I always find myself in the middle of your story.

I've had a lot on my mind. None of it really adds up to equate stress, it's just bits of information and tasks that need to get done. They say you only have nightmares when you're stressed or hungry. So I can't figure it out.

I'm running through the woods, panting, wheezing, sweat pouring off of me. Every time my feet pound the ground I kick a cloud of metallic-smelling soil up through my nostrils. The dirt smells familiar, like I've walked here before. At first I can't tell whether I'm chasing or running away, and then I notice the girl beside me. Although I have to strain my lungs to propel myself faster and faster, she seems content to almost float along beside me. She's not a ghost, I can reach down and touch her halo of yellow hair. She asks me if we can see you, and suddenly the plot unfolds in my head. You've been caught. There are large, important men in suits holding guns who are hungry for your flesh. They dot the woods like drops of blood, congealing in camouflage fatigues. So we run. Bullets whiz past my ears, chunks of metal with high pitched screams. The girl and I dodge in and out of the brush, hide behind trees, try to make each step to your house as quiet as possible. At one point, I catch sight of them. Horrible masses of military men holding sub-machine guns trained for head shots. They wear masks like this is chemical warfare. If they have eyes, they are sweeping the forest for us, spying for their prey. We creep closer and closer and somehow along the way, I lose the girl. Then I'm right outside your door. I open it to find you asleep, curled like you always have, face to the wall. Blissfully unaware (or uncaring?) that you're entire 'career' has just been blown open and there are men with guns waiting to take you out of the game. I watch you sleep until you notice I'm there and groggily turn over in bed to look at me. "I've come to say goodbye." And although I want to say more, I can't. I wake up.

I'm in an institution. Dead skin-coloured walls close in around me and trap staircases full of people inside. Everyone is Japanese and half of the people are grossly disfigured. I'm not sure how I've escaped, but I'm leaving as fast as I can. I have almost Nightcrawler-like abilities. I'm amazingly agile and can run along banisters and throw myself up onto ledges. As I pass through the crowds alarms go off and doors open and slam shut, I hear agonized wails and sharp staccato orders being given by the doctors (if you can call them that). I understand that this is a research facility and no one is here under there own accord. Most people have been drugged and watch me bolt past them with empty, unknowing stares. This is pure fight or flight, I can't save anyone here. Every so often, a certain siren will blare and it sends everyone into a frenzy. This, in the dream, means that patients who have just been operated on are released into the halls as test subjects. They are wild and emotionless, spurred by animal instincts, faces fixed in sneers of terror and rage. I run and dodge and climb past all of this, barely hearing or seeing like the rest of them, but posessing a unique need to escape. I finally get a chance to squeeze out a window just as two doctors spot me from down the hall. Outside it looks like a jail from a ghost town. A few workers are scattered around the lawn looking like recovering heavy alcoholics. Mud flows like raw sewage around the perimeter. I try to look casual, but I hear them coming, and quickly pick a path along a cement boundary wall studded with sharp spikes. I'm bare-footed and every few inches I'm stabbed by spears of filthy metal. (This sensation could stem from real life where I've managed to collapse my arches wearing shitty shoes). I finally reach a drain pipe which hangs from the side of the mammoth building providing me with a sole method of safety. I scramble up it and onto the almost-vertical roof where all I have to stand on is an eave the width of my finger. Then I wake up.

I wish I had a dream therapist.