Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35293419-20180413070100

I had a weird dream not too long ago, a nightmare of sorts. The main reason it wasn’t a nightmare to me was that I was fully aware it wasn’t real in the middle of it. I know what that means, there’s a term for it; lucid dreaming, right? But it wasn’t like that; it was like when you play a VR horror game and get spooked but know you’re physically fine, it was just your vision being fucked with. The even weirder thing was that I somehow knew this nightmare was part of a collection of games, all unrelated to each other yet all horror or thriller themed. I haven’t experienced a nightmare anything like this and haven’t since. I don’t think a game with this premise exists.

I was in a mall. A single floor, one building mall. Nothing like anything I’ve ever been to, but the closest thing I can imagine it being was Carlingwood in Ottawa, as that’s where I live. The night I had this dream was in the middle of winter, and shopping for clothes wasn’t anywhere on my mind in or out of the dream, but I slightly remember why I was in the mall. I was with my mom window shopping for anything I needed. Simple, right? Well, that’s when things started to go fuck up. As I walk into one of the clothes stores, I walk by a mirror near the entrance of it, and suddenly my entire vision goes black and white. I blink and rub my eyes, but nothing changes. Everything is the same around me; the items on the shelves, the clerk talking to my mom and the people around me. Everything is the same, just colourless. I look into the mirror I face to see if anything on me is different, and again, nothing. After waving and walking around a bit, I see that it’s not going away. A minute or so passes, and nothing happens until I walk around a rack of clearance clothes to the mirror on the other side of the store, and poof. Colour is back. After blinking heavily and checking my surroundings again, nothing changed but the colour. Same tones of black and purple throughout the store, same mom talking to the same cheekily dressed clerk. After breathing a quick sigh of relief, I quickly exit the store and half-shout for my mom to follow. I don’t mention this to her, because I know she’d either think I’m crazy, trying to crack a joke or need to go to an optometrist.

An hour or so passes and we continue to look around for whatever we want, but then my mom decides to enter another store; a female only clothes one. I mention to her how I want to go look for my own clothes and gesture to the more urban clothes store nearby. This store was huge, three times the size of any other store there, and I dive in. Jeans, shirts, shoes. Pass by a mirror and there goes the colour again.

Now I catch on, walking back to the mirror and putting my hand-picked clothes on a nearby rack, thinking, “I might be crazy, but it’s these mirrors.” I wave to it, and I wave back. Make a dumb face and I see it. I notice another mirror farther down the aisle and jog to it, and as I pass into it’s view, colour is just back in my vision.

I must’ve looked like an 8-year-old bored out of his mind, getting enjoyment out of running between these mirrors and losing or regaining colour on my own volition. I must’ve done it about 10 times before getting my colour back and buying my clothes. But as I took the bags out of the store, I noticed a kid sitting in front of one of the mirrors, kinda blocking the path of the aisle. He was staring into it, much like I did the first time this colour change happened. As he was transfixed, I left. Again, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. That was, until there was a large mirror built into the side of one of the new, soon-to-be-built stores. Walk by it, and there goes all the blues, reds and yellows. This was more of an annoyance to me, as I would now have to find a mirror just to get my colour back, but it wasn’t just the colour that had changed this time.

As I looked around to find a store, I immediately noticed a large issue.

Everyone was staring at me.

Now, I get that I am not the most commonly dressed person out there, but this was straight out of a horror movie. They didn’t have smiles, or any expressions at all, besides judgement. They all stared at me as if I just had yelled obscenities as loud as I could’ve, but I didn’t say a word. Not to mention, the lack of colour probably made it worse because I just wasn’t used to seeing people like this. As I continuously walked along the stores, things started to change. Stores that I knew were open minutes ago were closed; stores that I knew had mirrors in them. As I started to jog, faster and faster through these spectator crowds, I started to get paranoid, yelling to all of them any number of questions: from the simple “HEY” to the more elaborate “STOP LOOKING AT ME” or “WHY ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT ME”. As I reached the food court, everyone there had stopped eating minutes ago to look at me, but then I noticed a colour amidst all the black and white; my mom waving at me from a table. I run to her and just as I sit down, resting my head for a bit, I look up to see the world back to normal. No more infinite eyes staring into my soul. No more noir film lenses. Just regular everything.

I must’ve been truly out of it to imagine all that. Maybe that 10,000 words of essays and writing for class yesterday with little sleep did have an effect on me. My mom asks what’s wrong, and I say what I truly felt: “Nothing now…”. She shows me what she bought and so did I, and because this was my nightmare, not everything made complete sense. I don’t know why I didn’t talk to her about it. I don’t know why I just rolled with it and thought it was over.

As we walked back towards the closest entrance to where we parked the car, I pass by the same closed store with the same large mirror. Colour goes away. But everyone stays the same. As I look around, I notice the woman that was my mother is no longer just behind me, but all the other randos are. This time, I was truly creeped the fuck out, because none of them looked like people. All of them had their eyes crossed out, mouths cut open like gash wounds and clothes torn and tattered on their bodies. As I continued to walk, I noticed someone yelling, “Thief!” and the people near me all looked at me with their axed out eyes. It made me shiver and stop in my tracks before seeing the exit near me. Before I knew it, I started to run.

As I did, suddenly I felt pain as items were starting to be thrown at me. Cans, shoes, hats. But no matter what hit me, I could feel the items make cuts deep into my clothes and skin, leaving large bleeding gash wounds. It started to slow me down when flip-flops and sandals were being chucked at me and cutting my tendons around my feet, and I stumbled and fell before noticing how much damage these people where doing. Everyone around me was trying to stop me from leaving. By killing me with sandals. I remember reaching the doors and seeing the outside world.

It was black and white. All the cars were gone. And there was nobody there. I remember falling and seeing these people standing over me.

And I wake up.

It’s now 2:46 am on April 13, 2018. I don’t remember exactly when this dream happened, but it was within the last week. I recently remembered this nightmare because my mom just offered me to go spring clothes shopping at Bayshore. I’m passing on it this year, not only cause I’m good for clothes, but also because I am not taking any risks. 