. 17.07.13 the Journalist .

  My friend was an investigative journalist, who had been working on his latest scoop for the longest time. He knew that some people were after him. He was the target of a lot of powerful and dangerous people, as he wrote amazing pieces on human rights and the freedom of people from the oppressing governments around the world. Sadly he was assasinated/murdered while working on his latest job. I had some of his worknotes and discovered that he mentioned the people he suspected were onto him; two aliases by the names of Rapier and Hyena. But what my Dream is mainly about is what happened after his death.

  Before his death, he recorded a series of videos of his family, his closest friends, all his loved ones, which he made into a documentary. The documentary was aired after his imminent death and we all watched it. When it showed on TV, I was watching it with my dad. It looked as if he was filming his own birthday party, with his voice spoke in the background, "This is my beautiful mother - This is my baba (father) - And this is my good friend, Yaqeen. He always wants to be the first to welcome me and hold my hand during celebrations," to which the friend in the screen laughed. Everyone looked so happy, for he was considered a hero in his country. No one looked like they knew they were celebrating the last birthday of his life.

  My friend always wrote poems, mostly about his life, his family, and his home, Kashmir. In my Dream, his compilation of poetry was voted number#1 in the newspapers list of top most read literature, after the premier of his documentary. His documentary, upon its release, became number 9 in the list of most watched documented media of the week and won an international award. My greatest surprise was the mail I recieved after I finished watched TV. I couldn't watch the film till the end, it was too sad. My heart ached every time I recalled the smiling faces of his parents.

  Looking through today's mail, I noticed an important-looking envelope addressed to me. I opened it up and found that it was some kind of will. In the will, my friend had entrusted to me a certain amount of money. Accompanying the will was a letter personally written by him, thanking us and hoping that the money could help us with whatever problems we had with our families. He asked us to take care of our families while we still had the chance. He had given most of his savings to his family and distributed it among his closest friends. He also donated to different charities and organizations. I cried, still holding onto the envelope, pressing it close to my chest. My heart cried, sincerely missing such a good person and friend, who died doing what he loved and protecting those he loved.


Sorry if this Dream was short and perhaps not as whimsical as some of the others, but this was a really sad Dream for me to remember and write down because knowing this friend in real life, it sounded like it was something he would really do. May God protect him and bless him for what he's done, and for being such a good friend and man to begin with.

.: Magenta - a girl in a grey world :.

Finally drew Magenta from my Dream, 'A girl in a grey world' :) Since I haven't been able to remember my Dreams lately, thought I'd update with a picture.

. 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.

. 15.12.12 escape .

  First objective: Flip the switch.

On the first floor, you can’t stay at one place for too long a time. Sometimes you’ll have to risk it and explore. The more ground you cover, the more places you can hide. The school building has two wings and a staircase at each wing to take you to the levels above. One wing is closed off and you’ve got to flip a switch to open it. The ogre-matron of the first floor guards the switch to the staircase. You’ll know her when you see her. Ugly everything with a side of warts, in a nurse’s uniform; can’t miss her. Even if she isn’t around, when you flip the switch, make sure you run and hide because she’ll know and she’ll catch you if you linger. Don’t go to the staircases immediately. Hide for a while to cover your hide.

 

  Second objective: Change your clothes.

Change your identity from time to time. Camouflage and blending in is the key to this level. There are many other scavengers trapped and living in this level, and in this kind of crowd you don’t want to stand out. Find your way to the laundry chutes to change your clothes. There are other matrons guarding this level but they’re stupid, so you can get away by even dressing up as one of them. But the nurse uniforms are harder to procure. Disguise yourself as part of the background or just hide in the dark. They do not like the color yellow.

  Next objective: Find the key to the green house.

The whole Dream was just colors of steel grey, brown rust and seaweed green.  It’s dark, everything is dusty, decrepit and falling apart little by little. It reminded me a lot of the abandoned, underwater burial ground that is Rapture, from the Bioshock game. The scattered piles of junk everywhere and the architecture of the place looked more like the makeshift hospital from the game, Return to Ravenhearst.  We weren’t underwater nor in a hospital, but rather a school. And survival was the game. Unfortunately the Dream ended so suddenly before I could understand the rest of the instructions. Have to admit this Dream gave me the chills, just running around, hiding and avoiding everything on sight.

. save the pig .

  I was in a hospital. It was clean and bright and bustling with people. I found myself in the lobby where there was a long line of people at the front counter. I think I was a temp or a nurse, dressed in the green hospital uniform but I don’t remember what I was supposed to do. Then all of a sudden the person at the end of the line started scratching incessantly. He couldn’t stop, and the itch spread to the person in front of him, and then jumped to the person in front of that person, till the whole line was scratching themselves all over. Something contagious had spread, and the hospital went into lockdown, quarantining everyone who had contracted this strange chicken-pox-looking skin disease.

  The hospital director assigned this case to a well respected doctor and he discovered that the disease started because of a pig that was brought into the hospital. The pig was something of a sports mascot and was pretty famous, so no one thought it odd that it would get special treatment from one of the most renowned doctors in town. The doctor carried the pig and took it straight away to surgery.

  Time passed and I wondered what surgery was actually taking place as it took so long. Finally the doctor came out of the room, looking stern and cold as ever. He saw me and told me that the surgery was successful but the pig didn’t survive. It was my job to dispose the body and clean up the theatre room. As I entered the theatre, I saw the body of a pig on its back, with its body cut up and mangled from the inside, with blood dripping from its intestines. But the more I inspected it, the more I realised that this was not the same pig.

  It turns out that I had been taking care of the pig for a while so I was suspicious as to why the doctor would lie and switch the pig bodies. I grew upset knowing the pig was still under my responsibility, so I went to look for it. I discovered another hidden theatre room where the real pig laid, on the operating table, on its back, and its stomach was also cut open. But it was more horrible when I found out that it was still alive and slowly coming into consciousness. As if the doctor purposely did not apply enough anaesthetic so that the pig could feel pain throughout the procedure.

  I was furious! But I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to find that doctor and kick his ass, but the first thing I was did was go downstairs to find a veterinary doctor (don’t ask why they would be in the same hospital building). I knocked on the door and entered to find an Indian woman by the name of Dr. Kreegul Gurgess. I knew she was a great and kind animal doctor so I explained to her the situation and rushed to my aid upstairs. She also let me know that we would definitely get the doctor back for what he did.

The only thing I can think about from this is that ANIMAL RIGHTS PEOPLE. THEY CAN FEEL PAIN TOO. I really don’t like people who hurt, kill and abuse animals just for the fun of it. I’d cast them in the Twilight zone where animals ruled the earth and used humans for lobotomy tests.

Also, there is this misconception, not only in non-muslims, but in muslims themselves that just because pigs and dogs are regarded as impure, we have to treat them badly. Since when are we ever encouraged to treat another creation badly?? Just because we have to wash our body parts or any object that’s made contact with pigs and dog’s saliva 7 times, we have to condemn the creatures to pain and misery?? COME ON PEOPLE. THINK.