City

Couple weeks ago
I open my eyes. I am laying on my stomach on the floor. Offwhite carpet. The front door is behind my feet. I am facing a room on the right. The door is open. A man is sitting at a desk facing away from me, using a computer. He's wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. I silently lift my head to look around. Oh right. I was stolen. I really need to leave. I push myself up and get my feet under me and make a dash for the bathroom. As soon as I move the guy spins around and leaps out of his chair. Only a few steps to the bathroom, I can make it. I slam the door just before he can reach me. It won't lock. There is no lock!! It's a bathroom, why is there no lock?! He's slamming into the door and trying to open it. My hands can't keep the knob from turning. He stops for a moment. Now or never. I jump into the tub to open the window above. It slides open and I hear the man slam into the door. I pull myself up and barely squeeze out through the gap. The door slams open as I kick and wiggle out. I fall to the ground but quickly get my feet under me again. He will try to find me. I need to start running.

I had been in an apartment apparently. Buildings everywhere. I saw a way out of the maze. I ran down the sidewalk as fast as I could and I just kept running towards the city. There were skyscrapers with windows lit up and shops turning their lights on as the sun lowered. I found the ocean. The city was built around the three sides of an artificial cove. Three sides surrounded by buildings, a giant city, the fourth side water gently rippled in from the ocean where the sun was setting. I turned and kept running and trying to find someone. But there were no people. I needed someone, anyone!

My lungs are burning. My legs are numb. I can't breathe anymore. I can't keep running. There! A shadow in the window, a silhouette behind the blinds in another apartment complex. I knock on the door. It opens and two men are standing there, one at the door, the other just behind him. The one at the door is tall. His hair is dark, his eyes are dark, he has a goatee. He smiles. Not a happy smile. A smile that tells me he's one of the bad guys. Fuck. He swings at me and I black out.

I wake up on the floor again. Another apartment. The one I just knocked on the door of? Maybe. Probably. I don't know. But this time there are several men there. They are silent. A few are watching me. I am sore. There is blood on my hands and arm. I lift it and sit up slightly. Blood everywhere. My own blood. On my face, my arms, my shirt, my pants. My shoes are gone. My head is pounding. I am so sore and tired. I'm exhausted. I can't stop though or they will kill me. They watch me, laughing, as I army crawl to the nearest room. Another bathroom. I kick the wood door shut. This one locks. The tile floor is cold. I can't catch my breath. I'm breathing so hard. My body starts shaking. My head is pounding. I start crying. I want to give up. If they rape me and kill me it will be over. No reason to fight anymore. Just let it happen. Be done. Give up. Then the pain will stop. The fear goes away. No more suffering. No more bleeding. No more. I'm done.

No. I have to fight! I cry out and force myself to stand up. The men start trying to break the door down. It's cracking and splintering. The window is higher up and smaller than in the first bathroom. And it's stuck. I can't get a good grip on it. Too much blood on my hands. My panic level increases. I need to open the fucking window. It's my only way out. I'm crying, screaming. Bloody handprints are smeared across the window. I push with all I have left in me. It budges. I move my fingers over and pull. Sharp pulls, each one opening the window just a little more. The door is failing. A heavy boot smashes through. I need to get out NOW. I punch the screen out and try to climb up. I don't think I can fit. I get my arms up and my feet climb the wall to push my upper body out. Arms wrap around the outside. I turn sideways and force myself through. The window pane scrapes on my stomach. I somehow wiggle out. I can't run anymore. I need to. I'm on the other side of the cove from where I started. I will swim. Maybe they won't follow me into the water.

This is where the dream gets dumb and *really* random.

There are sharks here. I know there are. The sun has just gone down. The waves are bigger than earlier but still small though they aren't coming from the ocean, but from the direction of the city. Backwards. A large wave is coming. It crashes and fizzles into sizzling foam. A line of people with surfboards is standing there. I can touch the bottom? I can. I stand up. They are walking towards me. I notice that their boards are chewed up. Bites taken out. These are dead surfers. They are soggy, missing limbs, pale. I'm not afraid of them. One hands me a body board and we all start paddling toward the city, against the waves.

The waves switch direction suddenly and we are pushed in. I stand up again. The sun is rising. Light glowing through the skyscrapers. The waves are getting bigger. There are people surfing. The dead ones just watch. Then a big wave breaks and slams down one of the alive surfers. He was too close to shore. His head broke. His arm came off. He was on his stomach, dead man float. Nobody alive noticed. The dead surfers started wading over to him.

Then the bad guys found me again. I got out of the water and started climbing a rectangular pillar of a building. It was a tower. There were several and I jumped from one to the next towards the building itself. The dead surfers stood and watched. One bad guy is chasing me. Gaining on me. I make it to the building and jump down onto a curved ledge. There are several shallow U-shaped ledges. I jump down, down, down. I finally can't go down any more and the bad guy is still moving in. I jump for the water from about 50 feet up. I land gently and gracefully in the water and move away. The bad guy jumps. He hits hard and screams in pain. The dead surfers attack him and rip him apart. His screams turn to gurgles. I don't know where the other bad guys went. I'm still scared.

When I woke up I was confused and really grossed out by the final scene. Then I remembered the entire first part and couldn't stop crying. I wanted to die, to be raped, just so it would end.