brittanymarie.neocities.org

my eyeballs slip out from their sockets & into my hands. i stumble around blindly. my first nightmare.

my childhood home. everything is washed in a cold blue light & a thin fog hangs in the air. plants are starting to take over the rooms - vines creep in through windows, winding themselves around lamps, furniture, & doorframes.

when i walk into the sunroom, i find my parents dead on the couch beneath a blanket. my mother's head is resting near my father's feet, & my father's head rests near my mother's feet. i don't feel grief or panic. if anything, i feel numb.

the dream unfolds over several days. i'm completely alone, trying to take care of myself in the empty house while my parents remain on the couch exactly how i found them. i don't know where my siblings are; they simply aren't there. it's just me, living around the bodies & attempting to carry on.

on the final day, i sit down on the edge of the couch. the numbness breaks for the first time & i bury my face into my hands & cry for hours.

i'm at my grandmother's house, which sits deep in the middle of a vast country field. everything is exactly how it is in real life, except the neighbouring houses are gone. their absence makes the landscape feel much lonelier than usual.

the weather is overcast & foggy, & the world is drained of colour. everything is muted & dull. the air feels heavy with a strange inexplicable sadness.

a few people i am with become tangled in an old wire fence, their hands caught in the rusted strands. it becomes my responsibility to find help. i set off down a familiar dirt road & eventually arrive at a large white farmhouse. there are no animals anywhere on the property, which strikes me as odd.

i enter without knocking & meet a boy with unnaturally pale skin. together we exit the farmhouse & begin walking back up the road.

somehow, while i was gone, a carnival has appeared where my grandmother's house once stood in the empty field. now, a massive ferris wheel towers above everything else, larger than any i have ever seen.

the boy & i stop at the edge of the road. neither of us moves any closer; it feels as though something is silently compelling us to stay where we are.

then, the ferris wheel begins to collapse. its cars tear loose & are hurled in every direction. only when they strike the ground do i realize how truly enormous they are.

the ferris wheel crumples completely. afterward, the scene becomes quiet. people are running, screaming & crying, but everything sounds distant & muffled, as though i am watching a film with the volume turned nearly all the way down. i have the overwhelming sense that hundreds, maybe thousands of people have died, yet i feel nothing. i simply stand there & keep watching. the boy disappears.

we are in the forest behind my old elementary school, but it is larger & covers more ground than normal. we have been abandoned here, lost. there is a huge group of us & we all wander around aimlessly, not knowing what to do.

a group of boys emerge from the brush with an enourmous deer-like creature, with red fur & black antlers. the boys have killed it for food. we all follow them deeper into the woods. the trees are so close together & the vegetation is so thick that it's almost completely dark.

we eat the creature & it's delicious. after we're finished eating, i tell a rather graphic & inappropriate story. everybody claps & cheers.

we all fall asleep shortly after, & when i wake up i am in somebody's house, on the top level of a bunk bed. the walls are light & blue & the windows are open. i am annoyed with how bright the room is.

someone comes in & mentions something about how sick i am. i wonder what has happened to my friends in the woods.

the next dream takes place at night in an empty city. the world is about to end. i am a little boy & i'm travelling with my father, who is abusive & distant.

we run frantically from place to place, searching for something, or for shelter from the inevitable. each building we visit is empty & worn-down. we finally reach the top floor of an old schoolhouse. there is nowhere else to go.

then the world ends. the earth is torn apart & destroyed. no fire, noise, or pain. only a sense of emptiness & loss. this is when i wake up.

i am living alone in an old log cabin. the sky is perpetually grey, heavy with storm clouds, & the cabin is surrounded by fields of dead & yellowing grass. i have been living here for several months when a friend comes to visit. at one point, she asks what i'm keeping in the room behind my closet.

i tell her that i have no idea what she means.

oddly enough, she seems to know the layout of my cabin better than i do. when we investigate, we discover a door hidden inside the closet that i had somehow never noticed before. we open it & find a small cement room. the floor slopes at an angle, & piles of dirt & dust have accumulated in the corners.

inside the room is a pig & her piglet. the mother is badly malnourished - she is painfully thin, yet her skin hangs from her body in loose folds & wrinkles. her flesh is a strange blotchy shade of pink that reminds me of a newborn baby. her eyes are tiny & black.

she is disturbing to look at. despite this, i am excited. i've always wanted to own pigs.

the piglet appears to be in much better condition than its mother. it's healthy enough, energetic, & extremely cute. i immediately bring them food & water.

as the weeks pass & the mother pig regains her strength, she grows larger & healthier. eventually she no longer fits comfortably inside the cramped cement room. i move both pigs into a shed i've built behind the cabin.

i do my best to make them comfortable: i spread soft blankets across the floor & give them squeaky toys & stuffed balls to play with.

then the dream changes. suddenly, i'm no longer myself - i am the piglet. the shed is poorly built & bitterly cold. gaps in the wooden walls make it easy to see outside. through one of these cracks, i spot something moving in the distance. a huge creature is slowly crossing the field toward us.

i panic. the creature is vaguely human in shape, but impossibly tall, at least 8 or 9 feet high, & covered in thick black fur from head to toe. it continues its agonizingly slow approach until it reaches the shed. then it begins to tear the structure apart.

i am myself again. almost immediately, i sense that something is wrong. i rush outside & find the shed in ruins, wooden boards scattered everywhere. my first thought is that the pigs have been killed - both of them lie motionless among the wreckage. then i notice their breathing.

the relief is overwhelming. not wanting to risk losing them again, i decide to take them to a nearby farm. the farmer there is kind & welcoming. the barn where the pigs will live is sturdy & well-built, far stronger than the shed i had made for them. for the first time i feel certain they'll be safe. i leave them there & say goodbye.