Dream
Journal
Terrarium Head
01-10-23
I'm standing in the ruins of a destroyed city. It feels like I’m either responsible for it or somehow a product of the destruction. The only thing I feel is this overwhelming aggression, like I need to fight and get stronger. I’m ridiculously strong, my veins bulging, but it’s exhausting just to move. Eventually, I collapse and fall asleep.
When I wake up, I realize I’m dreaming inside another dream. In this layer, my body’s made of stone and wires, and my head is a terrarium jar. Everything around me is worse than before, like some distorted, burned-out version of reality. It’s dark, with flashes of spiders spinning webs in the glow of a fire that doesn’t actually exist. While I’m in this form, something sneaks into the jar that makes up my head. It starts messing with me, changing who I am and the dream around me. My instinct is to smash it into submission, but then it starts whispering directly into my mind, scaring me awake.
Even back in the city ruins, I can still hear the whispers. I keep trying to dive back into that deeper dream to fight whatever it is, but every time, I fail. It’s draining me, physically and mentally.
Eventually, a couple approaches me. They look concerned and actually listen as I explain what’s going on. They take me to this dining room full of familiar faces. The only strangers are two women: one of them looks scared and is clinging to the other, who’s clearly sick. Turns out, she’s dealing with the same thing I am — something stuck in her head, messing her up. Knowing I’m not alone gives me a little confidence to try one more time to destroy this thing.
This time, I find myself in a bedroom connected to a hallway. At the end of the hallway, there’s another room glowing with a strange blue light. Standing in the doorway is this bald shaman in a beat-up loincloth, holding a wooden staff. When I try to force my way into the room, he points the staff at me and warns me that he’ll curse me if I try.
I’m too weak to fight, so I try to bribe him with some cash I find in my pocket. He laughs, takes the money, but still won’t let me pass. Somehow, I manage to grab my money back, which makes him furious, and he kicks me out of the dream entirely.
Back in the dining room, we’re trying to come up with another plan. The two women are panicking because the sick one is about to turn into a vampire. There’s not much time left.
I dive back into the dream, but now I’m paralyzed and stuck in the bed from before. There’s a TV playing some weird kids’ show that I can’t stop staring at. In the corner of my eye, I see the shaman again at the end of the hall. He slowly backs into the blue-lit room, and suddenly, two pit bulls charge down the hallway. They jump on me and start tearing me apart.
I wake up again, and it’s too late. The sick girl has already turned into a vampire, and she runs off. Her friend chases after her, leaving me behind.
Shifting Beach
??-??-22
In a car, on the road to some beach with some strangers. We crossed impossible geography—tall mountains like perfectly cut cones, dense forests where the trees were tangled into a mesh, a stretch of land made of puddles and quicksand that were all connected by a narrow path barely wide enough for the car we were in.
Once we reached the beach, everyone went off in their own direction without another word. I was left alone at the foot of a sandy hill with a ruined hut at the summit, overlooking the waters. Uncomfortable with the idea of going into the water, I decided to explore the hut. After stepping inside, something peculiar happened—I transformed into what I assumed to be an armadillo. As an armadillo, I wasn't too bothered with the outcome and decided to continue exploring the beach, where I encountered other animals. They assured me the change was temporary and invited me along to play while the sun began to set.
We played until the sun was halfway below the horizon. I blinked and found myself in a dimly lit hallway lined with lockers, sort of like a school at night. I note that I was no longer an armadillo but didn't have time to dwell on it as I felt a sudden urgent need to run away. A wall of shadow had begun moving down the hall towards me. I sprint as fast as I can and as I round the corner, I find the strangers from earlier. We all ran down the hall towards the exit on the right. Pushing the door open we found ourselves in the car on our way back from the beach. We managed to escape before whatever was chasing us could catch up, initiating a long drive back home.
Midnight Bridge
02-26-23
I found myself working, doing some sort of packaging tasks inside of a giant inverted mall. I received massive orders from customers coming out of the walls. They were asking for amounts that weren't physically possible to keep in the store, necessitating multiple trips to the storage area. The number 152 recurred frequently, with customers consistently wanting at least 152 units of a whatever weird boxes they wanted.
By my next shift the layout of the mall changed drastically, forcing me to spend a significant portion of my time navigating the shopping area and making customers angry by how long it took. At some point the place closed before I could finish an order and I was left to wander the empty mall. I frequently ascended to the third floor, where I would vault over the railing onto the roof of a kiosk on the second floor, eventually leaping to a peculiar, inaccessible area. I carried a backpack with me, but I would always leave it behind at that kiosk.
After wandering in loops for a bit, I ran into a friend of mine and we hung out as I led him through my usual route to retrieve my bag. Eventually, we made our way to a new section of the mall.
We found ourselves in front of a door that looked like a fire exit. Once we stepped out of a door into a night. The sky was devoid of light. no moon or stars. I look to my side and instead of my friend, someone else was standing next to me. We found ourselves on an elevated bridge, taller higher than where the top floor of the mall should have sent us. It extended so far we couldn't see the end. Moths kept bumping into my head as we made our way down the bridge. In the distance was a mountain that was darker than the sky. Pushing forward into the pitch-black stretch of the bridge we started to get scared. I reached for the rope of the bridge for support, but it was made of moths and touching them made the bridge disappear. I started falling.
Marbled Mystery Pie
07-08-23
Sick of this mall. I’m waiting in line for a slice of pie because I spotted a flavor I wanted to try out but couldn’t tell what was inside. When it’s finally my turn to order, I ask the couple selling the pies what kind it is, but it comes out as an awkward mumble. The wife gives me an incredulous look and tells me I’m going to die alone. Her words stun me, but I don’t say anything.
As I stand there frozen, a guy walks past and somehow I get stuck to him, dragged off before I can even get the pie. He eventually notices and unhooks me, apologizing. I go back to buy the pie, but the husband eats it himself. Frustrated, I leave and wander through the mall.
On the second floor, I find an area under construction with a square hole leading down to the first floor. I throw a bunch of blue dynamite down the hole and patch it up. By the time I’m finished, the mall is closed.
I head downstairs to see how much damage the dynamite caused. The place is covered in pizza boxes, and all the seats are burned to a crisp. A girl hands me a flyer for a pizza place that doesn’t sell pizza, just pizza-themed furniture. She laughs and walks off.
Then, out of nowhere, a swarm of flying fruit starts glaring at me accusingly before diving in to attack. I manage to fight off a few, but I’m overwhelmed and thrown out of the mall.
Outside, it’s midday, and the streets are eerily empty except for a few passing cars. I see a tall brown apartment building and a few generic structures nearby. Overhead, power lines stretch out in all directions, connecting to nowhere.
I cross the street to a patch of tall grass dotted with tiny wildflowers and strange tree stumps that look like they’re knit together in a mosaic pattern. To my right is a vast ocean with a second sun that's rising. I take a step forward and realize I’m already at the water’s edge.
I remember the gargantuan eels in a deep green ravine and decide I want to visit them again. I jump in, but I’m so light I don’t even break the surface, floating along the edge while spinning uncontrollably. Finally, I flip, and my head plunges underwater. My lungs fill instantly as I drown.
Grey Devil
01-15-23
I’m completing a series of trials inside an underground temple. I breeze through them too easily, like I’ve done them a hundred times before. At the very bottom, I find a large stone basin with randomly placed stone pillars. At the center, the ground is raised, and sitting there is a large, winged, grey demon who congratulates me.
He offers me special powers as a reward, but only under one condition: I must use them to kill the person who came with me. That’s when I realize they’re there. I know them, but I take the deal. I stab them through the heart with a single finger as I begin to transform into a grey, winged demon myself.
Bed, Breakfast, Beach
01-20-23
It’s a long road trip. We stop at a Japanese bed and breakfast by the side of the road. The owner is a kind woman, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not welcome there. The interior feels surreal—it’s not a building at all but a vast beach, with water stretching endlessly in every direction. On the sand, there’s a computer terminal, and when I use it, both myself and everyone I’m traveling with are teleported to a dark dungeon arena. We’re forced to compete against each other in harmless games, and completing the game sends us back to the beach.
We’ve stayed at the bed and breakfast for what feels like a long time now. More faces I don’t recognize have started showing up. They all seem to know and like me, but I can’t shake my discomfort. Rainbow-colored ladybugs crawling nearby unsettle me further, and I decide to go to bed early.
The others keep trying to cheer me up, offering support and encouragement. Eventually, they take me to a computer room to write things down. I start recording the events of the past few days, but before I can finish, a blinding light pulls us out of the room.
...
09-04-23
nothing here.
???
10-13-23
research. two interlocked rings. a homeless slug. slipping.