So I had a dream last night / this morning that was something between Stephenie Meyer's The Host, Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty (which is not surprising because I finished it last night before bed), my experiences abroad and some kind of video game. The details are really fuzzy now but I think my sister and I were at a kind of boarding school. We shared a room, ate in a Great Hall, wore ridiculous clothes etc. There was a building that we could all walk to from the main section of the school (I don't remember sitting through classes) that was part library, part recreation center and part bazaar. At one point after hours I was caught trying on jewelry by some random boy (that looks nothing like the boys I know in real life). After teasing me for being there he 'helped' me find some other pieces that apparently looked good on me.
At some point in the dream, members of the school (if that's what it was) would play a video game and depending on how you played your character would determine what would happen to you in real life. It was supposed to be a virtual reality game but it took it to a whole new level since characters that reached a certain power level or had taken a certain route or had shown themselves to have some sort of trait would end the game changed. There'd be a dulling or perhaps hardening of their eyes and their behavior would change. Those of us who weren't interested in the game (me for instance - I had both my sister and the boy for company) could definitely begin to see that those players were different in other ways too: harsher, more preoccupied with death. Words or phrases that were taboo, that they wouldn't have said before pass their lips without a thought. They are mindful of only their own wants.
It eventually comes to light that they are possessed by something 'other' that completely obliterates who they had been. A war of sorts is raged within the school. It's somewhere in this swirling mix of dark and light imagery that the dream ends but I keep replaying parts of it and completely mix up the timeline as new images and details fix themselves in with each replay. There is certainly not a lack of details but I can't remember all of them now that I'm awake. It's very sad really as parts of the dream were so good.
My plan for today is to go to the library and the office. I'll see if we got any money in and if we did I'll probably trot on down to the bank to make a deposit. I work at Target tonight and tomorrow. My parents are out of town for a little while. I dropped mom off at the airport yesterday. Mom will be back Wednesday; Dad won't be back until early February. They're in Florida and I really envy that fact right now. The outdoor thermometer says 27 degrees Farenheit. This is a huge improvement over yesterday when I got up to go to work and the temperature was -3 degrees. I can't wait for spring.
