sanity is relative

I was sitting in a dream-randomized apartment that was supposed to be mine, on a couch (that I don't actually own) with my computer in front of me on an Ikea desk-table (that I do actually own). I was playing Torchlight while talking to my friend on the phone. I had her on speakerphone and the phone was sitting next to me on the couch, and she was busy doing something else that wasn't a video game (can't remember what).

We were talking about MMOs specifically, and I said, "You know what I'd really like to see? An MMO that doesn't come out with an expansion every ten seconds. Doesn't Call Of Cthulhu only have like, one still?" And then I thought about it a little harder and said, "Was there some reason why we couldn't play Call of Cthulhu?" My crappy memory was vaguely hinting that either it hadn't liked her computer or mine, or there was some distinct issue that had made us stop playing pretty much right off, like mechanics or general aesthetics (Neverwinter, I'm looking at you).

She said, "No, no reason I can think of. We should try that sometime." Ah, so we hadn't even played it yet! I was starting to get excited.

Then the dream shifted into something that I think was supposed to be the trailer to the Call of Cthulhu MMO (which does not exist, for anyone wondering and reading this... but man if it was done right, I'd want to play that sooo hard). A man and his maybe pre-teen daughter were going to New England on vacation, but for some reason the small house they showed up at was very definitely of Japanese architecture. It was daytime, and I only remember trees in the distance behind the house.

The idea was that if the characters put on special red-colored glasses with thick black frames that looked extremely dorky, they could see things related to the area being haunted. I remember a shot out of a high window that showed the edge of the porch roof above, and the heads of several people all hung off the same rope by the neck, in the corner of the roof.

Now the game had something much more like a single-player feel, ala Silent Hill meets Fatal Frame. And it was becoming reality, and I was the father character. I was thinking we should get used to wearing the red glasses, even if we might see shocking things, because clearly there was a mystery going on here and it would be a shame to miss any clues. I was inside, looking at a simple, low table with various objects on it, while my daughter was wandering outside nearby.

We both ended up looking onto this weird little side-porch thing at the same time, me from inside via a window right by the porch, and her from out on the grass (the side porch did not meet the front porch, it almost looked like an empty wood pallet set right next to the house but I think it was supposed to be legit construction). On that little porch a girl was lying, in what I would call cutesy anime winter-wear. I remember specifically that the fairly-short skirt was pink and had a band of white fluffy trim around the bottom hem. She was just sprawled lying there, no blood or anything, but I had the distinct impression she was dead.

I heard my daughter gasp, and I felt fear creep into my heart as I lifted the lower-left edge of my glasses just enough to realize it wasn't a vision of the past. I said, "She's real! Come inside, quickly!" and my daughter rushed inside. I had crouched down because I was too afraid of the scene outside, and said something about calling the police. Suddenly I heard movement outside, like someone scuffling around a bit on that porch thing.

I got up and looked out the window again, and the body was gone. I yelled something like, "Bring her back, we're going to find you!"

I heard a very quiet, gruff male voice hiss, "We'd love to see you."

I think I kept yelling stuff for a moment, but there wasn't anyone visible outside still. It now seemed like whatever had been there had gone away, and now my daughter and I were left with this cryptic and disturbing piece of information. I asked her if she had heard the voice. She said no.

Then I woke up.

The beginning of this dream involved running around a hospital in which most of the people had been turned into zombies for unknown reasons. They were slower than the humans but stronger (and waaaaay more of them). Those of us who were still not-undead were trying to get everyone who was still living together, and I remember attacking a zombie with a wooden pencil and literally having an argument with it as to the fact that a wood pencil stabbed into the heart should kill it. (Dream logic forgot that this applies only to vampires.) I won the argument, the zombie died.

At one point I was alone again running from zombies who seemed a lot smarter than they should have. I could hear one of them off in the distance sort of calling out to me that he'd find me. (Most of the zombies just did the typical horror movie "raaaaaaaaaar" or whatever.)

I found myself in an empty room that had cupboards up high and I remember trying to see if I could crawl up into a cupboard as some of them seemed to open up into the ceiling-works, or I could at least maybe hide until the zombies went away. I'm not sure if this succeeded or not because the next thing I remember was arriving in the hospital lobby where the survivors were all holed up defending one spot and actually managing to hold it.

I joined the group and after a while things calmed down enough that I said some of us who knew the local area should try and go out and scavenge for things like food and weapons. I told them that everyone should at least go in pairs, and to not let each other out of their sight. I even said if the other person had to go to the bathroom their partner should stay right in the bathroom with them and plug their ears and go "LALALALALALA!" (*snicker*) ....yeah... well it was smart advice for zombie-land at any rate, if rather goofball.

There were restaurants and stores sorta near the hospital, as well as some of our homes. I went to my house with a guy and his son (the house was nothing like anywhere I've ever lived in real life). As I was looking for useful things, I turned around and saw that the son was going zombie. The father was freaking out and the son appeared to be attacking him with some kinda weird black magical bits that flew out of his eyes. I told the guy to run for it but he didn't, he seemed upset he was losing his son and I told him there wasn't anything that could be done, if he wanted to live through this himself he had to bail!

Well, he was still not listening so I ran, managed to snag a bag full of large kosher crackers in the kitchen and ran out the front door. I hadn't had time to get much else of use (I don't think I even snagged any knives in the kitchen either, faaaail). Some blonde guy who's outfit and convertible car screamed California was pulling up in the driveway, he seemed a bit lost. He also had a little girl with him in the passenger seat (there was no back seat, the font seat was all one long seat).

I asked him for a ride, meanwhile he was looking for directions and I realized he wasn't local. I said, "You mean it hasn't spread past our town yet?" And he was like, "What are you talking about?" I told him something bad was happening, people turning into zombies, and I needed to get back to the hospital fast; I could show him where to drop me off because it was close by and then he should get the heck out of Dodge.

I could tell he wasn't sure he could trust me but he had his daughter move over into the middle so I could get in, then we were driving along the main drag (that had a lot of traffic... that I knew came from out of town and just happened to come straight through and continue on). I pointed out miscellaneous zombie and people corpses and then mentioned I'd been fighting them. Suddenly he really wasn't sure he should have let me into the car, I could tell by the look on his face. I told him not to worry, and to please just go right ahead and drive up the sidewalk that led to the hospital main doors (it went in from the road a bit).

He did, and several zombies started chasing us. They were fast enough that they were really close to the car and I couldn't get out and make it to the door. I told him to drive circles, and he managed to get the brainless things to keep chasing the car but they were a little slower than it, so before long there was space enough for me to make a run for it. I made it in through the doors and as far as I know the guy drove off like a bat out of hell.

Meanwhile I reached my impromptu buddies still holed up in the lobby in the middle of another attack. I told them the virus or whatever it was that was making these zombies hadn't seemed to have spread beyond our town yet, and I think we might have thought about moving locations to somewhere safer or trying to go warn the rest of civilization...

Then I woke up.