sanity is relative

There was more to this, but the relevent part started with me as the little girl in Aliens, and Ripley and I were headed to an elevator on a high floor of a tall building. We knew we needed to get out. (I think this was supposed to be after that movie's timeline at some later point.)

Then I changed perspectives to either myself or another female character who was with the two already there. I had the only flashlight, and although I don't remember lighting issues on the floor we were on, when the elevator arrived it was dark in there. I threw the flashlight in there on the floor, as if it was important I do so (and I think dream logic had intended it to be, then went "wtf?"). So, suddenly I'm realizing that wasn't the smartest idea as the flashlight fell apart and I knew it was broken. For some reason it had 4 batteries in it when it was fallen apart, though I knew it'd only take two (they were C or D cells, and the flashlight was black and kinda heavy-duty).

So anyways we got on the elevator and apparently there were blue glow sticks on the floor as well, so at least there was a little bit of light. It seemed like that was important for more reasons than just being able to see. Some freakish unknown thing creeping around killing people? Possibly. The elevator itself was partly messed up, missing one door, and as it started going down floors we tried to put the half of the door in the center so it blocked off as much as possible. (It was moveable like a sliding closet door since it was broken. Like that makes any sense.)

Some of the floors we passed had an odd, dim blue light. Ripley and the girl were crouched down against the door with their backs to it, and I was on the far side watching the floors go by. Suddenly I saw a small version of one of the face-hugger aliens creep around the top edge of the door. There were more on the floors we were going by as well, but so far only this one had caught the elevator. Ripley was trying to stay still and keep the girl still, covering the little one's mouth so she wouldn't make noise. They were both very scared, and I think we knew that these things shouldn't be there and not only was it a bad sign that they were, but it was entirely possible we might not live through this.

I started slowly putting the flash light back together, adding in the batteries for weight. Then I stood up and mashed the top of it onto the alien as hard as I could. This apparently killed it... and it stuck to the door in all its goey deathness. Ripley pulled part of it off and chucked it into one of the floors we were passing (reeeally fucking tall building I guess), and apparently after the thing was dead or because it was so young/small, the acid didn't bother her (or dream logic sorta went "meh, don't care"). She pulled the other part off and threw that out too.

Now two more were crawling around about the same area, and I smooshed those as well. I think Ripley also threw those out... and then we got to the bottom floor and it was really well-lit, reminded me of an airport terminal. Nobody seemed to know anything was wrong. A security guard in a white uniform showed up to like... tell us we didn't have authorization to be where we were... and it gets fuzzy around here, but I think we were supposed to get taken to see the big boss guy of the building.

Then it got utterly psychotic. The three of us were made to get on this almost Disney Land kinda ride, a hanging moving thing that we could sit in with seats on both side of a small enclosed space with an open top. It was taking us through some kind of displays, like a weird mixture of the company's history and a collection of total "wtf" items. And then we passed this odd fan that was blowing really hard and realized it was blowing bits of broken glass with the air. We tried ducking to get away but it still hit us and it hurt. I had a wide collar on my coat apparently, and I was able to pull it up high enough to at least avoid some of that.

Now I knew for sure we were still in obvious danger, and being as I wasn't sure what would be at the end of the ride, I reached out to grab various things that might be handy from the displays (some of it was close enough to touch). I broke a possibly-fiberglass oversized pencil off a statue and stuck it into my right pocket near my knee on black cargo pants I apparently was wearing. It wasn't the best weapon but it'd be better than nothing (I guess). I also managed to snag a large paperclip (the big odd-shaped X-square kind you can use to hold lots of paper) and stuck it in the left knee pocket. If they didn't search us and locked us up or something, I might be able to pick a lock with it.

We passed at least two more of the glass-blowing fan things of doom, and eventually the ride ended. We got off it in this big, posh office, with large floor-length windows to the left, an expensive table ahead of us, and lots of spendy furnishings elsewhere. There was a man to the right, well-dressed in I think a maroon suit, and we knew he was the boss. He was acting like this was just some cordial visit or something, and didn't seem antagonistic or worried about what we might think of being put through the amusement park ride from hell.

Ripley seemed a little out of it. On the table were pictures of her new line of jewelry she was apparently trying to get into as her new career. This seemed kinda stalkerish to me. There were other pictures too, of her jewelry but more of it on massive displays that looked way more fancy than where they were currently being sold. The boss guy said that this was what he wanted to offer Ripley, a bigger and much better venue with his company where she could be rich and famous and make a ton of dough.

Not only did that sound weird after all we'd been through, but then he mentioned a new kind of drug his company was producing, and said it would help her feel all better. Apparently she was already on something for post-alien-trauma-stress-stuffs. It seemed like she was kinda buying the guy's salespitch. I switched perspectives to the little girl for a moment and told her that she was fine the way she was, and that the drug was a bad idea and I didn't trust this guy. I switched back to myself, and said something like, "He's probably going to say you need just one to make it all better... and then another tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, because you'll never be able to get off it."

Ripley seemed to be getting the picture, and I moved to stand by the windows. There was a guy next to me dressed in sorta black-ops gear, and the dream just sorta decided he'd been with us the whole time, was part of our team. He looked and acted a bit like FBI Agent Charlie Francis from Fringe. Both of us were looking outside, and really close by was the waterline of a lake or very large, calm river. There was a lot of very colorful pollution in the water, and it had formed into very recognizable and artistic images along the water's edge. There were cartoon characters and other things, stuff that seemed familiar in the dream but I can't really remember what now. The pictures rippled somewhat from distortion in the water.

I wondered out loud, "I wonder if there's something sentient in there. Something creative. Possibly on the drug." The drug the guy had just mentioned... something that'd keep whatever it was trapped under the water. I don't know if anyone took me seriously or wanted to do anything about it, as the dream shifted to something elsewhere with other people and mostly unrelated.

Eventually I woke up.