Been a while since I’ve had a dream worth writing down, but I had a proper awesome one last night that I thought I’d share with you all.  As usual with my dream stories, this is more or less what happened.  Naturally, some details are fuzzy so I’ve had to fill in the gaps with some good old fashioned made-up stuff, but there we go.

Also, it’s worth noting that despite this dream being in the first person the narrator is also a woman.  Make of that what you will, Freudians.

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It’s not everyday that the perfect buyer comes along. Hell, nowadays you’re lucky to even get a time-waster turn up for a browse with the intent of getting your hopes up, so when I got a call from some woman who claimed to be in the market for a quick (read expensive) purchase I was over the moon.

She even turned up on time, which was nice, and immediately flashed her chequebook at me as I opened the door. Rich and stupid, the best kind of buyer. She took a look around then landed herself in the sitting room to write the cheque. Above and beyond the market value of the house, but I wasn’t going to complain.

We made the deal and took part in the obligatory pleasantries. I’ve never been too good at small talk, I get bored very easily and meaningless conversations do nothing to counter this. Before long I was practically pushing her out the door, it wasn’t her house just yet.

It’s odd. Even when distracted to the fullest you can still notice the important things if your brain is wired the right way. I’d just gotten her out the door when I noticed them, the Men in Black Hoods. They were stood on a bridge nearby, the sun shining down from behind them in the perfect position to make it painful to look at them. Three of them, I think, all carrying staves or something. Something simple in its design, but quite obviously able to pound your head in.

The woman seemed to notice them too. At least, I think she did, on account of her sudden wish to flee. I’ve never seen anyone run that fast before. It wasn’t fast in the disciplined way an athlete will run, with the muscles firing in an efficient symphony of perfect power and movement, but the erratic burst of someone gripped with terror.

I couldn’t help myself, I had to follow her. I had to know what the deal was, why she was running. It didn’t really matter of course, once I saw the Men move. They leapt off the bridge and to the ground with freakishly robotic movements, although the landing itself seemed almost fluid. They went from standing to running without any of the problems of momentum most ordinary people come across. They didn’t speed up, they just were running.

The woman didn’t look back, and I decided that this was probably the best policy. We ran, together, down the empty streets of the city. People seem to have an inbuilt radar that detects when they should get out of the way, guess mine is broken.

I watched her as we ran, watched her counting the streets. One, two, three, four, five, six. Over and over, one to six, before she finally stopped and darted into one of them. Only it wasn’t a street, it was one of the water run-off pipes for the higher levels. A long, vast pipe that stretched into the distance, and at the very end sat a thick iron door. There was no source of light inside, but I had no trouble seeing to the end , although the walls seemed unusually darker.

Then the walls moved and the Men with the White Faces showed themselves.