Alright, this is a modified series of dreams I’ve had for the past two weeks every single fucking day that I’ve woken up from. Generally my dreams consist of a task I have to commit with an ultimate goal (such as finding the end of a map, or finding a lost mystical object like a flute), but for the last two weeks they have been very terrifying nightmares, ones that ended with me getting my face gnawed off or purely beaten to death–you know, it would have made for pretty decent horror movie type stuff.
Anyways, the only reason I’m posting this one because this is the first time that a dream like this has ended differently. I just woke up from it so I may not tell it as bone-chilling as it was for me, but with a little editing I’m sure I can turn it into an alright story.
It started out in the forests of Africa. Coming in the dream, I had already made my position in it as part of an all-female gang, of whom the ringleader had a favorite wild pet… her precious pet was a humongous, rabid, human-eating gorilla. I shared the same task with one other girl–and that was feeding this rabies-infested pet of hers. Eating rituals went like this–since the gorilla only ate humans, we were each given a clear bag of dead, bloody, rotten, and smelly human body parts that the other members of the gang had killed and rounded up for us. (Parts were usually like limbs, hands, “wings,” breasts, tasted kind of like chicken I’m sure.) I also don’t think it was of any coincidence that the ringleader of the gang just happened to be my first Guatemalan meth dealer, who was in a gang.
Now, actual eating rituals went like this…we would be led to the gorilla’s exact location by way of the ringleader. We would usually have to climb the trees and swoop or jump from branch to branch–this was of course, so that the gorilla wouldn’t spot us and eat us firsthand. I think it always knew just when meal-time was about to come though, because you could tell by its nostrils and gamey drool that it could sniff the bag of rotten body parts given to each of us. We would both get in our positions, and that was upon a tree within 5 feet of the gorilla. When the ringleader said, “GO!” we were to jump off the branch and into the woods (thereby immediately catching the gorilla’s attention),then instantly turn and run in the same direction as fast as we could while dropping random body parts from our bags, knowing that the gorilla was chasing us right on our hindsights, ravaging each part that we dropped in less than a second…
There was not any time to scream, no time to even look back… just drop and run for your life, only looking out the corner of your eye to see who was the faster–me or her.
It was also a sort of sport for them to watch, to see which one of us would make it out alive. How many repetitions they made us do, how many relays, how many events… I could count over 20 times I was forced to do this horrific act in a dream’s day alone… and we couldn’t say no, for if we were, it was encoded in the gang violations rules–if we dare defied the ringleader, we would be held down by the other gang members while the gorilla promptly ate us alive.
I was surprised to see myself holding up so well against this black girl who shared the body and the speed of a famous Jamaican Olympian runner. Because normally in these dreams, I am the first to faulter, I was the first to fall, I was always the first to be overwhelmed in slow-motion and be caught while “it,” (”it” being whatever animal it had manifested into my dream this time), tore me apart and destroyed me. And that was what had conclusively woken me up every other night for the past two weeks. But today was different–this night, I was keeping up as an equal. For some reason, I was kept alive.
Oh yes, there were times where it came SO CLOSE… and no matter how close it came to each of us, it seemed that neither of us was an inch faster than the other–but that was the pure thrill of adrenaline and climax!!! I remember one time, the gorilla was literally only a finger’s length away from us, there was no time for either of us left just chance, when just in the knack of time we ran through a school-yard, bustling with children playing. Its attention wandered and it feasted on the flesh of the school-children… and as we looked back, we paused… but only for a moment, then running again, relieved mostly of the fact that our lives had been guaranteed for one more night. We were immune to the sight of it eating humans, regardless of whether they were children’s parts–as long as the ringleader’s pet was fed, that was really all that mattered. “Whatever you do, don’t look back…”
Then our last day’s race was coming. Rumors were that my race partner had defied the ringleader, and it was chosen that she was to be eaten alive. The day had come, and I was–we were all–oddly waiting for her. She was never late. I began to get nervous, as the gorilla’s cries spoke of hunger. The ringleader got impatient, and kicked me in the hole of the forest… as I felt the gorilla sneak up on me, and its paw roll around against my neck and its breath against my face, my eyes sunk in… I felt so stupid for showing up… I should have been able to tell it was all a mistake of fate for me, when I KNEW this day would be my only chance of being able to get away, to run away for the very first time without being used as dead flesh-bait.
And as I waited for the moment, thinking that this was for sure my time of death, the time I would wake up… for some reason, JUST this time, for the very first time in my life in fact, just in the knick of time, a fucking miracle happened. She showed her ass up.
There she stood–it was like in a movie–and there she was, taunting the gorilla in the hopes of catching its attention away from me, but for some reason, she didn’t have human bodies with her this time. She was flinging dead rats behind her, and yet somehow the gorilla had still chosen to chase her. In fact, this was the only time its’
route opted to chase her completely instead of me… the gorilla had been trained instinctively to hunt down the perpetrator. It was karma’s will.
As I ran, I noticed that I didn’t see her out of the corner of my eye this time. Was she eaten? I don’t know… I didn’t look back. And I never stopped running. I realized just then, that she didn’t show up to get eaten. She showed up to save ME. The fact that she had rats instead of human body parts showed that this was a sign of her own will. Why? Because in the name of our lives being equally flung as meat for the beast, she had become my partner, she had become the equivalent of my life. And to save the one who had gone through everything you had and had done no wrong, well… it was the true meaning of honor.
That was my last day of being chased by the gorilla. And it was my first time making it out of a horror dream alive… as an equal.
Moral of the Story: All I think is that this dream is telling me is to stop running the fucking treadmill at the gym.