Grass & Flames.

"Come!" he laughed, beckoning through the waves of grass. The air was full of tiny floating things, all brilliantly catching the golden light of a slowly setting sun and spinning lazily in every direction.

"Come, come!" Gabriel repeated as he looked back, his bare feet still moving forward. He reached out and grabbed my hand with a smile. Somewhere to my right, half-hidden by the tall, green and gold grass, Amara let out a laugh. We hurried forward, half running. The air was thick with summer sounds: the whirl of our trail through the grass; birds singing clearly and calling out to one another; insects humming in heavy harmony; and a curious howling wind in my ears (that I've heard once before during a tease of astral projection paralysis).

Gabriel led me onward, the grass coming up well past his belly. He wore only olive-colored cotton trousers, folded up to the knee. His skin was brown, his body strong for his age. Amara, still twirling beside us, lifted up her arms with a gentle squeal as her white dress billowed around her. We all ran, barefoot and giggling. I could see a row of cottonwoods far ahead, certainly hiding a healthy riverbed, but besides that, there was only the high, gilded grass as far as I could see.

Suddenly, we fell through an unseen sinkhole in the ground. The children seemed to float down to the floor of a dark, cavernous room we landed in. I looked around, but the darkness was flat and unyielding. I looked to Gabriel and Amara. She pointed to something next to me. "He's the fireguard," she said, sounding unafraid. Taking a step back, I saw what she was talking about, a giant skeleton with the skull of a whale and the bony body of an elephant. He had a long, skeletal tail that wrapped up fifteen feet in the air behind him, ending in a sharp, flat spade of bone. His eyes were empty and his bones a deep nut brown. "It's because of all the time in the flames," Amara leaned over and whispered as she saw me eyeing his coloring.

The creature was somehow holding a long spear, and ambled forward a few steps to tend to a small pit of bright green fire I hadn't noticed before. The children watched in anticipation and soon climbed up on some unseen ledge above the flame. They sat down with their feet thrown over the edge, warming their toes directly in the fire and laughing. I looked on in wonder while they grinned and whispered together, the silent, emerald flames tickling their young feet.

Wrath & Grace.

I was at a party in some large, irregular house that my brother and his friends were hosting. I spent some time wandering around, watching men drink heavily and women laugh too loudly. The dream went on for some time without much happening besides me exploring the house. After a while, I found the back of the house, which was protected by a large growth of bush on one side, a giant, wooden skate ramp on another, and a dilapidated fence on the next, all of which U-shaped around the back wall of the house to create a sort of courtyard. There were twinkling lights strung around the dark trees and a gaggle of men were sitting or lying around, drinking from their cups and joking.

I was watching them when one man came up from the shadows at my right side, his face unshaven and mindless. He grabbed me roughly by the arm and threw me to the ground, my head bumping against the cement comically. He held me down with large, clumsy hands and pulled down my pants. The men I was watching before stood up to get a better view, and three or four lined up behind the man, waiting in line for their turn. I realized my arms were manacled to the ground above my head with great, black chains, their stakes sunk deep into the concrete. My legs tried to kick out, but the man's strength was surprising, and he held them down thoughtlessly with a single hand. He began to unbutton his trousers, and the men surrounding us started to laugh. I could hear cruel laughter behind me, above me, aside me, and I snapped. A deep, violet-colored strength coursed through my veins, visible to everybody in the room, and I swelled with righteous anger. My arms, still tethered to the ground, glowed mauve beneath my skin, my dark veins still clear to the eye, and the light seemed to grow so fully that the chains surrounding my wrists burst off with an explosion of metal while my voice screamed with a low, animal sureness.

My arms felt heavy and powerful hanging at my side as I stood up. Lifting my hands to my face, I watched as the glow under my flesh swirled and pulsed, the lilac and crimson light marbling together in a storm beneath my skin. The twenty or so men who were crowded around me began to run away in a confused panic. First, my arm shot out and grabbed the man who had chained me up. Working on what felt like its own accord, my fist plummeted into his greasy neck. I watched my arm do the work unconcernedly and felt his windpipe crush beneath my knuckles. His eyes widened in fear, his breath grew ragged, and my fingers dug easily into the sides of his neck, burrowing beneath the skin and muscle. Blood ran down my wrist, but I kept digging as his eyes finally lit up with emotion. I pulled my hand out with a clean tug and he collapsed to the floor.

The first man who had been waiting in line, waiting for his turn to rape me, was still standing nearby, and I walked up to him calmly, cupped his cheeks in both of my bloodied hands, and twisted sharply. I could hear his neck crack, as well as his ribs and spine, and imagined I could see his ribcage shatter like tiny chicken bones. I let go and let him fall to the floor, as well. A third man who was there, one I knew who laughed the loudest earlier as my assailant tried to begin the assault, stood some ten feet off. My body seemed to float directly toward him, and as I lifted my hand to his face, was surprised to see I was wearing a lobstered steel gauntlet on my right hand. I pulled it off and heard it clang as it hit the ground as my bare fingers dug gently into the man's eye sockets. They wormed slowly further, pushing aside warm bits of wet tissue to find their way in. He didn't say a word as I wiggled my two fingers deep into his eyes, well to the last knuckle. When I pulled them out, his blackened eyes wept tears of blood, and he keeled over, his mouth a perfectly pious o-shape.

When the gaggle of people had cleared off, I could hear the rest of the party was in pandamonium. Voices were screaming and shouting, japing, crying out, and cat-calling. I rubbed what blood off my hands I could and made my way toward the noise. Inside, there was a wooden walkway ringing a large, shadowy room, some twenty feet up in the air. I wound around the ramp that led to the walkway, spying a chubby man in a sweat-stained, gray t-shirt and the small woman he had backed into the end of the walkway. I knew the girl, she had been a best friend of mine throughout high school (Jen), but she cowered in the corner in a way unlike her real-life counterpart. I hurried along and saw him lift her in the air, his grubby hands preparing to throw her over the edge of the walkway. Before he could, I reached him, stayed his body easily with my left hand, and scooped Jen out of his reach with my right. When she reached the ground, I turned to the man, who looked more confused than afraid, grabbed both of his hands, and sidled lightly around his body, tangling his arms around his bloated torso and binding them tightly behind his back. As we marched back down the walkway, I considered hauling him over the edge, but seemed to have satisfied my bloodlust for the night, and we walked on. Back on the ground level, I left him with a pair of armed guards outside a dank, makeshift cage and was given a stout salute.

A man with a clean haircut dressed in an elegant charcoal uniform fell in line beside me and we walked together as he rattled off the day's reports. He never spoke, but waved his hands artfully in front of our faces and conjured up images of what he was trying to express. Two townsfolk were caught and jailed for stealing, another for molesting an old woman, and two for attempted kidnappings. As he told me about the last incident, I watched vividly as grown men tried to wrestle scared children to the ground: one of them was a squalling Gabriel, his fists flying like angry crows around him, and the other, a small, strawberry-blonde girl with welts on her face. I could feel the rage begin to brew inside me again, and gestured for him to place the kidnappers in a special, electric current-ridden room.

We continued through the building, stopping here and there to check on guards and receive their reports. Finding ourselves facing a simple, heavy door, I held my breath and entered the "special" room. The size of an average one-car garage, the room wasn't spacious, but entirely alive with visible waves of electricity. The voltage fanned across the walls, making its way gracefully upward or sideways. It undulated over the floor in small curls, white-hot and pierced here and there by a bright lavender light.

The two kidnappers were near the door, sprawled face-down on top of two sagging dog beds. Their bodies were motionless, perhaps dead. The furthest prisoner's body looked as if it was collapsing in on itself, deflating and decaying from the inside. His flesh looked like butcher paper, brown and brittle with sharp wrinkles and peaks. I was hit with a jolt of guilt when the man closest to me stirred. He lifted his head slowly, jerkily, and swiveled it to look up at us, his body remaining face-down. A beautifully sweet friend looked back at me (Dom), and I met his gaze uncertainly. I remembered back to the report given to me, as I watched while this friend, this gentle, quiet person tried to wrap my son's flailing arms still in his own clothing so he could be easier carried off. I swallowed down my guilt, my love, and gestured for a guard near the door to increase the voltage.

My officer in the gray uniform stood with me in the middle of the room, our bodies unaffected by the electricity cresting all around us. The face of the prisoner, however, began to mottle and dry as the white currents grew more intense. I watched those eyes I once knew roll around uncontrollably and warble in the heat. The officer watched with pale eyes, nodding in approval. Her Justice, I could hear my officer thinking agreeably. Dom suddenly looked up at me, his gaze straight and set, and smiled kindly. "Are you here to save me?" he asked in a hopeful voice, the first words spoken in the entirety of my dream. I felt the guilt like bile in the back of my throat. "Are you my spirit guardian?" he said as his hands shot out and curled around my ankles lovingly. "My soul Queen, my sweet Grace... I have been waiting for you so many lifetimes..." he smiled as he said it, both his grip on my leg and his voice slackening as his body simultaneously melted and charred apart in the heat of electric currents.

Mountains & Soldiers.

The dream was incredibly long, and while I wound through it in a way that continually made sense, it was full of strange places, people, objects...

After a long series of events, I was in a great structure near the top of a mountain. It was the largest of a handful of buildings, all advanced in their style and furnishing, but with hefty wooden roofs and framework. The place was nestled among a wild forest full of evergreen trees. It was a headquarters for something, I knew, and we were in the midst of a heavy war. Gabriel was there, and Ian, I think, as well as a dozen other people, all dressed in urban fatigues.

We loaded into a van (no Gabriel?) and headed down the mountain. The road was sheer ice, pocked and jagged and nearly 45 degrees down. As we made our descent, I saw, through a strip of pine to our left, a second road, which another set of vans was trying to climb up. We reached the bottom of the road and U-turned to the second road, preparing to make our way up. One of the vans in front of us began sliding backwards uncontrollably. It gained speed and was heading straight toward us. I grabbed the shoulders of the man in front of me (cousin Adam?) and went stiff with fear. Some ten feet before it reached us, the van veered left and slowed near the edge of the border of pine trees. I let out my breath, squeezed the  man's shoulders, and we continued up the ice road.

About halfway up, we turned off the road to a small building hidden among the trees. As we all loaded out, I noticed that the van's interior was gaudily decorated in psychedelic patterns and colors. Even the radio switches were covered in fuchsia-colored velvet. As the people climbed out of the van, I saw that they were all children and teenagers, wearing bright clothing and disinterested looks. The girl that came out of the van after me wore a peach-colored hoodie and had a face that showed downs syndrome. After the van was empty, a group of other people, waiting near the building, filled it up. Gabriel was among them. He hoisted himself into the van, his clothing black, and sat with his hands in his lap. I walked up to the van's door to see him better. "I'm going to fight," he said, or perhaps he didn't need to. There were no goodbyes, he looked straight ahead, his eyes set. They drove away, directly into the battle raging on the far side of the cold mountain, I knew.

I turned to walk into the building and the other young ones followed. Inside, I made my way through a few rooms and found the President near a pool table, his hand massaging his forehead. He silently shooed away a gaggle of people and walked toward an adjoining room, a small lounge with a dozen beertaps lining the bar. I stood outside the room, watching as he hung his head, his eyes tired. The children I drove in with were playing with the pool table outside of the room, and his daughters were there, too. I noticed a blackboard on the wall, full of funny scribbles and illustrations, and shuffled closer. Written in IPA, there were instructions, silly phrases, and my name: erIkə ʤənI:və lepek. Suddenly, I remembered visiting the place on a school field trip years before and filling the chalkboard with the phonetic alphabet I had been studying at the time. He never erased it? I wondered, with a pang of pride. I went to rub off some of the chalk, but noticed that it wasn't a chalkboard at all. Somebody had the original board copied, printed up, and hung on the wall. My instructions... I thought, curiously. I beckoned the daughters over to have a look, explaining the sounds the symbols made and tracing their own names in the air.

The President came out, watching us with interest, but before he could say anything, I heard a shout from somewhere outside. I followed it through a back door, and saw Ian standing on the side of the building looking worried. By then, it was evenfall. Ian was holding a vest for laser tag, and pointed to a laser gun not far from him. "It's Gabriel's!" he called to me, looking worried. I walked over and picked up the toy gun as we heard a van pulled up to the front of the building.

I scaled a fence and waited near the front doors. People were coming out of the van, but I couldn't see Gabriel anywhere. The darkness was growing deeper, and I squinted my eyes to try and make out the shadows. I suddenly felt a great bump from behind. Turning, I saw Gabriel, his arms wrapped around my legs. He wore a red and grey camouflage bucket hat, and red fatigues. He was glowing as he pulled me down to show me how he had painted his teeth the color of mud. "Because they're so reflective, see?" he said, smiling wide. I pulled his hat off and stared at him. Two small spiders were crawling around in his hair, but I brushed them off without a word. When I knelt down to look at him better, I saw a larger, dead spider hanging from the side of his chin. I picked it off sadly. "We did it, mama," Gabriel said proudly, his voice still touched with the unformed accent of a baby.

Basements & False Flesh.

I came to a party in a large, dark house. There were clocks everywhere, mostly ancient, dusty grandfather clocks, though I don't know if any were ticking. The space was unlit and the shaded windows only hid the night outside. I made my way through the crowded house and headed to the basement. The entryway down was strangely white, although the room it led to was full of shadows. There were a dozen or so people sitting and talking here, some I recognized from grade school. The air was awkward and tight. As I entered, they stared at me and I felt an overwhelming sense of intrusion.

Samwell Tarley was there, an old friend? We began talking as lightning forked quietly outside. He was standing directly in front of me, my back to the stairs. I looked at him and pushed my hip out the the right, keeping heavy eye contact with him. As I did, the ground shook violently. The walls chattered and everybody toppled over. Sam stumbled onto me and we fell backwards onto the stairs, which were now smooth and slide-like. He looked down at me, his eyes big and nervous. I smiled and kissed him. He held the kiss for a moment, but quickly pulled away frightened. I noticed the others in the room staring, looking fierce daggers at me.

I saw an old friend in a nearby chair, but he wouldn't meet my gaze. His wife walked up, scowled, and said, "I'm going to sit over here, Erica," gesturing to an empty bit of carpet in the hall I was now sitting in. There was no warmth in her, although I have known her since we were children. I rested my head against a door frame. The room it led to was filled with a muted, golden light, and was the only source of light in the dark basement. Sam looked at me from across the room and gave me a sad, puzzled look. I closed my eyes, knowing I wasn't in the right place.

When I opened my eyes, I was upstairs in a dark bathroom. I stood in front of a great, gilded brass mirror and a large, white basin sink. The walls were covered in intricate charcoal wallpaper. I had just woken up, and saw my messy, tangled hair in the mirror. I looked at my reflection and realized I had to go back downstairs and try to explain myself. I started putting on makeup, but the foundation caked onto my skin, which was extremely dry, cracked, and scaled like an animal. The powder gathered in the thin cracks, lacing my face with fine, white, criss-crossing webs. I tried to use my hands to even it out, but noticed a ragged white edge protruding from the tip of my nostril.

I looked closer and realized it was faded white canvas, buried beneath my skin. I grabbed hold of the edge of my skin and lifted gently; the canvas continued underneath as far as I could see. My skin was wet and sticky, pink and raw on its bottom. I saw the same white edge along my hairline and fingered it. I was wearing a mask of flesh, and was just a white, blank canvas sack beneath. An image of a limp, faceless scarecrow flashed in my mind, and I woke up.

Fish & Kings.

Small dreams about street gangs and reading my Farsi diary to strangers brought my head to the edge of a grey, cobbled street. One side of the street held a grand, sturdy wall, made of grey bricks and running the length of the road for a hundred feet or so. The other side of the street showed a wild, deep green forest, and the start of the road came from there as well. Along the wall, a few heavy doors and archers windows could be seen, although the place was entirely silent and still but for two people.

I watched as a handsome man was led by the hand by his sister. He was sitting awkwardly on a fat, black pony and looked extremely uncomfortable. They arrived at the start of the road and walked silently along the grey wall, him wincing and confused, her very clearly trying to look unconcerned and cool. The two passed by a large triptych of fountains, ornate and hinged together on their edges. Inside, delicate gold and lilac fish swam around lazily. There was a small hole in the bottom of each fountain (that may have brought in fresh water from below). 

As the couple walked past the fountains, the man lifted the first fountain, which hinged to the one on its left, and he emptied its contents into the next. When he set it back down, the water was gone, and one small, orange fish was caught in the hole at the bottom, her silky flesh ballooning strangely. "For all of our uses, we're too easy to forget," he said sadly, half laughing, watching the fish growing dry. His sister smiled knowingly, (somehow) lifted the central fountain, and poured its extra water back into the empty fountain. The stuck fish swam back into the water, unharmed. She nodded at him, mumbling, "There's always room for you."

They continued to walk, and soon made their way to a moderate courtyard branching off the road. This, too, was cobbled, and they stepped gingerly through the space towards a man at the far end. A chubby man with a purple cloak and a stupid-looking face stood next to a large, languid basset hound. "Kneel for the King," he shouted loudly, not looking at them. The brother turned around and saw a teenage boy seated beneath a stone arch, his eyes watching them narrowly. 

He made his way toward the young king, and when he was in front of him, attempted to dismount his horse. His face magnified oddly, and I could see the horrible burn marks across his face, still fresh. He looked up at the king apologetically, and attempted to drop to his knees in respect. As he moved, I saw that his body was made of long, white blades of ice (one for the torso, two for each arm, and two for each leg). The pieces jumbled comically as he made to kneel, swinging about madly, uncontrollably. The court rang with laughter, but his sister's mouth tightened and she started to cry. He collapsed on himself in the effort and sat in a pile of his new body parts, his face ashamed and full of sorrow. He had been disfigured terribly somehow in the war, and had returned to his new king as little more than a jester.