The night before last night's dream...

Me and a group of people were in a field. There was a lot that happened before this point, but I can't remember any of it. Anyway, we ended up in this field and there were several picnic tables. I don't really remember why we were there or what we were doing...but, then other people started showing up.

I realized it was Corey's family and they were having a party of some kind. Corey wasn't there. Debbie, his mother, saw me and invited me over, offered me food and a place to sit with the family. As I sat and ate with them, I felt the overwhelming urge to cry...and eventually, I just couldn't hold it back anymore and started sobbing.

Debbie asked me what was wrong and hugged me. I told her how touched I was that even though Corey hates me, they still think of and treat me like family. I've always liked Debbie...she's always been so kind to me. She treated me like family, like I was another one of her children. And I've always kind of thought of her as the mother I never really had...they were like my second family. So, I was crying because of their kindness, because of the loss of that family...and because I still honestly can't get over the fact that Corey still hates me.

"I just miss you all so much," I managed to get out between sobs.

I remember looking behind me and there was suddenly a house there. Corey's house. I saw him in the window, looking out cautiously. I knew that he wouldn't come outside with his family, simply because I was there...

I woke up feeling pretty depressed...because, that's exactly how I feel every time I see her.

I was in my mother's kitchen when the phone rang. She picked it up. A death metal song started playing really loudly through the phone. She told me to write down the lyrics, for some reason. I started writing. It had a lot of humorous references to things. When the song ended, I grabbed the phone away from her and yelled into it. "Who the hell is this?!"

At first, I thought I was too late and the caller had already hung up. But then a boy answered. He called me Sarah and asked what I thought about the song and then asked to talk to one of my nurses. I told him I wasn't Sarah and that I had no idea what he was talking about. He had apparently dialed the wrong number in an attempt to reach his girlfriend who was in a hospital.

I offered to help him find the number to the hospital. I asked the name of the hospital and he gave me the address instead. I figured, "okay, maybe I can find it by the address", so I googled that. I got nothing. I asked him the name of the hospital again and he only clarified the address. I tried asking him again and this time he gave me the name of a city. I looked up hospitals by city and found that he was in Ohio.

I think I found the hospital and was going to give him the number, but... I was suddenly in my aunt Jeannine's bedroom and there was a big teddy bear sitting in front of her closet door. There was something not right about it being there.

Why is it that dreams always end at the most interesting parts?!

I ended up having to travel aaaaall the way to Massachusetts (where I live, lol) to find it. I ended up in some weird theme park of sorts, with my boyfriend, my sister, and a bunch of her friends. My boyfriend and I entered a little apothecary and took a glace around. It was filled with (supposedly) magical potions and whatnot. It was very...Harry Potter-esque. As soon as we entered, the man behind the counter, who was dressed as if his shop was in Diagon Alley, immediately stood up, before we said a word.

"Ah...I know just what you're looking for," said the middle-aged, balding man. "And I have just the thing."

"Okay..." I raised an eyebrow, skeptical. I watched as the man waddled over to a low shelf, pulled out a tall, cylindrical bottle, and handed it to me. The contents were pink and the bottle said "love" on the front of it.

"Um...this isn't what we're looking for," I said, handing the bottle back to him.

"No? Well, then, this surely must be it." He pulled out another bottle and passed it to me. "Fortune", it read.

"This isn't it, either. We're just looking for a..."

The man interrupted me. "No, no, I know exactly what you need!" He rushed to a large closet and began rummaging through it. It was extremely unorganized and boxes and knick-knacks were falling with every move he made. I was beginning to get irritable. It was clear that this man was a phony and had absolutely no idea what we were here for. And I'm sure his "potions" didn't even work.

"Do you know what you're looking for?" I asked, a sharp note of impatience in my voice. He didn't answer and simply resumed rummaging. "Do you even know what I'm looking for?"

Empy-handed, the man promptly stood and turned to face me. He wore an expression of exhasperation and annoyance. Suddenly, he no longer seemed to be exhibiting the image of the wistful, magical apothecary shop-keep. He looked like...just a man. A short, balding, very annoyed man. He gestured toward the door. "Out."

I eyed him with confusion.

"Look, I don't know what you want," he said with a new voice -- his evidently natural accent. He might have been from New York. "But, I don't have anything for you, alright?" he said, admitting his potions were fake. "Just make sure to leave quickly or else you'll drive the customers away."

With an unsurprised shrug (and a slight sense of victory, having proved the man a phony), I turned to the door to make my way out. The man resumed his position behind the counter and watched us.

"Wait," the man said, before I reached for the doorknob. I turned to see him shifting uncomfortably, hesitating to speak. His eyes seemed...almost frightened. His voice became very hushed as he continued. "If you want the real thing...there's a guy out there. A real wizard. He'll be able to help you. He disguises himself in a black robe and a hat. He wears a mask and carries a bell."

Slowly, I nodded, my brow furrowed in contemplation. A "real wizard"? Could it be true? I thanked the man and we headed out the door.

Scanning the area, I spotted the "real wizard" almost immediately. He was indeed wearing a heavy, black robe. And he wore a black hat...kind of like the one V from V for Vendetta wears. I couldn't really idenfity what his white mask looked like, because he kept his face pointed toward the ground. In one hand, he held out a cup and in the other, he rang a bell. He rang it once every couple minutes or so. Was he homeless? Not once did he lift his head as people walked by, dropping change into the cup.

Convinced that I had found my man, I confidently walked over to him. Evidently, my boyfriend had gone somewhere else.

"Hey there," I said with a smile. The man said nothing, his face still downward. I'm not sure how, but I convinced him to take a walk with me. We were heading away from the crowd, to a currently unpopulated section of the park. We walked over dead grass and past a couple seemingly broken-down, abandoned buildings. "So...what, exactly, are you?" I asked, getting straight to the point. I didn't want to beat around the bush. I needed that cure as quickly as possible.

The man turned to me and removed his mask. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but he was surprisingly normal-looking. He had a round face and dark eyes. He seemed to be in his mid-to-late 20s. He flashed me a toothy grin and replied. Unfortunetly, I can't remember what it was he said, but it sounded as if he was joking around with me. He said something that vaguely implied vampirism to me and I laughed. (Which is, of course, what he was expecting.) "Are you a vampire?" I asked with a hint of sarcastic humor.

He simply smiled and resumed walking. Suddenly, he halted with a gasp.

"What? What's wrong?" I asked, although he already seemed to have recomposed himself.

"Oh, it's nothing," he said, as if it hadn't happened. He paused. At first, I wasn't sure if he was going to finish his statement. But, then he continued. "For a moment there...I thought you smelled like an old friend of mine."

I smelled like his friend? Odd. But, again, he's trying to convince me he's a vampire. What a nice way to play into the role. I decided I'd play along, too.

"So, what happened to this friend? You eat her?" I said, with a laugh.

He chuckled in response. "No, I didn't. Perhaps I nibbled a few toes off, though." He feigned a serious expression and then laughed again. Although he seemed cheerful enough, there was a certain tone in his voice that said that there was something beneath the surface that he wasn't telling me.

"Well, I might be able to spare some toes, but the neck's off-limits. I need that," I said with an amused smile.

And suddenly...we were at the base of a tower. (It wasn't any vampire magic or anything...just that strange fast-forwarding that dreams like to do.) It was his tower...in the center of the theme park. (Kind of funny, lol.) We went inside to see Janel (my sister) and her group of friends. They were posing for a picture...so, I grabbed my camera. I positioned it in front of them...and the man joined the group, front and center. He had a strange, knowing smile. Curious, I snapped the picture, wondering if he would show up. But, of course he'd show up. This was just a theme park. His job was to be a vampire. Just a guy doing his job.

After the mini photo session, we (not including Janel and the group) continued up a spiral staircase and entered a small, circular room. There was nothing in it. Just stone walls with large, rectangular openings for windows. He removed his hat to reveal long, waist-length, pin-straight, black hair. He also removed his robe and I saw that he wore a white, Renaissance-type shirt. Kind of like this one:

http://www.pearsonsrenaissanceshoppe.com/images/cross_shirt.jpg

And I'm pretty sure he was wearing black pants with it, but I wasn't really paying attention.

He seemed to have a strange kind of glow about him that he didn’t have outside, when we first began speaking. He was much more pale than I had realized. I was stunned by how different he looked in here than he did out there. He was incredibly alluring -- his hair the color of midnight, hanging by his porcelain face. His dark, scrutinizing eyes were penetrating and he had a furtive, crooked smile, as if he knew he had me captivated…and found this very amusing.

Of course, dialogue is one of the most important aspects of this dream...and it's the one I can't remember. We were now standing face to face, only several inches apart. I remember feeling as if we were...forming some strange kind of bond between us through whatever it was we were saying. Our speech, I think, was full of implications and innuendos, but nothing straightforward. Our expressions and gestures had a lot to do with it, too. I remember being intrigued by his eyes and his smirk of a smile. There was a definite attachment forming.

Then, I heard a door open and shut from the base of the tower and heard footsteps coming up the staircase. I knew that it was my boyfriend, wondering where I was. I looked toward the doorway. When I turned back to the man, he no longer wore that sly grin. His expression had swiftly changed into one of yearning and pain. He knew I wasn’t going to stay. He knew I sincerely cared about my boyfriend and that I was going to leave with him. He seemed to ache at the idea of letting me go.

I looked once again at the doorway, trying to gauge how close my boyfriend was to us, then returned my gaze to the man. His eyes begged me to stay with him. I didn’t want to leave him like this – he truly seemed to be hurting. I wanted to say something to console him, but I was nervous that if my boyfriend witnessed any kind of affection for this man, he would get entirely the wrong impression and think I was betraying him. My eyes darted back and forth from the man to the door, caught between the decision to speak or to hold my tongue, in case I was heard. If I whispered something and my boyfriend caught it, it would make the scene just that much worse. I mean, look at it from his standpoint. There’s his girlfriend, alone in the highest room of a tower with a dark, mysterious (and undeniably attractive) man, standing exceedingly close, exchanging indistinct whispers with one another. How would you translate that?

I determined that I had only seconds until my boyfriend entered the room. Quickly, I whispered in a barely audible voice, “I’ll come back”, and turned away from the man to lean out the window, pretending that I had simply come up here to view the scenery. It’s not my fault this random guy was up here, looking at the scenery, too.

Just as expected, my boyfriend reached the doorway soon after. “There you are,” he said, and I turned to him, beaming. Regardless of the situation, I was always happy to see him. He cast an apprehensive glance toward the man as I walked toward him, pretending I hadn’t even noticed the man standing there. Again, I can’t really remember what, exactly, was said, but my boyfriend said something along the lines of, “I think we’d better get going” and headed down the staircase. I followed. As I descended the stairs, I half-twisted to look at the man once more, trying to express to him genuine apology and sadness that I had to leave him this way. He still wore the same hurt expression.

As my boyfriend and I reached the bottom of the stairs, I glanced around. “Where are the others?” I asked, referring to Janel and her friends. We soon found them lounging in the entrance, gathered them together, and headed outside and toward the car. I hung back in the group until I was lagging slightly behind to be sure that no one would notice me staring back at the tower as I walked. I saw the man in the window, his head on his arms on the windowsill. I could feel his sorrowful longing as he gazed back at me, watching me depart. The wind picked up and his hair was caught in the wind, billowing like a silky storm cloud. He looked too perfect.

In an instant, I found myself re-ascending the spiral staircase. Another dream warp. It was clear that some time had passed, because I could see the sky was pitch-black as I reached the top of the tower. There stood the man, against the back wall of the room…but, he looked different. Angry. Dangerous. Not the same man I had met…whenever it was that I’d met him. His eyes had changed. They were a deep, crimson red and they locked on me as soon as I entered the room. His teeth were gritted and his face was tense.

Faster than I could blink, he was in front of me. His breathing was strenuous and he seemed to be trying intensely to restrain himself. Again, the dialogue escapes me, but he had said something that made me realize with a shock that he really was a vampire. Instantaneously, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of dread. I backed away, my eyes wide, carefully surveying his every move. I tripped over a large, blue, plastic box and fell to the ground. I realized that the floor, at least the portion on which I was now sitting, was cluttered with objects. They all seemed to be toys.

I began throwing anything I could reach at him. He stood over me, his expression solemn, knowing that my defense was futile. He was going to wait until I ran out of my pointless ammo. Nevertheless, I continued throwing things at him. There was, however, a small comical part, heh. You know those weird Halloween toys/decorations that make that “spooky” ghost-ish noise? I picked up some strange object and when I did, it started making that noise. Briefly, I paused to stare at it, thinking “What the hell IS this thing”? After a minute or so, I decided it didn’t matter and threw it at him. Like everything else, it bounced off of him as if I hadn’t thrown anything at all.

I pushed myself backward until my back hit the stone wall and I stared up at him, terrified and powerless. I felt overwhelmingly vulnerable. It was then that he lunged forward, inches from my face. He stared into my eyes…and my first instinct was to reach up and shove him away. But, for some reason, instead of pushing him away, I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt (which I noticed was now red) and dragged him closer. No, it wasn't the smartest of moves, but it seemed to happen involuntarily. A subconscious reaction. I'm sure it was because although I was honestly petrified...I was also impossibly attracted to him. But, hey, that's what vampires do, right? Can you blame me? Him = Venus fly trap. Me = Fruit fly.

He wrenched backward with such a suddenness that I flinched, afraid he was going to harm me. “NO!” he nearly screamed. “No!” He rapidly crouched in front of me again, his glaring eyes flashing with fury, even closer to my face now than he was before. I was forced to back my head away until it was against the wall behind me. “Do not touch me,” he spat through clenched teeth. “Do not speak. Don’t. Even. BREATHE.”

Regardless, I could feel my pulse quickening. There seemed to be a part of him that didn’t agree with what was happening (the part that warned me not to do anything to further tempt him), but it was too deeply buried by the evident bloodlust controlling his actions. I knew I was in profound danger…and I also knew there was nothing I could do about it. This very well might be my last waking hour. I felt frail and helpless, trying to come to terms with death. It’ll hurt, I thought. In fact, it’ll probably be unbearably painful. But, it can only last so long. I just need to grit my teeth and deal with it. It’ll be over soon. But, it didn’t dull my horror or the blinding reality of what was about to happen.

Nearly hyperventilating, I clenched my eyes shut as he leaned in closer, deeply inhaling as his face moved along my cheek and nestled carefully into my neck. He paused there, savoring the aroma, then softly traced his lips across my jawline and back up to my face where they met my own…

Go, go Power Rangeeeeers! Daaa-naaa-naaa-naaa-naaa! Go, go Power Rangeeeeers!

Anyway, I really want to flesh out this character and put him in a story. The emotions in this dream were so incredibly powerful…it seems just the thing to persuade me to start writing again. But, I feel like I didn't really put enough detail to really describe him the way he was presented. I'll have to work on it. x.X;

And as I was pondering this dream today, I realized something. I think the vampire is based loosely on the Graverobber in Repo: The Genetic Opera. Well, not so much the Graverobber himself...but, his voice. o.O Before bed last night, I was listening to this song on repeat for hours:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSNAWiQqkcE

Stop what you're doing right now, turn your sound on, and listen to it. Seriously.

Admit it...you can't resist his voice, lol. And as I listened, I think I subconsciously envisioned who should have belonged to that voice. Which was my vampire.  So, yes, he pretty much had the Graverobber's voice in my dream.

And hey, if you haven't seen Repo and don't know what the Graverobber looks like...listen to that song and tell me how you imagine him. It would be interestiiiing.

And, uh...yeah.

The end.