EDITOR'S NOTE:
This dream was written in 2004. It is the original dream that inspired the concept of Dream Stream Space.
In a world of confusion, malice, strife, and death, all lay still in an eerily quiet meadow. The concept of time, direction, nor the respect for the living does not exist here. Life did exist once here in this desolate place, once blooming with life. A forest once existed in this meadow, but every last tree has fallen and is now rotting, all except one. In the center of this eternal meadow is a scraggly and twisted lone tree. It is leafless, appearing completely devoid of any hints of life.
An evil presence lurks in this forsaken place, full of lost memories long dead yet with a horrific and deadly past; the memory of some horrible event seems to linger here. For it is this presence that the lone tree seems to be the source of; always watching, always waiting, always drawing one’s gaze towards it and ensnaring the passion of one’s heart in its potent grasp.
Nothing stirs in this unmerciful and desolate wilderness. All is quiet, something is ever-watching with sinister intent, endlessly waiting. In every possible direction from the tree, the meadow seems to stretch into an eternal darkness, and an eerie yellow light shines dully, giving little hope.
Suddenly, something stirs in the distance. Making no sound, it makes it way toward the lone tree, slowly, cautiously. Stepping over rotting tree branches, it comes into view. It is a lone wolf, glaring at the tree, barring its teeth at the tree in hate and anger. As it approached the tree with more vigor, it rapidly became overcome with fatigue and falls down, dead. Dead among the meadow of dead and rotting things, including other animals. The awful stench of rotting flesh and wood makes the air stale and old.
Something ghastly once happened here ages ago, if indeed, there even were ages. Throughout the ages, the meadow has claimed countless lives of any living thing save the grass that grows in it. Even the grass itself seems to be dying, fast turning brown. Those memories of past ages have not faded, always reminding any living creature that comes into this place of the evil that occurred here, never letting go, relentlessly oppressing and maliciously manipulating.
~~~~~
I did not know about this place - until it was too late. I have had horrible dreams of this place; the kind of dreams that causes one to perspire profusely and toss and turn restlessly in the deepest parts of the night. But I never once gave one thought as to if it was real or not. This place is a living nightmare, and I live here now, and there is no way to get out. So, please allow me to tell you of how I got here, so that you may avoid this wretched place of perpetual Purgatory.
One day, when I became aware of any perception of time, I was alone and pondering as to what else there was in this world. Indeed, there had to be more to this sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere. I lived alone, but I felt as though a part of me, or I a part whatever it was, was missing. I needed something to satisfy that deepest desire that was in my heart, though I was clueless as to what that desire even was.
The town I lived in was from a bygone era, now falling into a state of disrepair. My existence felt dull and drab, having no meaning or excitement. There were only a few businesses and shops, but most of the buildings were either abandoned or in a state of disrepair. On the outermost edge of the eerily quiet town was an old and abandoned station. Some of the locals said it was ‘cursed’ but I had no belief in any superstitions or folktales, nor did I follow any religion. My life was empty and without cause or purpose. I would merely exist and then die some day, and I was quite complacent with that sentiment. Why bother with anything else? Some said the station was once a train station, while others said it had been a bus station. I did not care what it was.
For years I had pondered and planned on leaving this town to find some other reason to live, if at all there was one. Today would be the day I would leave. As usual, I went to the station to think of where to go, and sat on one of the cracked and mildly eroded concrete benches. Once I was seated, I closed my eyes for a minute, and then opened them. I looked straight ahead of me to a barren meadow that appeared to have rotting things scattered as far as the eye could see. Far off in the distance, I caught sight of a sickly and scraggly tree, the only one anywhere in the field. As I caught sight of it, it suddenly had my gaze drawn to it, and I could not take my eyes off of it. I was rapidly overcome with fatigue and quickly dozed off.
I do not know how much time passed until I heard a familiar voice. The voice was beautiful, and that of my beloved girlfriend, Mandy. She was sitting next to me on the bench, her hand on my knee. I was quickly awake, and I took her in my arms and kissed her passionately. Mandy was very beautiful; slender, light brown hair and eyes, fair soft skin, and had the sweetest personality any man could ever wish for. She and I were both dressed in summer attire, as it was relatively hot day; she was wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt, and I was wearing a light summer shirt and shorts.
I had grown up with Mandy in this town. We went to the same schools together, and we had been friends since early childhood. By now, we had been dating for nearly two years, and were madly in love with each other. Occasionally, we would sneak out of our homes and go to our secret spot, the old station. One night, we finally decided to simply leave our town.
In our secret moments at the old station, we shared our deepest thoughts with each other, and I learned that she had the same thoughts I did. She, too, wanted a life with a purpose and some sort of meaning. There was more, she knew it. I knew it as well. We would have to leave this town, together, to find out.
“Are we still doing this?” she asked.
I smiled at her and kissed her softly. She smiled back at me, and I knew she knew that meant “Yes.”
We sat there for some time, not saying anything to each other. Thoughts were running through both our minds. Feelings of uncertainty and endless unanswered questions raced through our minds for what seemed like hours. Why were we doing this? How do we know that we will even find anything? If we do find anything, what will it be and will it benefit us?
Suddenly, and to our great astonishment, a severely aged bus from perhaps many decades ago pulled up in front of the station. The bus was mostly orange with rust, and the wheels hardly touched the ground, which I found rather peculiar. It did not make much noise, except for the occasional squeaking and clanking of pieces of metal that were loose on the sides of the bus.
Mandy and I got on the bus. We had no idea where it went, but we did not care. Together, we would go where ever fate would take us.
There was a musty smell to the interior. It was evident that this bus was indeed seldom used and very old. Gossamer covered most of the seats and parts of the ceiling. There was an eerie presence about this bus, and I felt the eyes of people penetrating my mind's eye. The strangeness of it all was that there wasn't another soul on this bus. It was just the two of us. I couldn't help but feel that I was borderline paranoid and delusional.
The bus accelerated rapidly, but we hardly felt movement. Not much later, we soon fell asleep in each others’ arms, as the sun had set by now. In my subconscious mind as I slept, I did not recall sensing the bus making any turns or stops; it just kept going in one direction, unchanging. The next morning, the sun rose on the same side of the bus it had set on.
Mandy was still asleep when I observed the sunrise. Deciding not to wake her, I looked around the bus. At least that was unchanged from the night before. I looked toward the front of the bus, and I did not see a driver. Something was amiss; I could feel it, but I couldn't put a finger on it.
Disturbed and confused, I woke Mandy up several hours after sunrise. Shortly after she was awake, the bus came to an abrupt halt. She and I got off of the bus, and it quickly disappeared into the horizon. On one side of the road was the same field, but the lone tree was not there. On the opposite side was a thick and very old forest. The trees were dark and twisted; twisted as one would twist a roll of wet clay. The trees’ roots were entangled within one another, making it impossible to see the forest floor. There was a
dank and moldy odor to the forest, and the air was stale with aged dampness. It was a sickly place.
We started into the forest, perhaps to have some sort of adventure, we decided. The forest was on a slope which ended abruptly at the road. The slope was gradual, but it was still difficult to climb over the wet and slippery thick roots. Occasionally, I would catch Mandy if she stumbled.
After we made it to the top of the slope, we came to an overgrown path. This path had clearly not been used in many years, as the branches of the trees blocked most of it, and the grass and weeds that had grown up in the middle of the path. Out of sheer curiosity, we walked the path for some time, pushing brush out of the way as we went.
Eventually, we came to an abandoned building. It had been built in a ravine, and from what I could tell, it may have been an auditorium or some other recreational building. There was a door high up on the slope, which was level with where we were standing. We could see most of the roof, which was now caked in mud, leaves and branches. The windows were glazed with gossamer and dust, and the visible metallic parts were orange with rust. The air was stale and dry here, and eerily quiet and placid. Most of the trees immediately surrounding the building were completely dead and beginning to rot, and the living trees were a dull light green color; this place was the center of some bad memory, or the focus of someone’s nightmare. Whatever this place had once been, it’s mysterious past still lingered here.
Our curiosity got the better of us. I pried the door open, and it made a scratchy squeaking sound as I did so. Mandy and I went in, and it was very dark; the air was stale with a foul odor. In the dim light, I could see that Mandy was suddenly overcome with fatigue, and looked pale.
I looked for a place to lay her down to rest. The interior was a vast room, rectangular in shape. There rows with couches, chairs, benches, most anything used to sit on. The rows were stadium in style, and they were parallel to rows on the other side of the room. From floor to ceiling the height seemed to be around fifty feet.
Spotting a couch, I helped Mandy down to it, the third row from the floor. I laid her down, and as I did so, dust flew everywhere, causing both of us to cough. Feeling her legs as I helped give her support, I noted that her skin was cool and dry, yet I could tell she was breathing normally. As for myself, I could no longer stand the awful stench of that foul odor, and I went back outside for a minute.
After taking several deep breaths, I went back in to check on her. To my horror, I saw people sitting in various places and staring blankly into space. They were all pale and ghostly. I looked where I had left Mandy, and I noticed a cluster of them surrounding her. I hurried down, and as I did so, I realized that the place was filled with rotting animals. Their corpses were so many, I had to avoid stepping on any. Mandy was now sitting up like all the rest, with the few around her staring at her with malice and envy in their eyes. I wrapped my arms around her to carry her out, but when I did so, she vanished. She was no more.
Confused and frantic, I desperately looked around. There was no one there. Just me, and no other people. They, too, were gone. I felt an evil presence lurking in that ghastly place. There was no sounds to be heard, and I felt so alone; so desolate.
Suddenly, I thought I heard a movement in the upper corner of the room, and I quickly looked up. Briefly, and much to my dismay, I saw a black sulfurous cloud disappear through the wall.
I ran down the few steps to the base of the room and ran out into a hallway. The hall had windows caked in dry red stains, and the hall was littered with dead leaves, branches, and other unknown debris. I paused. As I began pondering what I had just experienced in the large room, I heard Mandy’s voice. It was faint, and echoed eerily throughout the hall.
Being able to discern where the voice was coming from, I began following her voice. Hoping desperately to find her, I paused to listen more intently. A few moments later, I could more clearly hear her voice. She was crying for me. I turned down another hall, a bit smaller than the one I was just in.
I stopped by a strange door. It was thick, and it looked similar to a vault door. This particular door was peculiar. There was condensation on it, and the door was in its early stages of corrosion. The handle was round, large, and bulky. I heard her call again, and touched the door. I pulled my hand away quickly, and I felt a chill of death ooze through my body. I found a rag nearby and pried the handle open. The door was very heavy, causing a grinding squeak to echo warily throughout the halls.
There was a narrow stairwell down to a lower level. I could see a light coming from somewhere within, so I cautiously walked down the stairs. When I came to the bottom, I saw Mandy sitting on a wooden table under a single glowing light bulb suspended from the dark ceiling. Everywhere else was utter darkness. Mandy had her legs crossed, and her hands behind her resting on the table. She looked pale, but at rest. We looked at each other, and I walked towards her.
“Save yourself!” She spoke in a faint, yet echoing manner. “Save yourself from this place!” She repeated this over and over.
I tried to take her in my arms, but when I did, my arms simply went right through her body. That is when I realized she was gone, and there was nothing I could do. I started back up the stairs, and looked back. She was standing now, and gave me a loving, hopeful look.
I went out of that place confused and greatly perplexed. I took the same path back to the road. But now there was no road. There was just a forlorn, empty field. By now, horrified at what had happened, I ran across the meadow for I do not know how long. Eventually, and to my horror, I cam to the same twisted forest. To some degree of relief, there was a road here. As soon as I crossed the road, the bus pulled up out of nowhere.
In a desperate hope to get out of there, I boarded the bus. It was the same one as before, but it traveled faster than before. All through the night I thought of what had happened. Where was Mandy now? Will I ever see her again? I was alone, and I did not know what to do.
The sun was rising now. It rose at an unnatural rate, and the bus slowed to a stop. As I got off, I noticed there was no driver. I turned and I was back at the old station. There in front of me was Mandy sitting on the bench. Overwhelmed and confused, I hurried towards her to embrace her. As I did so, I tripped and smashed my head into a nearby concrete bench. All went black.
~~~~~
I woke up and Mandy was sitting beside me on the bench. “You okay? You tripped and hit your head on that bench.” She pointed.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I looked at her. “Where was I coming from?” I inquired.
“You were meeting me here, remember? You were late and hurried over here from your house.”
“Where are we going?” I had to know.
“Home.”
A bus pulled up next to the station. It appeared new, and we got on. We being the only ones on the bus, we sat toward the back of the bus. Suddenly, I had an eerie feeling of déjà vu. I took her in my arms and kissed her. The bus accelerated, and I can’t recall if there was a driver.
We drove all through the night. There were no stars; just a half moon that glowed an eerily dull yellow. The field, stretching into eternity, was unchanging. There was no sound, just the sound of Mandy’s breathing. I grew drowsy, and fell asleep.
~~~~~
Upon waking up, I was horrified at what I saw. For the once-clean bus was now dirty, musty, and dimly lit. I brushed the gossamer off of me, and woke Mandy up. She did not show any concern for the current environment.
“Don’t you think this is a little unusual?” I asked her.
“What is? I think everything’s fine,” she said flatly.
We stood up, and the bus slowed to a stop.
“Where are we?” I asked with a hint of fear and uncertainty.
“Home, of course,” she said simply.
We got off of the bus and stood by the road. There in front of us was that same dark, twisted, old forest. I turned around and saw the eternal meadow, but this was not exactly the same as before. For, there off in the distance was that same scraggly lone tree. This time, however, there was something different about it. The tree was not bare, but rather it was glowing red with a faint flame that did not burn it, and it seemed to have two penetrating eyes watching us. As it caught my gaze, I could feel its power piercing and
ensnaring the deepest parts of my very soul. Suddenly, I felt a high-pitched squealing noise in my ear, and I had a brief and ghastly vision of the tree up as if it were only inches from my eyes. The oppressing sensation quickly subsided, and I turned to face the forest. Mandy and I took each other’s hand, and we started into the forest.
It had been my false hope that I would enevitably find what I was looking for. Something that would fill my void and satisfy that hole inside of me. Perhaps I looked in the wrong place, and gave in. Perhaps my curiosity had gotten the best of me, my complacent and compliant attitude condemning me to this Purgatory. All I know now is that there may not be any hope for Mandy and me. We are lost in a place of limitless limbo, and where our desires and needs are insatiable. We are both unhappy, hopeless, and feel devoid of a bright future. It's as if something sinister is endlessly rotting and burning our very souls. We are in a land of error, a place of hellfire and fallacy.
