Anyways, here it is:
Michael and I were quite poor. The world was getting more and more expensive, and we were struggling, not to eat, but to have any semblance of luxury. At the beginning of the dream, he took me to GoodWill to do some shopping, and it looked like the make-up counter at Macy's--surprisingly well-lit and nice. I bought a picture frame and a few of books (for those who know me, there were three Jude Deveraux's, a Jodi Picoult, and a baby name book). The total came out to nearly $700.
Needless to say, Michael was very disheartened. He wanted to give me every comfort money could afford, and we used our rent money on books! So, to cheer us up, we bought fresh Chicken Express.
Now, in reality, Chicken Express is one of my great joys--the manager is extremely friendly and helpful and professional; the chicken is tender and the skin soft and always piping hot; the biscuits are exquisite; and the corn fritters are one of the greatest of God's creations. So, in the dream, this was meant to cheer us up greatly.
We took the take-out to a local park to eat at, but the park was quite ritzy--more of a country club with no central building, they had horse back riding, an indoor swimming pool, croquet, huge pavillions hosting weddings and birthday parties, and a $14,000 membership fee before we could sit on the grass and eat our fast food fried chicken.
Mike was even more upset, so we tried to eat in the back parking lot at Best Buy, next to the dumpsters. But the "homeless" had set up a society back there, using all the tossed electronics to make an entertainment center Bill Gates would have envied, and we are obviously not welcome.
It's at this point that I begin to wonder, exactly WHY are we so darned poor?! I mean, even the outcasts of society are living a more lavish lifestyle than we are, and we are still struggling just to make it!
We end up at the Artiste's park. Outside there are wanna-be musicians, artists, writers, and actors practicing their trade with a very superior attitude, talking about Fame with a capital F that was never going to come. A douche with a very condescending attitude and a pathetic mohawk tries to intimidate us, and we wander inside the park's main building. Inside are hundreds of Hispanics eating their lunches around a gigantic television, watching a telenovela. Mike and I don't speak Spanish, but Mike STILL manages to ruin the ending for everyone and get us kicked out.
Even at this poorest of poor parks, there is a water park section with gigantic slides and wading rivers, and we go and swim for a while, where a girl with black and purple hair and the conviction of becoming a famous writer hassles me. I kind of like her, and decide that she would make an adorable action figure.
After this day from hell, Michael decides that he is much, much too good for this life. So he decides to change our fate.
He crafts the most high-tech mansion imaginable--everything is clean, efficient, self-reliant, and incredibly durable. There is absolutely no sign of wear and tear on this behemoth, with walls and walls made entirely of glass, stainless steel (without a single fingerprint visible) taking up the rest of the space.
It occurred to me in the dream--how was Michael able to formulate and execute this brilliant and very complex house in such a short time?? Where did he get the funds to sink into this house?? We were living in a tiny apartment with the constant threat of mold and cockroaches, when we could have afforded this at the drop of a hat? It made no sense, and Michael was NOT forthcoming with information.
My house was devoid of all signs of personalization and life, as Michael wouldn't let me put flowers in it -pout- but I loved it very much--it was very much like a living entity, and so very like my Michael that I felt completely at ease with it. There were no walls separating the first floor into individual rooms--everything was open space, with no bathrooms downstairs. It was odd. Upstairs, everything was plush carpeting, the master bedroom and bath the height of comfort.
By far the most interesting feature of the house was the Security Personnel though. Michael was home less now (probably working to pay off the beast, I thought), and so we had a hundred men and women dressed completely in black with nothing but their heads showing, and they were sunglasses all the time, regardless of the lighting.
With them, I wondered even more--why would we need this much security?? Why would anyone want to attack us? These soldiers were the best of the best--even my inexperience could discern that--as they were stronger, faster, smarter than any humans, and there were dozens of them at every entrance to the property, and stationed all over my home!
They were quite friendly however and would talk to me, and it was through them that I was beginning to piece the story together.
I found out through the gossiping with the Elites ("research") that Michael had built this house before, which is why he was able to build it so fast. But before, there were side effects, and the house had to be destroyed--when the house self-destructed, Michael alone was able to escape the inferno, and all the highly trained soldiers perished.
Michael had engineered the serum that created the soldiers that were now protecting us, but he had first tested the serum on himself. Because of this, he got the undiluted, perfected first batch that he was never able to recreate--he was the Alpha, the prototype, and was therefore was stronger, faster, smarter than all of the rest of them. That was how he was able to escape and they were not.
This is where I quit sending texts this morning, so the story becomes a little bit fuzzier with the lengthening day--forgive me for being vague on detail now.
The truth was that the house's technology was being utilized by an ever-strengthening entity. Elites called it "the virus", but this was unlike anything I had ever seen--this organism became more and more intelligent and more powerful by stealing from the house's advanced mechanics. When the house began shedding rusted, decayed, or worn-out metal from it's frame, the organism would craft it into bio-mechanical limbs and use it to attack the occupants of the house--it wanted the base.
I was there when the first wave came--ranging in size from my balled up fist to larger than a Clydesdale horse, were these...they sort of looked alien bug-like, but supplemented with stainless steel appendages capable of utter destruction. In the center of the downstairs was the car Mike had bought me--it was a beefed up version of Wilhelmina (an 2009--I think--H3T), in all black and armor plated in black. The virus ripped it into tiny pieces. Everywhere, Elites were dying, and I was completely helpless to stop it.
Mike saved me. I don't know how...but one moment, I was watching the destruction, the carnage--surprisingly unafraid...and the next, I was in Mike's laboratory watching on several screens as my beautiful home was filled to the brim with water, drowning our security personnel--who had become my friends--and the virus alike. That's when Michael decided I needed to hear the whole story.
Over centuries, Michael had built his kingdom again and again, improving upon it every time. He was inexplicably thousands of years advanced for his time. The first time the wave hit, all of his friends, the men protecting him had died...so he had formulated the serum and reincarnated them to be with him again. They had no place on heaven or earth or in hell, as freaks of nature, so they made their home the only place they had left--wherever Michael was, they were inexorably drawn to, dedicated their eternal lives to his service.
As Alpha, Michael felt every one of their deaths, and it had drawn him nearly mad, which is why he started every new life trying to make it without the wealth he had accumulated over the years, and vowing never to again resurrect his metal kingdom.
However, with every advancement Michael made, the virus evolved too. So, the many times that Michael had built the house, it had always been destroyed, and with it, all of Elites had sacrificed themselves to keep him alive, allow him to escape. They perished, and when the house was built again, they dragged themselves up from their graves and made their way back to their "home". Michael would patch them up, making them almost all mechanical as well.
The reason that he had drowned them this time was because they no longer had need to breathe, so they would be able to survive under water much longer than the virus. They would eat the dead remains of the organisms, and we would drain the house and our lives would go on....
Michael would never age, because of the serum. I, however, was "unsuitable for the treatment" as Michael put it--though it saddened him greatly, I--just like everyone else he knew from his past, except for the Elites--was going to die.
That's where I woke up. Crazy dream, right?? I have oddly specific dreams, and with my writer's mind, I cling to every word--you never know what will end up becoming a story =)
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