12 Sep 2025
Dream
I was in a little cabin that looked a bit like my bedroom in the backyard of a house. It was night. Before arriving there, I was on a long bus ride with several MFA cohort people. I thought a lot about who would stick around Fort Collins after the MFA, and figured my friend Navya would go to Chicago, Trent back to Ohio, and recall speaking to Sarah. Figures were shrouded in darkness. They got me back home after this bus ride that may have involved drinking, and I was in my cabin with them, preparing for the night. Cody was there, in the corner of the dark room. I sensed his concern but he never came closer. I was in a bed with Conrad, who was only wearing blue underwear and was already falling asleep. I fell asleep embracing him and sort of atop him, but somebody woke me up and I moved so I could sleep more on my side of the bed. I remember yawning a bunch and tears running down my face from yawning, and knowing my hair looked crazy from sleep, and Cody laughing at this a bit from the corner and me laughing too as I readjusted to go to sleep. My childhood dog Zoe came in somehow from outside, as apparently in the main home she wasn’t equipped to sleep on her own like the other dogs and felt more sensitive to the dangerous night, so she curled up in bed just behind my pillow and next to Conrad and my heads. I and a few others were cooing at her and I thought she was so cute curled up there. Eventually everyone disappeared and Conrad and I had to make it through the night. Unknown beings outside started fire rituals and were burning the main house or something. I wasn’t sure what they were doing or what they looked like for a while, I just tried to lie low in this cabin. At one point I woke up and saw the front door was a little open, with fire and these beings marching outside. I woke up Conrad who checked outside. These beings looked like stacks of white faceless dough balls in the general shape of humans, and they had spinning bowls of fire atop their heads, and were worshipping fire in a dance and a ritual. Seeing them was scary and they slowly turned towards us, ready to attack. Conrad slammed the door shut and I slid metal spoons and the handles of frying pans into the handle. As they attempted to beat down the door, I found a rusty but effective lock on the door and managed to get it locked in between hits. I also slid a cast iron skillet at the bottom of the door so if they tried to kick in there, they’d hit that. This was all scary, but I was dealing with it. I ended up calling 911 where I spoke to a young teenager who was new to their job. They got snippy or sassy with me a couple times, when I tried to supply my address a couple times and ask for them to hurry up, they interrupted me or retorted. I was trying to supply my real life address. During the call I started crying and said I’m just really scared, please hurry up. The firefighters were to arrive in 10 minutes, they said that a couple times. I was moving around the cabin and not paralyzed by fear or crying, it felt more like a stress cry. The call taker apologized and sounded choked up too, as they felt bad about their earlier tone. I don’t recall the result of this call, and no firefighters arrived. Somehow Conrad and I appeared in a well-lit indoor area that looked like a display room where two bands of trolls, one light blue and favoring silver weapons, and one light green and favoring gold, were going to fight on our behalf. They had huge bodies and armor, brown leather and animal furs and skins, and were fighting creatures bigger than themselves at times. I recall something like a giant swinging a mace or club into something that had to do with me and Conrad, though it wasn’t us directly. The enemies weren’t a clear entity or type but the trolls fought amongst themselves before getting to these enemies—I knew the green ones with gold weapons were better and favored them, they easily defeated the blue ones with sliver weapons who looked annoyed and seemed to shrug it off. This was overall a nightmare and deeply disturbing, and it sort of became a confusing video game towards the end, with warring factions and fantasy creatures. It’s like the battle almost got cartoonish and so in a way I think that was a hopeful message. But it was really scary during the cabin stuff with the fire beings and before it was deep recognition this program will end and classmates will disperse and I don’t know what the future holds or who will still be part of my life.
