My dream began with fighting over some dried meat rations, I won the fight and consumed the rations. My day went about normally thereafter in some vertical city of advertising colours and starless skies, a beautiful wonder of illicit trades, friendly people and numerous security measures. Returning to my hovel to dress in proper attire for a state function, I seated myself in one of the folding chairs and awaited the speaker to arrive. They arrived and a great speech was made, they talked well of unity of the people and how the people won over their oppressors, inviting us all to drink a toast to unity. One woman makes proposes a toast to the individual but soon all of us are quietly herded away to a spa, I myself find myself alone lying face down in a massage table, where my muscles are relaxed with electrodes. It is very relaxing until something pierces the back of my skull and the speaker's commands are repeated over and over again.
I wake up and get dressed, I start my day with a good breakfast of meat rations and do some stretches before going to exercise. I look in a mirror, but before I can seem my reflection I am fighting for some dried meat rations. I don't understand how that happened but before I can make sense of it, I am hit in the face and forget what I was doing. The man who is hitting me skipped leg day to the extreme, he catches his leg in between some railings and his own body weight breaks it. The fight won, I take my dried meat rations and go to celebrate. I try to think of finding my friends, and in that moment I can only think of my friends down at the spa. Upon arriving, I take my seat in a folded chair but feel that something is wrong. I realize I am still bruised from the fight, and forgot to change into my nice clothes. The fizzy, bubbly, golden drink is poured out but all refrain from drinking it until the toast is called, that is only polite decorum. I try to cover the bruises on my neck by rearranging my shirt, but soon I realize no one is looking at me. The speaker arrives and delivers the start of his speech, but a woman interrupts him to propose a toast to individuality. She goes at length explaining the good we do as individuals is our own responsibility, we choose to do well or not, we have the free will to be individuals. We are all about to drink this toast when I noticed the speaker isn't joining our toast, I shout
'No.' People are looking at me, and the speaker is confused. 'A toast to unity,' I shout and everyone but the interrupter and the speaker chorus after me the toast to unity. Everyone but the interrupter and the speaker drink their golden drink, I pour the drink down my face without a single sip and it puddles by my feet in droplets.
I demand to know why the speaker didn't drink his toast to unity. Suddenly the crowd is angry, demanding him to stop being rude and drink his toast to unity. 40 men and women get out of their seats to help the speaker drink his golden toast. The whole room is upon the speaker and forces drink after drink down his mouth, his nose pinched, until armoured security guards with gasmasks on and retractable batons extended arrive. All exits are blocked and the fire exit is locked, to jump out the window would be to fall hundreds of storeys below, I surrender amicably in a dazed stupor as gas fills the room.
I am fighting the interrupter for meat rations. Despite being smaller and seemingly more malnourished, she manages to hit my stomach repeatedly and nearly gouges my left eye out. The fight breaks out of the ring and keeps going on from railing to railing, neither conceding the fight. No one is giving up, but the fight does not seem like it is about the meat rations, it seems to have some purposeful purposelessness to it. We are in a corner shop that is brightly lit and brightly cleaned, and we get blood everywhere, the shop owner grabs his mop and bucket in preparation of cleanup to ensure minimal disruption. All hopes of a completely clean shop are dashed when the crowd that watched the fights followed us into the shop. After so long, we stopped. We both communicated with one another, trying to remember why we fought.
'Meat ration?' Suggested one hopeful person in the crowd. But then we looked at the shelves of the shop stocked in abundance of meat rations at affordable prices and it hardly seemed worth the effort. We went on to sit down on stools arrayed around in a circle, joined by the shopkeeper, with some viewers leaving disappointed that the fight was inconclusive. The last thing I said was in response to the interrupter, how she wanted to make some 'administrative improvements,' to the immoral system. I suggested that the best way to see change you want is to live as the change you want. That is when the shopkeeper ushered us away with grappling hook guns to aid in our escape, as he informed us security was on its way. I asked if he would be ok as there were cameras everywhere that witnessed everything, the shopkeeper replied he changed his mind and joined us.
We escaped to some distant mountain town, though not so distant enough as to leave the city out of visible range on the horizon. The town we found ourselves in was a bastard hybrid of too many architectures, planners and time periods, there was no unity to the design in anything at all. Baroque spires lay beside redbrick towers and neoclassical monuments carved of steel and office plants, we decided upon a thatched roof manor set in timber as our best hope for refuge, as less technology integrated meant less surveillance found. The owner of the manor offers us refuge and is kind enough to offer us a fine 3 course meal with gold prosecco, boarding rooms and fine clothes. Altogether a wonderful host, we asked how we could repay her and she just replied by being kind to one another.
In the night I heard footsteps pacing through the hall and went to find my new friends, but instead was haunted by apparitions of devilish monsters whose lanky limbs outstretched on idle haunches to snatch me away. Naturally I used the grappling hook gun to break out of the window and flee, as I was not prepared to deal with such creatures. On my way out I encountered a hunter, who kept his rifle pointed away from me and at the ground, his finger away from the trigger. He was intrigued by my appearance and wondered where I was from, the more I explained the more worried he grew and advised me to go to his house at once, showing me the directions. I launched myself towards his house as he ran, and swung myself atop the highest point of his roof. At the high point of his roof was a gigantic rotten raven, horrifyingly it swirled around me with metal wings and seemed ready to cleave me in two. I dropped down onto the lower balcony of this house, which seemed to look like a temple, and found myself face to face with a gigantic mutant rabbit also seemingly ready to cleave me in two.
Fortunately the hunter arrived to calm his giant pet, and the hunter seemed irate that I did not simply walk to his house like normal people. He explained what had been going on in vague detail, talking about how there were people still trying to take control of him, thus he had to make Hunter's Fortress in the middle of this dodgy town full of monsters. He said that security didn't like venturing out here, but would probably be willing to to find their lost vagrants. I asked what that meant and he said I had to stay hunkered down in his Fort for a while whilst my new friends were brought back to the city, or leave now into the wilderness night and probably get eaten by a grue. I resolved to go and save my friends, leaving Hunter's Fortress with a sad farewell.
I make it halfway across the town when some bright flashlight hits my outline, floodlights and flashlights soon follow. I use my grappling hook to escape to the tallest point of a tower, a concrete needle whose top was only half a meter in diameter, and avoid looking down at the ants below. With the grappling hook holding me onto the needle I clasp my hands around either side for stability and surety of mind, thinking what my next possible step could be. As if not looking at the people assembled below would make them go away, I keep my eyes pressed to the cool stone. I hear a loud voice, as if it was next to my ear, telling me to calmly come down and return to the city. I resolve then not to sail down calmly, nor to remain pinned to the needle for the carrion birds to feed on. Thus all things considered, I released the grappling hook, and willed myself to let go of the needle.
I then woke up because my 7AM alarm clock went off. I hope to dream this dream's ending one day