, and her hair hangs in front of her eyes. She’s naked, at least the top half is- luckily I can’t see the bottom half to check. It’s basically a jump scare where she suddenly leaps at me and comes at my face, white-blue hands glowing in the shape of claws, extended to grab me. And not in a nice way either. Before she touches me, just as her face is right at mine- bared teeth and all- everything goes black again. This time, it’s because I’ve passed out. When I wake up I wake up in real life. It was like 3:00 AM though so I went back to sleep. Then, the second ‘half’ of the dream started. I was in that hallway from the other dream, which was long and stretched into oblivion, only with a bunch of other kids. My brother and sister were there, but not my cousins. There were no adults. The mood was tense and hardly anyone talked. One kid, the one leading us, eventually said that we were getting closer, and reminded everyone that teaming would result in both parties losing; even if it was just a ‘temporary’ thing, the only people we were allowed to collaborate with were the ones assigned in our actual teams. Nobody responds. The mood remains tense. I’m walking next to my brother, my sister is right in front of us but she’s not talking to me, her mood seems cold. My brother isn’t talking either, he just keeps glancing at me with what’s supposed to be an important look. Except I don’t really know what’s happening. My sister is walking next to another kid, a girl older than her, and the girl quickly grabs Grace’s hand and gives it a squeeze. I wonder why some strange girl is reassuring my sister instead of me- and why Grace seems so adamant about ignoring me, even when I try to catch her eye. I don’t dare to try and say her name or actually talk to her- in this still pool of silence, even a single word seems like it’ll disrupt the surface, like a tiny pebble dropped into the still waters of a pond. The dream skips forwards to when we arrive at our destination. It’s just plain hallway at first, and both directions still stretch infinitely. But on the walls are a bunch of doors- at least a hundred in total, maybe more. They’re all very spaced out, there’s maybe ten feet between each door. There are more than enough rooms for all of the kids, and that’s if they all have their own room; in total there’s maybe two dozen of us. The boy who lead us here assigns teams of three- or, by the sounds of it, reminds us of our teams. My brother and I are in a team with another kid I don’t know, a boy in between our ages who seems jittery. He’s very thin. My sister, on the other hand, is teamed with the older girl who was holding her hand earlier, and a boy the same age as her. I suspect that this is the reason why my sister wasn’t talking to me. None of the kids are talking, however none are crying either. The stench of fear is so overpowering I want to run away, hide in the rooms or somewhere down the endless halls. But I make myself follow my brother to a room which the leader boy assigns us. The three of us enter the room and as soon as the leader boy closes the door behind us, I smell something funny and pass out. I wake up to my brother shaking me awake, holding a finger to his lips. The other boy is awake too, rummaging around with something in the room. My brother whispers in a low voice that others have been awake and have started the game already- we’re at the end of the hall, so we’ve gone unnoticed for this long. Nobody would dare go to the outer edges first, because it would leave all the others behind them, unchecked. I look around the room, taking a second or two to take everything in. It’s a simple room- rectangular, but not too big. There’s what seems to be a kitchen area to one side of the room, except it’s been altered. There’s marks on the off-white wallpaper near the end of the rows of cabinets where I’m guessing a fridge used to be. There’s the same sort of marks (but lower down) in between the cabinets where an oven used to be as well. The cabinets are basic wood, cheap, with rough tops. A few of the cabinets hang open; some are empty, but some hold various weapons or ammo. I spot a pistol in one, next to a box of off-brand cereal. In another there’s boxes stacked together, which contain ammo for a bigger, more dangerous gun. There’s a pair of strange sunglasses in one of the bottom cabinets. The boy is rustling through these supplies, taking a few things for himself and stuffing the rest into a large green duffel bag. He’s geared up in a full army-like uniform, complete with a belt stuffed full of ammo and multiple pistols. He holds a type of AK in his hands, like it’s precious. The rest of the room is just as weird. I’m sitting on a worn down sofa, and in front of me is a coffee table. The top has been opened up to reveal hidden storage, but whatever was inside is now gone. In front and to the sides of the sofa are wooden bookshelves, stocked full of a mixture of items. Some of the stuff is like what I spotted in the cabinets- ammo, weapons, even some protective gear- but some of the stuff is almost normal. There’s a few fake potted plants, a few books (I spot a massive book near the bottom which seems suspiciously out of place), and I even see pamphlets for some vacation place stacked on one of the shelves. My brother is also dressed in gear meant for war. He has the same belt as the other boy, holding a bunch of pistols and ammo, and his belt also has an impressive knife in one slot. It’s precariously close to cutting his leg, and I want to warn him to move it. After surveying the room I turn to my brother. He’s giving me clothes like the ones he’s wearing, including an (empty) belt. I squat behind the sofa and change quickly, then stuff my clothes underneath with the boys’ clothes. Then I get up and my brother tells me to make sure to take only things that I know I will use. He also warns me to be quick and quiet. I don’t really know what’s happening still but I’m starting to get the idea. I choose a smaller knife with a wicked sharp blade, whose handle fits my hand really well, and tuck it into my belt. I open up that large book to find a small but super modern black pistol, which seems deadly and deadly accurate. I can also tell (somehow) that the recoil won’t be as bad, which is something I need considering that I tend to prefer shooting from long distances rather than up close. My brother also hands me a hunting rifle which is super handy- on one hand, it’s just as good as any other fun when it comes to shooting up close, but on the other hand it can manage some distance too, to the point where it could almost act like a lower grade sniper rifle. I keep this rifle in hand and work on finding ammo for both of my guns- I end up stocking my belt and pockets full of decent ammo, as well as fully loading both guns. At this point the sounds of fighting could be heard from the hall. It sounds a decent ways away but is still close enough to serve as a reminder: we needed to grab what we needed, and join the game- before we were forced to join unprepared, by a looter looking to steal our room’s stuff, or by other players looking to fight. As gunshots and shouts echoed outside, adrenaline started pulsing through me. I get jittery, but at the same time, I had a will of steel; I would survive. I fully planned on it. When we’re done searching and looting the room, the boy takes anything even somewhat valuable (that we aren’t going to use) and puts it in the duffel bag. Then he hides it really well, so that hopefully, nobody who looted our room would find anything to help themselves out. Eventually we’re all ready. I managed to find two bulletproof vests hidden under the cushions of the couch, so thanks to my ~amazing~ observation skills, my brother and I both became slightly bulletproof. We hid the vests under our regular jackets so that people didn’t purposefully fire at our heads, arms, or legs, knowing that the vest was there. After all, that’d defeat the purpose. We all huddle together and agree that we needed to take out the room across from us first. They were probably on the same boat as us right now, only we were definitely more prepared since it seemed unlikely that the other kids found everything we did. The three of us come up with a quick plan; my brother goes up front with his shotgun and bulletproof vest, with the other boy right behind him, providing support. I hang back, both scoping out the rest of the room for any signs of a trap or hiding players, and for any other teams coming from the hallway. With my hunting rifle I’d also offer support and get rid of the players who were too far away for my brother and the boy to accurately kill. In addition to all that, I also lead the defense for people coming at us from the halls; and I ALSO am the one in charge of observing for things like, if one of them has a bulletproof vest, or if they have a bomb on them, etc. so my teammates can know ahead of time. With the loose plans in place, my brother cracks the door open. He peers around them gives us a flick of his hand, and the boy and him proceed across the hall, then flatten themselves against the wall right next to the door. My brother has his gun loaded and ready to shoot- his finger’s in the trigger as he places a hand on the doorknob. I stay at the doorway of our room, looking left and right. I can spot a few kids in the distance fighting, but they’re too far away to be of concern yet. We all exchange terse nods and my brother busts the door open. Immediately there’s shouting and I glance at the doors next to us, waiting for looters or third partiers to come out- however my main focus is on the fight. I see one boy in the back pulling the top of his pistol back and getting ready to shoot, and bring my rifle up with my eye aligned to the little crosshair at the end; almost immediately I fire, hitting him in the head. He drops to the floor, and I reload without hesitation, looking at the rest of the room. My brother and the other boy have one kid already eliminates, but they’re still searching for the other. I squint around the room and then realize where the kid must be- I whisper-shout as loud as I dare, “cabinets!” The boy hears me and nods, then charges ahead. I hear shooting and a grunt; then the boy returns, a bit of blood on his shirt. I run into the room and we talk quickly. None of us are really injured, except my brother who has a small cut on his arm from where someone tried to cut him. It’s barely bleeding though, not that bad, so I rip one of the kids’ shirts and use it as a makeshift bandaging to stop the blood. Then we reload, take extra ammo from this team’s room, and look around to make sure we don’t pass over anything good. There’s no bulletproof vests under the sofa’s cushions or on the kids, which makes me think that every room got different (but equally good) stuff. That would encourage actually going into other teams’ rooms, looting, and also looting bodies- that way the fighting wasn’t primarily in the halls, where it’d be a quick slaughter to the end of the game. I voice this and the boys agree, and I look for any goodies hidden in the room while the other boy searches the bodies. The boy finds a better pistol than the one he has and switches it out, as well as the ammo. He also finds some ammo for a better shotgun than my brother’s, although the shotgun is nowhere in sight. My brother pockets the ammo though, in the hopes that we’ll find the gun in a room nearby. I manage to find a secret panel in the back wall, which opens to reveal an actual sniper gun, although the ammo it needs is very specific and it’s also very limited. I have maybe twelve shots total. But I’m excited at the find and my teammates are too, because having a sniper rifle was one thing- but having a sniper rifle as well as someone who was half-decent with it would definitely give us a huge advantage. When the game progressed to the point where only two teams were left, we could wait them out in the hallway, and as soon as they came out I’d hit them from so far away they’d be unable to fight back. I also find that one of the fake plants has a false bottom, and opens up. Inside there’s some scattered ammo for the better pistol, as well as a very small knife that glints strangely. My brother tells me to be careful; it’s enchanted. The knife had some sort of spell over it, which would do something particularly nasty to the person(s) it cut. Curious, I take the knife and slice open the arms of one of the dead boys. Immediately blood begins to flow, so deeply and so quickly that there’s no way in hell it’s natural. I give my brother the knife, which I make him promise to be careful with- after all, if he accidentally cuts himself with THIS knife, I can’t help him. He tucks it safely and securely into his belt. We continue down the next three or four rooms the same way- in one of the rooms the kids were prepared. Either they heard us from the other rooms and put two and two together, or they had just planned to stay in their room for the game, and kill whoever came in until they either won or were forced out. We still killed their team, however they did some heavy damage to us. They shot the other boy multiple times in the leg and arms- luckily he was fast and their aim was questionable- but even after tying the wounds off, he was bleeding a lot, and I didn’t know how much longer he’d survive. Not to mention I had no idea how he’d be able to fight with a limp and a bad arm- most guns required two arms to have decent aim. I straight up told him this, and he nodded, but said that we could still win. However we slightly changed the plan so that he was the one charging in first, simply because he was going to die anyways, so it was safer for my brother and I. It sounds cruel, but to us, it was the obvious choice to make- strategy wise, doing anything else was just dumb. We found a few more valuable things in the other rooms. First, we found the better shotgun for my brother, which he decided to save for the end of the game. Second, we found an enchanted knife which I took this time- it was poisoned in some sort of way, by the looks of it. I was careful to place it in a position where I couldn’t accidentally cut myself. We also found some bandages and basic medical supplies, so I changed the fabric strip around my brother’s arm to some clean bandages, and also cleaned up the wound to avoid infection. However the supplies weren’t enough to help the other boy, so he told us to save them for ourselves. We obliged. The final thing we found were helmets- there were two, so my brother and I took them. They were bulletproof and the visors would provide some (if not minor) protection to our eyes if anyone threw a smoke bomb at us. We kept them on as we went, even when we were looting empty rooms. While looting an empty room closer to the middle of the doors, the other boy stumbled, fell, and didn’t get back up. I closed his eyes and my brother and I took what ammo and weapons he had for ourselves. Then, we started to get close to the end of the game. I was worried about my sister, and told my brother that I was. He said grimly that it was better if someone else killed her, rather than us. He also said he was glad we at least didn’t have to kill each other. I agreed, but it didn’t stop me from worrying over my sister. She was tough and the girl with her seemed like she was going to protect her. But even then, I imagined what I would do if we had to kill each other. I stopped thinking about that really quick because it made me feel so upset, it was hindering me down in reality, and I couldn’t afford to be lost in the clouds. My brother and I walk out of the room we’d looted, and start down the hall. My brother’s face is visible through the dark plastic mask, drenched in sweat, his freckles hidden by smears of blood and grime. His bandaged arm is stained brown. Blood splatters and dries on his helmet, uniform, hands, and feet. Dressed in that uniform and carrying the shotgun, with another slung over his back, he seemed much more mature than he actually was. I’m sure I looked the same, with my long hair braided and tucked into my uniform- which was splattered with blood, but not as much since I still somewhat hung back with my rifle- but with my hair tucked and my uniform and mask, and the long rifle in my hands, again with another slung over my back, I guessed that I probably looked just as bad. He talks about strategy, about how we’re nearing the end of the game. We both agree that he should exchange his shotgun for the better one because the people that are left are probably good. As we’re walking down the halls, we come across a group of two very violent teams. One team agrees to not fight us since they’re already fighting another, which is chill. I ask about my sister and the boy spits, “you’d better stop asking questions when you don’t wanna hear the answers.” Then he runs off, cocking his gun. The dream ends there.