#and then the dream itself continued with me being upset bc Nightmare and turns out i was roommates with a mutual????

[mishkakagehishka]

Well, I had a dream I had a nightmare. What the hell's that about it

[onewfantaesy]

so keep in mind i wrote this story in 2014 when i was still in high school lmao so it’s definitely not the best. not the worst thing i’ve ever written, and probably better than some stuff just bc it’s actually finished lmao (but i’m gonna upload it as the 4 separate chapters) but don’t expect too much. anyways it’s called:

His Mother’s Son (1/4)

Taemin's never done anything illegal, so why is he sitting in an interrogation room at the police station staring at a one-way mirror? His name is not his name. His brother is not his brother. His parents are not his parents. And his whole life has just been turned upside down.

Taemin’s been an idol for almost a year now. The 15 year old, for his entire almost-year of fame, has never done anything illegal, so he wracks his brain for why he’s sitting in an interrogation room at the police station. His manager said he had something he needed to do by himself, and Taemin thought it was an interview or something. This is definitely not the type of interview he had in mind.

The room was well lit, but the cold metal table and the one way mirror on the far left wall made him unbelievably frightened. He could only hear his rapid heartbeat in his ears and his shaky breaths. This had to be some sort of mistake, he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Lee Taemin?” The door creaked open loudly, and the female cop entered the room.

“Yes?” Taemin tried to appear calm, but his rapid blinking gave him away. He internally cursed himself when the nervous habit decided to show itself.

“I’m Officer Shin. There are some things I need to discuss with you,” she said, and she smiled kindly at Taemin, but it only made him blink even more.

“What - What did I do?” Taemin’s voice shakes, and the room suddenly feels very cold.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Taemin, but there are some things you need to know.” 

Officer Shin took two photos out from the yellow manila folder held in her hands. She lays photos of his parents down on the table, and Taemin feels his throat close up when he realizes they’re mug shots. She speaks their names and asks if they are Taemin’s parents.

“Yes, ma’am,” Taemin says. It’s only then he realize she asked if his parents go by those names. “What do you mean, ‘go by’?”

The officer sighs, putting on a sympathetic gaze that Taemin’s multiple years of idol training and experience can tell is genuine.

“Taemin, they’re not your parents, they’re your kidnappers.”

Taemin feels like the walls are closing in on him, and the air isn’t making its way to Taemin’s lungs and he feels like he’s suffocating. Suddenly, Taemin starts laughing, looking over at the one way mirror before looking back at Officer Shin.

“This is a secret camera, right? This is for a show? Ha ha, very funny.” Taemin’s laughter feels forced, and his hands are shaking. He turns back to the one way mirror, “This isn’t funny anymore, hyung! I wanna go back to the dorm!” Taemin hopes his manager is on the other side of the glass.

“Taemin, this is not a joke, this is very real,” Officer Shin tries to calm him down, and Taemin is running his fingers through his hair in distress.

“W-What about my brother? What about Taesun?” Taemin takes in a shaky breath.

“He isn’t your brother. He was kidnapped as well,” she informs him slowly, not wanting to upset the boy any further.

“What do you mean he’s not my brother? He’s Taesun and I’m Taemin! We’re brothers!” Taemin shouts.

“His name is not Taesun, and your name is not Taemin,” she says calmly.

“My name is Taemin! I’m Lee Taemin! My brother is Lee Taesun! I’m the lead dancer of SHINee! I wasn’t kidnapped!” Taemin feels a pressure build up behind his eyes, and he fights back the urge to cry.

“Please, I want to go home,” Taemin begs the officer; he wants to back to the dorm and pretend this never happened.

“We found out because of SHINee, Taemin. Your real parents saw your picture and they knew it was you. Taemin, you are going to go home, but to different parents, and different brothers,” she put her hands on his shoulders, telling him to calm down.

“What about SHINee? And those are my real parents, and he’s my real brother!” Taemin points at the pictures of the table.

“Your parents will decide whether or not you can continue with SHINee, but right now, we need to take you home,” Officer Shin tells him.

“How do you know these people are really my parents, huh? I don’t remember ever being kidnapped!” Taemin’s voice is shaking and he’s scared.

“This is a picture of you now,” she pulls a recent SHINee photo of him out of her folder and places it on the table, “and this is you from before you were kidnapped.”

“How do you know that’s me? That could be anyone!” Taemin tells her, shaking his head.

“The fingerprints we took when you first came in, we matched them to the ones we had on file of Kim Jaehyun. Now, let’s go get your things,” Officer Shin leads him out of the room, and he sees his manager sitting down with his head in his hands.

“Hyung, hyung please tell me this is a secret camera, please!” Taemin feels the tears roll down his cheeks as he begs his manager.

“I’m so sorry, Taemin, I’m so sorry,” he shakes his head, his face full of guilt, “Let’s go get your stuff, okay?”

“No. No! They’re my parents! He’s my brother! This is a mistake!” Taemin sobs as his manager leads him back to the van, Officer Shin following behind them.

Taemin feels numb as he sits in the back of the van. He stares out the window, watching as the cars pass by and the world around him moves in one big blur. This isn’t happening. This is a bad dream; a nightmare.

“Jaehyun. Jaehyun, we’re here.”

Taemin glares at the officer, telling her, “My name is Taemin.” 

His eyes stay narrow, and she only sighs at him.

“Let’s go pack your things.” 

Taemin follows after her only when his manager talks to him, telling him everything is going to be okay.

When they arrive at SHINee’s dorm, Taemin is annoyed that the officer keeps calling him by that other name, and he runs to Jinki the second he sees the older boy standing in the living room.

“Hyung!” Taemin wraps his arms around the leader, and suddenly it once again feels like his whole world is crumbling around him. “Hyung, tell her my name is Taemin! Tell me this is a joke!” Taemin feels the tears start to spill over his eyes again, and he can tell that Jinki is confused by the slow way the older wraps his arms around him.

“What’s going on?” Jinki asks slowly, and soon the other members are gathered around because of the noise.

“Jaehyun, you need to calm down,” officer Shin tells him, but Taemin only shakes his head.

“My name is Taemin!” he nearly shouts at her, and he can tell his members are getting worried.

She sends his manager to pack his things, and the members ask if Taemin is going to prison or something.

“What did you do?” Kibum asks, his eyes wide as he looks at the youngest clinging to the eldest.

“I didn’t do anything!” Taemin sobs. “And neither did my parents!”

“They are not your real parents,” Officer Shin says in that infuriatingly calm voice.

“Yes they are!” Taemin feels like he can’t breathe, and he feels Jinki sitting down with him on the couch and he wants to wake up from this horrible nightmare.

“You’re right, your parents didn’t do anything. Your kidnappers, however, abducted you and another boy thirteen years ago. Kim Jaehyun went missing twelve years ago when he was two years old, and he was finally found when his parents spotted him on an idol poster.” Officer Shin’s patience was growing thin with the boy.

“Then that makes Kim Jaehyun fourteen years old! I’m fifteen, you have the wrong person!” Taemin argued.

“Your kidnappers changed your birthday, now we’re going to take you to your biological parents for you to meet your family. Say goodbye to your friends, because we’re leaving.” 

She motioned to the manager to get the boy and follow her, and was annoyed when instead the manger came over to her and spoke to her in a hushed voice.

“Has it not occurred to you that his entire life just got turned upside down less than two hours ago? Yelling at him like that is not going to help.” 

The man couldn’t stand to see one of the boy’s he protects be treated so poorly.

“I have given him time to accept what is happening. Now, I suggest you put his things in the van and take us back to the police station so another officer and I can take him to his family, who, might I add, have been waiting for their child to return for twelve years.” She narrows her eyes at the man before turning on her heel and walking down to the parking garage.

When they arrived back at the station, Taemin’s things were moved into the back of a cop car, and Taemin was told Officer Shin and Officer An would take him to his family.

“Hyung?” Taemin looks over at his manager, “Hyung, please don’t leave me.”

“I’m sorry, Taemin, but I can’t go.” He hugs the young boy close. “If you need anything at all, you call me, okay?”

Taemin nods, staring at his manager until the station is no longer in sight. He looks out the window his entire trip, the numb feeling in his chest coming back. He pinches his arm, and is depressed when he finds that it does in fact hurt. He was really hoping this was some crazy dream.

“Where’s my brother?” Taemin asks, wondering if Taesun is okay.

“He is with his own family.” Officer Shin sighs, rubbing his head from the headache this case is giving her.

“I wanna talk to him,” Taemin says quietly, hoping they’ll let him call him or something.

“Your family has said you are not allowed any contact,” Shin says in a tight voice, and Taemin narrows his eyes at the back of her head.

“Why not?” Taemin growls, unable to believe that his so called family would not allow him to talk to his own brother.

“Because he is not really your brother, now keep quiet,” Shin snaps, and Taemin goes back to staring out the window.

“He isn’t a prisoner, so I suggest you stop treating him as such,” An tells her, and Taemin smirks at the scolding.

When they pull up in front of a house, and Shin is getting out to remove his bags from the trunk, Taemin doesn’t move; he only continues to stare out the window at the house looming in front of him.

“Please, take me back home,” Taemin chokes out, unable to believe that this is reality.

“You are home,” An says softly, and Taemin looks over at the male officer.

“How can this be home if I don’t even know what street we’re on?” Taemin asks, and the officer sighs.

“Come, we’ll go introduce you to your family.” An holds his hand out, and Taemin puts his shaky one in his, and he’s being pulled out of the car and walking toward the front door.

The door opens revealing a woman who looked almost exactly like Taemin.

[brushingpast]

like a stuck pig

had another dream! much more disturbing than the last on multiple levels, as you’ll soon find out if you read this. can’t even class it as a nightmare bc i didn’t wake up upset, but it’s pretty........not good, scoob.

warnings for: dehumanization, animal abuse, blood/gore, torture, cannibalism(kind of? depends on your pov i guess). i think i got them all but this is smth else so plz tell me if i missed one

“We pick people from a very specific pool.”

They turned the oddest people away. It’d taken a year just to figure out their resume requirements, and even then she felt like she barely snuck by.

“They can’t have family, or many friends.”

Usually, it was the opposite, at least with the friends. Most jobs wanted you to be some level of social, have some kind of people skills. But these guys— they wanted the quiet, the listless... the lonely.

“A history of payment defaults is a plus, especially on rent, if they have any history at all.”

What kind of place thought it was good to be late on payments? What kind of employer would want that in an employee? Even now, with the state everybody was in, who would go looking for that? How dependable could a person be, how suitable for a job this hard to get, if they never paid their bills on time?

“They have to need the money badly enough to obey without question.”

They wanted people desperate. They wanted people who were down, who were beaten, who were alone and without hope for anything better and truly, painfully desperate.

People like that’d do just about anything.

“At least, until they can’t question anymore.”

There was no way to anticipate something— something like this. A slave trade, they thought. Some kind of trafficking. Maybe a drug lord who figured out a good scheme just as the world went to shit.

“So, we get criminals.”

But those were the kind of people they drew in, not the kind of thing they were running. It was bigger. This plant was just one of many.

“The poor.”

They supplied the whole country. Expanding every day.

“Nosy. Little. Reporters.”

She’d bought their products. Everyone had. They filled a hole in a collapsed economy, more than one. Holes that needed to be filled so badly, no one questioned too deeply when they were. The freight system that recovered first— that was them, too. Maybe that was how they started. Not that it mattered. Not when she’d... she’d...

“It’s as close to a perfect system as anyone’s ever come.”

Oh god, she’d—

She retched, right there on their pristine steel floors. The two guards dragging her barely noticed, the one to her left leaning away enough to dodge the bile that came up, his stride never faltering. They marched her closer to the observation window. She tried to dig her heels in, to twist away, but they were strong, and they had their orders.

Show her.

She looked.

Not many kinds of magic worked anymore. They’d hurt the Earth too deeply to pull anything else from it, and that included power. Only the most dangerous things were possible, now. Blood magic. Soul magic. Things people might’ve done once or twice in their lives, if that, and only tiny, tiny things. The only way to channel them safely were runic circles, but they needed to be dug into the Earth, and so they were iffy now, too.

No one sane risked it.

These people... these people were so far beyond sane.

The floor inside the room was stone. Carved into it, deep rivulets glowing faintly red with the blood already spilled over them, were two runic circles. In the middle of one knelt a man, naked, expression tense and fearful. He wore a metal collar, chained to a post sunk into the very center of his circle. In the middle of the other, chained the same way, stood a cow. Docile, tail flicking away non-existent flies.

As if they’d been waiting for her, a chant began, smooth and fast and spoken in a language she didn’t know. The red glow brightened, the man in the circle cringing from it, the cow grunting its displeasure. For what couldn’t have even been a minute, the chanting continued, until it cut off and together, man and cow screamed.

“All that needed to happen was the end of the world.”

A lot of people saw it coming. It was hard to miss. Nature protesting, fighting back, telling us as clearly as weather and icebergs and bees can that we were doing something wrong. A lot of people listened, too. Tried to stop it, slow it at least.

The world used to run on magic. Cities: lights, weather forecasts, cars, ice boxes. Rural areas, too: plows, fertile soil, rifles, rain songs. Everywhere and everything. And then— it didn’t. It faded, got weaker and weaker until one day... nothing.

People panicked. In a single day, the world collapsed in on itself. It took a long time for any kind of recovery.

Of course, then people started experimenting with things they really, really shouldn’t.

“Now...”

Soul magic. Mystical even in a world full of the fantastic. The kind of stuff you read about in a romance novel and sighed at how amazing it would be if it really happened to you; or a fantasy book, and dreamed of the adventures you could have, if only. Not something real, not something practical.

And even if it were— you didn’t mess with souls.

But, well. Needs must.

“Free labor.”

They pulled her along to another window, practically carrying her as she stumbled every other step. All she could see was the ritual room, the man crumpled to the floor, curled up and whining; the cow, frantically trying to stand, feet skidding out from under it, used to more traction than hooves provided. She didn’t know if the window had been two-way, but the cow’s panicked gaze had locked onto hers, and her heart pounded so hard in her chest that she couldn’t hear herself think.

God. Oh, god.

This time, they pinned her in place before the backroom of a butcher’s shop. Her breathing was ragged, too fast as the man on her right gripped her hair and forced her to see.

There was a cow— not the same one, but it could’ve been, it would be— tied to a metal table, bit in its mouth not doing a thing to muffle its cries. Standing above it was a woman, wearing plain clothes akin to nurse’s scrubs and holding a large knife, stained with blood. Her face was blank as she carved into the creature beneath her, as it writhed and shrieked and bled. The way she wielded the knife was practiced, but she cut slowly, carefully, her motions mechanical.

Nothing behind them, no soul to them at all.

“Meat that tastes better, lasts longer.”

The gaping torso of the cow shined at the edges. Not a trick of the light, but the magic leaking from a body not meant to contain it. She knew it did more than that, sank into the tissue, the muscle and fat, made it more somehow— knew it would fade too quickly to do what they wanted if they simply, mercifully, killed the vessel— but she couldn’t focus on anything besides the wide, terrified eyes of something far too aware to be an animal.

Beside the woman stood a smaller table, atop it a bin filled with cuts of meat. As she watched, the woman cut another chunk free and set it aside.

She had no more bile to bring up.

“As long as meat keeps going out, and no one too important comes in...”

They dragged her along again, but she didn’t pay attention to where. Her feet worked this time, automatically keeping pace even as her mind spiraled. She’d bought— she’d traded fresh bread to eat—

The men at her sides tearing at her clothes was almost a relief, a welcome distraction from her thoughts, until she looked up.

A pig.

Two ritual circles.

The mage, ready to cast, sneering at her from between them.

She fought. She kicked and bit and yanked, but they were too strong, and she was too weak after being led through this place. “No, no, no, no, no,” she shouted, cried, begged.

They shoved her to her knees, locked the collar around her neck, and backed away.

Her wide eyes shot over to the pig, agitated by her yelling but mostly still and calm. No, no this couldn’t—

The chanting began.

The light of the circle flared, and she shut her eyes against it. An aching, tugging, tearing sensation grew inside of her, so deep inside it felt like it came from her soul. It built, along with the red light past her eyelids, built and built until she was crying from the pain and not just the denial.

Then... nothing. No pain. No light.

She opened her eyes.

Across the room, curled up in a tight ball was a woman, whimpering.

It was her.

She tried to push herself up, stumbled and fell on feet that wouldn’t obey. Looked down to find a pink leg, a black hoof.

With the scratchy, piercing shriek of a stuck pig, she screamed.

“Why would anyone care?”

[galimatios]

fear thy fortune chatlog notes

thinking abt the underdeveloped au i have in that weird off color fantasy universe that i realized is probably similar in ways to bloodborne even before i knew abt bloodbornes plot but this is nice bc i can solidify parts of it and i can probably also combine it with the knights au i have

OK I FORGOT TO PUT A CW HERE BUT CW FOR ABUSE MENT AND GORE MENT

somewhere located in present day west asia slash east europe theres a country divided into numerous states in which princes and princesses (princex (poc)/princen/etc for gender neutral options) are perpetually in contest with eachother for the right to be the divine ruler of the country

monarchy is not guided by blood, rather the church is responsible for finding the chosen candidates via prophecy, fururesight, dream interpretation, etc, and these kids are taken from their homes and reared as royalty the nature of this country is ... severe. pain is a gift, proof that one is alive. much ceremony is based in sacrifice, bloodspill, bloodsports, and pain endurance. magic as practiced by the church is extremely powerful in terms of healing so almost all wounds can be healed provided the heart still beats its essentially one big huge freakish cult of a country that has customs that seem barbaric to outsiders

the divine ruler of each state is the princens, though more often than not their councils do most of the governing with the princen merely being a puppet figurehead. they go through rigorous training to sharpen their minds and endurance against all types of pain, so training includes physical, mental, emotional trials in which the princen is supposed to keep a clear mind, concentrate on mediation or some mantra, bearing whatever is thrown at them. additionally they receive the best training in both combat and politics as well as magic. not all princen can withstand the requirements ofc so they.. vary quite a bit in terms of stability/constitution. its a p sick system even without the knights added in bc thats super messed up

the knights essentially belong to their princens in heart body mind and soul, and each princen receives exactly one knight soulbound to them. they also undergo the same scouting process once the princen is identified, and they undergo similar training except theyre also essentially brainwashed into believing their entire purpose in life is to serve and protect their princen no matter what. obviously this aint healthy! knights delude themselves into it so hard theyll fight for the system that literally abuses them! but thats how cults work

that being said knights are extremely powerful. they act as the sole bodyguard of their princen and believe me you dont want to get inbetween a knight and their prince. they are known especially for their brutality when their lords are threatened. it is extremely common for limbs to be lost in skirmishes btwn assailants and a knight

this takes us to the games! which are essentially gladiator coliseum type bloodsport contests between knights of different princens. its a pretty big affair like how the Olympics are for us so the fanfare the cheering the everything is all there i prob dont need to describe it in detail but its very violent. its considered practice for the knights before the true battle-royale type event thats even BIGGER bc it determines who becomes god-king of the country. this time the princen join their knights in the battlefield and basically whoever is left standing is the new king

is it worth it? probably not bc i think being king actually means being killed to be sent up to the heavens bc god kings dont need bodies any longer in truth the entire debacle is a distraction set up by the church to keep the country under its own control. its super corrupt. the council behind every princen is actually made up of high ranking church members that convene regularly to manipulate the politics of the region

but thats mostly the governing sphere of this world. the commonfolk are removed from most of this violence aside from the indoctrination by the church and the messed up religion they practice. a lot of the belief system here relies on this concept of karma and fate over free will. fate is oppressive, cannot be changed, but god do they try that belief ties into how princen and knights are fated to be pairs, how princen are fated to either ascend to godhood or die trying

but there is one way to manipulate fates in this world there exists in independent of the church a monastery that practices the art of transferring karma. think of karma as a type of currency that can be spent, saved, used, etc. lots of good karma may be distributed amongst loved ones via a ritual headed by a monk, or bad karma can be "paid off" essentially. the amount of good/bad karma a person has directly affects their fortune and luck. this practice is more or less outlawed by the church but the monastery is slowly gaining power over the commonfolk and the church mostly leaves the poor folk to rot anyway- their agenda mostly concerns the monarchy

altho i can definitely see tensions rising with the witch hunting as influenced by the church. particularly nefarious visions may result in blame being thrown around and commoners getting killed for crimes they have yet to commit and thats thanks to the teachings of the church

anyway as of rn though the monastery is still pretty small but it is an old, ancient organization with magic that runs far deeper than the magic of the church. it is a much more subtle magic- monks practice little offensive magic (they are a nonviolent sort anyway) but the ability to exchange karma is rare and has far more reaching impact in the long run i imagine they have strongholds further to the east but anyway theres one trump card the monastic order has

a subsection of the order is dedicated to the keeping of miracles. and miracles are... monsters! they are semi-physical manifestations of literal suffering and the sheer emotional energy provided by them is enough to give miracles the power to.. well. perform miracles.

when a person dies in anguish, there is a chance that their bodies will not decompose the way they are meant to. instead they slowly dissipate, bodies turning coal black and ashen to the touch. these cannot be disposed of the normal way (curses, contamination, all kinds of horrible things happen) so instead these corpses get locked up inside brick cells within the monastery

once, one of these was opened only to reveal that the bodies were gone- only a humming, massive shadow that seemed to move as if made of flies or soot combined. and it spoke, too. this was the first miracle created it was discovered then that these creatures had immense power but could not leave the rooms they were imprisoned in, touch sunlight, and similarly they could not die

imagine like the witchs nightmares in pmmm and you get what its like to be a soul trapped in a miracle. u get to relive ur worst fears and regrets forever. it suck miracles also cannot direct their powers towards their own will, only the will of others. ofc they are still monsters and exact a price for their services, whatever it may be.

a meeting with a miracle does not come cheap or without consequence, bc although miracles can be performed, karma always rebalances itself in the end. monks tasked with guarding and curating the miracles are called gatekeepers and are often someone close to one of the souls trapped in the vortex anyway i think thats the basics of everything in there... i got an au w cyrus as a prince and alex as his knight and instead of sticking around for their inevitable deaths the pair run off into the countryside far far away

actually i think something went wrong in the ceremony. cyrus and alex win godkingship of then... something goes wrong. probably the whole die-to-ascend thing is a secret kept from the princen and the public and. alex does a thing a knight should not do a refuses to let the ceremony continue. and im p sure as soon as cyrus learns of the truth hes like haha well fuck that

then they spend the rest of their days actually experiencing what life is like outside of a freakish cult and my fucking feels

i think.. meanwhile the monastic order grows in influence and power making them the enemy of the church... and jonah (yonah in this au) sacrifices himself to the miracle containing his brother in order to give the miracle a corporal form. which means august and company now have a physical conduit for all that power they had.

bad news for the church! bc august was unrightfully killed bc of a prophecy saying that hed become a huge threat and a killer

funny how prophecies work!

so now hes out for blood and he probably uses his own charisma and power to stage a coup against the church and basically the country goes to hell and i think at this point cyrus thinks. i got out of there alive. i need to do something about this. so he and alex probably join in and become arbiters of the game esp since cyrus and alex were probably the best synced, most skilled prince/knight duo the church had seen up to that date so theyre very powerful. ofc theyre still only two people so i really wonder how theyll step in btwn these two opposing parties

augusts side isnt good either bc august... is only out for revenge and self interest. he has no interest in fixing the country or helping anyone in fact once august is firmly seated on the throne of power he probably declares himself god-king anyway the end game probably looks like augusts body (which is jonahs body) being destroyed and the miracle contained in it finally put to rest jonahs soul must have something to do with the exorcism process- theyve tried to exorcise miracles before and only ended up upsetting it into violent outbursts anyway thats enough rambling from me time to paste this all into a blog post

god what if august picked keith to be his knight. thats messed up. keiths so easy to manipulate and hed be such a wildcard of a knight. he has more magic potential than alex and hes faster on his feet. im imagining bloodlust frenzy almost hyena-like behavior. also i mostly just want to see keith being violent and evil and i have an outfit in mind that would look great with a little splash of red

think like minimalistic ouji but like all black and keith with knives and serving a clearly twisted (even more than usual bc of the miracle’s influence) august

god even better the aftermath of augusts death TIME FOR THE FUCKING FEELS TO KICK IN BC now Keith has no purpose/he FAILED to protect his king WHICH WAS HIS ONLY PURPOSE IN LIFE then alex coming in with cy and just no, you have inherent worth. what happened wasn't right im upset this is how alex and keith become family in this au

miracles i think in this case are definitely more of a means to an end i think narratively ie jonahs brother being killed and augusts soul being trapped within it- tho i think its a good tie-in into how the severe paranoid cultish way the society works ends up producing a lot of People Dying In Extreme Anguish

almost a buildup of sickness so to say.. a plague of the soul that's a cool avenue to go down tbh the idea that miracles are more like viruses spreading misfortune in the long run for some quick gain in this life but bc karma always collects her debts if i throw in some nice reincarnation that would effectively damn someone in their next life... that implies that this story may need to expand across different generations

mechanics being so much bullshit has happened in this country it houses multiple miracles whereas elsewhere its like one, or none, very few in their histories except possibly during wartime and famine

since magic is Exists in this it makes sense that the emotional energy combined w ambient energy would manifest in some kind of grotesque Being

oh no thats maybe why the church is manipulating things by purposely generating that emotional trauma in its society its producing unprecedented amounts of energy they can utilize as magic power oh  no thats super bad august would definitely take advantage of that bc hed definitely figure the truth out once hes back to being alive

im upset bc i think they use princens and knights to specifically create emotional energy

energy released upon death which typically happens after a knight/prince duo has been chosen... then the resulting STRONG ass char plague on their bodies are collected to make artifacts? yes

gems created from the ashen plague are embedded into a huge mandala that actually ... is the god-king itself

[chaosflight]

nightmare log 1

okay so i’m going to start logging these fucking nightmares

tw: violence mention ghost mention blood mention death mention

from what i can remember, it started off like any of the other bizarre dreams i’ve had this past week and a half, kinda hazy and kinda trying to tell a story, but mostly in a way that was all supposed to be subtext if it were a film.  it’s divided kinda into five parts, the first being the longest

the first part was the most coherent. it was almost like it was based off my favorite older film, the ghost and mrs. muir, where there was a lady who was alive and a fella who was not, except it was a trick.  they were both dead, ghosts to each other, repeating their lives over and over with these sorts of hints at each other.  the actual dream (i guess all that information was subtext) starts as she’s seeking him out in all the places she’s met him.  i guess that those things are always consistent? and their memories of each other always remain, no matter how many times they relive their already over lives.  she looks for him in her room, by the treeline, in the garden, and lastly by the fire pit.  

the first time she does this, she only sees charcoal sketchy shadows of him, and can’t interact.  the second time, she does interact with him, but something is changed, somehow.  she spoke to him, but he didn’t interact with her at all, like he was ignoring her.  She saw him from her bedroom in the fire pit, and went out to meet him since he wasn’t in the room, but he ran away from her by the trees, and in the garden, he was entertaining guests and couldn’t respond in his timeline.  so she had this small soliloquy that was supposed to be for him, about how she loves him so much, “like the wood in this pit, i want to be consumed.  but then the fire sets in, and the burns are too great” and then one more line, but she cut out.  i couldn’t hear her, because somehow she was now a charchoal ghost too, and we were at the fire pit instead of the garden, and she burned up and disappeared.  

then it flips over to him being the one ‘alive’, and he sees her from his bedroom by the fire, chases her immediately down to the garden, where the party is going, but all his guests are half ghosty and half there, so he ignores them.  She asks him to follow, i think? and then suddenly they’re at the fire pit, and she’s a charcoal ghost burning in long forgotten embers, and the guy hears her message, but again the only thing i can hear is those two lines, and then she’s cut off.  but, instead of disappearing, he steps into the fire with her, and says something like, ‘let us burn together, then’, and then they both become ghosts squared??? it’s implied that they died, again, or that perhaps their actual deaths were suicide by ghost or something.  

they turn into human outlines, holding eac h other’s hands, neither one in any way distinguishable from the other, and fly away down a street.  this is the end of part one.

the dream then takes a wild turn into some kinda commentary on goofy?  where goofy and his son are ghosts, and he’s kinda teaching his son about his history, but idk enough about it for it to be a factually realistic dream, so it very quickly veers into the third part:

we’re in our garage and we somehow had to fight for the legal ownership of the content of our garage?  like our stuff had all been there so long that the government somehow was allowed to possess it.  it’s worth noting that while the garage is implied to be the same one as the house we live in now, it starts out as actually the SIZE of the house in the dream.  there’s a lot of shit in there.  it’s also implied that i’m closer to my thirties, maybe even exactly ten years older, and it’s been a hot second since we’ve seen any of this stuff and it’s apparently really important.  

anyway, we’ve got literal construction equipment in the garage (bc it’s grown) to pull our shit down from these massive piles they’ve developed into, and as we move things we start discovering stuff, and this part goes pretty par for the course as far as growing architecture and mountains of petty trash being sorted can go.  

we’re halfway through when we discover my section.  there’s tvs and cameras.  oh my god, so many cameras.  i take so long reminiscing over them all that the rest of my family goes to lunch, i guess?  i’m alone, anyway, and the garage is somehow smaller again, but still pretty fucking huge.  There’s this one.  this one camera, that seems important, but i can’t remember how, but i want to go show mom and dad this particular one, maybe bc it’s the first? my first video camera? and as i’m walking back to show them, be all like ‘hey lookit this fucking relic lol’ i’m looking at the memory.  there’s nothing on it, which is weird bc i never delete  shit.  that’s a real life thing, i just do not delete things.  so i figured, hey, maybe it’s broken, so i open it up, turn the camera and the view finder around so i can selfie but see myself, and FUCKING SLENDERMAN IS IN MY CAMERA

i turn around, and he’s right there.  i fucking bolt.  he was putting out some FUCK OFF vibes.  i’m running further into the garage though, instead of into the house like i wanted in the first place, and that’s where it changes again?

this fourth part features a co-worker of mine, who i like to call mike wazowski, bc his first name is mike.  and it’s like a goddamn rick and morty scenario, where i’m morty and he’s rick, and we’re being brought before an alternate universe xenomorph queen that’s being held captive/protected by some unnamed government agency.  except the queen is male?  somehow thats important, except it’s literally never important again.  anyway, he’s enormous.  imagine the scale of a regular xenomorph to a standard queen, and that’s the scale of a regular queen to this AU queen.  he’s big. 

we’re in handcuffs, and i’m kind of unresponsive.  my mind is not in my bod.  i watch the whole sequence from very far away in this big white room where it’s all taking place.  the people who’ve got us captured/escorting us present the queen with another xenomorph, .  wait, no, there was a big buff angry lady first, who was yelling at us for upsetting the queen, and then pompously strode forward to apologize for this awful thing we did, and he fucking killed her and ate her.  he used one giant gross finger to impale her and then he ate her. it was horrifiying, even from my fortunate distance.  

THEN the rest of the guys present the queen with another xenomorph, which he then similarly eats, although more like a spider eats stuff.  he shot out his secondary mouth, and it clamped onto the other xeno’s back, and it shrivelled up and.  yeah.  while he’s doing that, he’s telepathically scolding us for ‘dealing with such a blight’.  and mike’s like ‘yeah, great going christina’, even though i’m fuckin catatonic.  i think he knew i could still hear him?? idk.  

the queen then continues to explain that we’ve opened some something, and that this Greatere Monster is now going to do it’s very best to fucking wreck our whole dimension, which apparently includes several universes?  i’m not sure that’s how string theory works but queeny mcmurder seemed pretty fucking sure. and then the dream switches.

this is part five.  it’s the worst, for me, personally.  

it starts with what’s obviously a recording, but i’m viewing it like I AM the camera, but i’m also IN the recording.  and me and these people are walking around a little kids playground.  everything is normal except this one installation.  it’s a big, pointy, metal mess of barely recognizable imagery.  it’s like if slendy and a xeno had a baby, and it’s skeleton was shifting through three different planes and someone took a photo and then lovingly rendered it in cast iron for all to play with.  

it was so weird.  it was so alive, even as a statue.  i walked through it, around it, we all did, and it was so eerie.  it was a thing that Should Not Exist.  it seemed like it could come alive at any moment and just.  destroy everything. 

and then suddenly i wasn’t in the recording, and i wasn’t a camera anymore, and i was. trapped.  inside it’s body.  the same skeletal, misshapen metal abomination was holding me, gently, but also not at all.  like it didn’t want to break me, but it would not let me leave.  i cried, so much.  i’d been there so long.  there was no light, only touch, and the only thing there was to touch was horror itself.  i wasn’t on earth, or in space, and space didn’t seem to matter.  neither did time, except that it just kept happening, the same insufferable moment happening forever, like a scream that never dies.  

the thing spoke to me.  it’s voice was impossible to describe.  it was grating like tin or steel, but it was also soft and smooth, whispery.  it seemed to be deafening, but it was also like a sigh.  i felt so many mouths against my face and shoulders as it spoke to me.  not all of them were human or even animalistic as anything i could name on earth.  i got impressions of what it was trying to tell me, but i didn’t know exactly what it wanted, except for me to stay there, forever in that impossible moment.  

sometimes there would be these.. animals? that would come near, when the thing slept.  it turned back into metal, and i was trapped in it’s frozen body, trying to wiggle out.  they were like rabbits, kind of hunched over and they moved haltingly.  they talked, and i could tell what they were saying.  they whispered, so jealously, ‘you’re living our dream’ over and over, ‘what you’re experiencing would be paradise to us!’ and then they would bite at my fingers and make them bleed, but the damage never lasted, i always healed from whatever they did to me, only the THING could really hurt me.  

and if it woke up when they were there, it would tear them apart, and i’d get drenched in their blood and their screams would get trapped in my head.  they were so happy to die by this awful thing that wouldn’t let me go.  

towards the end of the dream, what really felt like decades of being in that unseeing place, i was trying to hold together some hope i’d get out, and i remembered.  i remembered i love to sing, and that i always believed that singing could scare away wicked things, or at least make me feel better.  so, still bawling because i was so fucking terrified, i tried to sing.

and then i woke up.  not all the way.  but i was definitely away that i was in my bed, and so, so stiff.  like i hadn’t moved all night.  one leg under the cover, one leg out, and face down in the pillow, just like i like it.  i mentally recapped everything that happened in the dream to the best of my ability, and i feel like i’ve got an accurate summation of everything.  it doesn’t capture the feelings, though. the ghost story was wistful and sad, the goofy bit was supposed to be a continuation of that sense of.. losing out on something, the garage part was the spooky preamble to the paralyzingly terrifying fifth part, and the fourth part was... just really ominous.

the weirdest part to me is how stiff i am all over, but i somehow managed to get my leg out of my enormous comforter, and how my hair is super fucked up, even though, again, i was incredibly still all night.  i’m probably just scaring myself at this point, but it did freak me out.

so some real life things to mention: i’ve been asking for a video camera for christmas bc i want to start a video diary, and my phone is just.  unreliable.  

mike is usually a pretty snarky guy, and we closed the store together last night, so that’s probably why he made an appearance.

i stayed up super late last night recording stuff, and it was super dark and super quiet by then, so i was kind of freaking myself out before i went to bed anyway.

i did not have any wine or sleep aid last night, so my parents telling me it’s one or both of those things, HA!! i also didn’t eat anything when i came home, so it’s not that either.

i love slender man stories and the aliens franchise a lot, but i’ve never really been super scared of them before.

okay, that’s it.