. 10.04.13 salamander .

  It was past the hours of twilight and I roamed around the rooftops of a dark and bustling metropolis. From a glance, I knew it was the city of Gotham, and I was just one of its disliked inhabitants. I was a reptilian, half-breed, with blood-red and fiery ember scales. My hair was long and black like tar. I had a pair of horns, and my left eye was absolutely white though I wasn’t blind. I had a long, whip-like tail with sharp spikes at the end of it. My only companions were my two demon dogs, whom I named Psykes and Cleaver. As dangerous as I seemed with my entourage, my Persona didn’t seem criminal at all. Because of my likeness, I laid low and stayed out of people’s way in general. The shadows were my home.

  A big crime had gone down in my part of the city so I sent my dogs to investigate. The two dogs looked like zombie mutts, with shreds of their flesh missing here and there. They both had black and dark red fur. Their eyes were totally white, but glowed red when provoked. Something about them reminded me of Neil Gaiman’s characters Cain and Abel from the Sandman universe, how Cain would relentlessly torture and kill his younger brother over and over again but Abel kept regenerating because they were somewhat immortal. Psykes and Cleaver were exactly like that, Psykes being Cain. I called him Psykes because he had more of a psychotic streak than his younger brother.

  Psykes was picking a fight with Cleaver again and as he tore up his neck and slash his long claws at his belly, Cleaver would just whine and howl in agony. My character was a bit cold in character in the sense that this was the norm and didn’t bother intervening even as Cleaver died over and over again. Suddenly, alarm struck and the streets were busy. I shushed the dogs so that I could see what was going on. Something had struck Gotham city; Robin was dead, and the Dark Knight wants to know who killed him.

The Dream ended there, but if I were to continue the story, I’d guess that people started seeing me around the crime scenes and made me the prime suspect. This pisses Batman off and he tracks me down to question if I had anything to do with it. I’m innocent of course, and to prove it, I’d help Batman look for Robin’s actual killer. My dogs were better eyes and ears, and hunters for him in the underground metropolis. I call my character a Salamander because in some occult beliefs, the Salamander is the elemental of fire; a mythical being with an affinity to fire. Even though I didn’t see my Persona play with fire or anything, her scales reminded me of flames and her dogs seemed like Hellhounds so why not.

. 10.03.13 Zuko's dark side .

  The Dream was set in the world of the Avatar: the Last Airbender, so if you’ve never of this awesome Nickolodeon series, you’ll probably be lost. We were at a Fire Nation prison somewhere on an island and surrounded by water. I don’t remember a lot about my Persona except that I was a girl with dark hair and a long ponytail. I was dressed in Fire Nation guard armour and I called two guards around the corner to come back me up as a prisoner was attempting escaped. When the guards arrived, I banged their heads together and threw them into an empty cell, unconscious. Sokka got the keys and found the cell that was keeping Aang in and let him out. Aang was really happy to see us both.

  Aang had his trusty glider back and lead everyone out of the prison safely. Even Zuko was there helping with Aang’s escape so he was one of the good guys now. The prison was in the middle of a crater filled with water, with rockpools all around it’s dividing walls between the prison and freedom. Aang was trying to carry Sokka and I while Zuko used Fire-bending to give himself a lift while still holding onto Aang. But in the end we were all too heavy and landed in the water before we could cross the crater walls. We climbed into the nearest rockpool where we rested in shallow water.

  But suddenly we heard a voice and as the mist cleared, standing on top of the rockpool was a girl with dark eye-shadow and purple hair and clothes. She didn’t seem interested in Aang who just busted out of prison but looked like she was after Zuko and I, for personal and other reasons. Zuko looked like he hated her with a passion though. I don’t really know what happened between the two, but in between the sarcastic, snarky remarks, the girl was sincerely apologetic for something she did to Zuko. But Zuko didn’t seem like the forgiving type at the moment.

  As she got into the rockpool with us and once I saw Zuko’s anger, my guts told me that it was time to go. Sokka had gotten out of the rockpool first and I guessed it was high-time I took Aang with me. Aang was tired from all the flying and gliding so I had to keep us both afloat, and we were in no position to help Zuko. But it turns out that he didn’t need any help at all. Zuko set the rockpool at boiling temperature, turning the surrounding rocks black as charcoal. Once the girl realized what was going on, it was too late for her to escape. She screamed her lungs out, the pain of being boiled alive was unbearable. I tried to shield Aang’s eyes away from the horrible sight but I couldn’t stop the screaming. It was the first time we all saw Zuko’s dark side.

  I’ve already had severable Avatar Dreams before and they all have had Zuko in them because he’s my favourite character (which I like to fangirl over). But honestly this Dream was ghastly and just plain sad. I’d like to think that Zuko and my character were close and the fact that the girl threatened to kill me to get to him maybe kind of pissed him off, but I didn’t expect him to kill the girl. At least not in such a horrifying way.

. 09.03.13 animal research centre .

  This was a parallel universe where animals ruled the earth and humans were like the lower race to be used as slaves and assistants. The animals walked and talked just like humans but kept all of their animalistic features. Imagine Giraffes, Rhinos and Elephants wearing suits and white lab coats and are able to magically hold objects without the use of thumbs. The Dream took place in a research centre where humans were the main and preferred test subject. And I was a test subject. What’s interesting in this Dream is that this might be the first time that my Persona is a man.

  I was a young adult male and the only reason I’ve survived this long in the research centre is because I was one of their most valuable experiments. I was a human hybrid with the abilities of most animals combined, by reforming my genetic make-up with that of other species. Basically I was BeastBoy, just without the shape-shifting powers. The researchers thought that giving me special treatment could keep me complacent, isolating me from other humans and treating me as tenderly and humanely as possible. But I was intelligent enough to catch onto what kind of world I was kept in.

  The Dream started with me already in the middle of my escape. The centre was not yet alerted of my escape but a Rhino guard had caught me and was chasing me down. I dashed into an empty laboratory with lots of metal shelves and cupboards full of equipment. The room was dark and the Rhino had poor eyesight but had acute sense of hearing. As I clambered onto the tallest cupboard, I sat still so by the time he reached the lab, he was quite lost but he knew I was there and he would wait till I made a move before ramming that gigantic horn into me (I was a valuable test subject but the Rhino has been wanting to pick a bone with me for while apparently and if they found that I’d been disobedient, they’d have labelled me as too dangerous and put me down anyway).

  So I grabbed the metal shelf closest to me and one filled with lots of glass and metal equipment and pushed it down. It crashed into the next shelf, creating a domino effect and if the collapse of shelves onto the Rhino didn’t stop him, the loud crashes of glass and metal on the marble floor did. The lab was in such a chaotic ruckus, it hurt his sensitive ears and he couldn’t locate where I was. I made my move. Parts of the centre like the laboratories were separated by drywall that didn’t really touch the ceiling and it had ample space for me to climb and get around. The walls were high enough (or I was stealthy enough) for me not to be seen by the researchers below.

  But the others heard the crash and were heading this way, and soon the centre would be on high alert. I had to get out fast. I ended up in another room, where there were Impala and Giraffe scientists working. The moment they saw me, they screamed and ran out of the room. I wanted to climb down and hide somewhere, or maybe thought that it’d be faster running on foot. But the moment I climbed down to a desk, a Hyena and African Wild Dog guard cornered me. I had to fight them off using nothing but my brute strength, and the closest thing I grabbed to use as a weapon was a large bag filled with heavy powder, like flour. I swung and hit one guard in the head and I proceeded to beat both the guards to death before I ran out of the room.

  Unfortunately that was the end to the Dream. I don’t know whether I escaped safely or not but the chase was getting too tense for me, I was kind of glad I woke up. I don’t like Dreams where you’re being chased but at the same time sometimes I’m curious to know what happens when you get caught. But in this Dream, I wasn’t too awfully curious to find out.