Dream Journal Ultimate
Date: 10/23/2025
By amandalyle
The church door looms over us like something alive. Mat knocks once — a deep, hollow sound that rolls through the air — but there’s no answer. Just silence. Heavy, watching silence. “That’s strange,” I say, glancing up at him. “Are you sure we’re at the right place?” Before he can reply, the door creaks open on its own. No one behind it. Just a long stretch of shadow inviting us to our doom. We step inside. Our voices echo when we call out —warped and tinny, like a bad choir trapped in the rafters. The church smells of dust and candle smoke and something sour beneath it, something like regret. The air is cold enough to taste. Then I hear whispers. Faint, threading through the stillness. “Can you hear that?” I whisper. Mat nods. His hand finds mine, and it’s trembling. At the far end of the hall, a cupboard door rattles. Once. Twice. The brass knob glows faintly, as if lit from within. It’s whispering — I swear it’s whispering — open me. We edge closer. Every step echoes too loudly. I reach for the handle. The door swings wide — and two life-sized puppets stare back at us. Their painted eyes glint. Their Victorian clothes are stiff and dusty, like forgotten dolls. “What can we do you for?” one squeaks. “Are you lost?” says the other. Mat and I step back in unison. My heart hammers. We need to leave. Before we can, two figures leap from the shadows, cackling. “Fooled ya!” the man shouts. “Got ya good!” the woman howls. They’re adults — fully grown — dressed like overgrown children. The man’s in dungarees and a spinning propeller cap that whirs so fast it’s a blur. The woman is in pigtails and pink mary janes. Their childlike laughter gives me the heebie-jeebies. You can never trust an adult in dungarees. “Come sit down,” she says, motioning to a circle of tiny chairs. “We’ve been expecting you.” We sit, awkward and unsure. Knee’s up to our chins as though we have somehow outgrown ourselves. There’s no one else here. Empty chairs waiting for guests that may never come. Somewhere, a clock ticks — slow and deliberate. Then Alex, our son, magically appears in the corner. Thirteen years old, grinning like he’s five. “Toooooys!” he yells, running towards a pile of them. I smile at his childlike demeanor. I miss those days. “Right!” the woman claps her hands. “Competition time!” “A cruise!” the man announces, drumming the table. “And you’re the winners!” The room falls quiet. Is that the sound of crickets? I blink, “Us?” “Well, looks like we’re going on a cruise!” Mat says, squeezing my hand. The church walls start folding inwards like paper, and the floor tilts under our feet. The air shifts. We’re at an airport now. Security scanners hum. A guard raises a hand. “Stop right there! We need to shrink you.” Mat opens his mouth to question it, but before he can finish, there’s a flash of blue light. We shrink. Instantly. The world balloons around us — chairs, shoes, walls — everything overwhelmingly ginormous. “Whoa,” I squeak, as though I have inhaled a helium balloon. “I think we’re shrunk,” Mat says, his own voice comically mouse-like. We dissolve into giggles, two thumb-sized people losing it in an airport queue, squeaking like two cartoon mice. The guard looks down at us with the patient disapproval of a parent. Then, without transition, we’re already on the cruise — a tiny boat bobbing on a bathtub sea. Dozens of miniature passengers wave from the deck, their tiny sunglasses flashing. “Tiny Person Island!” someone hollers from the crow’s nest. The sky bends too close, bright as tin foil. Mat and I change into swimsuits — just like that — and fling ourselves down a water chute. We’re catapulted into the air, screaming like kids on their first holiday, flying through a blur of colour— —and then the splash becomes a crash. Metal on metal. I’m in a van now, beside Mally, my work partner. He’s behind the wheel, grinning mischievously. Ironically, a non-driver. “Oopsie,” he says as the van scrapes along a wire railing. The sound is horrendous — nails in my skull. We jump out and inspect the damage. Damn. The railing’s wrapped around the van like a bracelet. “Never mind,” I say, even though my pulse is racing. Mally laughs, slings his red post bag over his shoulder and skips off like a schoolboy released for lunch. “I’ll just sort my own stuff out,” I mutter. I don’t have the foggiest of fogs where I’m going. I check Google Maps, but it takes me somewhere else — the town centre. Of course it bloody does. Always lets me down. Phoebe waves me down from the doorway of New Look. “Mum! I need new things!” No hello. No smile. Just orders. “What do you need?” I ask, instantly regretting it. She loads me up with clothes, endless piles of them. With each load, I can feel myself sinking deeper into the ground. Damn, my arms ache. Then Mum appears — literally jumps out of a cave of dresses like she hasn't seen daylight for a century. “She’ll cost you a fortune, that girl,” she says. “Don’t I know it,” I laugh, but when I turn back, she’s gone. Swallowed by clothes. The store’s empty. Silent. The lights flicker. Mirrors stretch around me — endless reflections. In each one, I’m smaller. Paler. My voice, when I call out, comes back high and hollow, like it’s being played on repeat. From somewhere behind me, I hear it again. That faint, mechanical whirring. The propeller cap. I turn. The church door stands where the shop exit used to be — the same heavy wood, slightly ajar. “Are you coming?” Mat’s voice echoes from inside. “They’re waiting for us!” Something about his tone makes my skin crawl. It’s not quite his voice anymore — too bright, too eager. Has he been sucking on helium? I step closer. The air smells of must and candlewax again. Of old wood and regret. The cupboard is there, at the far end, rattling softly. Whispering. I reach for the handle. It pulses beneath my fingers, warm and alive. I open it— —and wake up. Mat’s beside me, breathing evenly. For a moment, I almost laugh it off, ready to call it what it is — just a dream, just nonsense — until I notice it. On the bedside table. A small, plastic propeller cap. Still spinning.