My Love

When I say my love I realize people might not quite understand what I mean. So, allow me to clarify. I mean my love as in my romantic companion. Though not sexual companion. Neither she nor I have any desire for sexual contact. I believe the term is asexual.

I've pretty much just always been that way. She apparently was "Normal", as some would call it, in the past, but many aspects of her were... essentially torn from her when she... er died. Among them her sex drive, her sense of humour and large swathes of her memory. In fact the only memory she has really clearly are her death and her interactions with a part of The Darkness called The Rake and a man she calls Ladua.

Anyway so about her. She told me to just call her by her real name since everyone including the people she knew in real life with very few exceptions know her by a fake name. So her name is Catherine Higgins. Her story is complicated and with her loss of memory kind of confusing. I've never had a dream that involved her. I found her completely by accident.

Basically though for a while she was a part of The Darkness. Not like a servant exactly, but like part of one of the creatures. An entity of The Darkness. She had chosen this way to survive as it was that or be killed by The Rake whom she fears greatly and still has nightmares about on occasion. Anyway so she became part of The Darkness, but she tried to save people. Tried to use her knowledge to keep people alive. It didn't work and ended up getting her killed. She was freed from the creature only to be stabbed to death. However something happened. The knife used to stab her was magical and instead of actually killing her like it was supposed to it instead just killed the parts of her that had been one with the darkness. Essentially purifying her of The Darkness, but also severely damaging her as much of her had been subsumed by it.

When she awoke she had no memory had been unceremoniously dumped in a back alley and the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was me. The alley she had been dumped in was conveniently behind The Ordeal Headquarters and we were on our way back from a meeting with The Archive when we found her. We took her in and took care of her for a while until she was better. She moved out a month or so after we found her and got herself her own place, never really told me how, but I know better than to ask. We continued seeing each other and talking about our various problems. Her telling me her story from what she could remember and me telling her mine and about my dreams. Eventually it became a friendship and then more.

Now we still see each other whenever we're not busy. She got a job doing something. She told me not to ask and I respect her privacy. I trust it's nothing that will be a danger to me or The Ordeal so I don't need to worry.

The Ordeal don't exactly trust her, but they also don't know her story and probably never will. It won't matter much longer. As I said when The Darkness comes I'll be leaving them.

My Friends

My friends are mostly people I saw in my dreams. People who seemed to oppose the darkness and seemed interesting. I'd find some information in the dream I could use to contact them and then do so. Some of them proved impossible to contact. Either because at this point in time they were dead, or because they turned out not to exist in the same state in this universe. That's a small problem that has caused trouble at points especially with The Archive deal. Unless there's an obvious clue in the dream it's very hard to tell when my dream is of another universe and not this one. As a result on occasion The Ordeal and The Archive have gotten into arguments regarding payment for information that couldn't be sourced to a proper universe. Information like that is pretty much useless to The Archive so they tend to not want to pay for it and of course The Ordeal want them to pay anyway for the information and just piece together what universe it's from from contextual clues. Occasionally they end up paying occasionally they don't either way the deal has as of yet continued and it is kind of fun having someone who wants to hear all about my dreams. They seem to especially find interest in my descriptions of the creatures. As I understand it in my dreams I see them differently then they normally appear.

Right sorry this post was supposed to be about my friends. If I had more to say about my dreams I should have said it in the dreams post. Right so  I was only able to make contact with a few of the people I tried to contact.

As I've said two of them turned out to already be near by. I don't believe in coincidences so I choose to believe it was some sort of destiny or perhaps manipulation, by some other power. Two of those I contacted ended up working at a local school. These would be... Er had to go back to see what names I gave them. Patrick Aurelio and Mr. Doloro.

Other people I managed to get into contact with was a man who... um... I'd use the alias he gave me, but I think his Alias is more well known than he is... Should I use his real name? Or make up a new alias... or make up a new real name?

Yeah sure... Norman January. He's constantly on the move and mostly communicates with me through messaging systems, e-mail, skype, etc... He pretty much just wanders around the world saving people and fighting people. He really likes fighting people. He's had some meetings with The Ordeal in the past. Both in their new form and their old form. I generally don't tell The Ordeal about him or any of my friends. The Ordeal might not take kindly to finding out the people I hang out with are well, a seemingly free follower of the darkness known as The Manufactured Newborn and the guy who in the past has killed many of them. Yeah those runs ins Norman had with them in the past usually involved murdering their members... He... He wasn't a good guy in the past. He's one now... mostly, but yeah people don't easily forget the fact you punched their friend so hard in the throat his head popped off. Which if my dreams are to be believed, and they always are, is a thing that happened.

Norman, Patrick and Mr. Doloro were part of the group that were involved in an event. A massive event that caused mass panic and almost broke the veil that keeps The Darkness from being general knowledge. An almost Apocalyptic event occurred and those three along with a few others, all of whom are unfortunately dead or out of reach, worked together and stopped the apocalypse. The events leading up to the apocalypse that were buried in people's minds were spun into things like mass hallucinations, terrorist attacks and a strange celestial phenomenon that made it seem like the sky had become a mirror.

Other than my aforementioned friends I also have some friends in The Ordeal. There's Theo of course. He was once targeted by A creature of The Darkness called The Cold Boy and is currently the expert on The Cold Boy for The Ordeal and The Head of Contingency Group Charlie Bravo apparently. Other friends I've made in the group are Melissa, a runner from a strange form of the darkness called The Convocation. They're basically evil birds, who cause storms. She's a member of contingency team Charlie Oscar. She's the one who proposed the deal with The Archive and mostly acts as my agent. Brokering and arguing deals with them. Lastly is Brian. He's just a friend who I met and began talking with. He told me about the blogs and showed me a few of them that pertained to dreams I had had. I read a lot of them and he also convinced me to write a few. Some about events that hadn't been reported either because the person involved, died without ever getting to write about it and some simply because the person had never decided to. I'll talk more about the blog writing at a later date. It's because of him this blog exists and he's the only one I let know about it.

I made him promise not to show it to anyone else in The Ordeal and I doubt he'll tell anyone about what I say so I'm sure there's no danger of writing about stuff like my friendship with Norman.

So... Those are my friends. Oh also based on my dreams one of my new friends may in fact be god or some sort of equivalent. It never seemed quite clear though and he doesn't seem like God.

Next time I'll talk about my love.

My Family

Let's talk about my family.

They're not actually my family. My actual family disowned me. They weren't to keen on my ability to see the past in my dreams... Considered me a freak.

Probably didn't help that my first dream ended up unearthing a secret my mom had been hiding from my father about the day before their wedding.

Anyway so they kicked me out of the house at the age of 17. I immediately knew where to go though. I'd had a dream before about a group of people. All of them outcasts, hiding from the ones they used to love and the world. At the time I hadn't had any dreams yet about The Darkness so, didn't know why they all ran away from their families and friends, I just knew that they seemed like people who would take me in.

I spent some time finding my way to them, but I eventually made it to their base. They let me in, but seemed really confused. Apparently everyone else who comes to them is contacted first and invited. The fact I found out about them on my own and didn't know what they were talking about when they made references to The Darkness worried them. They initially thought I worked for The Darkness. They kept a careful watch on me at all times. It was while I was staying with them that I had my first dream about The Darkness.

In the dream I saw a creature. It appeared to be a human at first glance with an emotionless face, but it's face kept changing, morphing rapidly through different faces. Faces from other dreams. Faces I had seen die in other dreams. The more I looked the more I noticed, until I saw it. Invisible wires of flesh were wrapped around the creature connecting it to the monster. Emerging from it's back was a monster made of meat and flesh. It was featureless and embraced the human form it was connected to. White angel wings of molded bone extended from it's back and dripped blood in a trail behind it. As I watched it's featureless face began to change, gore dripping from it until two eyeholes appeared which stared into my mind. It's face began to tear open forming a mouth that shaped itself into a mutilated grin. The human form turned to face me too and the emotionless faces it wore before were replaced with the same faces, but screaming in terror and agony. The human form's head exploded then with the sound of a gunshot and it fell over. The monster left the corpse behind as it vanished.

That was the end of that dream. I told my family about it and about my dreams in general. It was through them I learned all about the darkness and as I told them about the other dreams I had, I learned that my dreams were not only of past events, but occasionally of other universes. They told me that those who dealt with The Darkness occasionally found strange references and inconsistencies in otherwise completely verifiable accounts of The Darkness. It was eventually decided that these accounts must be from other universes. Likewise some of my dreams, like those about an Earth devoid of life, likely come from another universe. The idea that such a place like the ones from my dreams actually exist is a little depressing considering some of the scenarios I've seen in my dreams.

I stayed there for some time with my new family. Until I had my first run in with The Darkness in the waking world. Before I talk about that though let me talk about my family as I was supposed to be doing this entire time. Oops... Anyway. As I learned more about The Darkness I also learned more about my family. They call themselves The Ordeal. They fight against The Darkness. Mostly via information. They work to inform others about the monsters that make up The Darkness. They also seek out those targeted by The Darkness and invite them to join them giving strength in numbers and community. Those chosen are of course allowed to refuse and if they do The Ordeal still offer them any help they can, usually in the form of money, food, information on The Darkness or information about known safe places and dangerous places.

They told me that they used to be a much less effective force. They were once known by a different name and opposed only a small portion of The Darkness. The creature I saw in my dream. Apparently back then they were unwitting pawns of The Darkness. Created to be a source of amusement. Something harmless to oppose it so it could enjoy a slight challenge to it's complete domination. That changed with their second leader. He led them for all of a month, learning and then teaching them about the other Creatures in The Darkness. He made sure they were prepared to face all the creatures and then he exposed the lie of what they truly were. After that he simply left and disappeared. Most people believe he was killed shortly after by the creature, which they refer to as The Archangel, but no one really knows where he went. They left then. Left the old compound, left their old name and left their old goals. They reformed into The Ordeal and dedicated themselves to helping others, which they say is the best way to oppose The Darkness.

I found them in their new base of operations, which is not the one we're in currently. It was a simple abandoned building. They used it without permission as opposed to actually owning the one they're in now. It was while I lived with them there that I had my first run in with The Darkness.

I was asleep, having a dream, when I was awoken by a sound. Something gently tapping on the window. I woke and turned to look at the window. There was a white, faceless figure staring in the window. It was just a blank, smooth face devoid of any features. Gunfire began to erupt from somewhere else in the building and then the window exploded. Shards of glass and pieces of cement launched into the room followed quickly by thick black branch like tendrils that immediately moved towards me. I screamed and an Ordeal member burst into the room, a gun in one hand and a spherical device, similar in appearance to a grenade in the other. He tossed the device just as I felt the branches begin to grab hold of me and then there was a flash of light and the branches recoiled from me. The Faceless creature withdrew as well and the member grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the bed, seconds before more branches fired in impaling the bed and dragging it out the window.

The Ordeal member, who's name was Theo, and I fled the room and headed to the stairwell. He informed me that the building was  being attacked by The Darkness, specifically a creature called The Slender Man and an army of it's servants called Proxies. The Ordeal was abandoning base. Luckily they had a contingency plan in place. The Ordeal was split into several groups each one going to a different back up safe house. When one group managed to establish a new permanent group they would contact the rest and they'd regroup at the new base.

Just like that The Ordeal fought it's way out of the building and fled into the night. Undoubtedly some groups didn't make it out or were taken out later, but The Ordeal survived the attack and so did I. I stayed with Theo's group in a makeshift safe house I'm not allowed to disclose any information about.

The search for a new permanent safe house was slow going and most of the time was spent looking and hoping we'd be contacted soon with a new place. It was during this time someone came forth with the idea that now defines my role in The Ordeal. By now the Ordeal didn't necessarily trust me, but they believed me about the dreams and so I was taken to meet another group called The Archive.

The Archive were one of the few other groups that knew about The Darkness. The Ordeal tended to have little involvement with them because, and I was only told this after meeting them, they sort of worship one of the creatures that make up The Darkness. Specifically one called The Blind Man, or The Grandfather by the Archive. The Archive are however apparently not hostile to those who fight against The Darkness and are very interested in knowledge. This was why I was brought to meet them.

The Archive were told about my ability and through some tests I didn't understand apparently confirmed my ability to be genuine and that I could see the past of both this and other universes as theorized. I don't know how they figured this, but they seemed to be sure so, whatever. The Ordeal and The Archive made a deal. I'd tell them about the events I witnessed in my dreams and in return they would provide financing for The Ordeal.

It was through this deal that we managed to buy and modify our current home. Theo made contact with the rest of the groups and The Ordeal regrouped and resettled in our new home.

Next up my friends...

My Home

My home is a little unconventional. For one instead of being any sort of residential building. It used to be a police station, but when the station moved to a better position downtown, my family purchased the building and turned the old police station into a compound. It's modified heavily, turning the area that used to be holding cells into a number of small rooms. Each one fitting four people snugly. A few of the rooms were expanded and some of the entrances and exits were removed and/or sealed.

Some other strange aspects of my home is the constant patrols of armed guards and the still stocked armory. As well while the holding cells were modified into bedrooms there were other cells that were left functioning as normal. It's rare they're ever in use, but they are used on occasion.

One of the rooms I'm not sure what it was before, or if it even was something different before, has been converted into a chapel for various faiths to pray and worship. Trust is a big issue in my home and as such there is a constant buddy system and no one is allowed to wander around alone. This is especially true at the chapel where two guards are always posted to make sure that those within are not praying to the wrong god.

I should specify in this case the wrong god being a part of The Darkness not that we are intolerant of any specific faith.

So, that is my home. When the darkness comes I will undoubtedly be forced to flee my home. If I go by myself I will be forced to stay on the move. Otherwise I can stay and eventually my entire family will be forced to move, but I will still be with them when they settle down again... I don't want to put them through that though. When the Darkness comes I will leave by myself.

Next time... I suppose I can tell you about my Family I've already mentioned a lot about them in this post. 

My Dreams

In my dreams I see other universes and other times. Only the past though never the future. I don't know what's happening in the future I only know what's happened in the past in this and every other universe.

I've seen The Darkness, I've seen people fighting The Darkness. I've seen other universes where The Darkness is gone and new Darkness simply moved in. I've seen The Rapture and The Fall of Gods. I've seen my friends and my family and their interactions with The Darkness. That's how I found my friends and how I learned about my family.

In my Dreams I see The Darkness and The Darkness has seen me. That's why eventually The Darkness will come for me.

Next time we'll talk about My Home.

My School

So, starting with my most boring foot forward let's talk about my school.

My school is called Country Vale High School. It's a two story brick building. The top story is a donut shaped hallway of doors leading to various classrooms. The bottom floor is a small rectangle that leads off in one direction to the lockerbay and main stairwell and in the other direction to the gym, library and a few more classrooms, mostly language and science classrooms.

There are a number of teachers at the school and a number of students. A few of my friends are here. One's a teacher and another is a "Office Administrator". The teacher is an I.T. teacher... I'm not supposed to use their real names so we'll call him Mr. Doloro. He's a whiz with computers. I'll tell you more about him later.

The Administrator is a young man probably not too much older than me. We'll call him Patrick Aurelio. I have to call him Mr. when I speak to him at school though. To be respectful. Mr. Doloro makes me call him Mr. all the time though. Everyone else, but Patrick calls him Mr all the time anyway. I'll talk more about both of them at a later point.

So... at the school I have a few acquaintances, but only two real friends. I don't want anyone else close to me when The Darkness finally catches up to me so I keep people at a distance. It's earned me a reputation as sort of an outcast. Occasionally people make up stories about me or pick on me. I don't mind though. I'm nowhere near the most picked on person at school anyway. I'm mostly ignored. This is probably because of my well known friendship with Mr. Doloro and Mr. Aurelio. Which is another reason people pick on me calling me a teacher's pet and stuff, but they mostly leave me alone because everyone likes Mr. Aurelio and no one wants to upset Mr. Doloro.

So, that's my school I guess... I'll tell you about my dreams next.

It's been a little while now and everything still seems calm.

Any day now the dam is going to break and the nightmares will rush forth, but for now I can lie happily on the grass, stare up at the sky and let all the pain, suffering and Fear stuck behind the dam float out of my mind.

Let me tell you about the happy things.

My friends.

My love.

My family.

My school.

My home.

My dreams.

My life.

One thing I don't have to worry about. When the dark comes I will lose many of these things, but not all.

In the end I will undoubtedly lose my home and be forced to leave my school.

My dreams will no longer be places of sanctuary, but the first casualty in their war against me.

In the end I may lose my life.

I will never lose my love, I will never lose my family and I will never lose my friends.

This I know, because my family has stood for a long time against the darkness and will not falter now.

My love was once one with the darkness and still holds it's power.

My friends have fought the darkness before many times and won in the end and will continue to do so forever after.

I think in this case I will start by telling you about my school. The most innocuous of starts...