Ever since I could remember, I had been fascinated with the idea of being able to control my dreams while I sleep at night and do whatever I wanted. I always thought that it would be so cool to fly around the sky of a city, or meet any celebrity with a single thought, I could think up an adventure beyond my wildest imagination and take part of it and have a blast. One thing I would’ve never thought of, or even think to be possible though, was the thought that my dreams would have been the thing to control me and my life instead.

“Beeeeeeeep! Beeeeeep! Click.” It’s been getting harder and harder to wake up in the morning these past couple weeks. I’ve been staying up most nights well into the AM trying to think of ideas to write or draw about. My only problem is that I lack the creativity to do so, I used to be full of ideas but as of recently, that doesn’t seem to be true and it troubles me. Now isn’t a time to be pondering about how everything has gone downward since graduation though, my childhood friends have come to visit for a few months and I’m excited to see them again. I haven’t seen them in a solid couple years, I’ve only kept in touch with them over messages and  a few calls so it should be fun. I get up and out of bed to take a shower like always, I brush my teeth and all that other stuff, get dressed with whatever feels comfortable to wear, check around my house to make sure everything looks fine, and then grab my keys and leave in my car through my garage. I live in a pretty decent sized town called Remchester, I’ve lived here since I could remember, I could navigate this city blind if I had to and I wouldn’t have any trouble doing so. I’ve known my friends since grade school and we’d be there for each other no matter what the problem is. We decided to meet at the local pancake house that is only a couple blocks away from the neighborhood near an arcade and a grocery store in the center of town.

When I got to the pancake house I felt a sense of joy, I hadn’t gone to the pancake house in a while, and now I also get to see my friends as well. I look around noticing that it looks cleaner and more modern than it did compared to the last time I went there, which makes sense since I haven’t been there for at least 6 years and it was due for a makeover. I walk up to the woman standing at the front table and reserve a table for three, telling her that the other two should be here any second now. “Sean? Sean is that you?” A familiar voice pierces into my mind and I turn around to see my friend Marcus, “Man, and I thought I was late, glad you could make it 10 years late.” I say.

 “Yeah yeah, good to see you too, I got lost on the way here, so I was just cruising around town for 20 minutes straight.”

“Have you seen Tony anywhere around here?”

“I haven’t but he did say something about beating the local arcade’s Pac-Man high score” he explained.

“Of course he would be there, should we call him?”

“We probably should, knowing him, he’s going to be there until either he dies of starvation or the building gets torn down.”

I take my phone out of my pocket and call Tony, he’s usually late to things anyways so it wasn’t too much of a bother by now. He takes a minute to answer but he eventually picks up, “Hey Tony?”

“Yeah what’s up?”

“Where are you dude? Me and Marcus have been here at the pancake house waiting for you now.”

“I’m uhhhh, I’m at the pancake house too.”

“What do you mean you’re at the pancake house? Me and Marcus have been here for a couple minutes now and we haven’t seen you yet.”

“Oh that’s weird, I see you guys just fine.”
“Where are you the-”

In running through the doors, Tony appears and out of breath, he stops in front of us and hangs up on the call. “See… I told you… I was here at the pancake house.”

“Catch your breath before you start speaking again.” I tell him.

“Wonderful idea… I should’ve thought of that. Anyways… I think I’m good now, as I was sayin-”

“You were at the arcade weren’t you?”, Marcus says cutting off Tony.

“-I was at the arcade, yes, and I was about to get to level 200 on Pac-Man before you called me, which is a bummer.”

“Geez, how long have you been there, and did you at least get the high score?”

“I’ve had quite some time to play around, I got here around sunrise, and I knew it’d take a while until you guys got here since you Sean, aren’t necessarily an early bird. So congrats on waking up earlier than usual. Oh and yeah, I wayyyyyy passed that high score.”

“Niceee, I got us a table here so let’s go sit down.”

As we sit down the waiter gives us our menus and we pick the foods we want to eat, a big variety at that, pancakes, pancakes, or if you’re feeling daring, pancakes with stuff on them. We pick what we want to eat and the waiter goes to give that list to the cooks. We sit in silence for a couple minutes, thinking about what to talk about now, of course we’ve talked over messages, but it’s been a while since we’ve talked in person so we haven’t really asked each other how life has been lately. With the weight of the silence bearing down on us, I decide to be the first to lift it up and ask Marcus, “So Marcus, how’s it been being a mechanic? Work on any fun cars recently?” Marcus has been big about cars since he was a child, his father would work on these old hot rod looking cars and Marcus would help him, I guess it just sort of runs in the family now.

“This older fellow came in with an old beaten up Camaro from 1969, it’s got those cool racing stripes on the front of it and all that. I was able to get it looking like it came straight out of the factory, it was a really nice car. What about you, have you got any good ideas to write about, written any interesting stories yet?”

“Unfortunately not, I haven't been feeling very creative for at least half a year.”

“Wha- half a year?!” says Tony baffled. “That seems too long for you not to get a single idea. Have you tried looking online or something to get inspiration or anything?”

“Of course I have, what do you think I’d do? Just sit in a room all day staring at the ceiling just alone with my thoughts?”

“Yeah I do, and I say that because you have.”

“I mean who hasn’t? I’ve just had a huge writer's block and that’s it, time will pass and the ideas will come draining into my brain sooner or later. What about you Tony, have you gotten a job or any hobby you’ve wanted to do?”

As we change the subject, the waiter brings us our pancakes and pancakes with stuff on them and we start to eat.

“Ehhhh, I haven’t really been up to too much.” Tony says while stuffing his face. “I’ve got a temporary job at a store as a cashier so far.”

“That’s progress at least.”

“Yup, I’ve thought about cooking but I’m not sure how well that’d pay me, because I can’t get the ingredients to cook if I don’t have the money. If that doesn’t work out then maybe I can stream games online or something, I’m good at games and I’ve heard that streaming can make quite a bit of money if it’s done well.”

“Yeah, I mean, you could stream cooking, that might be interesting to some people watching.”

“I guess it could be.”

We finish up our food and then head out, there isn’t too much to say about the rest of the day. We have a tall brown-haired mechanic, with a scruffy face and black oil stains on his clothes no matter how careful he is, mainly on his red jacket that he wears around everywhere half way zipped up. Mainly a laid back person, but a good friend who’d be there for whenever his friends needed him. A blonde, shorter than the others but still pretty average height, who’s always debating whether he should take on cooking as a career or streaming, and to be honest, I’d say both, he’s a people person, a natural entertainer so I think he’d do well when it came to combining both as a career. Lastly, me, a black haired aspiring writer with glasses that makes it seem like he should have every idea coursing through his veins, but in reality, he doesn’t have a single thought being produced by his brain, a drought of creativity, the ironic thing is that once I get an idea, I just keep rolling on with it without trouble, it’s just yet to happen.

We walk around town and talk, reminiscing about the younger years in town and how everything has changed so much. As we are on the way to my house, the sun starts to sink into the horizon, leaving a warm blanket of orange covering the sky, eventually being replaced by a purplish tint that slowly fades into the blackness that exposes the universe all around us, so many bright stars in the sky, and a half moon behind a thick layer of clouds. We pull into the driveway and head into the house for the night, Marcus and Tony carrying their bags and suitcases along with them.

“Wait I call dibs on the couch!” yells out Marcus.

“Hold on wait no, but you know sleeping on the ground hurts my back though.” Tony says moaning, hoping to get the couch.

Marcus pulls out a sleeping bag from his luggage and tosses it at the feet of Tony grinning. “Tough luck, huh Tony?”

Tony left in shock can only make out the words, “Hu- yo- you little…”

I chuckle and stretch, “I’m gonna go wash up and then go to bed, feel free to take a shower after.” I yawn and we say our goodnights. 

It’s been a pretty long time since I’ve seen them, it’s a nice break of stressing out about what to write about or what to even do. This day was a little tiring so after taking a shower I decided to let myself sleep early, I got into bed, closed my eyes and sank into my mattress falling asleep almost instantly.

——————————————————————————————

“Wake up. Wake up. Hey, wake up.” a strange yet familiar voice says while tapping my face. I open my eyes and sit up only to see my own face staring back at me smiling before vanishing in an instant. Was I going crazy? It all felt like a dream, but now isn’t a time to just sit around wondering what just happened. I get out of bed to notice a purple tint in the light, almost like the one from the sunset yesterday, glowing throughout the room and even all of the outside world. I walk into the hallway to the living room and… I wake up.——————————————————————————————

It… it was all a dream but it felt so real, I don’t remember much about it though. I get up quickly to see if the others are fine. While going into the living room I see the couch is gone, so I go to wake up Tony.

“Tony, wake up dude.”

Tony sluggishly says, “Give me 5 more minutes, 10 minutes tops.” while yawning and not even opening his eyes.

“You got to wake up now, have you seen the couch?”

“Wait, wasn’t Marcus sleeping on it though?”

“He was but I don’t see him or the couch, if I did I wouldn’t be waking you up now.”

“Fine, fine.” Tony yawns again, “I’ll help you find him and the couch.” Tony opens his eyes and to his surprise, sees an upside down couch on the ceiling with an upside down Marcus sleeping peacefully on it, well peacefully until Tony yells scaring Marcus, waking him up and making him yell falling straight onto his face the moment he wakes up. As Tony and I look up to the ceiling, we notice that there's way more furniture upside down up there. 

“You didn’t always have furniture for your ceiling fan did you? I mean I’m not judging, it’s very kind of you, I just don’t think that it’ll be used by the fan very much.” Tony jokingly says.

“What do you think? I have no idea how that got up there.” I said shocked.

Marcus chimes in, “Or how I managed to get up there?!”

Just as I was about to try getting the couch down, we heard a loud explosion coming from outside. All of us startled, start to make our way slowly to the curtains near the front door, we see a blown up truck, and behind the flaming truck, a group of armed people with what looks like masks on their faces.

“Sean, what the heck happened over night?” Marcus asks me.

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Well you’re the one who decided to stay living here, if any one would have an idea, I would’ve assumed it would be you.”

“I’m sorry but I’m at a loss when it comes to what we’re seeing right now.”

Just as we’re talking, we see a masked member look in our direction and we quickly close the curtains. We’re all shocked and we don’t know what to do. We tried to call the authorities but none of us were getting service.

“Do you think they saw us?” I ask nervously.

“Who cares if they did or not, we have to get out of here. Let’s leave through the back door.” Tony replies.

We slowly make our way to the back door and open it to my backyard, just in time to hear the front door get kicked in. When we start to run out through the back, a purple glow engulfs the atmosphere, and a familiar purple tint replaces all the lights, just like the sunset the day before. “Hey wait has it always been this.. purple?” Marcus asks.

“I’m not even surprised anymore, this day has been weird enough and it's only been like an hour.” Tony answers.

Without saying any other words we run down a couple blocks into town to reach the pancake house, but notice that the town is relatively empty. 

With a growl of the stomach, Tony declares, “We need to get something to eat, I’m starving. I don’t care what you’re going to say about the lack of people here, it’s a literal warzone, you saw in front of the house, all those masked lunatics. I’m going to get something to eat from the pancake house.” Without any argument, Marcus and I decide to follow Tony, knowing that we’re hungry as well.

When we got into the building we started to scavenge the kitchen, finding leftover pancake mix, fruits, cheese, eggs, and a small variety of breakfast meat. Instantly Tony started getting to work, he turned on the stove and collected all of the ingredients, instructing us to keep watch while he was doing his thing. Surprisingly, it was fairly quiet, there wasn’t much noise, only some in the distance but not close enough for concern. Marcus found an old battleship board game, the box was faded and the only letters you could make out were, “A, T, L, E, S, I, P”, with the people drawn on the cover being mostly misshapen. We decided that it’d be fun to play that while waiting since there wasn’t much else we could do with the service being down, we arrange our ships and begin. I managed to sink one of his ships that was placed in a corner of the board, the moment Marcus declared that one of his ships sunk, we heard an explosion go off in the distance. We decided to shrug it off thinking it was a coincidence and kept playing. Marcus was able to get one of my ships that was closer to the center of the board. I tell him that he sunk one of my ships, but it was very closely followed by another explosion, this time closer, shaking the pancake house a tiny bit. Marcus and I look out the front to see a smoke cloud rising up from a block or two away.

“Hey dude, I think it’s time to put the game away.” I suggest, feeling uneasy.

“Yeah I agree, coincidence or not, I wouldn’t risk it. I placed a couple of my ships in the center so if it kept going it could’ve ended badly.”

After putting the board game away we made our way into the kitchen to find Tony almost done with his cooking, Marcus decided to make some conversation so Tony wouldn’t feel too bored being all alone while I went to help Tony with the cooking to speed things up.

“So Tony, what are you making for breakfast today?” Marcus asked.

“I’m making some bacon, sausage, and cheese omelettes with some small pancakes topped with syrup and strawberries.”

“Why some small pancakes?”

“There wasn’t much pancake batter to start off with so I’m just adapting, I would’ve been done with it a lot sooner too if one of you dorks didn’t decide to take some pancakes.”

“Wait, but we couldn’t have taken any of the pancakes, we were busy playing battleship.”

“What were you playing battleship for?” Tony says looking up at Marcus,” You were supposed to keep watch for anything dangerous.”

“We were but nothing popped up, but that’s not my point, my point is that Sean and I couldn’t have taken any of the pancakes.”

“So are you saying that someone else took them? Oh I need to pay attention to my food, it's going to burn.”

“I mean, sure we haven’t seen many people other than that armed group but it’s not totally impossible either.”

“Ok, let’s talk about it later, I’m finished cooking so let’s go eat, I’m really hungry.”

The three of us go to sit down and eat breakfast, as we dig into the meal we hear loud noises go off in the distance, keeping us on our toes. We feel the ground shaking at a rhythmic pace for a second but after hearing the explosions go off, it isn’t surprising that it would be.

“Tony this is really good, where did you learn to cook like this?” I ask while finishing up my omelette.

“Well I did talk about wanting to be a cook before, so it’s not too surprising that I’d be good at it.”

“Yeah you have a point there, how about we go over to the grocery store across the street to get some food before trying to get a car and booking it out of here?”

“Sounds good, do you have your car keys on you?”

I check my pockets to feel nothing, all I can say is, “No, I must’ve forgotten them at the house.”
Marcus butts in saying, “Even if he did have his car keys why would we want to go back to his house? You saw those masked people there, they were crazy, they already kicked into the house so who’s there to say they haven’t already stolen what they could find?”

“Fine, we can go by foot or take another try taking a different car if possible then.”

After we’ve finished up our plates, we head to the front doors to leave, but before being able to do so, we see a giant explosion go off followed by the power shutting down leaving us in darkness. Luckily it’s day for right now, but if we stay here any longer we’d be doomed. We walk across the street to the dark entrance of the grocery store and Marcus turns on his flashlight on his phone, followed by me, and then Tony. Deciding that this would be the only time we’d be able to gather resources before leaving, we go into the building with a rough idea on what we want to get. We grab paper bags from the cashier area and start to look around and grab whatever we can. We navigate the grocery store that looks like it’s been abandoned for years yet being open and running only yesterday. With our bags full of supplies, we decided to take one last look around to see if we’d be leaving behind anything of importance. We head into the back rooms and I lead the way, opening the door I walk through first and hear a loud thud echoing in my skull and feel an immense amount of pain in my head before falling onto the ground and losing consciousness.

——————————————————————————————“Oh Sean, you have to be more careful than that when trying to survive.” I open my eyes annoyed to see my own face smirking back at me before disappearing again. A woman walks over to me and offers her hand, I grab onto it to get up before being let go and falling back down, but instead of hitting the ground, I hit nothing for a good 10 seconds until I fall hard onto asphalt. I get up slowly to see the masked group looking at me with their guns pointed at me. Panicking, I quickly start thinking of what to do, before I see a large object pass by swiftly in a blur leaving the armed group and their vehicles absent. Then I hear loud stomping rapidly coming from behind me, but before I’m able to turn around I start to fall again causing me to jerk awake.——————————————————————————————

“Woah are you ok there?” I hear a stranger’s voice, a lady. I turn my head to see a woman with brown hair in the dim light of a lantern illuminating the darkness of the grocery store.

“Is he finally awake?” I hear my friend Marcus yell from outside the room.

“Yeah, he’s awake now.” the woman responds. She then turns to look directly at me and tells me. “Nice to meet you, my name’s Claire. I was the one who sort of knocked you out with a baseball bat earlier.”

“And sort of the one who broke my glasses.” I mutter under my breath before greeting her by saying, “Sean.” I rub my head and groan, “What was that whole thing about?”

“Yeah sorry, when you guys came into the store I thought you were some of those masked freaks coming to look for me or blow the place up. When I saw it was just 3 unarmed guys I was somewhat relieved but I had to make sure your head was fine since you were out cold.”

“How long have I been unconscious for?”

“I’d say about 5 hours now. We’ve had some close encounters with that masked group in that time but they haven't come into the shop yet fortunately.”

As I start to get up, I take the ice pack that was under my head on where I had been struck. It wasn’t too long before me and the others felt that same rhythmic pace of the ground shaking like it did when me, Tony, and Marcus were eating breakfast. Shortly after feeling the ground shake we heard gunshots so me and Claire decided to go out from the back room to see what was happening. We meet up with Tony and Marcus to see that giant hoof prints had been breaking the street. 

“What’s going on out there?” I ask in shock.

“We honestly have no idea, we’ve just seen these huge prints appear out of nowhere, and the group has seemed to be shooting at whatever is leaving them.” Tony says confused.

“Let’s just get out of town now, let’s never come back here.” Marcus suggests.

Claire quickly neglects that idea, “We can't, it's impossible, I’ve tried but all throughout the edges of the town there are those armed people with masks on.”

“What if we can sneak past them by causing a distraction elsewhere?” I propose.

“That could work but we’d need a massive distraction for that to work.” Claire says.

“I’ll start thinking of a plan.” I reply.

Seconds pass by, which turn into minutes, and those minutes turn into an hour or so until I hear Tony call out to us. “Hey guys… I’m not… going crazy right? Tell me you can see this thing over here.”

Marcus and I go to Tony posted by the front window, followed by Claire, and to our surprise, we see a giant brown bull with red roaming past a couple blocks away. About as tall as the buildings around, a car and a half long, and around three quarters the width of the street.

“You… You haven’t always had abnormally large bulls around here right?”, Marcus asks in bewilderment.

“Unless a freakshow came to town, which would make sense of what’s happened, then no, no we haven’t” Claire says with wide eyes. 

I take the easy option and I tell them, “Well, there’s the plan.”

“What’s the plan?” Tony asks.

I point to the giant bull and say, “That, it’s huge and I’m sure it can make an even huger distraction, one that’ll give us enough time to escape town.”

“Oh great, let’s just take the giant crazed bull, it’s way faster dying getting squashed by a bull then getting riddled with bullets and bleeding out.” Tony remarks. “Imagining a scenario where we live, how do you suppose we even get the bull in the first place?”

I look at Marcus and state, “Well first we need a car.”

Claire perks her head up and mentions that there is an auto repair shop a couple blocks down with an old car that could be worth trying to take. We look outside and see a platoon of the  masked group in the middle of the intersection in front of the grocery store. The smaller group seemed to be functioning as an outpost looking for outsiders. Since the auto repair shop is west of the front of the store, we decided to take a side exit that employees would use. Getting ready to head out, Marcus, Tony and I take the supplies we gathered while Claire takes her brown backpack that has a large amount of pockets on it. The streets being full of cars offered good hiding places, but it was still close enough to the outpost where we could be easily spotted if we weren't careful. We leave the store and hide behind cars going one by one making sure we are careful. I look at the outpost to make sure I can go, but then my head starts to ache looking at the familiar scene. Claire passes by and tells us that she’s going to look for any other outposts ahead. I start to remember more of my dream from within the grocery store and realize that the lady who offered me her hand before letting me fall again was Claire. Having a bad feeling about it, I tell Tony and Marcus, “Wait stop her, I had a dream that reminded me of what’s happening right now, and she gave me away to the masked group. She’s going to betray us.”

Tony quickly exhales through his nose as if entertained and ensures me, “Look, I know she wacked you hard in the head with a bat and all, but she’s not like those armed freaks, so everything should be all right.”

Just as Tony tells me that, I see Claire on the other side of the street reach into her backpack pulling out an empty glass bottle, she then promptly throws the bottle a foot away from us and alerts the group and runs away. We hear guns click and hear as footsteps start inching closer to our position.

“Oh craaaaap.” Tony says.

“Great timing.” Marcus whispers.

“Sh- shut up.” Tony whispers back. “You guys go, I’ll try to talk with them and buy some time.”

Lacking time Marcus and I make our way swiftly to the end of the street without being seen. As the masked individuals start to get closer and closer to Tony, he raises his arms to show he won’t attack. Tony then stands up after not hearing anything gunshots being fired and tries to talk to the group.

Tony greets the group saying, “Hi, hello, hola, bonjour, konnichiwa, guten tag, you guys speak english right?”

The group looks at each other confused, before speaking to each other in a language that would seem unrecognizable if you didn’t speak it.

“What is that? There’s like seven thousand something other languages out there, and of course you choose to pick one from outside the 2 I barely know.”

A man laughing comes out from behind the other members, he has the most distinct looking mask as if to notify that he was the leader among the group, he replies in english. We take this as our cue to leave so Marcus and I start heading into the direction of the auto repair shop. 

“How did you know that Claire was going to betray us?” Marcus asks curiously.

I respond, “I.. Listen, I may sound crazy, but I had a dream about it like I said back there, it’s like every time I have a dream, whatever happens in it happens in real life. Like back in the house, I had a dream where I woke up there and everything had a purple tint like how it is now.”

“I guess that's an explanation to the lighting situation, I thought it was weird, but man, you need to have better dreams geez.”

After talking about my weird phenomenon, we finally reach the repair shop and find an older looking car in it painted sky blue.

“Oh cool, a 1970 Volkswagen Beetle, it doesn’t look like the key is in the car, but I should be able to hot wire with enough time.”

I start to look around the place while keeping my eye open for anybody coming, I think about Tony being stuck there with the masked group and I hope that he’s fine still.

“Do you think Tony is going to be alright all alone?” Marcus asks from inside the car.

“I really hope so, Tony is a people person so I think that he should be able to handle himself well.” I answer.

It isn’t long before we hear gunshots again followed by the rhythmic pace of the ground shaking again. I rush outside to see the bull rampaging in another part of town far enough away to be safe but still too close for comfort. As I turned to head back into the shop, it only took a split second to see a cylinder of wood knock me out again.

——————————————————————————————

“Geez I have to stop getting knocked out.” I think to myself before realizing that I’m in a bed. I hear banging on the door and I close my eyes to think about something to save me, but before I’m able to, one of those masked soldiers kicks the door in and enters with a gas mask on, pointing a gun at me. The soldier unmasks themself leaving only a dark shadow where the face should be, but the shadow feels oddly familiar, really familiar, I let out a smile before being shot and then disappearing. Leaving a scene of the soldier dropping the gun standing over the bed before I wake up again.

——————————————————————————————

I jerk upwards in the back of the running car to be greeted by Marcus sitting in the front of it.

“What just happened?” I ask while groaning about my head again.

“You got knocked out again by that annoying woman again, luckily I was able to go out after you when hearing the gunshots.” Marcus explains. ”I saw her standing over your unconscious body with the bat and I disarmed her before she could do anything worse. A group of those soldiers patrolling heard the fighting so I just threw the bat at her, grabbed you, and ran towards the shop. I saw a glimpse of the outside and they were taking her away.”

“Well that’s a relief to hear, since the car seems to be working we can get onto the next part of the plan.”

Marcus, ignoring what I said asks, “Did you have another dream?”

“I did, and in it I was shot by one of those masked lunatics.”

“Jesus, we’ll escape before that happens, don’t worry, let’s move forwards with your plan now.”

We drive out of the shop and start to head in the direction of the bull. Luckily the masked soldiers evacuated from the area of the bull so we didn’t encounter any of them. When we get to the bull, I tell Marcus to turn the car around and give me his jacket.

“Wait, what? My jacket?” Marcus repeats confused.

“Yeah, just trust me, once we get the attention of the bull, be ready to book it towards the outpost in front of the grocery store.”

I take Marcus’s red oil stained jacket and start waving it outside the window of the car, the bull quickly notices and starts to charge at the car not too long before Marcus steps on the gas. We quickly navigate the turns of the town until we see the grocery store in the distance, we also see Claire being guided to the outpost before she looks at Tony and then the leader. She must have told the leader something because within a matter of seconds, the leader and his soldiers point their guns at Tony. Speeding towards the outpost, we feel the rhythmic pace of the ground shaking behind us. The armed group sees us and starts shooting at us, but right before we make impact I yell to turn and Marcus turns the car around the corner of the building to our right, dodging the outpost, Tony, other cars and the bull. The bull rushes past the turn taking out Claire and the outpost with their vehicles.

Tony gets in and gives a sigh of relief, but that relief doesn’t last long as the bull goes crashing into a row of buildings including the pancake house trying to turn to get to the car.

“Nooo! The arcade!” Tony shouts as he sees the bull turn the whole building into dust.

“Really? We’ve avoided death and all you can think about is the arcade?!” Marcus responds astounded.

“Well… I got a high score and… it’s… No yeah you’re right.”

“Ok well now we just have to head towards the edge of the town and do the same thing. Then we should be able to slip through and escape town.” I announce to Tony and Marcus.

We speed towards the edge of town to a road that is guarded by a full wall of vehicles and soldiers. Red jacket waving in the wind outside of the car, the bull gets closer and closer as Tony keeps an eye on it. We start to get near the exit the soldiers are guarding, but none of them are shooting at us, actually none of them are even acknowledging that a giant bull is heading in their direction. We find that strange but keep going, when we get close enough we make a sharp turn and the bull’s momentum carries it towards the masked soldiers. Right before the bull collides into the vehicles and soldier though it disappears, as if it went through a portal. Only leaving the clear air in front of the soldiers just rippeling as if a stone had been tossed into water. We hear a crash on the other side of town and see the horns of the bull peaking above the buildings.

“We’re trapped in here, even if we were able to get past all that Doctor Strange portal crap the soldiers would still be there to get us.” Tony says in an unhopeful tone.

Marcus chimes in with one last idea, “Wait wait wait! Sean, you said something about how your dreams were connected to real life right?”

Understanding what he was getting at I answered him saying, “If we can get somewhere safe, I can try to control my dreams so maybe everything can go back to normal.”

“It’s worth a try, our last resort.” Marcus responds.

We decide that we should try going back to my house so I can sleep in my bed. On our way home, among the three of us exhausted, I start to drift off to sleep, but I don’t remember them. I try to keep myself awake, but everytime I open my eyes something changes. The terrain twists and turns, it changes from night to day, from red sky to purple, more creatures start tearing the town apart, like a pack of wolves that chased after the bull causing it to rampage and destroy even more of the town. Buildings and streets start to tear from the ground and float causing the soldiers to fall to their doom while they are chasing after the car.

It doesn’t feel too long before we reach my house. We get out of the car and run inside, locking the doors and barricading them along with the windows for safe measure. The house seems to be wrecked on the inside and everything had been searched and snatched. I head into my bedroom and the others keep a guard out while in my room. I lay my body onto the bed and sink into the mattress, falling asleep almost instantaneously.

I start to dream, and I use all my power to think about what I want to happen, and for once it actually works. With all this power it seems unfair to fix everything right? I start to dream of things that would ruin the world, governments falling, wars unleashing, all while hearing subconsciously Tony and Marcus yelling at me to fix things. I don’t get long before I am suddenly woken up by a loud banging on the door, Marcus goes to hold it closed but before he can a soldier with a gas mask kicks the door down and tells them to get back in english. I try to get up feeling dizzy but the soldier points their gun at me making sure I stay down. The soldier walks up right to me laying on my bed and stares at me for a couple seconds before taking off his mask. All I see is a dark shadow where his face should be but Marcus and Tony seem really confused. After I regain my vision fully, I blink and then see my own face looking back at me aiming the gun. I now know why it seemed so familiar in my dream before, I give myself a sinister smile before being shot.

                      _______________________

“What is happening right now?!” I hear Tony yell confused. 

Feeling free finally, I drop the gun and say, “Long time no see guys, where’ve you been?”

“S-Sean?” Marcus asks with a brittle voice.

I turn around to see the shocked faces of Tony and Marcus before saying, “Man, I thought I was late, I’m glad I could get to you guys in time.”

“If you’re Sean then who… who is, or what is that thing?” Tony comments.

“I don’t have a single idea in the slightest, but I know for sure that it wasn’t me.”

I look at Marcus and Tony and they look as if they are trying to process what just happened, and I don’t blame them, I’m still trying to figure out what happened myself. It had only been one day but so much happened. Suddenly, Marcus gets an alert on his phone about everything happening in the world, the world is falling apart and going to war. I looked over to the bed to see that the body of whatever was imitating me was missing. In a panic I went over to the bed and laid down, it was a little hard to fall asleep but I was tired enough to where it didn’t take long. I wake up in my dream fully aware I was dreaming, finally being in full control over my dreams, thinking hard I try to fix the damages and return everything to normal, no wars, no masked soldiers, nothing different.

I wake up in my normal clothes and the lighting is normal now, not a purple tint, or red sky, or floating buildings, crazy giant bulls, none of that. I see Tony and Marcus standing next to the bed smiling, everything had gone back to normal.

“How did you know how to get to us or where we were?” Marcus asked me.

“I woke up and heard noises outside, so I went to investigate and I saw these masked people outside, I was able to take one down and steal their outfit to blend in. I was looking to go back to my house but I knew something was wrong when I thought I saw both of you guys with what looked like myself. I tried to get in but the door was locked, so by the time I was able to get in you guys already left.” I explained to them.

“How did you know to come to the house then?” Tony questioned.

“I think I was having shared dreams with that thing. I thought I was just having weird visions but I started to realize that in every single one of those visions it had that doppelganger of me on the other side. The last dream I shared with it where I shot it, I realized that it was laying on my bed in this room so I came here for a last resort.” I reveal to Tony and Marcus.

We go outside and feel relieved when we see everything back to normal. We walk around to make sure everything had been fully repaired and back to how it was before. Where the soldiers once were, was replaced with the citizens of this town who were missing, and all of the destroyed buildings had been fixed along with the pancake house and Tony’s beloved arcade.

                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s been a while since all of that happened though, and fortunately it hasn’t happened since. Tony, Marcus, and I decided to move away from town and we headed to Marcus’s to live as roommates. It's easier since Tony is starting up his careers in streaming and cooking, and I’m finally chocked full of ideas. I used to not have any idea of what to write about but now I can just look towards my dreams and my experience to help me with that problem, and my friends could help me fill in the blanks. I’d try to release this story as non-fiction, but let’s be real here, no one would believe that any of this could happen in real life, so I’ll settle with it being a fictional autobiography instead.