Date: 8/12/2016
By LadyVenus
✳At first I didn't really dream, I felt like I was floating between being awake mentally, but asleep physically, I guess you can say sleep paralysis. Then it started. I was in a store, it's a store I always dream about, one that doesn't exist in the real world, but seems to exist in my mind, the structure of it is usually the same. I was buying stuff, I didn't really have any plans on what I wanted, just looking. Suddenly someone ran to close the doors, and from the screams and mixed yelling I understood that something was outside. Zombies? Brain-eating parasites? I want sure, but just like the crowd around me, I knew needed necessities. Food, it was right here, on the site shelves and easiest carry in my purse, a purse I actually own. I stuffed it with anything edible, and what was closest happened to be Pringles, which were also in the freezer for some reason. I'm a moral person. I don't steal, so like an idiot, in what feels to be an end to the world, or at least the world I live in, I go the cash register, but it seems like not every body plans on paying, since their aren't many people in line compared how many I saw shopping. I have no money, but the cashier checks me in, and its all somehow paid for. I turn around and then I see them, Amelia, my best friend that moved up north two years ago, and Rebecca, the awkward girl I and Amelia hung out with, mainly because she didn't fit in with any other group and we felt bad for her. We had all gathered up a little food and since we use to be friends we thought it'd be best to stick together. Naturally Amelia was the leader, she was always the leader because of how kind she is to everyone. We were in a big store, a store that, while but real, I've gone to in many of my past dreams and knew the layout of. "Let's go to the east end and camp out their," I suggested. The east end was like heaven to me, I knew what was in there, the handbags I wanted, boots that were so cute and so cheap, it's was shopping paradise. We head over and so far I been willingly carrying the food in a long orange bag, Amelia walking ahead, like a leader should, and Rebecca offering to carry the end of it from time to time, but not really helping. I see a rack of designer handbags, three of them, with different designs. "Hey that'd be helpful," I tell the others. Their bigger than the purse I had earlier, but easier for all of us to carry. I reach for the bags, but Rebecca cries out. "No, get the ones on the top!" The top ones are too high up, but Amelia is about a foot taller than me, so I tell her she'll have to reach and get it. Rebecca tells me Amelia can't it has to be me. "But she's taller than me," I explain. "But you're fat," she states. This surprises me, the three of us are very different, I'm a medium height girl, and curvy, Rebecca's a little shorter, and for as long as I can remember she's always been underweight, having to eat two meals at lunch to help keep her weight up, while Amelia is almost 6 ft tall, and pretty average weight. I try to ignore what she just said, after all, all that matters now is survival. I explain that being tall makes it easier to reach the bags, that's why Amelia should get them, but Rebecca insist that weight has something to do with it. Just then a character from an old TV show I like appears, LaShawna. LaShawna is curvy, she's large and in charge, and I felt like she could talk some sense into Rebecca. "LaShawna, Rebecca called me fat," I tell her. Nobody does anything for a moment, and then instead of staying there, Rebecca storms off, and I chase after her, trying to get her to come back to the aisle we were all in. We get back, and it turns out. LaShawna is not our friend, but a bandit, and she wants our purses. I give her the bags, it's not like we REALLY needed them, and before I give her the third bag, a black and red doctor handbag, she pointed to the long orange bag containing our food. "That too," she said. I can't let her have it, it's our survival, so I push the last bag forward. "This one's better," I say, and she takes it and runs away. I look at Amelia, our leader, and told her she has to be stronger for the group, she's covered in bruises from fighting LaShawna, but I know she didn't defend herself. She's frustrated about what happened. "What do you want me to do?" She asks. "You're the leader, lead us." "Well maybe we need a new leader!" I asked her who should lead, I felt I was best for the job, I knew what had to be done, but no, she chose Rebecca. We keep moving and somehow end up in my house, where one of the Mothers from my church is sitting in my living room with her daughter, Mother Utley and Ms. Maxine. I don't mind them hanging out, their church ladies, it's OK, but we needed to be safe. I take Amelia to my mother's room, it's the only room that's door I know how to lock, and has a bed big enough for us all to share. Rebecca's never been to my house, but she's already in my room, as it she assumed we'd be in there. As new leader, it isn't starting out too well, and I explain that my mom's room if better than my tiny one that smells weird and is too small. She hides beneath my bed sheets though, and I shrug it off. I leave Amelia to watch TV quietly in my mom's room. I think of the beautiful statues and family heirlooms I have sitting in the living room, and money may become a necessity soon as well. I don't know where my mom is, but I call her. "Hey, um, you know there's all kinds of things happening now, and I'll need money soon, so it's OK if I sell the family stuff, right?" "No! That's all very important, it's apart of our home." I understand and head up to the living room to prepare myself more, remembering the ultra sharp watermelon knives we have. I see Mother Utley, and she stops me. "People out there are having it so rough right now," she says as she looks out of the patio door, through the glass. I look out to, expecting something to be sitting right outside my door. "Not right there, no out there in the world," she tells me, gazing out past the trees that surround my home. "In here we're rich, rich!" I look at her, confused. My families upper class, but I've never thought of how much money we have, we're frugal, and rich seemed a bit exaggerated. "What do you mean?" I ask her. "Look at all this glass you own, we pawn it off and we'll be rich," she tells me. "No," I say. "No? What do you mean, no?" "This house is part of my family, ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind." She understands, but seems upset, angry, and then scared. I don't remember what words she says exactly, but she seemed to want me to run. A dark creature bubbled up, out if her abdomen and began to drown her. For a moment I saw things through her eyes, I was beginning lucid. I turned to her daughter, but Ms. Maxine was mentally ill, there's a good chance she didn't know what to do. "Just wait a while and it'll be over," she told me, but it didn't end. The creature, made of a dark, water substance, drowned Mother Utley and before I woke, I remember it coming after me, and I remember slamming it's head against the kitchen counter and killing it.