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I’ve been having the most bizarre dreams lately.

Saturday night’s dream was full of sand, which turned an otherwise delightful and exciting dream into a disappointing travesty. I won’t delve into details because they are a bit sordid.

Last night’s dream is perhaps the strangest I’ve had in a while, primarily because it seems that my subconscious and imagination were on overdrive.

Typically, my dreams aren’t difficult to sort out. Images, instances, feelings that I experience in dreams can be gleaned out of my every waking day reality. Reality is repeated, and perhaps a bit twisted, in my dreams.

But last night was completely out of left field.

David and I were out exploring one afternoon, as we are occasionally apt to do. The town was not one that I recognized, and it seemed as if we were both trying to feel our way around. Apparently, we were living together in a house with a few other roommates whose faces escape me at the moment. When it grew dark, we bumped into a small group of people who were all dressed in black. We stared at each other a bit, and then one of them slid closer to me. Before I could react, he put a slip of paper into my hand, and the group fled.

It was an address, and the location was not too far from where we were living. The next day at dusk, curiosity got the best of us, and we set out to find the place. Oddly enough, we decided to walk, and we took all the side alleys and back routes we could find. Eventually we came to a cluster of houses surrounded by an old rusty fence. After opening the gate, we noticed that everything had the same, tired and aging feel. The houses, the cars. There was even a little watch tower with rusty stairs.

While standing in the yard and looking around, we noticed a little rustling from one of the small buildings. Suddenly, a pig burst from one of the small doors, with a small dog yipping excitedly at its heels. To avoid them, David jumped on the back of an old pickup truck, and I idiotically decided to try out the rusty stairs of the watch tower, mostly because it was closest to me. The pig noticed me and started to clamor up the stairs behind me. The tower started leaning forward in my direction, and David yelled at me to get off. I jumped over the pig, but the tower was already starting to fall.

It landed with a loud crash. The pig, spooked, ran back toward the house, as did the small dog. We soon heard voices coming to investigate all the racket. Before we could properly hide, two children came out. Blond and blue-eyed, and middle school-aged. They saw us, but we just took off. We started running as fast as we could for our house. Unfortunately, the kids gave chase. We tried to lose them by taking an alternate route to our home, but when we finally got home, the kids were already there. Our roommates had invited them inside because they appeared so sweet and wholesome, and they told them they were waiting for us.

While David tried to relate the story of what had just happened to our roommates, I made up my mind to talk to the kids. They were sitting in our bedroom watching TV.

“Why did you follow us home?”

The boy replied, “Because we didn’t mean to scare you off. You found the right place.”

The girl added, “We’re supposed to bring you back so you can talk to my big brother. He gave you the invitation last night.”

Apparently, we had run into a group of people who touted themselves as urban explorers and adventurers. The ages of the members varied greatly.

David and I decided to follow the kids home, just to see what their older brother had to say.

When we arrived, the old place seemed more lively. It was dark by now, and there were more people around. They were preparing themselves for the night’s excursion, and some of them were killing time by watching TV. Most of the members were male. We chatted a bit and introduced ourselves to those who were there. Then the older brother invited us into the kitchen.

I get a little confused here. I recall someone asking me if I wanted something, and I said yes, thinking they were offering me a drink or a snack. When we entered the kitchen, I knew I had made a grave mistake.

A middle-aged woman at the counter was shooting up, and I wasn’t sure what drug it was. I want to say heroin, but upon looking back, it seemed like she was injecting blood into her arm. There was a small tub of blood on the table in front of her, and she dipped her syringe into it before injecting herself. To my horror, the girl who had followed us home walked over to the woman, who promptly injected her as well. The woman hadn’t even sterilized the needle. David and I were frozen in our spots.

There were other people sitting at the table. The guys started to play fight each other. One of them slammed into the woman holding the syringe, forcing her to accidentally plunge it into herself once again.

She began to scream in pain. Where she had poked herself, her skin became bubbly, and thick blood started to well up. Everyone she knew just stared at her. No one moved to help her. I darted forward and wrapped a T-shirt around her wound and started yelling at people to call 9-1-1.

That night we ended up at the hospital. For some reason, everyone thought I was responsible for the woman. The doctor pulled me aside and told me she would be fine, but that she really needed some help to kick her addiction.

After showing his concern, he started to ask me about myself. He started moving closer and closer to me, causing me to grow more uncomfortable. I excused myself, saying I wanted to see for myself how she was doing.

She was awake and feeling very groggy. But when she noticed it was me, she suddenly snapped to attention. She asked me for her purse, which someone had thoughtfully grabbed for her while we were rushing to the hospital.

When I turned around for just a second, she had just pulled another syringe from her bag. I rushed to her side and grabbed it from her. She started yelling, but I had already started backing away. I spoke to the doctor and told him that she needed constant supervision.

And that is where my dream ends.