Dreams and Nightmares Pt. 2

I am in a house. This house is not like other homes, it is more of an indoor playground. There are bright colors, there are no stairs, only ramps connecting the three floors. The overhead floors have catwalks but no floor proper. Everything but the third floor looks to be made out of large pieces of plastic with rounded edges, like a little tykes playground. The third floor is open to the outside air, covered in climbing ivy and looks to be poorly constructed out of old and rotting wood.

There is an old VW Bus on the third floor.

The house is not empty, there are kittens, and dogs wandering through the halls and up and down the ramps and over the catwalks. I reach the second floor and an older lady greets me with several photographs. One is a picture of me in the house, with two kittens (one black and one calico) and a golden retriever beside me.

I realize this is some sort of game.

A fetch quest, in which I have to find the animals in the picture and bring them to the lady on the second floor. I go back downstairs and find the dark cat, but not the others, and as I walk back up the ramp I lose my footing and fall to my death. Immediately before I die, the world goes black, and after a few seconds, I wake once more in the entryway of the house.

I've used up one life.

I climb the ramp again and talk to the lady on the second floor. This time I decide to explore the third floor. It is an aviary, that's why it is open to the outside air, so the birds can come and go as they please. There is an older man inside a makeshift shelter here. He is bald, unkempt, and vaguely threatening. He says nothing but looks at me disapprovingly. I start to leave the third floor, when I see movement out of the corner of my eye.

There are snakes in the aviary.

Hundreds of snakes, all around, coming out of the ivy, climbing through the roof, up through the floor. They surround me and they hiss and slither and I panic. I fall from the third floor. Once more I die and am reborn at the entrance.

I've used up a second life.

I climb the ramp once more, to the lady on the second floor. The golden retriever from the picture is here with her, I take him with me. His name if Roland. Back on the first floor I find the dark cat playing, and I bring her as well. I wonder if Roland would be able to protect me from the snakes, but I don't chance it. The calico cat is upstairs, we climb the ramp to find him. I hear the man on the third floor coming out of his shelter.

I begin to worry.

The third cat is across the room, we follow the catwalk where it clings to the wall, and we reach the third cat, I bring him as well. We go back to see the lady on the second floor, as I hear the VW Bus's engine start. I wonder how the bus got up there, and I hear the snakes start to hiss and slither. The lady on the second floor takes out an old polaroid camera, and I smile as Roland and the two cats crowd into the picture.

The camera flashes, and I am gone.

I guess I won.