Bathroom

I had just had a great vacation/trip with my family, and it was coming to a close. I was commenting on the best aspects of the trip (the fact that there are so many places to eat, so many varieties of food to choose from) and lamenting that now that it’s back to normal, I find it all depressing. It was the last day in the house before heading back. The place was really dark, and I sadly went into the bathroom to take a shower. The bathroom was huge with lots of space in the middle for who knows what. I have a fear of public bathrooms to begin with because I find them gross (especially small tile!), but at least this one we’d been using for a week. When I get in there, I see my coworker G. The understanding arrives that the bathroom is so large because there’s more than one shower. OKAY, so one person is not the end of the world. I start carefully taking off my clothes, trying not to step on the floor with my bare feet if possible. That’s when another female comes in, one I’ve never seen before and am unfamiliar with. She’s tall with an athletic build, brown hair pulled into a ponytail, and exudes confidence bordering arrogance. She immediately strips and starts taking a shower while I try not to look. I hadn’t even realized that there was a shower right next to the door. Out of the corner of my eye I notice that it has a glass enclosure. No wonder I hadn’t noticed. I’d taken off my pants when I realized that I’d forgotten a towel. No biggie, I’ll just go grab one. It’s still early, it was dark, no one would be awake yet.

I walk out the door pant less, and holy cow the place is HOPPING with unfamiliar people. No backing down now! I put on as much bravado as I could muster and strut out to look for a towel… except I can’t find anything. Everything I think is a towel is actually a folded up blanket. My fake courage is starting to unravel quickly the more people stand next to and pass, excessively aware of my lack of pants. I worry that the underwear I’m wearing is stained or holey, or both. Finally finding one, I rush back into the bathroom and shut the door. My relief is not to found because the bathroom is now busy, too, and it really is a public bathroom. I head over to an open shower stall, trying hard not to look too closely because the pink, small tile is freaking me out, and I think I see algae and mold on stuff. I get in, noting all the people around, and turn on that water to get it warm. There’s nowhere to put my towel, so I have to hang, naked, out the door to struggle with the clothes hangers there, and hope that it doesn’t slide off. I try to kick off my shoes, but they’re not coming off without a fight, and now I’m aware of young boys and all manner of other people milling around other showers. I can’t believe I’m having to endure this, but I do, and hurry on with the shower. I close the door which is just some wooden slats with a few missing. I straighten up in the warm water and realize that the shower stalls are only high enough to reach my armpits. Can this get any worse? Why did I ask that? My neighbor is a female my age with brown hair in a bob. She exudes a coolness vibe. Just as I take her in, a male pops his head up on the stall next to her. He smiles at her while she frowns and tells him to stop staring. He apologizes, the smile never faltering, and tells her that he really likes the products she makes and wants one, too. Seeing a business deal, she starts talking shop, though never looking at the guy. All I can think is that I’m so glad he’s not over here staring at me, and hurry on with the shower, my head cold, but the rest of me warm.

I don’t know what happens next because I wake up feeling super cringey.

Kids, Female, Kill

I had found an object on the ground where I was walking in a small, quaint city full of cobblestone roads and small pedestrian bridges. It seemed like a broken off piece of jewelry. As I was examining it, I heard voices yelling at me. Turns out that I’d found a piece of something that had broken off a woman’s neck ornament. She kept back and forth turning into a small statue for me to figure out if she was telling the truth or not. As I was listening to the friend’s story about it, I determined that they were telling the truth because the broken off piece fit perfectly on the statue/lady. I agreed to give it back to them, satisfied with the outcome. Both women felt incredible relief and left.

Some stuff about lottery, and a bunch of other things

Then I was both playing a video game and experiencing things first person. My character started off inside of an old, abandoned church. It was snowing outside, and the place was just full of red-uniformed soldiers. I walked down the stairs from the starting point. Right away there were patterns of movement of the soldiers and the children who were forced labor there. I had to make my way undetected into the bowels of the level in order to take out the main target. The controls were weird and unresponsive, but I managed by dumb luck to steer clear of anyone’s line of sight. The lone kid making his way down the path I was met a tragic end by my blades. Immediately, soldiers from all around rushed towards the sound of the kill, and I had no time to either hide myself or the body to confuse them. Game over. On my next attempt, I had a plan which was instantly foiled by the fact that there wasn’t just one kid walking, there were two. Oh no. I was already in the thick of it, though. At my first opportunity in the shadow of the walkway near the church, I reached out and used my bare hands to knock them both out. Unfortunately, one of them had about 1 HP left and was trying to escape while the other went down easy. I closed the short gap between us, and desperately grabbed the boy’s neck with my hand, squeezing has hard as I could. I could feel the structures in his throat crush and he expired. There was no time to dwell on the horrible experience that was because my messy assassination had gathered a little bit of attention. I ran towards a known disguise spot, but it was gone! Frantically, I searched for a hiding spot and finding no place for myself or the bodies (again!) ran as fast as I could to where the guards were nonexistent: the child labor area. It was FULL of hay that the kids were pitchforking, moving, and baling. The kids themselves were mere shadows, fully black figures with no distinguishing features. There was a creepy song being sung by them as I ran around trying to hide somewhere. One of the kids with a big creepy smile, guided me over to an inground holding tank and started pitching hay overtop of me. They just kept on singing with their empty, happy faces, and as I let myself be covered with hay, I wondered why the enemy kept so many children (older aged) doing such mundane and otherwise useless tasks. My mind was running the gamut while focusing on the sounds of guards arriving, ready to leap out and make a break for it if necessary.

Work, Warm, Video

I was at work. My patient had a friend with her and seemed to be a tough nut to crack. I kept trying to make conversation with her, but she was awkwardly quiet and her face gave nothing away. Finally, I just gave up and finished my work. Before I went to go get my doctor for an exam, I told her that I was jealous of her hair which was cut really short because mine was too long and I needed a haircut. I knew that she couldn’t see my hair under my head covering, but you can see enough to know that I don’t have long hair. I was standing up to leave when I saw her not only smile but her cheeks tinged rosy. As I was back there waiting for him and watching the hectic hullabaloo, he came up and asked me if I was feeling warm because he was. I was like, uh oh! Did he have a fever? Then he left to go do the exam and I was left there thinking about how the office might have to shut down if he couldn’t work. Also, if he was feeling that way were others feeling the same?

I went back to join him in my op. He was checking her. As soon as he turned to talk to me, though, somehow the patient suddenly had her friend in the chair and was working on her! We both looked at each other. My boss shrugged and left. I was left wondering what to do. I approached them, trying to make light of the situation. This time both were quite talkative. My original patient got up for me to sit down and do my job as I guess the friend was my next patient?

We were talking jovially together and there was a TV going on in the background. I could hear/see a commercial in particular that featured an old, catchy song. I laughed and told them that I love that music video and was surprised that they were showing it on TV! The two of them giggled and in unison said, “Nickelodeon.” Then the visuals from the music video popped up like I was watching them on a mobile device. I kept playing it back and forth and then it was like I was watching the video in a little paperback book that played videos. You turned the page when the next segment of the video started. I began to doodle absently on it, lines around the video itself while listening to the others talk. My fine tipped sharpie kept trailing off and I had to keep redoing the line. It didn’t matter whether it was straight or not, but it mattered to me. Overall, I was just happy, and warm in the spring brightness.

Survival game, doors, cat, water, house

I was with a female. Some stuff happened, we were wandering around and we end up in this brick/stone chamber with a shallow (I think) pool of water covering most of the floor. There is a small ledge to walk around it to an exit, but everything appears stagnant and slick. The water itself isn’t the cleanest. I hop and pick my way around it, in and out of the several exits, but we keep coming back into the room. At some point it takes the place of the TV room in the house I grew up in. I leave then come back to find that the narrow walkway is now covered with large black trash bags, and my partner is perplexed because she has a dish she’s trying to wash but the water is too dirty and she’s afraid of it. I’m slightly annoyed by this and offer to get her water from the sink in the bathroom just across the hallway, but she’s adamant that it must come from the water there. I shrug because she knows magic and I don’t. I grab some object and start moving the water in the floor basin around. It’s red which I hadn’t noticed before, and I comment that it looks like blood. Though I’m chuckling about my minor joke, assuming it’s just the coloring of the bacteria in the water, her face isn’t amused at all and it shuts me up. Some moments pass, I make my way (somehow) over to the other side of the pool only to see Cora with her nose near the water. It’s too dim to tell if she’s drinking it or just smelling it, but I scold her and she looks at me like, “what?”

I convince my partner to leave with me to the rest of the house. Once we leave the chamber, a man with the nametag Atkinson shows up and accompanies my partner away. I check out the sewing room and see another man with the nametag Atkinson. He accompanies me away now, towards our respective partners, and we make our way through the rest of the house.

Some stuff about the upstairs.

We walk through another door which sends us into another world. Things are strange there, the world not acting like it should. I wander around the kitchen there with stone floors and wooden walls. There are 2 women doing things and not acknowledging our presence. I see a shelf that has cats on every level. Fat kitties. Someone starts warning me about the cats when I see the one on the very top looking a little woozy. I looks at me and I reassure it that I’ll catch it, then it starts to fall. I catch the big cream-colored fuzzy marshmallow, then the orange cat 2 shelves down topples, too. I also catch that one and now I’m cradling 2 fat kitties. They’re soft and warm and doze happily in my arms. I turn back around to my partner smiling. Something happens that I don’t remember.

Then, I’m with a large group of people. It’s dark and we’re being herded somewhere. There’s a strong sense of urgency. I’m a little worried but keep moving. Suddenly, we’re walking on water towards some seemingly powerful entities! I have a strong feeling like they’re Gods or at least on a Titan level. The leader on the human side warns everyone not to look down, but of course I do just that. I’m being supported by jets of water and the powerful entities are being kept from us by a void-moat surrounding their own jets of water. I look down into the depthless fathoms and feel fear. Consumed by my thoughts, I don’t hear what they’re saying, and then suddenly I’m running along with everyone else while a woman who is clearly running the show gives us a rundown of what is happening. We’re in a competition for our lives. Everyone is assigned a partner. Together you must survive and make it all the way to the top. Only 2 people, so 1 team can win, so you must work together to survive the ordeal. The trial round will eliminate 4 players, before starting the real tournament for your life.

I’m near the front behind a slim young woman with soft blonde hair in a braid. Her face shares the same expression as mine: shock, fear, and determination. She reaches the glowing circle first, then takes off for the elevator. I reach it next and large text pops up asking me to confirm our partnership. Given that I know no one else, and that time is off the essence, and that she’s clearly a top performer, I immediately hit Confirm. I race over to her. A cursory glance at the “elevator” shows that she and I need to grab onto the small ledge which will pull us up. I grab onto the small ledge, my hand next to hers. The machine starts moving, but it’s so slow! The others have arrived and latch on underneath of us. My partner and I share a wordless look, agreeing silently with each other. The next level we need to reach is impossibly high above us. As projectiles start firing and the remaining contestants vie for the bottom spots by knocking off other players, I grab onto my partner with my free hand and legs to both shield and hold us together lest we fall. Not a single person in the slowly rising column of people speak, all of us trying hard not to see or hear what is happening to the stragglers below, nor think about what we must do above.

After what seems an eternity, I see the hole that signals that we’ve made it to the real battleground. I reach up and haul myself through the hole (because the damn elevator is so slow) as does my partner. Weapons and gear appear on our bodies, and with one last nod at each other, we split up. It seems that we’re doing a laser tag of sorts. High on the wall or perhaps projected into the air are images of the contestant faces with our teammates and a running tab of how many lives we have remaining. I go around solemnly firing my small arrows at the orange targets everyone has on their backs. My accuracy is good. Quickly, however, I come across a rather tall and robust (in the build sense, not fat) female who rubs me the wrong way. There’s something wrong with her and her partner. I want to warn my own partner but there’s no way to communicate with someone on the other side of the area. I decide that I want to eliminate her as quickly as possible. She’s cocky, arrogant, and seems to know something we don’t. She’s at her last life because of me, when all of the sudden the target on her back disappears. She’s cheating! How?? She laughs at me, and I race away from her lest she hunts me down, desperately trying to find my partner all the while dodging other players. I run into my partner at the end point where we would try to ascend to the goal after defeating enough players. We’re not done yet, but it seems that she’s also been the target of my enemy’s partner who is also cheating. Why are they gunning for us in particular? The announcer/leader of the event is standing there, smiling innocently. I pull her into a little room off to the side away from the projectiles and hurriedly try to tell her about how the others are cheating. My partner listens, silently agreeing. The announcer titters in her God-like voice, looks at my partner and me and says provocatively, “You can, too.” She pulls my partner forward into her arms and starts to seductively remove her gear? Clothing? I am aghast at this turn of events and don’t know what to do! I have to save my partner, but what can I do against a demi-god? Also, is the game rigged? Is it all a test? Without my partner I am doomed to fail the game! I’m watching my blonde partner, unsure of my next action when I simultaneously see my enemy approaching, a huge leering smile on her face, and my partner begging me for help with her eyes.

I don’t know what my decision is, just that I continue to fight against others in my struggle to survive, except that it’s no longer a game, and that deception is a means to an end. Just as answers and a resolution start to arise, I wake up.

Bathroom, Work, Stairs

I was driving and my mom was with me. It was rainy outside, and we drove down several roads to a small town. We decided to stop at a convenience store/gas station though I didn’t need any gas. There were a bunch of people there we knew, so we stood around a bit. I watched the people, thinking about how I both needed to go to the bathroom and was hungry. There was this unfamiliar guy who was taking orders for the people there. My mom started walking across the street, so I ran after her. She wanted to see what was on the other side and it wasn’t a big deal with me because I wanted to stretch my legs, too. I did make her wait for the crosswalk light despite the other people down the way jaywalking. The motel across the street was not only empty but possibly abandoned. Done with that, we came back over on a crosswalk that had 224 seconds of time!! For some reason we made it just in time for the countdown. By that time, my sister was carefully looking over the food order. The guy then jaywalked across the street to the Little Cesar’s. I really needed to go to the bathroom at that point, AND there was this drunk/high lady who was teeter tottering along with him, so I ran after her, wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her in safety to the Little Cesars. The restaurant was like none I’d ever seen. We waded through the massive crowd of what appeared to be junkies and other low-lifes. Neither of the people I was with seemed bothered at all by them. I was extremely aware of my different race, but the junkies didn’t care about that. Inside the place was not a pizza place, but a department store! Jewelry counter, nice clothing, hardware… there were 2 floors. The only crowded place was the front with all the junkies. The lady disappeared somewhere and the pizza ordering guy quickly headed off to the back of the store. I walked all around looking for the bathroom. The first one I found saw one lady bawling on the phone while wiping down the floor and the door exclaiming that she hadn’t meant for it to happen at all! I didn’t want to use that one, so I kept going and eventually found the lady I’d been with. She seemed happier because she had just finished using the bathroom herself. I asked her where it was and she showed me a shell looking device, I tried to get in but couldn’t and she cackled and pushed me saying that only the chosen ones could.

I woke up for real to use the bathroom, then back to sleep.

Then I was at work. As usual, it was dark, and crazy with the schedule. The version of me doing work was doodling on and making lists for patients. Then I left because I didn’t want to be there anymore. I stopped to talk to my coworker on the way out (in a different office), and then proceeded to use the elevator. The way it was acting looked like it was going to break, but I used it anyways. There was a sign at the bottom of the door saying that it was programmed to bypass the first floor because it was going to malfunction, so it would let out on the basement level which still had outdoor access. That was annoying, but I remembered that I had already done this before in a previous dream where I’d managed to acquire or make a map of the convoluted maze. As I exited into the basement, a pretty-looking lady was frustrated and scared. Immediately, I recognized that she was lost, so I had her come with me as I searched for the exit. Although I pretty much remembered the map from the last time, I tried to pull it up on my phone anyways just in case and to inspire confidence in the frazzled lady. We went around turns and bends not following any of the other lost people until I saw that familiar part. Took a right which led us down a long hallway, another sharp turn and BAM. Outside was the grocery store which meant that we just had to go around the outside of the building to the parking lot. She had pulled up her car locator on her phone and was so relieved that we were close. We broke off from each other and I headed towards my car.

All of the sudden, I realized that I needed to get back to work, so I entered a door near my car, knowing that there was a staircase nearby. Inside, however, things were not as I remembered. There was a long line of people standing. I asked if they were waiting for the bathroom, and they were, so I cut through them to where the stairs used to be. Someone else wanted to use the stairs, too, but I couldn’t figure out where it was. I was just about to travel a good distance down the hall to use the other stairs, when someone gave me a spatula with something on top of it. They smiled at me with what initially seemed innocent. It changed and I got a bad feeling, but it was too late. The “stairs” required floating and traveling through the walls and building like a ghost. There was no time to think about anything, but I knew I was super scared. You can’t be scared when you’re dealing with spirits. I could not help it. A spirit met me inside of the wall and I could see “stairs” all around me leading here, there, nowhere, and upways, sideways, diagonal-ways. It seemed to be a rather bothersome, irritable spirit. I tried my best to at least exude calm even though I felt nothing close to that. It kept saying things to me that I didn’t understand, then get angry at me. It forced me to “fly” through a videogame-like flying obstacle course still holding the spatula thing. I knew if I lost that or let go, that I’d be stuck in the place forever. It tried multiple times to trick me into giving the thing up or letting go or whatever other ploy it had. I came close a few times. However, I made it and it was so angry I thought I’d be sent to a different dimension and imprisoned there.

Nope. I made it to my workplace. I hurried into my operatory where my patient was still waiting (apparently time moved differently in that realm). The list I’d started before I’d left was still there, so I finished it up, adding stickers and other things to it. The patient was really happy.

Arestin, Shower Walls, Toy Store, Group

I was in a toy store looking for presents for my nephew for Christmas. The place seemed like a Big Lots or someplace similar, large but messy. Most of the items in the aisle were either on the ground or simply gone. I was looking at a few things and wandering around without being able to make a decision.

Then I was in a large group of people. It was indoors and there was a line set up in the moderately sized space of tables with food on it. I was at the end of the snaking line, walking by the tables and being served food by event workers. People didn’t seem to be wanting much, so I decided to get some hand food. The ground was littered with what appeared to be confetti, but maybe trash?

Then, there was a young female with straight brown hair. She was lying on her side on an operating table, and I was working on her naked form as a medical practitioner. She seemed to be in discomfort, and it was up to me to figure out why. I was working at the level of her butt, using my probe (that looked exactly like a dental probe) to measure the hole there (I think it was her anus, but it sure didn’t look quite right anatomically). The orifice was not within normal limits, the inferior portion highly inflamed compared to the rest of the sphincter muscles. My probe readings skyrocketed, not surprisingly, at the inflamed portion, and she groaned in discomfort as it started bleeding. There didn’t seem to be any obvious debris or foreign matter, so I told her that it’d be best to place some local antibiotics (Arestin) there to try and clear it up without going systemic. Unfortunately, the Arestin I was using was quite large for the area, and the patient wasn’t having it. I enlisted help to hold her down as I inserted the Arestin tip into the area I was trying to treat, but she was squirming, moaning, and yelling, causing the area to bleed in a way that would prevent retention. I was getting really frustrated and just needed to get it done, so I braced her butt with one arm while firmly positioning the syringe tip against the interior of the sphincter into the pocket of inflamed space and injected the little pellet. My part had worked, but it was up to her to try and keep it in so that it could resolve the issue. I realized after it was done that the entire process seemed really erotic, in a way, I didn’t feel that way at all, and moved on to the next patient.

Then I was in the basement of a house and checking out the bathroom. It was a huge bathroom, with a massive shower. As I touched one of the many clear wall panels, one came off. Oops. I anxiously tried to reattach it, but it wouldn’t stay, so I set it aside and left quickly.

Marriage, Running, Dog, Grocery Store

There was a strong feeling of emergency. My group and I desperately needed to escape, fast, but especially me and another female. In preparation, the two of us needed to get married, so we hurried to the courthouse to do just that. There were lots of other people there, too, and I played my part, holding hands with her, smiling fondly with what I hoped was love, and reciting our vows in front of the officiant and crowd. I don’t remember if we kissed or not, because it jumped forward to the two of us and other people hurrying along a sidewalk, almost running but not quite.

We went into a grocery store and was trying to buy some work gloves and something else. My head was almost bursting with desperate fear that we’d get caught. We had to hurry! However, the people inside did not seem very LGBTQ+ friendly and I rushed from cashier to cashier until I saw not only face that wasn’t scowling at me, but a familiar one. She smiled broadly and I sighed in relief. I only had the pair of work gloves. Unfortunately, she was in the middle of checking out a customer. The customer was nowhere to be found, though, so she was about to accept my exact cash payment when the manager showed up. He asked if she was intending to aid theft. She was afraid, so I stepped up with a response, started making a scene about some made up sob story and he finally caved. Relieved, we ran out of the store and continued to the escape point.

We were back in a group hurrying along the sidewalk of a city. There was also my dog running off leash with us, but not a dog I’m familiar with. It was a small, Chihuahua mix, blonde and rather chonky with a small scarf around her neck. As we rushed along, my mind wandered, thinking about what I’d just done. I’d just married a woman I didn’t even know! We had similar ideals and goals, but that’s all I knew about her. The thoughts continued as we wove around people and buildings, making me a bit uncomfortable… Married? Would… Would we have to consummate the marriage…? Act lovey dovey? Otherwise it wouldn’t seem real and our cover would just not be believable. Also… Would I know what and how to do it if/when it came down to it…?

By the time I focused back into reality, we’d arrived at an underground elevator. We’d descended many metal stairs to get to that point and there we were in an underground garage, the concrete hard on my feet and the darkness in the distant corners. A new fear suddenly struck me. My dog! Where was she?? I anxiously watched the staircase, aware that the elevator was coming and I needed to be on it. Finally, I saw her running down the stairs. She started barking towards the darkness. I tried to stop her and pick her up, but she was upset about whatever was in the shadows. Also, I guess I was carrying something in my other hand because with my free hand eventually I was able to grab her and get into the elevator.

I don’t know what happened next because I woke up.

King, Guy, Hiding, Running

I was in a royal palace. In a smaller room adjacent to a large ballroom, I watched as the new king, and man in his 70s or 80s standing, looking into the ballroom with his hands behind his back. Despite being old, he stood tall, straight, and unaided, his bearing regal and rigid. The only real indication of his age was his completely white hair. Without turning to look at him, the King addressed his man, saying, “I want the youngest of women. They will think I wish to wed them, but I have no plans to do that. They will be upset.” The attendant bowed and answered that he understood. Then the King was gone. I stood about in the smaller room, and time seemed to proceed quickly. I was wondering what my role there was, when the moaning started. The sounds were clear as day, and I felt not embarrassment, but gloom and possible fear? The moans were a mix of pleasure and pain, the words, “it hurts” and “ow,” rather ominous to me. It had just dawned on me what my purpose there was, when a young woman burst into the room looking for the King. She froze when she heard the moans, and ran away sobbing, having realized that she wasn’t going to be wed to the King, just his plaything. Yeah, nopesville. I hurried away, fearful that I’d be chased after. There was no way I was going to be joining the playgirl group for that mean old geezer.

Somehow along the way I managed to attract another person – a young girl in her mid-teens. We raced through the cloudy, gray outside towards a small, detached garage or workshop. Inside, I went into a small storage room that had a desk, cabinets and shelves. I started pawing frantically at the items, hoping to find information. I was looking for a man around my age. He had short, dark hair, and he seemed like a prince… perhaps of the same royal court as that King from earlier. The bratty girl with me was either his much younger sister, cousin, or even child. Most likely, sister. Just then, I hear the approach of people. In alarm, I grabbed the girl’s hand and went into the rest of the place looking for a hiding spot. I found 3 large mattresses standing next to each other like dominoes. Perfect. It was near the door and away and off to the side of their obvious communal area. It looked like I’d stumbled upon their hideout. I squeezed myself between the mattresses and pulled the girl in next to me. I’d underestimated my size. The people loudly entered the room I’d just been in. I could see their silhouettes through the walls somehow and watched in horror as they dragged in who could be no other than the man I sought. Unable to peel my eyes away from the violent scene in front of me, I tried to reorient myself and the girl while they were preoccupied. She was sticking out a bit, so I moved the mattresses forwards so that we could sit down behind them without drawing too much attention. There were blankets there, too! Soon, done with the beating they’d given the guy, the group turned on the lights and decided to relax – right next to where we were hiding. In fact, I don’t know where the mattresses even went because there were large pillows at that point. My male target was also brought over so they could both keep an eye on him, and jeer at him. He saw me instantly, and his eyes widened in horror. They kept moving stuff around and I had no idea how they didn’t seem me there in my bright yellow shirt. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore and kicked everything off of me suddenly.

Then I was running. It was me and maybe 4 other people. We were running for our lives, escaping through what looked like a bog or a very dense forest. It was getting dark in the afternoon. We made it almost to the end when the 4 doors there locked themselves. We had to use the doors because the bog was dangerous and full of animals. Each door had an electronic lock. I ran to a few and started pushing buttons. The enemy was close behind. Someone found some key cards, so despite the enemy readying the weapons trained on us, I decided to put the key cards in anyways. The timer started a countdown. We’d have to wait 5 minutes before they opened. Even if the doors opened, we might not make it.

School, Mask, Female, Washing Machine

Lots of things, but not remembering them right now.

I was doing stuff in front of a large building, and I think I was part of a task force? Law enforcement. Events were being wrapped up and I was invited to stay at their new facility. It was a school plus dorm plus, everything. I was super stoked. My friend was an Asian female (unfamiliar to me) who was a brainiac scientist specializing in biomedical sciences. I heard someone complain that the new facility’s layout would really hamper their sleeping. The bunks were all on the ground floor split up with male and female sides, but above and aorund them in the open area with vaulted ceilings, were the fitness equipment. I could see the issue since the enforcement force would have different squads at different times where some would be sleeping while others worked out above them. That’d be really loud. The good news was that I wouldn’t be with the main squads.

I followed the scientist beyond the main area to where I would be staying. It was deep in and up and honestly looked more like a department store at the mall than a dorm. Perhaps it was converted from a mall? Anyways, as we walked through the crowds and floors, I was really self-conscious about wearing my mask, but my friend kept hers firmly on, so I felt better about it. I needed it because of my lungs and didn’t want to get sick with all of the people about. In the dorm area I did remove it, because I was having trouble breathing and because the area had at most 5 people who looked like they stayed in the facility. We were getting settled and I was super excited to be in school with my new friend. A young guy joined us, and everyone was just school-happy. I decided that I wanted to buy a portable washing machine, the really small kind that just plugs in so I wouldn’t always have to use the community ones. We were all looking at our phones and I ended up ordering one. Unfortunately, I forgot and had it shipped to my house and not the new place. It was okay, though, because I could just call my mom and either she could forward it or come visit me and give it to me. I was hoping for the latter one so that I could show her the place and have her meet my new friends. In the meantime, we walked away to tour the place further and I saw my coworkers. G was opening a package which turned out to be a portable washing machine! A different brand from what I got. I was excited and wanted to see if it worked. She looked at me funny and said that I was the one who told her to get that. Then I was confused.

And then I kept waking up over and over thinking it was time to get up but only 4 minutes would pass between time checks.

Driving

I had a restless night, so there were many weird dreams, but I only remember a small bit.

I was in the house the grew up in. There was something about the attic and wandering around the wooded neighborhood.

I was at work or somewhere and it was lunchtime. 1pm. I went to go check what I’d brought for lunch and it turns out I’d brought a bunch of fruit, meaning I can’t actually eat it at work. There was one lady unfamiliar to me who came from Europe and was talking to my coworker. I sat on the sofa there, ready to get on my phone, when she turned to me and asked if I’d ever been to Ukrops. I said yes, but in my head registered that Ukrops has been out of the game for many years now. She asked me if I’d ever been a Ukrops with a “market” meaning an outdoor eating place, and if I have, then was it always super crowded. The way she said it implied that they were ubiquitous where she came from. I said no initially, wracking my brain, but then a sudden memory hit me of a really nice, large Ukrops with an outdoor seating area smack in the middle of the store. And it had been crazy crowded. I changed my answer to yes and she nodded knowingly.

Then someone asked me about a friend of theirs who had a dilemma. They loved and worked in one town but their friend lived in another town 1 hour away. Friend A was adamant about every day getting to Friend B’s house by 8pm after work. The person wanted to know if I had a better solution. My solution was to either move there, get a new job, or just wait for the weekend. I looked it up on Google Maps and it was based in mid-west Virginia. According to the road system, it shouldn’t have been that far away given the hop onto a big freeway. Cut scene to being in a small sedan at night. For whatever reason, I was driving out to pick her up?? Some time passes and not only does Friend A get in the passenger seat, but Friend B gets into the driver’s seat. I’m planted firmly behind the driver’s seat, while for some reason my mom jams herself into the front passenger seat with Friend A. At first I don’t really register anything weird because I’m wondering on Friend A and B’s friend status… Friend B mentioned that she has kids but they’re awfully and strangely close for just friends… After a bit, I notice the thing with the seats, and comment. Nothing comes out of it. Then all of the sudden Friend A started flipping out in the passenger’s seat saying she can’t breathe. Friend B freaks out too, not sure where or go or what to do. I assess the situation and realize she’s having an asthma attack. With nothing around to help, she really just needs to relax and let it play through. She’s not turning blue or anything. I count down 3, 2, 1 in my head and boom, my mom grabs her face cartoon-style, and tells her forcefully to calm down and stop it. To breathe. Breaths in and out. Both friends are so surprised everything gets calm immediately and the attack passes after a few minutes.

Morning is coming as we continue along the windy, mountainous road. Just as I’m wondering what will happen once we arrive at our destination in regards to Friend B, suddenly there’s a boar on the path! My brother, who is now driving, veers around it down the slope. I am scared, but we end up back on the road somehow. Then another boar in the road! This time, he slows the car down and manages to squeeze around it without incident. I just want off the ride at this point, but we’re still at least 1 hour away from the closest city.

Infiltrate, Flying, Cora, Spiders

I was making my way through the levels of the facility, occasionally referring to the on-screen map. The area I was in was the storage basement and I was trying to make my way up to the roof level. The goal? To escape, maybe? Something about chickens, bags of chicken feed or mulch, backtracking, hiding from facility worker’s voices. The main bad guy was a woman. Eventually, I met up with a group of people or perhaps rescued them. We escaped together onto the roof. It was dawn…I’d made it just in time! They were so noisy up there, but were no longer my problem, so I made my way to the obvious escape route which was to walk out onto the flagpole, leap over to the colorful apparatus attached to the roof of the neighboring daycare, and jump down from there since it was just one-story high. As I ran over to the flagpole, I saw that not only was it very narrow and slippery, but the leap to the colorful apparatus seemed closer from far away. Maaaaybe… I wanted to just follow the others.

On ground-level now, the group made their way over to some awaiting vehicles. Everyone seemed to be relaxed, but I still felt like I needed to hurry. There were 5 “vehicles” lined up along the street with operators standing around waiting. I didn’t see the one I was supposed to take until I got closer to the end of the line and *poof* it appeared. I hurried towards it with a female by my side. My mission was to get to the destination with the female. My part was done, and it would be all on the vehicle operator to get us to the rendezvous point. I jumped into one of the seats, and she jumped into the other seat. The vehicle was kind of strange, simply a handle in the front, my seat like a dog trailer for a bicycle, and hers another trailer connected to mine. Both had canopies that could close around us, blankets, and a very comfortable cushion. Safe in the seat, our operator appeared, a very tall, slender man with white hair, darker skin, and wearing a crisp, white suit. He saw that we were situated, grasped the handle, and started running. I was weirded out because I guess it was like a rickshaw or a carriage? Drawn by a human? My musings were laid to rest when, as the speed picked up, he dropped to all fours, the strap he’d been pulling twirling around his waist, and transformed into a white, winged beast. Soon, we were soaring high into the sky, the sun peeking up above the horizon. It was cold up that high in the clouds, and I was simply exhausted. I turned to look at my charge and found her not sitting in her seat but perched on the swivel joint between our trailers. She was feeding a small creature some food, and I found my chest swelling with fondness for her. I told her that the trip would be long, and that she should get some rest. She seemed tortured by something unspoken, which made me smile because I knew what she wanted. Protocol would forbid such a thing, but high up in the sky, with the trip so long, and with no energy in me to chide, I invited her to come rest with me in my trailer. Her face lit up, cheeks tinted a cute shade of red, and she climbed in next to me. I tucked the blankets around us, secured the canopy, and held her tight in my arms. Aroused, some explicit thoughts crossed my mind given the privacy of our ride, but exhaustion won over pleasure. We were awaked by a jolt. I shot up and saw that we had landed in the shade of a wooden barn or house. My ward was still asleep next to me. The operator, now human again, explained that we were 3/4 of the way through our journey, and he needed to rest. The next morning, we’d visit the nearby station to switch “mounts.” He promptly left, which left me to take in our surroundings.

Then I was pulling up to a townhouse in my car. I parked, got out of the car, and made my way to my porch. There was some discussion regarding dying porch plants and the storm that was right on our heels. I unlocked the door, and we all went inside. Where’d Cora go? I found her in the basement, still in her leash and harness, staring out the sliding glass door. Did she need to pee before the storm? I let her out. She stopped and stared at the corner of the fence-line, growling, and I realized that someone had left the door open! Stepping outside, I went to close it, but was sidetracked by something. Back inside I went until Cora continued to stare outside. I went out again to close it, having to grab her leash so she wouldn’t run out. I closed it, secured it, and noted that the wind had really picked up, the sky was very dark, and the rain was starting come down hard. I went back inside and had to maneuver around spider webs. LOTS of spiderwebs. I was pretty sure I’d just gone through the basement twice and hadn’t noticed all those webs. Cora had disappeared upstairs at the point, so I turned my attention back to the basement. It was less a basement than an old, neglected barn. Broken things littered the place, stacked items, yard tools…anything you’d expect to find in an abandoned shed or barn or garage was there. Spiderwebs everywhere. There was a man with me, around my age, a white guy. I was telling him all about how the spiderwebs had popped up out of nowhere. I started closely inspecting the webs because not only were the webs themselves very thick and numerous, but they had multiple spiders on them! Unusual! In fact, I realized with horror that most of the spiders were “black widows!” Really LARGE “black widows.” I started snapping photos all over the place, trying to capture this crazy turn of events, moving around on my hands and knees and back to avoid the high up webs. These “black widows” were peculiar in that they were not only extra-large, but their hourglass marking looked more like the shape of themselves. Then came a series of disturbing scenes of these “black widows” attacking and devouring other spiders. There was a very large/chunky brown spider, bigger than the BWs that was on a web. A BW raced over, sunk its fangs into the chunky spider’s abdomen, killing it. Similar events were taking place all over the basement. I was getting super scared and creeped out but couldn’t bring myself to leave. I had to fix this problem. I’d waited too long and it was out of control!

So, I decided to back up time. I reloaded from the point where I turned to see the mess. I directed my friend to grab a stick. I grabbed a cricket bat and started going for the webs and spiders. No more fear. No more pictures. No allowing them to multiply. I started whacking them off webs, on surfaces, all over. I was NOT afraid, for some reason, of them landing on me. I just wanted to eradicate them. They started running. They started shrinking in size. THEY were afraid of ME. My friend was nervous, but I kept attacking. Eventually the big webs were gone and I felt good. The scenario reloaded again, but this time it was mostly devoid of spiders…and definitely no “black widows.” We could finally go through and tidy up the basement.

Catalog Order, Bathroom, Girl, Creepy

It was gray, cold, and cloudy outside and I had placed an order for some plants or something online. Staying warm inside the house, I busily packed the small shipping bag sleeve with items to send to the catalog. One was a smaller bag and then there was the bigger bag. The idea was that by the time I arrived at the place, I could then retrieve the bag. Halfway through stuffing the bag, I asked myself why I was even sending this stuff to the company when they were supposed to be sending me stuff. I’d even packed a dirty underwear in there! With a laugh, I folded the gross thing and sealed the bag to be sent.

Then, I was outside wandering around some abandoned homes. All of the homes seemed to be Fallout 4-style homes with things strewn about in various states of decay, and yet the owners were fiercely protective of their broken belongings. I was picking through the house of a guy I kind of knew, when he came out to watch me. Feeling a little nervous, I left.

Then, I was in a schoolish or facility-worker type of setting. It was set up kind of like a TV show or a video game, with an intro and text names whenever a new character showed up. With me were 2 other girls, one of whom was closer to me than the other. It was nighttime and we walked through the halls of the building which seemed like a hospital. We made it to an elevator when all of the sudden, my friend grabbed her head, then collapsed against the wall before sinking slowly to the ground. I ran forward to try and catch her before she hit her head, and yelled for Francesca? whose name text held a title after it: PNP or something. She looked confused at why I was asking her for assistance, and I yelled that she was a nurse, come help me. Another girl in the group informed me that she wasn’t a nurse but a physical therapist. In the dying consciousness, I yelled that I didn’t care and she was a healthcare practitioner so come help!

By the time the screen faded back to light alongside my friend’s consciousness, she found herself lying on an examination table, decked out in a hospital gown. It was comfortable only because I had found one with a softer pad on it akin to a thick yoga mat. She was disoriented and weak. There started a really boring stint of sitting around waiting in a group. Waiting for what, I’m not sure. I really needed to pee, and kept trying to use several bathrooms only for them to be either full, too dark, or inside of a drawer that I simply could not figure out how to use. The whole scenario turned into a kind of horror movie. No one was helping my friend out, so we kept waiting (for a doctor or some other medical professional). Several people walked by but one guy just ended up being a math tutor from the Mathematics department. Eventually, my friend got bored, too, and we kept trying to wander around the facility. One part of the building seemed like the place the group needed to head to, but no one wanted to because that side of the building had no power. The outage slowly began to spread to different rooms and bathrooms. We had to go do something about it. Summoning our courage, we set forth as a group, running into the danger ahead!

And then it turned into a video game type of thing where in the level, I had to use the 3 jumps that I had to make it to the end of the game while bouncing off of the friends in the way. I made it! And landed, knocking the 3 pins over to win the high score and the mini-game! Yay!

Gable, Boss Fight

There were a lot of dreams over the span of a few days, but I only remember a few.

I had exited the house via the lower sliding glass door. Gable was outside, inside the gate, his fur not as beautiful as it usually is in my dreams, a little grayer and paler, I guess because he was inside my property. I encouraged him to hurry up and relieve himself. Just as I’d stepped out, I noticed something moving to my left and it turns out it was a rather large spider. Given the size and chonkiness of the arachnid, it looked like a hunter spider. I ignored it, but then Gable noticed and decided to go sniff it. Alarm bells went off, and I feared he would get bitten. I yelled, “NO!” and tried to block him from coming over. In the confusion, I felt something on my leg. There wasn’t pain, exactly, but I could tell that the spider which had jumped and attached itself to my leg skin (I was wearing shorts) was latched on to my flesh. I quickly tried to peel it off.

Last night:

I was in the kitchen and noticed that my blueberries on the plant were already blue! It was cool, but confusing because it wasn’t quite the right time of year for them to ripen and turn that blue yet. I went out onto the deck to check on other plants and by the time I came back in, my mom had already plucked the 3 blueberries and set them on the window to dry. I was freaking out because it probably wasn’t time to pick them yet! She said that they looked ripe, but I complained that just because they were blue didn’t mean they were necessarily ripe yet! I went to squeeze them to see.

Then I was wandering around in a building. It seemed familiar like the house I left after school, but I was going off of the on-screen map towards the items highlighted. I was teamed up with another female. She took the downstairs while I took the upstairs. Half of it was in 1st person, the other half in 3rd person with me as the player of the game. I navigated to one room and found the lemonade. A voice came on that said it was a very cool, refreshing drink (kind of like a flashback to what the villain had been doing). Then I kept moving to the different rooms trying to find the villain. Just as I’d found the last item, my partner yelled that she’d found him and was engaging. I was very far away, so I ran. I directed my character to her position and moved the map over to see what was going on. By the time the 2nd character reached the room, I was controlling the 1st character. The only way to kill the boss was with the staves each character had with them. I lowered it like a gun and aimed it at the boss who was coming towards me. I could feel the weapon activate and pumped the lever. Just in the nick of time it went off, shooting a powerful beam at the bad guy. Then the other character arrived and I had to do the same thing with her staff. By the time I’d taken control of her, the boss was somewhere. Where was he? I ran around the massive cavern area looking for him, but everywhere I turned, he’d gone somewhere behind me. Time was running out! Using the mini-map, I hurried around a large pillar of rock and found him trying to attack my partner from behind the pillar. I almost laughed. He was stuck. Readying the staff, I pumped the lever. It took so long to power up! He saw me and rushed away. I had to aim carefully, or I’d miss! Soon, it was over, both of us triumphant. As we walked away in relief and joy, we joked about the staff weapons, how their shape, girth, and blast color reminded us of a certain masculine organ.

Crane Game, Woman*, Snow, School

I was at a very nice, unfamiliar house that was a rental, maybe a vacation house or somewhere I was visiting. It was evening and I was messing with a crane game they had there. I hadn’t put any money in or anything, just fiddling with the buttons and joystick. To my surprise, the claw moved and knocked a bunch of stuff down into the opening! Whoa! Excitedly, I opened the flap to see what was there. WOW there were so many things! Weird things…that shouldn’t be in a crane game? I picked out bottles of shampoo, some olive oil, Pedialyte, something moldy. It became more of a cleanup operation than a get-a-reward-you’re-lucky situation. While I kept the things I wanted, I left the other stuff behind for the house.

Then I was in another house, a smaller one, and it was morning. Everyone else decided to go out and get groceries or whatever, but I felt lazy and didn’t want to go anywhere. They left which left me with the whole place to myself. Yay! I puttered around a bit, played some video games, bummed around on my phone, and read some books. After a while, I started feeling kind of horny. Contemplating my next move, I walked down the hallway, and saw that a door was open. Inside of it was a very tall, thin man in black and a shorter, plumper woman. On the bed. My view changed to an illustrative one as I imagined the man’s probable long member, them getting down with each other, and overall, just feeding my current horny feeling. I contemplated going to the bathroom to get some secure alone time with myself, when I realized that I’d been just standing there staring at them through the door. This realization struck mostly because there was nothing happening in the room, and they’d noticed me, too. I went in at the woman’s beckoning. Busted. There was an air of depression in there. The tall, thin man was lying on the bed morosely, while the woman looked at me with desperation. Clearly, things hadn’t gone to plan. She sadly explained that she tried, but that “it” had all of these white spidery lines which was way too gross for her to handle. I didn’t know what to say and, thankfully, didn’t have to because a doctor came in and immediately performed an exam on the man. No one seemed to mind that I was there, and I definitely didn’t want to leave with the chance to see something interesting. Unfortunately (or fortunately) when the doctor examined the man, I didn’t get to see anything anyways because the underside was covered in thick, white striations, while the rest held lots of this nasty, disgusting white…cheese-looking film. Definitely a fungal thing. The doctor scraped it off with what looked like a spatula, and I saw some chunks of something in it. I exclaimed that it looked a lot like cottage cheese with pieces of peach! Peaches and Cream! The doctor agreed with me, and we shared a moment of laughter, while the other two were just silent.

*Eventually, it was just me and the woman in the room. The others had left, leaving the room looking and feeling extremely sterile. She collapsed against the bed her body lying on it, while her legs hung off the side. She lamented the failed sex, yammering about something. I was distracted by my phone going off and was about to look at it when she grabbed my arm and begged me to tell her if I could help her “get poked.” She then looked at me in the eyes and said, “Can you poke me?” I understood then what she wanted (she was around 40s – 50s). I was taken aback, but spurred on by my own unmet needs, I smirked and pushed her back until I had her pinned to the bed. I began to run to my hands along her face and body while whispering suggestively in her ear. The door was still open, and there was someone next door to us. The fact that we had to be discreet and quiet lest we be caught was monumentally thrilling to me. She seemed very fearful of what was happening despite begging me to do it. My hands roved further south, delving into past her waistband to the prize, while I began to kiss her bare neck and chest slow and hot. She gasped suddenly, clenching her legs together and suddenly pushed me away. I stopped, noting the wild fear in her eyes. She quietly told me that she wanted a man to do it after all, so I suggested, still lacing my words with seduction and not letting her up, that I had a collection of dildoes we could play with. I could certainly help her pop her cherry if she’d like, and she wouldn’t need a real man. She wrinkled her face and asked what those were, the plastic things? I shook my head and explained that she had choices because they came in many sizes, shapes, textures. Whatever she liked she could have. They could be custom made if she wanted. Hearing that they could look like and possibly feel like the real deal appealed to her, and I excitedly watched her face change. She was going to say yes! I’d still be able to–

–my phone went off again. I looked at it to see that I had missed many texts from friends, family, and my teacher! That’s when the rest of the people came back to the house. At that point the woman, men had disappeared. The others came up to me and I looked outside to see, in surprise, that it had snowed! What! When? The texts were all the same: “Where are you? Are you coming? Why aren’t you here?” In horror, I remembered that I needed to be at school! I’d missed the first day of the school! After all these years I’d gone back to school…and forgot. Wow. WTH. It was too late to go that day, but I scrambled to gather notebooks, binders, and other supplies. Where was my backpack? I printed out my schedule and pored over it. To my dismay, it was a full schedule! Very little time off. I wondered how I was supposed to go to work with a busy schedule like that! But soon, it was morning, and I trekked out, all bundled up in my winter stuff. The traffic on the road was bad because of the snow, and I was glad that I lived so close to the school building. I got to the classroom on time. Half the class was there, but the professor was worried because it looked like most people might not make it to class. Plus, there was the inevitable school closures related to weather coming up. I decided on a seat that wasn’t too far away from the front, but not too close either. After all the time away from Academia, I felt really self-conscious about my age, but was there to learn and readied myself! My friends and family had texted me their support and that was all I needed to remember.

Paint, Cora

I was in an unfamiliar townhouse. Walking through the front door, I went straight ahead to what looked like a dead-end corridor but was supposed to be a shower. Apparently, I’d hired a guy that I actually liked to fix the seals around the edge. Well, he had done a terrible job because it was all turning brown and peeling off the walls. I felt mostly sad because I really wanted him to do well and peeled the fix off the wall like a sticker. What a waste of money. I considered hiring someone else, when I remembered that I had bought a nice caulk a while back to fix it myself. Something happened and then I guess I was trying to paint something in that area a mild, springy green color. A teenager or young man with blond hair was there, stepped in the paint because he didn’t know it was there, then proceeded to jump back up on the stairs landing to complain about it. I told him to quickly come down and off the carpet because he was getting green paint everywhere. Instead of complying, he was complaining, and I started getting more and more upset that he was tracking it all over the place!

Then I was on the deck of the place with Cora. It was raining, but she wanted to go out and look around. I stepped out with her, barefoot. Taking stock of the deck, I saw that while it was mostly stable, it needed some TLC. One section of the railing was completely broken. I had just finished worrying that Cora was slip off it, when she suddenly raced over to that point (probably after a squirrel), slipped on the wet deck, and was desperately scrabbling and trying to hang on. I raced over but was too late. I screamed, watching her fall to the ground underneath. My mind raced with possibilities and worries as I took off for the basement and the back door. It was fenced in, so even spooked, she wouldn’t get out, but there was also a lot of gravel, pavers, and wood back there. I worked through the possible injuries she could have or lack thereof. She was young and it wasn’t that far of a fall. Perhaps some sprained limbs? At worst, broken bones. The basement was super dark and there were 2…people? Living there? I ignored them and burst out the door. Past all the broken junk, I found Cora lying behind a tipped over table looking terrified. I don’t remember the extent of any injuries or if she let me touch her, but I immediately felt relief. Ushering her back inside, I turned my attention to the random people in the basement. They were two women, one older than the other, and I got the sense that they were…homeless? Poor? Either way, they were dirty and living in rather squalid conditions.

Then I woke up because I couldn’t sleep anymore. I always know when it’s time to get up because my butt will literally feel “itchy” or restless. I simply cannot sleep in.

NCIS, Ship, Guns, Battle

I was attending a function with people who looked familiar. There was a big hulabaloo and I realized that the people were the people from NCIS. They were changing actors/appointments to much applause and recognition. The place was set up like a gala with white cloth tables everywhere, but we were all reminded of the military atmosphere by all of the screens on the wall. I was sitting around enjoying the spectacle and not exactly sure what was going on, when the servers all rushed out with large platters of lobster and such. I immediately jumped up and left, stopping by the official table before leaving the banquet. The man asked me what I was up to, and I advised him of my severe shellfish allergy. He let me go.

As I made my way to my quarters, I felt the ship launch. A little bit of panic filled me because Cora (who was inside my room) really needed to use the bathroom before I went to sleep. I led her out of the room, my mind racing with where in the ship I was supposed to let her pee. The thoughts went from maybe I can somehow train her to pee in the shower, to maybe if I let her pee on the bad quality concrete I can just clean it up? Nothing seemed right and I stepped outside the utility room to find a massive grassy area. It was mind-blowing to see exactly how large the ship was that it could accommodate such a field of grass and dirt! No matter, I let Cora do her thing.

After returning her to my quarters, I went out to explore the ship I would be on for the next however long it would be. My first stop was that utility room I had been in. There was a gun…stand? Storage? in the corner, and I was instructed by a friendly attendant to take the bigger gun. It unlocked for me, and I took the available pieces with me outside to the grassy place where I put it together. A little while later, I returned to the room to return it, and while I was busy trying to figure out how to replace the gun and pieces, a bunch of young people showed up. It seemed that the gala was over, and these would be my shipmates. They seemed much more knowledgeable than me, so when they saw me struggling, they came over to help. They were a blond female, a brown-haired male, and a black guy. We got to talking and it was evident pretty quickly how little I knew and how new I was to the entire operation.

They invited me to an airsoft game with them. I was all game, wanting to learn more about my shipmates and more about guns. We walked out through the grassy place and into a small concrete building. The clear leader, the female, pointed me to some armor on the ground and they all laughed to themselves as I inspected the armor and padding to find that some other poor sap had been subject to the same thing they were trying to subject me to. But I wasn’t afraid and didn’t want to show any weakness aside from my lack of experience. Clearly this was a test. I picked up the padding and the armor, a little concerned at how the airsoft pellets had punched straight through them and put them on. Then as we moved to the battle area, a CO happened to come by. My shipmates seemed annoyed, but the man didn’t stop us, just gave me some better armor to use. There was another team there ready for action, and we sat around a bit…waiting? Talking? I watched as the others loaded up their guns. Then I disclosed to them all that the reason that I didn’t know what I was doing was that I was a commissioned officer and hadn’t needed to go through boot camp by some fluke of the system. They had more empathy for me after that (or maybe fear because I was higher ranked?). I told the female (we were having this trope where she was attracted to me, but didn’t want to show it, so she acted tough to test me in front of her little posse) that I only knew Glocks and wasn’t familiar with the other guns. I pulled out a mag and filled it up with the ammo on the table (it was like dippin dots meets cement). Then I slammed it into place and pulled the slide. It was go time! The deal was that I would join the other side per our original agreement, so I did, to gasps from our side. Even the 3 that had challenged me were surprised that I had the guts to do that.

I guess the battle happened.

Then we were racing away from the location for some reason, all escaping in our vehicles in different directions trying to outrun some mutual enemy. I was seeing all of this from a top-down map view and was further amazed that the ship was so large that it could have a marsh, a flat land, a gulley, all ringed by trees.

Music, female, traffic, church, patient, hiding

I had been talking to a female musician. She was white with long, straight dark hair. I seemed to think she was awesome. She played both the violin and viola. There was one song I’d been listening to of hers called Encore which was just beautiful. I opened up my songbook to find the sheet music for it, which also included all the parts because it was an ensemble piece. My mind drifted back to my school years when I played in an ensemble, myself. Then I was at home and came down the stairs to find that she and another female (one part of the group) were sitting on my couch. I came up to them and sat in between them. I asked her about her upcoming concert, and she seemed a little uncomfortable with me there, but hey, it was my house. I then asked her if she was going to be playing the violin or the viola. She told me the viola with a funny expression on her face. I replied that it was really cool that she was going with the viola because you don’t see too many violists. She was silent for a bit before ranting about how it was because she was a woman that people think this and that, and that if she was a man, then blah blah blah. It was my turn to feel uncomfortable and irritated on top of it because that was not at all what I intended. She was clearly overreacting.

Then we were in a van with them and some other females, probably of the group. I was with my mom in the middle row. We were sitting in traffic about to go up a hill, when the females saw another car of people they knew and immediately jumped out at the intersection to start talking to them. In the road. During traffic. I was getting really annoyed at their lack of consideration for others. I started yelling at them to GET OUT OF THE ROAD. I said it a few times before they begrudgingly complied and allowed the other traffic to move.

I decided I’d had enough and hopped out with my mom to walk. It was raining and cold at the point, but it was okay. We walked by some horses in their enclosure and one of the mini ones was super cute, stomping its feet to the music playing nearby (or in my head, I guess).

We ended up in a church and I promptly lost my mom. I wandered around a bit and then went into a room in the back trying to dodge one of my patients. By the time I came out, the entire place was transformed into…a college cafeteria? Inside the church? It was really very nice. Quality food abound, fresh. They were prepping because the students were about to start the term. I was admiring things and it was getting late. I went into a side room where they had ice cream and a trove of high-quality prizes for contests and events, I guess.

Before I knew it, the place was closed, and I hadn’t left yet. I saw the patient I’d been trying to dodge and hopped into a pile of clothes to hide, but she’d already seen me. She did keep my presence a secret from the higher-ups, but there was a pit of dread in my gut. She left the room, and I hopped out to hide behind the door and see if I could find a moment to escape, but then a man came into the room, took one look at me and rushed out. Uh oh. I decided to get on the bed that was in the room and just pretend that I was asleep and was meant to be there. The patient climbed into the small bed with me and stared at me while I tried to “sleep.” At that point, it became one of those choose-your-story type of things where I had to decide my fate through the 3 options. I wracked my brain, trying to figure out the consequences of each choice (try to escape, pretend to sleep/ignore her, or kiss her and pretend to start a relationship to get her on my side).

Then I woke up. Thankfully.

Zombies, Fight, Old Lady

I was preparing to defend an area from a known zombie/infected attack. I traveled up and down the hallways, clearing out rooms so that traps could be set for the incoming invasion. I was with a small team of defenders. While they cleared, I armed and set the traps. As each room cleared, it automatically turned on the overhead lasers. I would quickly draw a target underneath so that we would know where to divert the attackers so that they would be hit by the lasers. I managed to arm the 5th room/hallway when they started the attack. Things were going well and they were being beaten back. I rushed ahead to see if I could help, the halls and rooms mostly cleared. I came upon an older Asian lady probably in her 80s, short and chubby. She was one of the citizens of the compound and definitely infected. I lured her over to the laser and waited triumphantly for the beam to take her out. Turns out, it took a good amount of warm up–time that wasn’t useful on the battlefield. I needed her to stay put on the limited space there, but then she started questioning why I had her just standing in one place. Panicking, I put my hand on her face and told her that she was beautiful and that I’d fallen in love with her. Just as she asked, “Really?” and I smiled my confirmation, the laser fired, blowing a hole through her head and down her body (it was mounted on the ceiling pointing to the ground). Except. She didn’t die. Instead, she was so happy and ecstatic that I had “professed my love” that she was crying. HOW?! The worst part was that there were many other citizens there to witness my proclamation and they were all gaga with the idea.

The attack was over, we’d defended the place. All the weapons were disabled and taken down. I was sick to my stomach with this new relationship I had somehow gotten myself into. The old lady disappeared back into her house as she “wasn’t feeling well.” One of the nearby men, a higher up, left a letter on the table before he left. My coworker/friend found it and showed me. It said that he was so very happy and warmed to hear of our nonconforming relationship and he supported us all the way. Others had crowded around to read it and there were “awws” throughout the group. He’d even written it in what I originally thought was Korean but was actually Japanese underneath the English one. The lady must be Japanese. I was still at a loss for words, my eyes wide open in horror at this turn of events. My coworker/friend just stood staring at me with a strange look on her face. My mind was racing with ways to get out of it without running afoul of the community that clearly had this sweet old lady’s back (that I had just tried to kill, too…I mean, clearly, she was not human to have survived that laser beam). Everyone was acting like I was going to get married to her even though it had been…what…minutes? Hours? Since my “proclamation.” I tried to busy myself in the coming days with looking through a used goods store’s trinkets and vintage items, but I simply could not shake the awful feeling sitting in my stomach. Maybe I was hoping to find some time machine or something there. In the end, I decided that I needed to call it off. I had to explain to the old lady that it wasn’t working out. Pulling out my phone, I texted my friend/coworker for help, and some other people, but no one would respond or help me out. I was going to have to go visit the old lady and somehow put her down slowly. The truth? But then that would make everyone else angry at me. I didn’t want her to be sad. What a weird and uncomfortable situation to be put into!

Post-apocalyptic, alien women, survivors

I had just arrived at a foreign land/planet with 1 or 2 other teammates. We came out to a hot, dry landscape. Things appeared to be a barren wasteland. No animals about. We did see a few humans or humanoids trudging around, but they all looked emaciated, their skin a sickly gray color. They looked upon us with disinterest and continued their slow ways. It was hard to tell if they were humans or aliens. We continued across the landscape, and I eventually came upon a town of sorts. At one point it might have been a bustling city, nestled within the crescent shaped mountain range and surrounded by what would have been water from the waterfall…except that it was all dry. Only a trickle fell from the once mighty waterfall. I entered the most prominent building in the middle and found a few people inside. Right in the middle was a beautiful female. Where the others were clearly ailing like the ones outside, the one in the middle seemed quite radiant. In fact, she was being advertised as the marvel, the Dolly Parton: timeless and ageless. Everyone in the building seemed to be a bigwig, and while the others were not healthy looking, they were several leagues above the ones outside. As I looked around, I realized that they all seemed to be female. I wanted to talk to them and find out what the devil was happening on this world, but I ended up watching some events unfold instead. Another seemingly unaffected being approached the healthy one (I think it was me? Kept jumping in and out of 1st person). The others in the room didn’t approve of the newcomer but were busy with their roles of crisis intervention. I/She immediately hit it off with the beautiful one and was told that the reason she was unaffected by the ailment was that she was one of those with the rare Boktai gene…and…the newcomer also had said gene. The illustrious one reached down to caress the newcomer’s face, and now in 3rd person, I realized that these beings were like the Asari in the Mass Effect games. Genderless but appearing matronly. The two of them meant to procreate in order to help foster population regrowth and possible spread of this special Boktai gene that was impervious to the illness ravaging them. In my mind, as they were preparing to reproduce, I worried about how they would raise children in such a time where sustenance was difficult to come by.

Then, I was outside of the building and some time had passed. Something started happening and it wasn’t long before all of the main players had escaped to a different safer area. I was left behind with 3 others. We were directed to get into the nearby control unit. I didn’t understand what was happening, so I half jogged over despite someone yelling at me to hurry up. That’s when the water pump station expoded and collapsed. I ran into the control pod and there were only 3 seats to our 4 people. We crammed in there anyways and started up the machine. Too late, though, and soon we were falling through the ground. The pod protected us and we spilled out after everything settled to find ourselves in an underground cavern. I looked around incredulously because it all seemed very familiar. We were in the Natural History Museum?!?! The old artifacts were intact where the ceiling hadn’t caved in, the old signs preserved perfectly. I laughed aloud, thinking to myself that I’d made it home after all! After all this time away from the planet, I’d made it to the location I’d grown up in! The 4 of us pushed our way through the underground area and stumbled upon an underground survivor base full of humans. Unlike those above ground, there seemed to be mostly men, older, middle-aged. The caves were small, and it was loud with everyone enjoying food. The atmosphere was lively and fun despite the conditions, another far cry from those above ground. After a time there, I was feeling the cramped lifestyle, well, cramping my lifestyle. I wanted out. Perhaps these humans were used to how they were living, but I wanted more. More freedom, more adventure. I gathered all the younger, able-bodied people to one table and set about discussing the possibility of starting a new colony with them. They were mostly young men with a select few women. One 11-year-old girl clutching a stuffed animal was very eager to be with us, but I told her she was too young for a dangerous enterprise such as starting a new colony. As I was explaining the idea to them, they all left except for the little girl and 2 others. My proposal hadn’t gone well, and it looked like I would have to do it by myself and my small team. So much for adventurous youth!

Man, Gold Bars

I was wandering around in the back alleys of this city. Everything seemed so very dark — not just the sky, but the situation, everything. I navigated around a multitude of stacked boxes, homeless people, and other things, and came upon an open area that looked like a museum. Someone else went in, so I went in, too. The person I followed was a young female dressed in skin-tight all dark clothing. The only other people in the building were a man and a woman. The woman seemed to own the place, and the man appeared to be a guard. They noticed us and so gave chase. We ran around the other side of the wall and right up to the back area. We were after the large sack of gold bars hidden there! The man and woman caught up to us, and I looked to the young woman/thief I followed for the next move. We were all staring at each other, and I asked the guy why they were guarding the prize. Turns out that the exhibit was about the woman’s home country, and they were using the opportunity to house the bag of gold bars there. I was on the verge of convincing the guard to let us have it. He gave up that the sack was right behind the curtain. While I talked to him, the thief made her move. In a split second, she’d reached behind the curtain and dragged the heavy bag out. I was amazed to see that she could even heft the thing, it was bursting with thin, gold bars. She ran for the door, but the man caught her, and she dropped the sack. I snagged it and ran, without thinking, but then, all of the sudden many other people started rushing in. I also dropped it, and a few bars fell out. In the confusion, I snagged one and ran for the alleys. There, I found myself joined by the young thief. I showed her the one bar I’d taken, and she opened up her shirt to show me that she’d taken 3. We disappeared, and next we heard, the sack of gold bars had changed hands many times before being recovered. What was next was to figure out how to cash them. Some time passed and I was with a group of people who had gotten their hands on some. We were entering a mall to see what we could do with it. I wasn’t so certain that I wanted to try that early in the game, but the others were eager. I let them go first, strolling around, and looking at the stores. There was one glass enclosed office where a lady was using the rented space to work on her computer and was playing with 2 retrievers. I saw some stores that could have been useful to get an appraisal, but I didn’t have the guts to do it. Soon, a male walked up to us saying that we needed to be careful about the gold bars. We were effectively looking for black market dealers that would stay quiet. Those gold bars were high on the international wanted list, and anyone caught trying to appraise them or exchange for money were being investigated and put on trial. I knew it. He was offering information into black market dealers, but I was suspicious that he was a secret agent/investigator.

Then I was in the neighborhood I grew up in. I was taking a walk up the hill our street was on and talking to someone. I pointed out some houses and mentioned that those particular 5 houses knew me well because if I was feeling poorly, I’d just knock on their doors, and they would come out to take my temperature to confirm if I had a fever. The person I was with seemed impressed and I went up to one door to prove it. Weirdly, the door had a bunch of wedding invitations dated 3 years prior on there. One, Kevin Mount was marrying a young woman at a wedding in the mountains. I knocked on the door, but then felt subconscious because the whole strangers taking my temperature thing was weird has hell. I decided to leave. However, I kept thinking about how perhaps Kevin Mount hadn’t been home in all those years? The house seemed to be in good condition, though. I walked away, but changed my mind and came back. This time, though, there were people there: a woman and a man investigating. It seems that he was in the house after all but refused to wake up. I’d arrived in the middle of the investigation where they’d pulled him outside. He was a younger guy, reddish brown hair and an unshaven face. They told him he needed to wake up, but he kept squirming and trying to go back to sleep. I helped and he did eventually get up. He said he enjoyed sleeping upside down, so let him be. I told him he needed to cooperate because his young wife was missing. That got him up. I started telling him he needed to remove his clothes. He complies, removing his shoes and socks, his pants, and shirt until he was just in his boxers and an A-shirt. I told him he needed to remove the handkerchief around his neck, too, and everyone seemed to be astonished that I needed that, too. I was fully intending to get him to strip but stopped with his underwear. The point was that he needed to have his health evaluated because clearly something was wrong.

Ball, teens, house, firehouse

I was commuting home and passed through a road close to my house. There was a lot of traffic, and I stopped and got out of my car right at the firehouse. I was with a male around my age with dark hair who was a firefighter. I was familiar with him in my dream, but not in real life. Turns out, there were 2 fire houses right across from each other. The road had two lanes in either direction with one of those shared turn lanes in the middle. We were standing in such a way that we were halfway between the two. Suddenly, there was no traffic at all. Everyone was chatting. I said out loud that it was smart to have 2 fire houses on either side like that, because in really bad traffic, it was easier to navigate one way or another depending on which side needed help. Then I noted that the firehouse on the right side was really, very organized and neat. In comparison, the one on the left was…not. It was clean, but towels were not folded well and all in all, was not up to snuff. The male I was with shrugged (he was stationed there) and said that his superiors (he was a rookie) took care of everything. I frowned and was about to complain that he had the power to fix things.

Then I was wandering around a more rural countryside, though it was closer to suburbia than true rural. It was very dark, and I needed to get back into the house I was staying at. I finally made it but walked by a young teenaged male standing maybe 10 feet from the side door in a coat, his face red from the cold, looking up at the young female teenager who inhabited the house. He kept repeating, “Babe” over and over and over while she, smiling like a fool was playing along. It was clear from their body language that they were madly in love, but I got the sense that they weren’t supposed to be around each other. Not my business, so I climbed the stairs and was looking for my room to crash in. I ended up finding the dad and mentioned to him what was happening. Then I remembered that she was pregnant, too. She must have mentioned it to me, or I’d overheard it earlier. He was NOT HAPPY. At that moment, the mom walked by and he seethed, “Josie’s pregnant!” Both of their faces were matching shades of red at that point, and they both marched down the stairs. I didn’t want anything to do with anything, so I went to bed.

Then I was in another house, this time with a dad, a mom and about 3 young kids. The dad and mom were busy renovating things, the kids helping, too. It happened like lightning. The mom would point something out that she wanted changed and they’d change it right then and there.

The scene was then outside in darker woody area complete with a few sinister looking trees, a rundown cabin of sorts and a circle of kids playing on the ground. It was some game where a ball was tossed and if it didn’t reach the next kid then it was the next kid’s turn? Something like that, as if they were in school and doing some creative game in gym class. I was just watching, but then they told me I needed to play. Uh. OKAY then, I went to throw the ball and found that my arms were simply not strong enough. They weren’t extending properly, my shoulder socket felt ineffective and weak. All of my lobs found no distance whatsoever. I was super embarrassed because I was an adult, and they were just kids. No one seemed to judge me except myself. I got tagged another 2 times before I went over to investigate the cabin so that I wouldn’t have to play anymore.

There might have been something about dogs.

EV, Girls, Amusement Park

I was in the neighborhood I left before coming here, and things were much more grown as it should be since it’s been several years. I had just gotten my EV, a smaller, very sporty sedan a bit larger than a Miata and similar to a BRZ. I was super excited and drove it to work. The speed was indeed very nice, and it actually had an engine sound which was a higher pitched kind of whine that may or may not have been fake sounds. While it was fun to drive, I found myself feeling a bit disappointed and missing my Maverick. I got home and was telling my brother that I might not like it as much as I thought and think that I’d like a plug-in hybrid a lot more given the circumstances. My brother started excitedly telling me that he told me so and that he’d been looking at plug-in Legacys. I wanted to submit an order for a plug-in hybrid Outback but clarified to him that I’d only had the EV one day so far and would continue to give it a chance, to feel it out. Another really big reason for my disappointment was that I passed the same car at least once every 5-10 minutes of driving and I hate having a car that everyone has. It just bothers me. Plus, what was I doing with such a low-lying sporty car when I don’t even like sporty cars, rather rugged cars???

Then things moved on and I was at this brick building. I was sitting inside a studio office that appeared to be a library or small museum, or an office within one of those. There were small displays and books everywhere. The young female that worked there, who couldn’t have been more than a few years younger than me, was very friendly and instantly made me feel at home. We chatted about this and that while I waited (for what, I’m not sure). I wandered over to look at her displays when the chatting ended. Then she looked at the time and led me over to the next room which looked more like a lounge room. There was a round table with multiple chairs in the middle, one of them taken by another young woman. Soon, a few more joined in, and I started to feel a little uncomfortable because I don’t like being in larger groups. Small, intimate numbers is more my thing. As it turns out, these women were a group of not only friends, but roommates with professional ties. Everyone had their own unique ability and knowledge and field (with looks to match). It was a very well-balanced set of skills sitting there. They invited me to sit with them when I was very much thinking about leaving, and even though there were some awkward moments where I knew not what they were speaking of, it seemed that they wanted me to either join the group or at least enjoy the company. All of the sudden there was a flurry of activity, and an extremely exuberant dog raced into the room. I immediately recognized, despite never having met him, that it was my uncle’s new dog. Not wanting him to be a general nuisance because some people aren’t comfortable around dogs and now here was the unbridled excitement of big puppy, I stood up and ushered him out into the hall and into another room. While playfully pushing him out, I was vaguely aware of my uncle yelling at him. Both the dog and I ignored it, and when we got into the next room over, I managed to push down and hold (playfully) this many-pound dog, giving him belly rubs while more importantly calming him down to prevent his excitement from growing worse.

Then I was driving on a highway and excited because I had rented a hotel room so that I could spend 2 days at an amusement park! Sadly, the sky was cloudy, but I didn’t care and was eagerly looking at the water slides. It was very early when the park had just opened, and I was determined to take advantage of the low crowds. The water ride I was eyeing turned out to be a kid’s ride, so I decided to venture away, but then it turned into me looking through several old albums while noting who was in each picture throughout the album. I was writing down and tallying the score, then it was me working in a very poorly lit place with dark brick and wood interior of the practice. I was working on a patient in a wheelchair. Then I went to go get something in another room when the person who came with the wheelchair patient followed me. The end of the hall room was a large, long one usually there for either lab work or large cases. The person ran in and started going off about how the wheelchair patient needed to be seen there next time because it would be easier to maneuver them around. I tried to play interference, noting that it just seemed bigger, but it really wasn’t once you factor in the wheelchair. Plus, it wasn’t set up for seeing regular patients. The person didn’t seem happy with the answer and seemed ready to take it up with the doctor. I left the room, because it was not my problem.

Work, Diagnosis, Clothes

I was at work though the location was unfamiliar. I was running behind as usual, and I had a new patient. I ran out to the dim waiting room to get him. There was some guarded relief to see that he was young. He gathered up his many coats and came back to the room with me which looked more like a medical office than a dental office. Sitting on the examination bed/chair, I took some x-rays and then started asking him questions and looking at his chart. Although he claimed that his medical history was unremarkable, I sensed the opposite, and after a bit of prodding, he finally came clean that he had been diagnosed at his previous office with something complex that I can’t remember now. He wrote the name down for me, and I told him that I’d be right back because I needed to speak to the doctor. He did not seem happy. I made my way to the doctors’ office and saw my male doctor, but then saw a female doctor I was not familiar with. She had dark long hair and darker skin, and I immediately knew she was a medical doctor. I walked up to both of them, though I was really aiming for her and read out the name of the condition. They both started conferring and explained to me what that was. Basically, it was bad news for the young patient, and I rushed back to take a chest x-ray. When I got there, he was gone. I went up front to confirm that he had left. He had. However, he had forgotten his water bottle. I had just finished saying he might return for it when lo and behold who showed up? My man! The color drained out of his face when he saw me, and I asked him to come back with me, not expecting him to. He did! Shoulders sagging, he trudged back to the examination room with me. I set up to take the x-ray.

And then it moved to something else. I was then traveling along the gravel/dirt road near some woods. Along the way I met a young, athletic dark-skinned female. She was stressing out and I wanted to help. She told me she was supposed to be down the road at an athletic event, but she forgot/lost her clothes! The ones she had on then were definitely inappropriate for something like that. I set down my duffel bag and immediately started rummaging around in it. Delighted, she stepped off the road into some thick vegetation. I pushed my things in with her and to my surprise she immediately stripped her clothes off. I picked out the 2 sports bras I had with me but warned that my clothes were a bit large since I’m not the smallest person around. Her boobs were not visible in my dream despite her being stark naked, so I guess my bra fit her well? She seemed happy, at least. I shrugged and returned to rummaging. For some reason all of my clothing seemed to have the American Flag on them. She grabbed a shirt and some pants, seeming to skip the underwear which was relieved to see because sharing undies seemed very weird. I never thought my clothes would fit her, but she didn’t complain. The only thing left were shoes which I did not have another pair, but before I could voice my concerns, she was already running down the road towards the event. I worried that I wouldn’t get my stuff back, so I followed her.

Facility, enclave, partner

Unfortunately, I didn’t write this all down right away, so now I’ve plumb forgotten everything

The church was dark and there were lots of people in it. I remember the preacher being somewhat annoyed with me and I was walking around a lot, generally being a pest though not on purpose.

Then I entered a facility. It seemed to be like an underground place with the walls all metal, similar to post-apocalyptic worlds. I had a female acquaintance? friend? with me. She was a smaller person, kind and gentle. I led her into this facility and was showing her things. I let her try getting into a machine that we used to train or perhaps relax in. It was like a suit but filled with water with windows to see into it. She was so small that she could sink really far into it. She was giggling and I was laughing as I held her hand to help her in. Another female appeared next to me, familiar in my dream, but not outside the dream. She didn’t seem to be very happy that I was fraternizing with this outsider and female at that! I ignored her and helped my guest out of the suit, then directed her to check in with the guest department to get herself acclimated to our enclave. I then turned my attention the other female. Without the newcomer around, she lightened up. I’d been away for a long time on missions and was happy to be back, though I didn’t immediately recognize everyone. We walked through the halls to her office catching up on different things. As we walked and talked, I surveyed my surroundings, reacquainting myself with the place. I noticed that something was off about the people I greeted in the different offices, as well as the one I was chatting with. Then it all came back to my dream character: All of the people in the offices were officers with different positions in the enclave. My chatting buddy and I were the highest ranking of this wing of the enclave, just under the top brass. We were also a couple. Or at least before I left. No wonder I felt so happy and comfortable in her presence. What I also remembered as I looked at the other officers was that I was a bit of a player, having had relationships with every one of them, and knew them all before the sex changes. Which then brought me back to my current partner and why she was so upset at my bringing back someone new. As I stared at her, I could picture her past, male self. My mind wondered what spurred the sex change in her as well as the others.

She was talking about something important relating to the enclave when I “remembered” all of this information. With a sly smirk, I grabbed her and kissed her. When she held back, I kissed her again, but she was still stiff beneath me. That’s when I realized that the office door was open and across the way was a window showing some of the inhabitants of the enclave in the community room. She was stuttering her words and I had stepped back to give her a questioning look, when a man walked into the office asking a question about something. He seemed familiar, and I realized my family was around, too, but I was feeling feisty. I wanted to show my partner how much I’d missed her and that I still loved her. Right then and there. Not later. I greeted the man but dismissed him saying that I had important information to discuss in private with my partner. He nodded, leaving. I quickly led her into the highest-level security room and secured the door. It was a large place with computers and gear in the event of a disaster and we needed to defend ourselves from invasion, but I hardly paid any attention to it. I turned around and grabbed her to me again, kissing her harder, more passionately this time, and my hands demanding more than just a kiss. I could feel her lips twitch, aching to return the sentiment, but while they didn’t, her body melted into mine.

“Did you miss us?” she whispered. “Did you miss me?” Her real question hung unspoken in the air, an all-encompassing inquiry about my loyalty during my missions, my dedication the enclave having been outside of it for so long, our relationship, my relationships with the other officers, and the sex changes. Her earnest eyes demanded total honesty. Had they all changed their sexes thinking I wanted it? I guess I had really made a mess, toying with everyone’s hearts before I’d left. Especially hers.

Still holding her tight, I sighed heavily, looking at the ground for strength. “Do you want complete honesty?” I asked. She swallowed and nodded, clearly not trusting herself to speak.

Taking a deep breath I responded, “I miss every single one of you.” My spoken response ended in the dream at the point, being taken over by images of what I missed. I missed all the ones I’d been involved with, I missed the males before they were females. I missed the females before they were males (apparently, no discrimination). I missed being in the facility. And I missed my partner when she was originally a man. Nevertheless, now that she was female, I wanted her all the same. Such a long sequence for trying to say that I didn’t care that any of them had sex changes, as the only thing it would change was sex itself, but I’d always been an adaptable person, so, no, that didn’t bother me. She looked at me like she was about to cry, but in happiness, so I smiled again, pulled her close, and lowered her to the ground.

Then the dream changed to a mission of sorts where I was required to crawl through ventilation shafts and sneak around in my target location. And then some stuff involving my family and extended family.