Tuesday 1 October 2019

Dreaming Death

There are many, many worlds, but there is only one dreamland. Or rather, there are as many dream worlds as there are dreams and dreamers, but they are all connected to each other by the simple act of dreaming.

And so of course, it's very possible to die in your dreams.

Note: CW. take care with this list, I've been saving it for halloween month cuz it got a lot darker and more horror-y than I expected. This is some Last Gasp level dark shit, if I do say so myself. Or maybe they just freak me out 'cuz they're *my* dreams

Wrote this to solve the problem of spells like nightmare where you apparently can die of a dream, but who has time to make up a nightmare on the fly? Well, me usually, but here's some good inspiration


by Bogdan Rezunenko



D10 ways to die in your dreams


1. Giant horned beast hunts you through an e endless maze. Each twist and turn requires you to backtrack, and the beast gets closer. You can smell its rank stench, hear its breathing far away in the corridors. You come to the grey wall of a dead end. Starting up at the wall, you know that the beast is right behind you.
2: you eat and eat, but you never seem to get full. You eat your whole bowl of food, than another, then you are shovelling the contents of the table into your jaws, running to the pantry and pouring flour spices directly into your mouth. You turn on your family, seeing nothing there but food that tries to flee you. It is only lying there, bloated to the point of rupturing your guts, lapping lazily at the blood spilled across your chest, that you start vomiting blood and you finally feel satiated
3. You know your brother is a wolf. Maybe he's been replaced, maybe he always was, but you saw his ears, his yellow eyes, his tail, watching him talking with someone else. He feels you watching, meets your fearful eyes. 'It's alright' he says to you. 'There's nothing you can do to stop it.' No one else hears. No one else believes you. One by one they start turning up dead, or vanishing, until you are alone in the empty house. Except for him, of course. He saved you for last.
4. You are being walked up to the gallows. The jeering crowd. As the noose is placed around your neck, you think, this is mistake! But you look down at your hands (why didn't they tie up your hands?) And they're soaked in blood. You're covered in scratched from where they fought back, but they couldn't beat you. As the bag is placed over your head, and the door opens beneath you, you wish and try to remember why you did it. Why did you kill t
5. It's started raining. You're outside by the ocean. The raindrops fall through you, washing away your realness. You start to fade. The ocean and the beach. You open your mouth to scream but you have no mouth, no body. Just the sound of the wind and the waves and the pebbles bring washed ever more smooth
6. The tower is on fire. Backed up against a window, but it's so far up you can't bear to look out. You know if you look you'll have to jump, to escape the flame, so you force yourself to look straight ahead as the red fingers creep across the floor, begin to caress your skin. As the skin on your face peels, you smile. At least you didn't jump.
7. You have been sneezing for days. There's so much pollen in the air. You have a rash, and as you scratch you find little seeds embedded under your skin. You scratch your skin raw to get them out, the green tendrils of them growing so fast. You can't reach the ones on your back. They're drinking your blood, making you weaker. You stumble your way through the deserted city. Everything is so green, so hot, so many flowers, clustered like people clinging to each other for comfort. You find a cool spot where you can rest. Just for a minute. Just until the mass on your back stops wriggling dry much. Stops digging in.
8. You are lost in the desert. In the distance, an oasis shimmers, and you drag each ffoot as you walk towards it. Your lips split from the heat, but they don't bleed, you dying have enough moisture. You try to lick them, but your tongue is leathery and dry, you can barely move it at all without choking on it. You're so close. The sand burns you as you drag yourself over the crest of the Dube-but the oasis was gone, another mirage. In the distance an oasis shimmers, but you know it is too far away for you to ever make it there. It's probably not real anyway. But you never get to find out.
9. Dawn breaks dull and grey and still. Alongside your best friend, you walk into the clearing, breath fogging in the cold crisp air. Your opponent is waiting there for you, sword drawn. A duel to the death. You circle each other like dogs, then leap together. Swords clash. You parry weave, trying every pattern you know, searching for their weakness. Your opponent matches you stroke for stroke, and then, just when you think you've found an opening, twists and strikes you. You stare at the point impaling your chest, then fall back on the grass as blood spreads out across your white shirt like a drop of ink in water. You stare up at the first blue appearing in the morning sky. It's going to be a beautiful day.
10. The teeth in your head twist and writhe, escaping some whining noise that emanates deep within your skull. With little claw-like legs, their hard bodies twist out of your gums, filling your mouth with blood. Some you spit out, but others burrow upward towards your brain, as the keening sound in your head reaches a fever pitch, masking some but not nearly enough of the pain.

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