That’s the time I woke up. There was no alarms but I got up for a bit. It was still 3 hours before I would need to eat breakfast and go to school. I wish I would’ve had those 2 or 3 hours of proper sleep but what can you do. I was sad. So, so sad.
It was a dream-, no a nightmare that woke me up early. Actually, I’m not sure if “nightmare” is the word to describe it… It definitely wasn’t a dream though. It was one those recurring dreams I’ve had since I was a child. I don’t see them regularly but every now and then they come back with different variations of themselves. There’s usually lot’s of changes in details and also something more major that affects the dream more than whether it’s cloudy or sunny.
For example when I was in middle school I was in a cruise ship with my middle school class and teachers, but now I’m more likely to be there with people from high school. Sometimes the recurring dreams might link to each other, or the surroundings might look different. There’s one dream where the layout is usually completely different from the last time I saw it but there’s always something that I recognize. It can be the atmosphere. It can be some person. It can be something about the interaction or roles or even just a sense of familiarity.
Last night’s dream wasn’t cruise ship. It wasn’t the weird disco district I see sometimes. Oh no… Even though those have been pretty dark at times but they’re generally lighter than the dream that woke me up.
The dream I saw depicts the fall of society. At the beginning everything is normal. This time around I’m driving a car instead of walking or cycling around the town. I go to friend’s house to pick her (I think the friend was a she) up. There was an old~ish tall man living there too. He was skinny and clumsy. A mute.
That’s when I realized the cruel variation that was waiting for me. I knew what was going to happen. It was like I was a time traveler who had seen how things were going to go in few hours, day or two tops. And there was nothing I could do to stop it since it had already begun. Meanwhile I was aware of what was going on, I wasn’t quite aware that it was a dream.
I knew the old man was done for, and he seemed to be on the same page even though I was supposedly the only one who knew. My friend went outside ahead of me and I had a conversation with the mute. He used sign language and his face, and I understood that he understood and he wanted me to take my friend away from him.
Meanwhile “zombie apocalypse” doesn’t feel like accurate term for the incoming catastrophe it is the best term I can think of. I know in the dream people who get sick are beyond saving and are considered essentially dead and are dangerous for healthy people “zombie” doesn’t feel right. In some variations of the dream affected have been able to regain their senses just enough to let me go or sometimes even cured, but this wasn’t going to be one of those. This was going to be a miserable tragedy. I just knew it.
At some point while “talking” with the old man doomed to die very soon I had realized that I was asleep but it all was just so real that when I forcibly pulled myself out of the dream I was shaking allover. The anxiety… Knowing that everyone you know is going to suffer and die running and hiding from people out of their minds. Die scrambling for food, with no shelter. And there was no avoiding it.
But in the dream or right after waking from it I felt no fear. Just endless sadness. Like a big eyed doe standing in the headlights, knowing the inevitable, crying because it doesn’t want to see the end.
I’ve lost all my friends and been hiding alone more than I care to remember in that dream. It’s frightening to be alone when you know that it’s highly unlikely to see a familiar face again. Sometimes there has been someone to miraculously save me but not always. I guess I’m lucky since so far the dream has always ended before I’ve been caught, but sometimes I’ve spent long, long time running away from hoards before waking… Still, the tragic sadness of knowing incoming misfortune was more hurtful than those lonely times on the run.
One day 