Fighting to Survive

Date: 10/25/2018

I’m already losing parts of this dream as I type. It had so many plot lines and characters. The first plotline is about a group of teenagers who spend a vacation at one girl’s fancy mansion. They don’t really like each other. In fact, a couple of them genuinely hate each other. There are still some potential couples whose romance is forming in all this, but mostly everyone’s just suspicious and hateful of one another. They keep things civil enough when their parents are around, but it’s practically a gang war in private — exaggerated and passionate, with insults and spitting and knives that are never fully used to hurt someone, always for intimidation. Then something happens to their parents. Something happens to the world, I think. There’s some kind of apocalypse, and the teenagers are left more or less alone. They have the mansion now. Which, apparently, has a second mansion in the backyard. They have the mansions, and their knives, and each other. They try to survive, to steal food and fend off other people and stay alone and alive in their space. They try to deal with each other, too, their hatred more prominent than ever. Until the couples get together. They start trying to be respectful of each other, finding solidarity in the experience of romance. When one pair is trying to have sex in the back mansion and the other pair has the same idea, it’s the second pair who backs off and finds another place. They coexist. They let each other do their thing. Eventually, things start to mellow out a little. One of the boys in a relationship finds some video games and a console that still work even in these bizarre times. He remembers one of the other boys in the group loving video games, and suggests that the group try to play for the sake of bonding and becoming less volatile as a group. They do play one game, and they do seem to get closer, but the dream switches groups and location part way through. This time, it’s a family in a high-class condo. There’s a mom, her husband, her kid’s dad, and a kid. There may be other people, but it’s hard to remember. I think one of them might be the dad’s co-worker, and another might be the husband’s drinking buddy? I know the mom is trying to get back together with the dad, though it’s unclear whether she’s divorced her husband or is trying to be polyamorous with them. Both of her... potential targets seem fairly comfortable with the situation, either way. There’s some lingering awkwardness, but the husband seems to think that will fade with time and the dad seems to think it will fade with effort. The kid, the mom’s pre-teen daughter, is the one least accepting of the arrangement. She wants the husband to be her dad, not this new man she doesn’t know. The dad tries very hard, and very sincerely, to get her to accept him. He’s not above humiliating himself, or begging, or jumping through hoops. He’ll sincerely do anything to have her see him as her dad. He has a goofy kind of honesty about him, which the mom finds endearing and the husband seems to find equal parts annoying and inspiring. This little family also tries to play video games to get closer. The dad suggests them, and keeps playing the most “dad-like” characters he can possibly find. He’ll turn to the kid every time he does this, Nd ask “would you like me as a dad if I looked like this?” in a way that seems like he’s joking, but is actually completely serious. He often goes for sea-creature based characters as well, to show he’s still “with the times” enough to reference the Octodad video game. The daughter rolls her eyes, but I can’t remember what she actually says about the situation. The co-worker makes jokes to support him. The drinking buddy stays clear of the situation. The mom tries to say supportive things, but mostly wants them to work things out themselves. Then they start a new game. In this one, the dad chooses to be a sort of horned crab/lizard/dragon/lobster creature. It’s bipedal and has a horn on its head and a long, lizard-like tail, but it’s coated in a pinkish exoskeleton which it uses often in combat. It has one set of arms with humanoid hands and another, lower set with large claws. Its feet are like those of lizardmen in D&D, particularly in that they’re clawed like a lizard’s and well-suited to running. Its face almost looks human because of the eyes, but is otherwise quite alien. It has little feeder whiskers on its face. The dad struggles to tell which one is the male and which is the female, since both forms look so unusual. I’m selecting a character at the same time, and my brother is asking me what I want to be. I tell him I’d normally play female because they tend to look better, but this time I want to play male so that the dad will get what he wants. It’s a strange and meta moment. I also secretly want to play male because I know what’s about to happen in this game, and I know I’ll be more comfortable in a male body. The mom and daughter choose to be human. The husband chooses to be something alien as well, this one closer to being a stocky halfling or gnome but with purple skin and sticky palms and foot soles. It’s maybe between a gnome and a frog. It’s very wide-set, whatever it is, and would be taller if it didn’t crouch on its frog-like legs all the time. The drinking buddy chooses something similar, but taller and more lithe. It’s a light teal blue, and it’s something like a cross between a frog and an elf. Both the husband and the drinking buddy’s frog people have pointed elf ears and special neon-colored patterns all across their bodies. The co-worker chooses to be human as well, and makes up a backstory for himself. The group has been captured by aliens of the dad’s race. They are confined in a ship, and commanded to help fight in a war. The game presents several possible objectives and the consequences for not following them. Fighting for the crab-dragon people and winning can win the game. Escaping and fighting for the other side and winning can win the game. Escaping and hiding out until the war ends can win the game. Staying with the crab-dragon people and not fighting will see them starving to death as privileges and resources are revoked due to lack of cooperation. Escaping and not fighting at all runs the risk of seeing them die from strange monsters all over the Earth — creatures that don’t care about their allegiance, only the meat on their bones. Escaping and fighting for the enemy runs the risk of the crab-dragons actually being the ones trying to save Earth and the world ending once they’re defeated. The dad is convinced that his people must be in the right. Why else would the game let you play as one of them? Why else would the game specify consequences for fighting against them? He’s positive that staying and fighting for them is the best option. Slowly, without their noticing at first, the game becomes reality. They take on the lives and memories and identities of their player characters, their hosts, while still retaining their own memories and connections to one another. The daughter is much younger now. The dad recalls being a soldier on his home planet, but also being a business executive on Earth. He ended up stranded on Earth during a different war, and has been using cloaking to live here and wait for rescue. Why he was kidnapped instead of rescued, he’s not entirely sure. Perhaps he’s considered a prisoner until he’s proven himself. Perhaps all they have to do is prove themselves in battle, and then they’ll all be allowed to live free. The more he thinks it, the more he believes it. His people are merciful, but also efficient. He knows they’re in the right. They’ll save the Earth. Every time one or more of the others manage to escape, he tracks them down and brings them back to the prison ship. He can easily escape, but chooses to do so only to bring the others back. They start to resent him. Why? Why would he do this to them? They can’t fight, and he knows it. The daughter especially can’t fight, she’s just a little kid. Why can’t he let them go? He assures then his people aren’t cruel. They’ll show mercy. They don’t show mercy. He’s been so busy corralling the other prisoners that he hasn’t gone out to fight. Only the frog-elves have. These two are eating well and being taken care of... but the dad feels the hunger in himself and sees his daughter and (now ex) lover crying in their cramped cell in the night while he’s up above on a balcony for night watch. He sees the other human, the guy, isolated and hungry and slowly losing hope. He knows they’re in pain. He can’t take seeing them like this. Any of them. One night, they try escaping again. This time, he doesn’t stop them or go out to retrieve them. He hands them a crudely drawn map to a place his people would never search and a nearby food source of some kind (an abandoned mall, maybe? The world is in much worse condition than it once was, with the beasts roaming everywhere and the alien war raging), and wishes them well. He hugs his ex, pats the man on the shoulder, and then looks on at his daughter with a pained yet hopeful look. She hugs him, thanks him, and says that crab warriors make good dads, after all. She knows he won’t come with them. She’ll miss him. They could have been great friends. Family. His smile is still pained, but it’s bigger and more sincere now. He sends them on their way. Soon, he goes out fighting for real. The dream focuses on his opponents for a bit before settling back on him. His enemies are a rouge crab-dragon, a regular (non-amphibious, with human-skin-color) elf, and a few other aliens. The rogue calls himself a poet-warrior, and uses a very strange weapon. It looks like the tip to a fancy fountain pen, but sharper and larger and fit onto his humanoid hand like a gauntlet. Inside, it holds a spring mechanism and a thin, strong metal cable. This cable is retractable, allowing the rogue to use his pen-gauntlet as either an actual gauntlet or a long-range weapon. Whip-like, almost. The dad uses a sword with a similar fountain-pen structure, though there aren’t any wires or mechanisms. Just engraved metal, looking like a very fancy, very thick, very unique rapier-type sword. These are the only weapons I see clearly. The rest are also metal, but harder to define when the fight starts. At the beginning of the scene, the rogue swings his weapon on its cord and talks to the elf about his poetry and elegance could stand to be appreciated more. The elf rolls his eyes, insisting that the poetry is superfluous in a fight. Elegance is fine, he prizes it himself, but poetry? That type of fighter is just annoying, nothing more. The rogue scoffs, then notices the approach of the dad and his allies. The human man has even returned, agreeing to fight only when the crab-dragons can’t see him doing so — they would take him away from the girls if that happened, and he needs to be there to protect them from beasts. The dad understands, and so do the elf-frogs. The two groups clash, fighting one another with no intention of backing down or going easy. The dad quickly recognizes the rogue’s poet-warrior style, giving him an upper-hand in their fight. The rogue recites poetry the whole time he’s fighting, and as they pass each other the dad and the elf complain to each other about poetry in battle and poet-warriors as a whole and this poet-warrior in particular. They bond, even as the elf corners his co-worker and the dad lands more hits than he takes on the rogue. I don’t remember much between this and the next clear scene. The dad’s team wins, but there is a casualty and both sides have heavy injuries. The elf gets away. The rogue does not. The dad knows his wounds will scar. There’s more fighting. Fights with beasts atop piles of rubble. Fights in huge armies, spread out across a largely empty land where only plants and buildings still stand. Near-death experiences and losses of new crab-dragon allies and a constant worry, in the back of the mind, for the humans still in hiding. However it happens, the crab-dragons win. They eliminate their enemy, and leave Earth. The game is won. The dream cuts to a new condo, this one with fewer glass windows and more security measures. The dad is human again, and shirtless for some reason. He’s more cautious now, and holds his scars when he sits slowly down onto the couch — as if his insides will spill out if he doesn’t, though it’s been years since his injuries healed. The mom rubs an ointment on them sometimes. She asks if he needs it, but he says no. She turns on the TV instead, asking what he’d like to watch. If he isn’t too busy with work calls or anything. He says to let their daughter decide, and to let the phone ring on silent all it wants — he’s not taking calls or talking business today. He’s the CEO, he can take days off if he wants. There’s also the implication that today is special. A holiday, at least in their family. The anniversary, perhaps, of their victory in the game. The daughter runs in the room and hugs him with enthusiasm and sincerity and warmth, settling in next to him on the couch. She doesn’t have to say it. He knows she sees him as her dad now. She considers him family, at last. He’s in pain all the time, and wakes up with nightmares more often than not, and can’t explain his scars to any but those who were in the game with him; but he got what he wanted. He has a family now, a real one, and he doesn’t have to beg to be included. He’s content. The mom sits down, too, and hands off the remote. They’re safe enough to watch a show in the middle of the day without worrying or looking over their shoulders. They’re back in the real world. I don’t see or know anything about the others, though. They may have decided that they can’t face the people who brought them into that situation, and left to live their own lives and try to forget the whole ordeal. They may have had new ideas and passions and gone to pursue those. Or... they may have died in the game, and never returned to reality at all. I have no idea. The dream cuts to me, my real self, standing with my back leaned against the outer wall of a building. I think it might be a movie theater. The town is cold and old-fashioned, with gas lampposts and cobblestone streets and people in thick coats and a layer of icy fog hovering over everything. There are still a few cars on the roads, along with horse-drawn carriages. Some people are using smartphones. I look at a holographic clock in the middle of a 4-way intersection across the street from me. It displays the weather as well. I wonder how much longer I’ll have to wait for my brother and sister to get here. I spot someone on the opposite street. Someone I know. He looks like my brother. I draw my scarf closed tighter around my mouth and look down, hoping not to be seen. It’s cold, anyway. I watch my breath in the cold, mixing into and becoming part of the fog. Then I wake up.