Sweet dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
I'm gonna use you and abuse you
I'm gonna know what's inside
Gonna use you and abuse you
I'm gonna know what's inside you
Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) ~ Marilyn Manson
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E18F-Mu8Yo)
Krystal knew it wasn't her dream she had wandered into. Sometimes her dreams would just be dreams, like anyone else's but, other times her dreams could be warnings or premonitions. The dead would occasionally use her dreams to send her messages - confusing, difficult to interrupt messages. Now and then, she would find herself in somebody else's dream. Krystal was never able to interact in these dreams. She would be like the fly on the wall, watching somebody else's happy memory or their nightmare. The dreamers never seemed to realize she was there.
She was in darkness but, Krystal could hear music playing from somewhere. It was like it was on a loop, playing the same chords over and over again. She had never heard this piece of music before but, it must be stuck inside the dreamer's mind. There was a sense of frustration within the music. Was the dreamer bothered because they couldn't make the music stop?
She saw a light up ahead and decided it was walk towards it or stand here in darkness. Doing something was always better than being bored while stuck in someone's head. As she moved toward it, the music seemed to get louder. The scene began to fill in around her but, the only colors were black and white. It was as if Krystal was inside of an A-Ha video. The only thing that looked real was a man, wearing nothing but black briefs.
"Not sure where this is going." she muttered to herself, assuming that nothing she did ever seemed to matter.
The man had his back to Krystal as he sat at a desk that looked like a three-dimensional line drawing. He appeared to be sketching something but, his body blocked Krystal's view of whatever he was working on. He lifted his head and looked over his shoulder. It was "Paul". He seemed to be staring through Krystal, into the darkness. Krystal turned to look over her shoulder, then back to the man she reviled. After a moment, he returned to his work so she carefully approached now trying her best not to be felt or seen. He had a ring on his right hand that resembled the skull of a bird with a very sharp beak so she blinked once to capture it in her mind.
He then stabbed his left hand with the sharp point letting several drops of his blood fall into the jar of ink. He took a feather quill and dipped it into the bloody ink and then continued to draw. As he did so, streaks of red were added to the black and white of Krystal's surroundings. She looked around at the surroundings as they changed and let slip a slight noise of surprise.
Suddenly, Paul spun around again grabbing her attention. This time, Krystal felt like he was looking right at her. That had never happened before when she had walked through somebody else's dream. His hand quickly moved to bury whatever he was drawing under some blank papers just as Krystal leaned to look. He tilted his head and squinted as he looked toward her and her skin ran cold.
"Krystal?" A slow smile crossed his face and her pulse hammered in her ears.
"Interesting. You do know that when you open this kind of doorway with somebody who knows what they're doing, it swings both ways. If you can crawl around inside my head, I can crawl around inside yours." Krystal suddenly felt more vulnerable than she'd ever felt before in her life.
"But not tonight," Paul stood up as the music abruptly stopped.
"I'm actually glad you survived. This is going to be fun." A door that hadn't been there before suddenly appeared between her and Paul. He slammed it shut, and Krystal was jarringly awakened in her bed. She quickly grabbed her sheets around her half naked body feeling helpless and exposed for the first time in over a decade.
Leaping from the bed she ran to the bathroom where she literally threw up at the idea of Paul inside of her mind. She'd always felt she was in a person's dreams because the powers that be wanted her to help them - now it seemed they'd given him a way to get inside of her head. She turned on the shower and climbed in, not even bothering to remove the shorts she'd worn to bed.
Eventually the shower would turn cold but she didn't notice.
Playlist for Episode 101: The Crow and The Butterfly
The Crow and The Butterfly ~ Shinedown
Timed Blues ~ Dead Sara
Weatherman ~ Dead Sara
Only The Good Die Young ~ Billy Joel
Revolution ~ The Beatles
Sympathy For The Devil ~ The Rolling Stones
Temptation ~ Diana Krall (performed by Tatiana)
Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) ~ Green Day
What Sarah Said ~ Death Cab For Cutie
Lost ~ Amanda Palmer (performed by Krystal)
If I Die Young ~ The Band Perry
Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) ~ Green Day (performed by Frank)
Freezer ~ Grinspoon
Walking Dead ~ Linkin Park
This Tattoo ~ David Wilcox
The Kill ~ 30 Seconds To Mars
Lullaby ~ The Cure
Burning Down the House ~ Talking Heads (performed by Krystal)
Puttin' On the Ritz ~ Fred Astaire
Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) ~ Marilyn Manson
The Late Great Planet Earth ~ Plumb (our theme song)