Homework Four

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Question:

Assume your character is plagued with a recurring nightmare that awakens him or her in a cold sweat every time. Describe the dream.

Answer:

Lume doesn't have any recurring nightmares. Here is the description of a nightmare she had while she was working as a bouncer in Boston, not to long after she arrived there:

I was standing in the Sao Paulo airport, in the evening. My parents were there, sitting in the hard bench seats watching the taxing planes outside the gate's window. Somehow I knew they couldn't see me. The light board for the gate says the flight is leaving for Cancun, Aztlan at 8:45. All I could think was, "It's going in five minutes. I have to stop them. They can't come after me." I tried to talk, tried to move to grab my father's shoulder or my mother's arm, but I can't move. I couldn't force words past my lips when I try to call to them, to plead with them not to go. I have an overwhelming sense of dread if they follow me I'll lose them, not just for while, forever.

My mind blurs. They are getting off the plane. I'm standing on the Tarmac but they still can't see me. There's are red letters on the control tower far across the Tarmac. They read "Cancun". The glow with an ominous light. I can see the grass around the taxiing paths swaying. It seems taller than I remember as if I could walk into it and vanish. I try to yell to them. "Run! You have to run! They'll get you!" But no sound leaves me. My parents are smiling walking away from the plane, but I know the Aztechnologies troops are closing in.

The rest is only a blur. I remember vague images of a slaughterhouse operating room. My father bleeding on the table, his chest an gaping hole oozing corruption. My mother the cyber-puppet smiling with a mouth full of sharp metal teeth and reaching out to hug me to her.

I woke up with a scream. It scared the shit out of Joseph, downstairs. He was working the graveyard shift at Rusty's and ran up to my one room apartment and banged on the door to make sure I wasn't being murdered or something. I was drenched in sweat. I felt both terrified and stupid. "Just a dream," I yelled to him, "Just a god damned dream. I'm fine!" What woman in her twenties is afraid of god damned dreams? He went back downstairs eventually when I refused to unlock the door.