Writing out a dream- feedback welcome :)

[min]

I had a weird dream and a friend told me to turn it into a story. It's very messy- just kind of wrote things out without worrying about grammar and what not. wondering if i should keep going. feedback more than appreciated there are a couple violent parts - kinda disturbing. just as a warning thanks!



I live a very monotonous life. My name is Michelle and I am a cashier at a toy store. It really would have no purpose for me to tell you which toy store that I work at, because it is completely pointless to the story I am about to tell you. The story is about the world that most people don't realize exists. It took a very dark time in my life and a very lucky set of circumstances for me to realize the potential of the living world. The appearance of my life to other people is the mundane, pointless one. The one that I choose to live is the one worth living.

I was working an over night at the toy store in preparation for our Christmas sale. That week, I had already worked over the 40 hour mark, but I had no other purpose in life, so I agreed to helping out. There were only three of us working. The other employees seemed to all have legitimate places that they needed to be. Sadly, they had all of the things that I wanted. Families. Social lives. A nice home. They had a purpose outside of work. At the time of the over night, I had no purpose. I worked, I slept, I read books, I ate. That was it.

I was working in the girls dolls section, organizing and restocking items. A flash of light caught my eye. Hoping that it was one of my coworkers making our overnight a little more fun, I smiled and looked over. No one was there. I called out their names. No answer. Then I saw the light again out of the corner of my eye. The first time the light was a regular white light. This time it was green. So I looked over again. Nothing.

I stood up and walked towards the direction where I saw the white light to see if maybe a toy was malfunctioning or if someone was over there. There was nothing that I could see that would cause that sort of light. So I ventured to the place where the green light had appeared to come from. Nothing over there either.

Suddenly, my entire vision was enshrouded in a vibrant red hue, as if I was bleeding and it was dripping over my eyes. It wasn't light. It was just color. Everything was red. As I looked around and searched for some cause, a piercing, stabbing pain took over my arm. I looked down and saw nothing. I felt at my arm trying to figure out what the source of the pain was. Nothing there. At this point I started screaming. The pain was increasing, visibility was decreasing, and my understanding was at an all time low. Hoping my tears would somehow clear out whatever was making my vision red, I allowed them to flow. Through my screams and sobs, no one came to my aid. I stopped to catch my breath, but realized that I could still hear myself screaming. After a moment of confusion in my already foggy mind, I realized that it wasn't me screaming, but my coworker Amy. Whatever was happening to me must also be happening to her. Terrorist attack? At a toy store with three employees? Not likely. Prank gone wrong? More likely.

I finally gathered enough strength to stand, so I ran over to her. My left arm was still in excruciating pain, but I kept moving towards her screams. "Amy!" I called out, hoping she would hear me to give her some hope that I knew she was in need of. Especially if she was going through anything like I was. She responded with a small gasp before the screams started again. I knew I was close and finally turned the corner necessary to discover her on her knees on the ground holding her left arm with her right, and using her left hand to wipe at her eyes. She was hysterical. I rushed to her. The all red version of my screaming coworker reminded me of too many horror movies that I'd seen. Even though the entire world was red to my eyes, it still seemed like she was covered in blood and laying in a pool of it.

At first she refused to believe that I was sitting with her on the ground, but when she did at last realize, she held onto me as if she were falling into a deep abyss and I was the only thing around to save her. I'm sure that was what she felt. I found myself holding onto her with just as much fervor. We were silently sobbing, the screaming finally subsiding, when we decided to finally open our eyes. Everything was still red. I looked at Amy hoping she might have some sort of idea of what was going on. Her eyes met mine until they went to my left arm. The screaming started again. She threw her body away from mine, leaning against the shelves of toys, trying to get as far away as possible.

I knew that I had to look. I slowly looked down at my arm. Surprisingly, all I saw was letters. A tattoo of some sort. I knew that the ink in my skin was not there a moment ago, and through my state of shock I finally put it together that the pain I felt was something putting this word into my arm. I looked at Amy. She was still holding her arm. I ran to her and pried her right hand off of her arm. The same word was there. Ironically, she went silent. She stared at her own arm in a horrified wonder. Seeing that I no longer existed to her, I looked back at my arm and touched the word. TALUA. I tried to pronounce it. Tay-lew-ah. Tah-lew-ay. Tah-lew-ah.

Boom. Color was back in my eyes. The breath into my lungs was freezing. I started shaking all over. The pain was gone. The odd tattoo was still there. I thought the ink was black at first, but it was the darkest shade of green that I had ever seen. I ran my fingers over the word, which sent a warmth through my body. Through this realization, I grabbed Amy.
"Say it, Amy! Say the word!"
"NO!"
"Amy, it made my eyes better. The pain is gone. Just say it!!"
"...Ta..."
"Talua. Say it just like that. Tah-lew-ah."

She cried for a moment. Then closed her eyes tight, took a deep breath and said, "Talua..."
She shuddered. After a moment, she opened one eye and gasped. She looked at me and smiled. We started laughing. The nightmare seemed to be over. It wasn't until our giggles and sighs were silent that we heard the moaning from the next aisle over. It had to be Derek. Both Amy and I had the same thought process and jumped up to run over to where our third coworker should be. He was on the floor holding his stomach, eye closed, forehead to the ground. We ran to him, both trying to tell him that he had to say the word. When he finally made out what we were both saying, he saw the word on his arm. Shocked at first, but piecing things together much faster than Amy or I, he said the word, correctly pronounced first try. He started looking around.

"What the hell?" he asked us, as if Amy or I would have any idea.
"Don't know," I responded. "I just saw little lights and then all of a sudden...." A giggling from next to us cut me short. A small girlish like giggle soon turned into a hearty chuckle as a face and a head full of red hair poked its head around the corner. When she realized that our only response was going to be to stare at her, she allowed the rest of her body to follow her head around the corner. Now full in view, the red head was a very short, very beautiful younger woman with freckles. She cocked her head to the side and smiled.

"That first part kinda sucks, but I figured that you three were so miserable, it would have been a chosen alternative."
"You did this to us!" I screamed at the strange woman as I rose to my feet. The look in my eyes must have told her that she needed to give an explanation, and a good one at that, as soon as possible.

She slowly meandered over to us though, one eyebrow up, as if she were fascinated with us. Something about her expression made me feel like she was laughing at us. When she finally reached us, she lifted her hand towards Derek, which made him buckle over and hold his head. Amy and I instantly went over to find out what was wrong. When we looked back, she was - of course - gone.

"Derek, are you okay?" I asked him. I was trying to get his hands off his head so I could see his face. This went on for five minutes before he finally dropped his hands and opened his eyes. He stood up straight, still not looking at Amy or me. Finally, he smiled. He looked at his left arm. Then he looked at Amy, then at me.

"This is going to be amazing." he said. He sprinted over away from us without giving us a chance to question his meaning. Then he turned around and started running towards us. Mid run he said "Talua!" Once the word has left his mouth, he seemed to still be running but his feet weren't touching the ground. The closer he got to us, the more I realized that I was in fact correct. He winked at me, and seemed to jump up where he landed on top of our highest shelves and sat next to an inflatable Santa Claus. He started laughing.

"The word has great power," he laughed. "And she was right- the first part sucks, but it's totally worth it. It's not quite flying, but is a lightness. Saying the word seems to take the weight of the world off of my shoulders, and now I weigh what I'm supposed to. She showed me all the things we can do. I can't remember all of it, but this whole 'flying' thing was definitely part of it. There are also more of us out there. Those that are like us can see our tattoos, but normal people, they can't! The tattoo was some sort of mutating device or something because we are no longer humans. I don't know if I can explain it all right now. There's just so much!" He hopped down from the 15 foot shelf, and skipped over to us, smiling the whole way.

"One thing though," he continued, "is that we three are now connected. If one of us is injured, all three of us suffer the same injury. If I die, you die too. If my arm gets cut off, yours will too. So we have to take care of each other. We have to figure this all out together. And we have to keep it a secret together."

Regardless of the events that Amy and I had just gone through, we still stared at him like he was crazy. How could something so extraordinary, happen to people like us. Plus it all sounded quite a bit hokey. We can fly? Seriously? And why would she share the knowledge with him and not the all three of us?

"All right, so let's test out your little theory," I said with a sly grin. A little note about me- I went through the mommy issues, angsty, teenage phase where I would hurt myself in order to cope with my reality. It made sense when I was younger, but I didn't really deal with those issues anymore. But at the same time, physical pain held no threat to my safety. Getting accidental injuries came to me as a blessing. My thoughts were "Oh yeah! I'm alive and can feel!" My coworkers did not know this about me- only a very few people did. So, I grabbed a box cutter that Derek had been using to unload his boxes for the shelves and made a long, but not very deep cut on the top side of my arm. Both of them responded immediately, first by trying to stop me, then to grabbing their own arms, where they were now bleeding. When they heard me laughing, they looked at me like I was crazy. "That's awesome." I beamed.

Derek, with the knowledge given to him from our mysterious imp, was coping with it fairly well. His anger was only for a second before it hit him that what he had said, was true. The flying was one thing, but this was something completely different. The mentality of team work in the work place took a whole new meaning. Amy, on the other hand, had gone into herself and completely shut us out. She was shaking slightly, still holding her arm with her tattoo and my injury. She was staring off, as if her brain was trying to justify what was happening to us, but logic just wasn't agreeing. The look on her face was that of pain, frustration, and pure sorrow. I didn't know much about her, but considering Derek's and my responses compared to hers, I started to realize that she probably led a very sheltered, very cozy, very structured, controlled, stable existence. When I realized that I found pleasure in her pain, instead of sympathy, I knew that I needed to change the subject.

"Well!" I shouted while clapping my hands. "Let's go to the bathroom, clean ourselves up, and finish our work. We can experiment more later, but I still have bills to pay. I'm not going to fly to work, so I still have to get gas, and making you guys bleed isn't going to make my land lord let me live at home for free. The hell we just went through to get to this point has also tapped me out, energy wise. I want to go to bed as soon as bloody possible." I paused and looked at them for a moment. "BUT! I am definitely trying that flying thing on my way to the bathroom. If I get to the bathrooms first," I said while fishing out a lighter from my pocket, "I will burn the tips of my fingers until you get there."

Amy gasped and started running, fighting back fear filled tears. Derek laughed and screamed "TALUA!" While making a slight spin mid air to flip me off. I repeated the word and experienced the lightness for the first time in my life. Not only was I moving in the air without my feet touching the ground, but I had control. I chose when to be like this by using the word, and I had the control over them with the threat of physical pain. I quickly realized though, that they had the same control over me. I better not joke anymore, otherwise I could get all three of us killed. I had no idea how Amy would ultimately handle this new world.

Once we all got back to work, Amy just stood there looking at her work. I had gone around the corner when I heard Amy's steps go to where Derek was working. I followed a little behind out of curiosity. Maybe she would tell him what was going through her mind.

"Derek, please don't tell Michelle, but I am scared. You both seem to be handling this just fine, but I am definitely not. Will you please work with me until we are done?"
"Why not ask Michelle? She's working one aisle next to you."
"I think I'm more scared of her than I am of anything else. In the bathroom, the water stung so bad on my cut, but she just washed it off and wiped with a paper towel until the blood clotted enough. I have never seen someone handle pain like that before."
"Yeah, I was a little surprised myself that she even did that. I mean, the cut wasn't that bad or anything, but to do it to yourself? She has some major issues. Let's be sure not to make her mad. She can hurt us, but I don't think us trying to hurt her will threaten her at all." Well, at least I know they've been thinking about the same things as me. We are physically connected, I wonder if there is a subconscious link between us as well? I started to think about how I really did feel bad that I acted so rashly at their expense. To test our subconscious link, I kept saying "I'm sorry" in my head. The silence was finally broken when Derek said "I'm sure she feels bad about it, she probably didn't think it would really work anyway. If she mentions anything about doing it again, we will all sit down and talk about it."

So it worked. I smiled to myself. Now I know that I have mental control over them and they don't know that at all. That will probably come in handy later on. I don't want to be a manipulative control freak, but hey, I'm a girl.

We didn't have to work the next day since we were the ones who worked the over night. Once I got home, I fell asleep before I even got into bed. I woke up around 3 in the afternoon. I thought I had heard something. After a few minutes of haziness and uncertainty, I decided to close my eyes again. The second my eyes shut, my phone began to ring. I looked at the screen and didn't recognize the number of the person calling. It was a local number though, so I answered.

"Michelle? Hey, it's Derek. Did I wake you up?"
"Yes."
"Oh, sorry. Anyway, Amy and I are at my house and we've been talking about everything now that we've had time to rest and think about things. We wanted to call you and talk with you too, but didn't know if you would be awake or not. We thought 3 would be a fair time to call." By the time he finished explaining his self justification for waking me up, I was conscious enough to sit up in bed. When I looked around, all I saw was blood. Everywhere.
"Uhm, what was it that woke you guys up?" I asked him, trying to sound nonchalant at the same time as searching my entire body for a source of the blood.
"Well I could only sleep for a few hours, and Amy only slept for a bit before her nightmares woke her up and she couldn't get back to sleep."
"Oh," I responded. "So nothing weird happened or anything like that?"
"Not anything past what we already are aware of," he said with an uneasy giggle.
"Oh good, good. What's your address? I'll shower and dress and head your way." He gave me his address, adding little comments about common errors others have made in their attempts to get to his house. After we hung up, I continued my search for wounds. The cut that I had made on my arm was closed and looked normal. I hadn't started my special lady time. I got in the shower and continued to search, even though I couldn't find anything that would cause that much blood to be all over my bed. With a towel on my head, I went back to my room to put on some clothes. After the night before, the lack of any trace of blood on my bed was not a surprise in the least. I dressed and went over to Derek's house.
Amy looked a little more settled than the night before but still shaken. Derek looked rested but wary. It hit me that they had been talking for a while now without me. I wondered what they had been saying about me. Were they still talking about me the way they had last night? I realized it was a good opportunity to verbalize the subconscious message I had sent them before.

"I just want to say that I am so sorry for hurting you guys last night. It all seemed so surreal and I think that a part of me didn't think it would really do anything to you guys. I have a high pain tolerance- pain doesn't really bother me, but I shouldn't have acted to rashly, especially when your physical safety was on the line."

"Don't worry about it!" Derek said with a dismissive wave. "That's what I figured. The joke about burning your fingers though, we probably shouldn't joke like that. We really need to respect each other in a way that most people can't even fathom."

"It's a big trust issue," Amy snapped. "Michelle, I really need to trust that you would never do that again. We cannot be enemies in this. In whatever this is. We need to make some agreements and gain understanding between the three of us right here and now." Wow. I guess growing some balls came with those nightmares she had.

"I absolutely agree," I said. "And I truly am very very sorry. Are your arms okay?" They nodded- Derek with a smile, Amy as if I was cutting my arm again right then and there. I sighed at her countenance and sat down.

They started to catch me up on all of the things that they had discussed when I wasn't there. We shouldn't tell anyone what is going on. If we said it, they'd think we were crazy. If we proved it, they'd lock us up. They had also discussed what uses these abilities would have. I inwardly rolled my eyes imagining them talking about what super hero names they would choose for themselves.

Derek had remembered something else from his mental rape with the red head. It was more about the people out there like us. An entire network of normal people turned comic book hero just like us. People without the "tattoo" (as we decided to call it) could not see the word on our arms. But those who had their own tattoo could see it and we could see theirs. But they were not all connected to us, the way we were all connected to each other. He didn't know how the red head had done any of the things she had done. It didn't follow suit with our abilities. She could create flashing lights, tamper with our vision, put ink in our skin without touching us, and put information into someone's head by pointing at them. When I proposed that we may be able to do those things as well, we just didn't know it yet, they both looked at each other with a sort of shameful look before Derek said "Amy and I attempted a few of them. The red head wasn't speaking any weird words, she didn't even have a tattoo that I can remember. We don't think we are of the same ... breed."

I didn't like that somewhere in his head, he had all the answers. I didn't like that he had those thoughts in his head, while Amy and I did not. I didn't like that he had control over information. I wanted that control. So I used the one device that I knew that they didn't. I looked at Derek and thought of all the things that we had learned so far. I brought back all of the images that I could remember and I tried to focus on the moment when all of those thoughts went into his head. Maybe those thoughts would come over to me if I could trigger him into thinking about them. This made me wonder if this mental control I was attempting was something he had already remembered himself and had decided to not share with Amy and I. I stopped myself from thinking about the ability, in case it would trigger something about it in his mind. Having to keep so many things in consideration at once was exhausting. Derek didn't seem to respond at all and I didn't gain any new knowledge by my attempt.

"You haven't told me about your nightmares yet," I said to Amy after my moment of disappointment had passed. She immediately looked disgusted and shook her head.
"It was disgusting and vile and I really don't want to think about it."
"She dreamed that she was cutting off rats heads." Derek said. I could tell he was trying to make light of it while easing my curiosity.
"It was more than that," Amy whispered. "Near the end, there was one rat... its neck.. I couldn't cut through it. I just kept sawing away. Pulling off pieces of flesh..." She shuddered and trailed off.
"Oh that's awful!" I said. I gave her a look a sympathy. She received it well and smiled back at me. It wasn't the dream that made me feel bad for her. It was the feeling that I could tell she had when thinking about it. One of those vivid dreams that leave a feeling connected to the image. Something little like that can feel a lot worse than it sounds. "Did you have any weird dreams Derek?" I asked.

"The first thing I remember after laying in my bed was waking up to my alarm clock. I don't even remember having a normal dream, let alone a bad one. What about you? You sounded a little shaken when I was talking to you on the phone. None of this has seemed to really trouble you, so I thought it was weird when you sounded... concerned."

"Damn, you caught that?" I laughed. "Yeah, well, uhm, when I sat up in bed, my bed sheets were covered in- what I thought was - blood. I checked everywhere on my body for a wound and couldn't find one. When I got out the shower, my bed was clean." They were both looking at me. Not with shock or horror or disgust, but with a look of "we will figure this thing out together." They were brainstorming what it could possibly mean or what it could have been. I originally didn't want to tell them, because I assumed I was supposed to be the strong one with all the answers who can handle anything. For some reason though, I told them. Maybe it was because of the trust speech I got from Amy when I arrived, or the fact that they are probably the only people in my life who wouldn't put me in a mental hospital for mentioning it. They believed me. I didn't even believe me. How does blood just disappear? But that wasn't necessarily a number one on my priority list of questions to be asking at that moment.

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This is pretty good; I definitely want to know what happens next. I think it's a little too fast in some places, like you could flesh it out a tad. Other than that, I like your writing style. I was sucked right in. I hope you think about writing another installment.

[min]

Thank you I've found that I've only been able to contribute to this story when I am in a certain mind set, and otherwise I don't even like my own story haha. I had a lot planned for where I wanted it to go, so if I ever get more than a few paragraphs added, I will definitely post here