05/29/01
The Great Escape

This one is rather confusing.

How it started? No idea...but somehow I ended up in a gymnasium or something like my high school lobby (outside the gymnasium), with a group of other girls around my age. I say "girls" because I'm not sure how old we were supposed to be--teenagers?--younger? One of them was Kristi M., a girl in knew in elementary school; I feel the rest were people I'd known then too. We were sitting along the walls with some stuff with us--I have the feeling some of it was food and our belongings. What was going on? We were prisoners or were being held hostage by somebody. But not just your normal somebody. I don't know WHO it was but I feel they were...supernatural or something. Maybe kind of like my Ocryx (see my "Manitou Island" series) but I can't really say. The thing was, they were NOT somebody you wanted to piss off, and if we weren't careful, we could get in BIG trouble.

This person, whoever they were, wasn't with us all the time, so as we all sat in the (lobby?) we talked quietly amongst ourselves. We were trying to think of ways to escape, but even discussing it was dangerous. Yet I had this feeling of wanting to TEST this evil person. I was sick of being a prisoner. Danger? Well, how else were we expected to ever get free? I didn't want to wait for help that might never come. It was time to take things into our own hands. But we had to be CAREFUL.

At some point we were allowed to get up and go out into the hallway, to the bathroom. We filed into the girls' bathroom and now it was like in elementary school. We were chattering up a storm now. Nervous, yes, but not terrified; there wasn't really a reason for TERROR. This is strange, I can't explain it. I have the feeling that yes, we DID have a reason to be very afraid, this person might hurt or even kill us, but at the same time, we were strangely casual about it--and so was the bad guy. Like, ho-hum, we're prisoners, okay. You can kill us, but we're STILL going to try to plan of a way out, you must know that. Well...we went into the bathroom and we were just chattering away. I think somebody brought up how much smaller the toilets are when you return to elementary school (okay, so, we must have been older than that). This is a recurring theme in my dreams, I return to elementary school and have to go to the bathroom, but the stalls and toilets are so TINY! Well--here they were, too! To illustrate the other person's point, I groaned when I went over to the stalls, on the left (everything was in kind of earth and taupe shades). "See how SMALL they are?" I whined. The ones in the middle were small but accessible, but the one on the very end, on the right, was HIDEOUS. This thing was MINUSCULE! It was raised up on some kind of ledge in the wall, about three or four feet from the ground. There were the stall walls above that, and the door, but the toilet was tiny, and the walls were only about two feet tall. You had to step up to get inside it (it was coming out of the wall), turn around and crouch, and then shut the door, and your head and shoulders were still visble over the top. "See this?" I demonstrated, doing so. "How can anyone go to the bathroom in THIS!"

I was whining about it a lot, but I don't think I really had to go. Everybody else was just yapping and laughing. It was like the girls' bathroom at a dance or something.

I looked above my head as I crouched on the tiny toilet, and noticed the ceiling. It was the same kind of ceiling you'll see in many schools, those flimsy tiles that can easily be removed to repair whatever lies above. And...

...an idea struck me.

I reached up and pushed up on one tile with my fist. It gave way and I knocked it to the side. I did the same with another one, having to either break it or really push on it to get it out of the way. Now there was a hole above me, just big enough to fit through.

I wanted the girls below to notice what I was doing, but I couldn't draw attention to myself. The "bad guy" might be nearby. I had to do this quickly and quietly, see what my chances of escape were. I pushed myself up, head going through the hole, and looked around.

Okay...so, it wasn't going to be as easy as it looked. Yes, this was a sort of attic and a possible means of escape. BUT--like some attics--the floor was not meant to be walked upon. It was just the flimsy tiles, supported on thin criss-crossing metal beams. One wrong step and your foot would go through a tile and you'd fall through to the floor below. The only way through was to walk CAREFULLY on the metal beams, which were hard to detect, and very thin. Like tightrope walking! I didn't even know if they could support me or not.

Still, I decided to take my chance. I had to go through now or go back with the group and continue being a captive. I pushed myself up through the hole and took care to balance myself on a metal beam. I looked around. It was just like an attic. The ceiling above was too dark to see, even though it wasn't that far above me, but there was plenty of light coming in through small windows all along the room, lining the bottom of the "floor" (ceiling). It was diffused white light. There also seemed to be insulation. I tried looking around for the metal bars so I could follow them to another part of the building, scope out a way to escape. Now the bars were wider and were like wood, but still difficult to locate. Nevertheless, I persevered, and started crawling across them, traveling in such a manner for a while before deciding to break open another tile and find my way below again, see where I was.

I'm not sure if I dropped down out of the attic or came into a different part of it that allowed for walking, but in any case, I ended up in a HUGE room, concrete floor, all grays, like a big warehouse. Lots of strange equipment all over--boilers?--metal tubing?--machinery?--everything was very messy and haphazard, perhaps there was a humming machinery sound, and I had to pick my way through carefully. I got down from a higher level and skirted across the floor. I had gotten quite a way before I realized--drat it!--I hadn't even paid any attention to where I'd come out of the ceiling! How was I supposed to find my way back if I didn't know where I'd come from? I looked back, searching for a landmark. I saw some kind of large orange thing, maybe a GIGANTIC barrel or machine, and decided that would be my landmark. I wasn't certain how far it was from my entrance, or if it was the only one of its kind (most likely not), but it was the best I had. I turned back and continued loping slowly, keeping my head low as I went.

At one point I saw a guy, maybe a stockboy of some kind, walking around in a dark blue uniform (like a jumpsuit--the guy looked Italian); he probably wasn't a bad guy, but I avoided him just in case. He turned his back and I furtively slipped past, hoping he didn't see me. At this point I had the feeling I wanted to go back the way I'd come after I checked this place out, back into the bathroom through the ceiling, but it would be too dangerous--I'd avoided the stockboy this time, but perhaps not the next! I would have to finish my circuit through these floor-level rooms, find a way out, and get back to the girls somehow without being noticed. Then I could tell them about our escape route through the ceiling, and we would be out of there.

Yes, kind of roundabout, and in retrospect it makes little sense, but believe me, in my dream, it was incredibly clever. :)

Well...

This is rather stupid and disappointing, I'm afraid, because I believe the dream ended before there was any sort of resolution. I don't think I was caught, but there was the danger of it, and I DID intend to get back to the other girls and we'd all escape and the bad guy would have no idea how we'd done it...but as always I have no idea what happened! GGRRRR!!



2001 Dreams
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