Dreams and Nightmares Pt. 3

I am outside a large wooden building. It looks rustic, like a log cabin. The wood is stained dark brown, the building is large with a sloping roof. It is winter. The building is a hotel, it appears to be a mountain resort, though I don't see any snow.

I see a group of people walking in, they look happy. My love is there, but she is arm in arm with another man. He is short, with dark skin and curly dark hair. He looks youthful but not young. She doesn't see me. I walk in behind them.

His name is Colin.

My mom and dad are inside, they've broken up and are away on a weekend together against their will. I see my love and Colin walking up the wooden stairs together, presumably to their room. I call out to her, and she turns. Colin stops on the stairs and watches as my love greets me with a hug.

"Who is he?"

She is angered by my question. She tells me I am too untrusting, and that she needs to be able to spend time with her friends without me being jealous. We continue to fight. She leaves with Colin.

It is time for dinner. There is a common eating area. I sit with my friends and my parents. She sits with him, and after dinner they leave together. My parents decide over dinner to try the relationship again. They will spend the night together. I have nowhere to spend the night. Dinner ends, and I have won a door prize, a classic car waits for me outside. I grab a blanket and go outside to sleep in my prize. It is more a bunch of scrap metal with an engine than it is a car, but it will keep me warm.

I sleep.

When I wake, I find myself outdoors, sleeping on a mobile tray used in the kitchens. The hotel was real, but I dreamed that I received a car in a door prize. In reality I'm sleeping under a blanket on a used kitchen tray in the doorway of the hotel. The sound of patrons coming and going woke me. I am in my pajamas. I see my love and Colin come back from wherever they went. His hair now has bleached blonde tips.

I don't want to confront them in my current state, but I have no choice. She is not angry, she only seems tired. She will not give me a definite answer when I ask if she is choosing him over me, but she follows him back to his room after telling me we are over. I have no reason left to stay here.

I decide to leave.

My dad drove us here, but he tried to drive in the night and his truck was overturned on the icy roads. We have no car. We start to walk. The sky goes dark as clouds begin to gather overhead. They are moving in a way I've never seen, like something out of a movie. They churn and boil like a living thing, and they spread much too quickly. At first we are surprised, but not scared, then lightning strikes.

With it, come the monsters.

There is a large metallic creature with fists like hammers crushing cars and streetlights on the bridge ahead of us. People all around are slowly realizing what is happening, and they turn to run away screaming. Cars screech as they swerve around one another on the icy roads. There are large creatures all around, but they don't seem to be angry, not specifically targeting anyone. I feel insignificant, almost like an ant under the shoe of a playing child.

We find a motorbike and are able to start it without a key, but as we are about to leave an asian woman runs up and says that it belongs to her. We cannot steal it knowing we are condemning her to death, so we let her take it.

We are separated.

It's strange, I don't see anything being destroyed, but suddenly, all the buildings around me are partially destroyed or crumbling. Bodies fill the streets, and I see several people collapsed on the side of the road crying. Waiting for death.

The lady with the motorbike finds me and offers a ride, and we try to escape town. We are being chased now. The creatures do terrible things to the people who they don't immediately kill. I don't know what they do exactly, but there are people around us now who are choosing to take their own lives to prevent themselves being taken. We are in an alleyway, I ask the lady on the motorbike if we should just give up and kill ourselves rather than chance the hell that is capture. She mistakes this for a threat.

She abandons me.

I see a couple huddled in the alley just feet away from me. A young man and woman. They are sobbing, the man has a knife. There are explosions all around and sounds like voices, but not from this world. The woman looks into the man's eyes, and through the tears, he whispers.

"I'm sorry"

He slides the knife in between her ribs, hoping to hit a lung or her heart and save her the torture of our living hell. I am paralyzed as I watch. There is a noise and a bright light to my left. The young man and I both look to see the source of the light. I feel a strange feeling, hope, but mixed with awe and even terror. I don't know what I saw...because at that moment

I wake up.