sanity is relative

I don't remember how I got there, but apparently my subconscious thinks Hell is a series of dark tunnels randomly patrolled by trolls and ogres. I was trying not to get discovered, and I noticed that the guards had these long yellow sticks or rods with little floating stars on the end (5-pointed yellow star shapes a little bigger than a silver dollar, one per improvised torch-thingy). The stars were bright enough to give decent lighting, but they were attached to the ends of the rods with tiny chains about 6 inches long. I realized they were sentient, and were being forced to light the way for the patrols.

At some point I found a star that had managed to get free of its rod (where the heck the ogre went is beyond me). The rod glowed slightly while the star was a lot brighter. I think I told it to try and get to the surface while I continued investigating. Maybe I was going to try and save more of the stars... (maybe I had no idea how to get outa there). Right after the star left (it sorta... floated?) another patrol showed up and I tried to hide the slightly-glowing rod behind my leg while attempting to stay in deep enough shadow.

I'm going to guess they saw me, because the next thing I remember is running, but now it seemed like I was outside in a spread-out town with a lot of grass, but I still remember the area feeling like it was underground. I don't remember looking up, so who knows what was up there... maybe lighting that'd make it look like real-enough daylight where I was running. I was trying to find a building to hide in, and saw ahead of me a church. I was thinking, a church in Hell? WTF... but I ran inside anyways; the bad guys didn't see me go in there.

I was lurking around in the church, which sort of made sense layout-wise for a large Catholic-style church, though the lighting wasn't great. There were two men somewhere in the building and I was trying to stay out of sight since I thought they'd be enemies just as much as the guards were. I overheard them talking, however, and it seemed to be an actually "good" church for some reason, that it was tolerated and maybe even necessary to properly balance out Hell. I remember being worried that the ogres might come search the church but it sounds like they weren't allowed inside.

So I finally decided to talk to these guys, and they said I was welcome to stick around. We started playing Nintendo Wii of all things, all three of us, I don't remember what we played... though I do remember messing around with creating Miis. Then I think they got tired and passed out on the couch there by the TV and I decided it was a good time to try and see if I could get out of Hell. Outside the building I realized I still had my Wiimote but I was running by then and figured it was too late to take it back.

Then I woke up.

It started with thinking I'd woken up from the previous dream. I was in my bed in my place except it in no way resembled my real bed/place (yet my brain was convinced it was all normal). My kid sister showed up and wanted to play a complicated card game with me which at first I said I didn't know the rules to, so she said she'd teach me or show me, and then later seemed more like some sort of "magic trick." So she was dealing the cards and making piles out of them and asking me to pick a card and kept doing whatever it was she was doing. I was so out of it, I felt like I was really doped up on medication or perhaps I was still trying to hold on to the feeling of sleep.

My sister suddenly admitted as she combined most of the cards together again that it had been quite a while since she'd actually made sure all the cards were there. She dropped a card and said something like, "Oh mannnn" as it slid between the bed and the wall. I said I'd get it, and I think she said not to worry about it right away but I was determined to do it. I followed where the card had gone with my hand, then the bed was further away from the wall for some reason and I could keep following the route down to the floor which I did with my entire body. (Now that I think about it, the bed was sort of hospital-institutional with nicer bedding.) On the white-tile floor now, under the bed looking for the card (which was nowhere to be seen) and then I saw a length of thin chain (larger than necklace chain but smaller than the sort of chain you'd chain a gate closed with... the individual, round links might have been about 1/4 inch in diameter or maybe a touch bigger).

I wanted the chain, and I remember my sister saying something that I should leave it alone or get back to what she was showing me but I didn't care. There were other bits of chain too, two of them but in the end I stuck with the original one. It was at least two feet long and one end had a clasp, like a basic round jewelry clasp except larger, the same size as the links. I was out from under the bed by now and made the chain go around my right ankle, securing it there with the clasp and letting the other end trail. For the moment I let it drag on the floor and left the room, going out into the hallway. I don't really remember the hallway very well except that it was long and there were other doors leading into it, like a dorm floor or perhaps a hospital. There was a lot of white. I think one reason I'm having trouble remembering is because at this point I realized I was dreaming and I wanted to make the dream interesting.

I had been looking left down the hall but now I went right, starting to run a bit, holding on to the end of the chain so it wouldn't trip me. I wanted to get away, I wanted to escape, I didn't want to be here anymore, and I was thinking it's because I'm crazy and I'm in an asylum but I know this place is actually evil and I have to get out! Have to run, have to try. As I was thinking this stuff trying to convince the dream to take that plot concept, I could see the hallway ahead of me literally merged into a different-color hallway, sort of dingier with some sepia-tone to it and it seems like some puke-green color. There were wheelchairs and I knew that I could run into it and the dream would change properly.

So I did, still with the chain around my ankle (which as the plot went now was something I'd been secured to my bed with and had broken). As soon as I was in the dingier hallway I was completely in the mental hospital, and it wasn't really very easy to run or think because of the medication I was on... that had failed to keep me properly in bed. Up ahead the hallway got wider before going back to normal size, and in the middle of the wide part was a room that I couldn't see any details about except that its walls were made of the same painted-over cinder blocks as the hallway walls. There was a man sitting against the hall wall on the left on almost the far side of the room-thing. I knew he was a patient too, but I remember thinking I shouldn't trust anyone in my little escape attempt and then it seems like I remember another patient who was a friend (or at least someone I kinda trusted) saying this guy was bad news... that he sided with the staff.

Then a nurse came out of where there was apparently a door on the left side of the room-thing and I panicked because I didn't want her to see me. She was going to talk to the man or something, and although I thought for sure she'd see me I managed to go to the right without her noticing. Although the hallway continued I knew I couldn't go that way at least right now, but there was a smaller hall where I had headed to the right, and there were a couple of little staff-related rooms there, one to the left and one to the right.

I was totally lost because I'd never seen these rooms before (I'm not sure I'd seen much of the hospital before). It seems like I realized there was someone on the left side, meanwhile the lady back out in the hall was heading my direction so I went into the room on the right and at this point was only really looking for somewhere to hide. It looked like a storage and equipment room, things laid out on shelves, some of which had no backs and were spaced out in the middle of the room. I kept along the right-side wall seeing that it had a nook in it in the corner (that went right again just a little) where maybe I could hide.

Diagram time! Mostly because if anybody can see what the heck I'm talking about by now, you're doing good.

,--,______,   ,
|                 |
|                 |
|                 |
---------------
The open space on the upper right is the door I came in from, and the nook is in the upper left.

When I got there I noticed that there appeared to be a door on the right side of this nook (when standing in front of it with the main room's left wall to one's left as oriented in the diagram above). It looked like a very ordinary door, a bit worn and uninteresting and painted white like the rest of the walls in the room. It wasn't locked as I opened it, but right behind was a very obviously not normal door. It was a light brown color and had no door handle. I was scared now that the nurse was going to show up any second, and I had no idea if there was some sort of special trick involved in opening the second door. I tried just pushing on it, and it actually just pushed inwards. It was almost like it was a very light piece of wood that I then had to hold onto so it didn't fall because it wasn't attached to anything. Maybe it was broken... because it had sure seemed like the first major sign of "things aren't right here in supposedly-honest asylum land."

So anyways, beyond that things were a whole lot less finished-looking, either like creepy Silent Hill mode in one of those games, or a very unfinished basement. I could hardly see, it was so dark, but I was still thinking the goddamn nurse is going to find me if I don't do something fast. For some reason I couldn't do anything about the first door I'd opened, and dream logic was failing with the second door barrier thing as it was turning into a much smaller piece of plywood. How was this supposed to help block off the doorway? Then there was a second piece, and I remember trying to prop them up one against the other in an inverted V shape and hoping that would suffice.

For some reason it did, and the doorway was completely blocked again (which makes no sense considering the two pieces of wood came up to about my waist), as if I'd just shut the first stupid door in the first place. Either way, the dream was happy to be convinced I'd succeeded at least in that step, so whatever. It was even darker now with the door properly closed, but after a moment's confused thoughts (yay meds and fear) I realized that this was a place people went and it should have lights. There was a light-switch box to the left of the door and I turned it on. I saw that the little passage I was in went to stairs downwards shortly, wooden steps that still had that very-unfinished and old look to them.

I think I then realized that having the lights on was a bad idea, as staff would guess if they showed up that someone was there that shouldn't be. So I turned them off again and moved towards the stairs. I could now see a little better as further down the steps was a large open area that was again very much like an unfinished basement. Uneven dirt floor, concrete brick walls, very high indications of perhaps windows because of little bits of light, daylight! But I knew that I wasn't that close to freedom yet. Closer, but going to those light sources wouldn't do me any good, they just helped me to see right now.

At the bottom of the stairs, to the left was some more shelving and stuff and it didn't seem like a useful way to go. The basement opened up even further to the right, so I went that way. As I was working my way along very uneven ground that looked more like I was entering the very beginnings of a subway construction sight or something, I heard people shouting behind me. They knew I was there, and also that I was quite possibly on the correct route to get out of there. I was trying to move faster, the chain still there, but as I dared glance back (even with my brain screaming don't waste the time looking back) I saw there was already a nurse about thirty feet behind me.

I kept running (or trying, I was having issues running as I seemed really tired and the air really thick) and glanced back again after another moment and I saw that the nurse was wearing red (maybe it was a different nurse, or the dream decided to change her on the fly). It was more like a fancy red dress. I had only glanced at it though, back to running, and suddenly I had a memory of someone saying the lady with the red dress was the worst possible nurse you could encounter, that if she was on your tail you had no hope. It had the feel of a hospital myth, like some people didn't believe she even existed... and yet it appeared she was now chasing me. Well, whatever, I wasn't going to give up. Another glance, oddly enough, showed the nurse's skirt was red and maybe her collar, while the rest of her outfit had turned back a more normal white.

I managed to get myself corralled into a corner finally, choosing the wrong direction to run once I got closer to the far side of the huge bizarre area. I was so close, the other way had gone to a door but meanwhile I had one very big nurse ready to sedate me. She already had the syringe in her hand and even though I begged her not to hurt me she was very determinedly going to inject me. There were a couple other nurses in her wake as well. She moved to strike and suddenly I asked her, "Are you crazy too?" and she said, "Yes." The look on her face as she said it was a brainwashed/insane but determined combination. I thought I felt pain in my neck, but then she was still holding the syringe and I was still feeling the same, not getting sleepier.

The other nurses were now standing around, and it seemed like they had sort of decided they weren't sure they wanted to be doing what they were doing anymore. They were talking about the head doctor though, and how it was pretty much impossible to cross him. I don't remember if I encouraged the thought of breaking loose, but they decided to give it a shot, and now there were other patients who had apparently followed us down here. Someone opened the door I hadn't gotten to and we all filed outside, straight out into bright, warm sunshine. We found ourselves in a little walled-off sunken area with metal steps and a catwalk leading out of it, so we followed that.

We knew we were now free, and following this path would take us to further freedom. I stopped part-way across the catwalk though. I said something like, "What about the other patients in the hospital? They don't deserve to live like that. We should try to get them out." Some people didn't want to risk their freedom by going back in there. I thought we had a chance, if we worked together, whoever wanted to go, and I did say that I understood if people didn't want to risk it, but that whoever wanted to go back in should give it a shot. Also, the dream suddenly decided that maybe some of us had Heroes-like powers. There was one teenager who looked like he could have been in My Chemical Romance the way his hair, makeup, and clothes were, and he said he had some sort of ability (I don't remember what it was). He wasn't very confident in it, sort of like a minor thing he could do as opposed to something truly impressive, but he was volunteering to go on the rescue mission if I wanted him and I definitely did. One of the nurses agreed to help, and a handful of others were thinking about it.

Then I woke up.