This is about to be a nightmarish ride. Strap in real tight.
I decided to carry on sharing the Story. Thanks and God bless.
Served as freshly as I can harness it, being that I literally—in the literal sense—woke up and pulled my laptop open to type this out. Details regarding its genesis will be missing for reasons we've addressed before.
'Twas a sunny afternoon, my roommates and I had left our apartment building to explore and ended up visiting a mini theme park located a small walking distance from our building—very mini, more like an advanced playground. We realized upon reaching it that it was closed, and no employees or other guests were present. Being that I'd tried my hand at all the scarier rides before (obvi, this is me we're talking about), I proceeded to let them know how they each operated.
We eventually figured out that these rides when turned off, function like playground rides. If you had enough manpower, you could spin the tornado whirl-like one into function; same with the one that seemed to simulate being latched onto a blade on a standing fan—you get the gist. Lots of fun rides, and no supervision, so guess what they did?
They decided to manually operate these bare-bones rides—as in, the park had taken the, I guess, removable cushions off each ride—while I watched (and somewhat helped) warily. In my past life, I would have gladly joined in, but as I've begun to age, I've lost some of my spunk and am morphing into the rules and regulations-abiding kind.
So as everyone else is having a ball—and I'm dying—people begin to notice and join in, whether as spectators, riders, or workforce. I slowly eject myself from the situation and head to the outskirts of the park. This is when I notice this stranger in a white and blue baseball jersey watching me the entire time. I head back into the park to meet up with my friends, and once again, this man is now inside with his own people. Somehow I overhear one of them saying something like, "Come on, you've been watching each other this whole time, just go talk to her..."
At this information, I plan once again to eject myself from the situation, because this person clearly thinks this is mutual. I start to bother one of my roommates—an old high school friend, who I don't currently live with—about heading back to our apartment (also a place in which I, in my real life, do not currently reside).
I told her I needed to be accompanied to our apartment because we had a semi-unwanted guest. I explained that I knew this person and was in some kind of sticky situation with them, however, I was not expecting them. I was clearly nervous, but I'd told her there was no reason for concern. I just needed a backer.
I guess the chaos of my urgency was distracting enough because she agreed. This friend of mine, in reality, would definitely not accompany me to our apartment if I'd told her there was an intruder there. She is probably the most rational and calm person in the universe, and would instead persuade me to tell the management (or the cops). I'm a hair away from texting her without context to ask what she'd actually do because I know I'm right.
I continued to pacify her concerns on the way to the apartment. Keep in mind, I, the dreamer, am only making the assumption that I was making up this entire situation to avoid "Park stalker" as the story and my sudden urgency made no sense.
I'm vindicated further in this assumption by the scene upon reaching our apartment.
Our building was a garden-style complex with a living room window positioned by the front door. Upon peering through this window, we noticed a figure sitting on the couch positioned against it. My roommate goes to unlock the door and I internally panic. She slowly opens it up, when a blonde man clad in a yellow sweater cranes his neck robotically towards the door. I jump back and she screams. I did not know this man, and clearly, neither did she. He gets up at such an unsettlingly slow speed, heading towards the door.
My roommate and I bolt down the hall in a panicked manner. This blonde stranger is unrelenting in maintaining his freakishly slow pace in following us, yet he remains in pretty close proximity. It sounded like he was saying something, also in a calm manner, but it's unclear exactly what he was saying, as all I remember is haze.
We reach the end of the hall and to our astonishment, we're surrounded at all corners. To our right, the stairs, which were occupied by an older-looking man standing in our way. To our left, two young people in a fit of snarky giggles imposing on our space.
I lept into defense mode immediately; I let our potential captors know that I had no reason to be uneasy as I was definitely going to force my way out of the situation. Fortunately, this confidence is congruent with my nature, because this friend of mine—I've learned—tends to be subdued in similar situations.
They all began to snicker when we notice the two to our left step aside. They open up a door that leads to what looks like a dark basement. From this space, another man emerges—this one burly in stature—looking very pleased with himself. He lets me know that he had some people in custody that I might be interested in seeing. I'm a little puzzled at first, but my siblings emerge, looking extremely worn out. They were dragged out by their shirt collars, and none were able to look at me. I'm immediately enraged.
I notice I was being gripped by one of the captors, and I'm immediately able to rip my arm from their hold.
**At this point, heed the introductory warning mostly because things are going to get weird**
There's a girl standing by my siblings. She appeared to have escorted them out of the basement. I must have sourced her from a series I watched last year because she sported the same all-black, ninja-esque look and was holding a non-chuck-sword hybrid. I should say, her weapon was fully made up because the character from the show definitely just had two swords.
With hatred that could only be sourced from the one I had watching the actual series' character, I grab a piece of stone I found—from god-knows-where—and begin to violently bash her face in. She was relentless in staying alive; I was relentless in ensuring she was dead. Thankfully, there was nothing gruesome that I could see, but the understanding of the situation was definitely there.
I grab a knife—again, where did I suddenly get this thing?—and turn my violence to the other gang members. We all understand this is some kind of mafia gang, right?
The entire situation is unsettling, but these are my siblings, all bets are off. You're going to die...and I'll make sure you'll still go to jail...while dead.
Once I was satisfied with the damage I'd caused in this un-gruesome, violent scene, I took my siblings—and my weapons—and we went on our way.
Things seemed to settle, and suddenly I'm transported to a large neon-lit space. There was music playing, but I was deeply frenzied and very upset. It turned out I'd owned this place, and at the moment, it was being invaded.
I was surrounded by people that should have been equally unnerved, but they were instead unnervingly still and lax about the situation. I could feel it in my dream bones: all hell was about to break loose on this quickly growing population of invaders.
In the second part, we'll continue on this journey of sleep attacks.
Stay woke. See you in a bit.