I'm in what appears to be
a large metropolitan sort of city, like New York or Los Angelas. Skyscrapers
and a forest of buildings and highways surround me, yet laid completely empty.
Litter flew about, carried by occasional gusts of wind. There was no one in
this huge city. Unlike sets of zombie movies, the city was deserted but not
destroyed. Everything seemed in place; the people were just missing. I wandered
for a while on the open road but soon found myself leaping to great heights. I
had my gliding ability back. So far, throughout my lucid dreaming, I haven't
been able to perfectly fly high into the skies of the Dreaming, but I've
managed to jump and glide on top of tall buildings; which is what I did. What
happened next was quite strange. I was standing idly atop a building when
suddenly a torpedo-like bomb dropped from the sky, out of nowhere. I felt the
impulse to jump off the building with the bomb, catching it gently before
actually hitting the ground. I found I also had super-strength.
To my surprise the bomb
was just a dud, an empty shell. So knowing it wasn't a threat anymore, I
entertained myself, throwing the bomb back into the sky, jumping again towards
it, playing catch with myself. But once I got back onto the ground, my game was
interrupted by hooligans on flying cars. Imagine gangs from the 50's Grease
boys in flying hot-rods and Cadillacs, chasing after you at high speed. My
first reaction was flight because there were too many of them and for some
reason, my flying/gliding ability failed. Instead I pressed on the inside of my
palm and a spiderweb shoots out; Spidey powers!! But it was short lived. After
shooting just two spiderwebs and swinging off the building's sides, they didn't
work anymore and I continued the run on foot. Luckily I cut a lot of sharp
corners and hid behind a dumpster area where they lost me.
After the Greasers lost my
trail and I got back my breath from resting behind the dumpster, I noticed some
younger kids ganging up on a single, scrawny kid not too far from where I was.
My persona was still very much like myself; just an ordinary teenage girl, just
a few years older than them. I was taller than them and I had the guts to go up
to them checking on what they were thinking of doing. They tried to walk away,
bringing the kid with them but I pulled the leader back by the shirt. He was
the biggest of the group; a big, chubby, white kid with freckles and curly,
ginger hair. I tugged him towards me, telling him to back off the kid. He's
about to punch me, feeling insulted a girl my weight can push him around, but I
take that fist of his and twist his arm round to his back. Some of his friends
tried ambushing me but I saw them and kicked them away. Finally I had him in
submission and his gang let the kid go. The kid got behind me as I let the
leader go. I said something to him as they walked away, “You wouldn't survive
out here, not even in juvie.” I taunted them, getting the better of a group of
guys. Funny that I sounded like I had been in juvenile prison before.
What occurred to me, as I woke up from this Dream, is that being
a hero doesn't mean you have to have super-cool powers like being able to fly,
extinguish nukes or shoot spiderwebs. Being a hero means to stand up for what
you think is right; to do the right thing when the time arises. This applies to
the current social problem of bullying a lot of adolescents face and sadly most
of those cases are treated with the Bystander effect. It's when people don't
step in and do something, thinking that someone else will take that initiative
– But how many people actually get in
there and help? If you had the chance to prevent traumatic childhood
experiences and suicidal attempts, wouldn't you take that chance? Don't just
watch. Do something. In the words of SuperChick,
“You could be a
hero, heroes do what's right,
You could be a
hero, you can save a life,
You could be a
hero, you could join the fight,
for what's right, for what's right.”
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