Another, yet another escapist dream... It's all I ever get anymore...
I am living in a big city, something like New York. My apartment is part of a school complex above a grocery store that looks suspiciously like the local Village Market.
All this is not important, compared to the fact that someone very like Adolf Hitler has assumed the government of the region, and has instituted a very 1984-Big Brother-style regime.
This does not affect me at first; it is unnerving but I do not mind, until the last straw:
Big Brother says there will be no music and there will be no art.
He dismantles the music department and the art department. Obviously I can't live with that. I begin to exhibit signs of civil disobedience. People aren't really allowed to go places, but I have an escape plan.
Above the inner doors of the airlock-style entrance to the grocery store are a bunch of posters, announcements, etc. stapled into the glass. (Yes, in the dream they were stapled there.) I get a ladder and begin removing them one by one--they don't do anyone any good now anyways. For some odd reason, Pseudo Hitler shops at this store--sees me--and, unhealthily, I become special target of his interest.
I have taken down all the signs, and back in my room consider what I can do with that blank space. In my mind is the intent to spread counterpropaganda: THERE MUST BE MUSIC AND THERE MUST BE ART... But that's enough to get one killed in an Orwellian regime, so I reconsider.
I head back down to the doors, and realize how close the subway is, how close freedom could be if I ran for it.
I run.
...through and past many freestanding houses, till I finally get to the one that will be obstinate. I enter, and the owner--a middle-age lady--accosts me and halts my progress. Sure it's her house, but not mine, but this is my freedom under fire here! I run past her, intending to escape through the kitchen window, but there's no exit there. Darn. I run back the other way, getting lost in an endless circle of laundry room, kitchen, dining room... The lady laughs at me.
I discover a way to the second floor, through the attic. She won't stop me, I won't let her! I emerge in what's probably her son's room, and, happily, a decent window. I peer out...
Pseudo Hitler and his agents are in the yard out back, looking for me. One looks up at my window--
--I duck quickly. The agent didn't see me. But he's suspicious now. I wait till I think they're all gone, and jump out the window.
The agents all turn, ready to fire at me, but luckily for me Pseudo Hitler is right next to me, and I grab him, using him as a human shield. (Oddly enough, he's unarmed.) Of course they won't fire at that... I back away, up the hill, muttering some idiotic speech about how useful it is to have Pseudo Hitler as a human shield. I get up to the road on top of the hill and tell P.H. (who really is rather wimpy in person) I am going to let him go. He looks at me with what appears to be new respect, and gives me directions: a black car (of much more precise description, all now forgotten) will be coming by--hitch a ride with it to freedom.
Not bloody likely.
I let him go and start walking to the left down the road, hitching a ride from anything but a black car... In the end, I find a guy in a red car eating junk food, yammering away about how Seventh-Day Adventists are always against junk food and how he'll never give it up... We arrive at the train station, him still walking with me, and I point out my friends Luke and Jake eating Little Debbies, and take the moment to remind him it's probably vegetarianism he's thinking about. K'hurf.
Of course, a fugitive from Big Brother isn't going to be able to buy a railway ticket.
Me, JunkFood Guy, Luke, and Jake stow away in the space behind the engine and the first train car. The train takes off, us unnoticed. The train is not steady on its tracks though, and it moves unsteadily and eventually runs off the tracks. The conductor, a lady, realizes that the locomotive is on backwards. So, she lifts it up (in her hands, by herself!), and turns it around to attach back to the train. But it's not on stable ground, and rolls over, flattening the end of an automobile in the parking lot we're in... She tries it again and gets it right this time, and we set the train going again with her joining us fugitives.
Then we come to the pyramid. Around here the interface becomes something like a Super Nintendo game, with lousy control--for directional keys I have to wave my arms expressively in the appropriate direction, and the X Y A B buttons are just out of reach on the side of the locomotive engine. There are no tracks here, and I have to control the train myself: as the train moves forwards, a little yellow indicator blinks, indicating what button I have to push. Left... Right.. Up... Down.. X...
I miss my chance to hit the right button.
On this floor we wander around looking for an exit, but there is no exit. There is, however, a guy who can teach us a spell to start the level over. The spell was something like aimfiz. It didn't work the first time, because he left a vowel out of my name (which wasn't my name, in the dream) when he did it, but it worked the second time, and we started over...
Only, it wasn't the pyramid level.
We shot through the air, the train sailing onward, past volcanoes and over water, for a surprisingly long time until we arrive at the next level, which is a swampland maze similar to the pyramid. This time, however, there were no indicators to show the way to go, and I proceeded to try to solve the maze the ordinary way: follow one wall until you find the exit.
Unfortunately, that only works when the maze hasn't got islands with the exit on them. Guess what?
(About this point, the swampland maze turned into an office-building maze. It was a gradual change I didn't notice, even though it meant the disappearance of the train.)
ANYWAY, I was walking along the edge of the maze, looking into the janitors' closets, the little computer rooms, the offices... looking for the exit, to no avail. After turning a couple of corners, I stumble upon actually a bedroom: someone calls out, asking if it's me there. I run away, because I'm not supposed to be seen. I go down the hall further, and I find familiar people who tell me that the guy in the bedroom is the only guy who'd know a way out. So I go back and find out that it's somepunk's room, and him and his girlfriend follow along to show us the way out.
(I don't think we found the way out, but the dream ends there...)