Chapter 1   The rain was supposed to continue into evening. My plan to go on a nice walk with my dogs was canceled. So, my exercise would have to come from my yoga routine. I was ok with that because I was already tired. Before I could start with the relaxed breathing; a huge flash of light and a monstrous clap of thunder startled me and made me jump. The power went out and I got up to look out at the sky. Rain was starting to come down in sheets and the wind started howling. Another large bolt of lightening streaked down and as the thunder roared; I saw red eyes in the middle of the black clouds and one eye winked at me. I backed up until my legs hit my couch and I fell backwards onto it. I was plunged into unconsciousness a second later.  Each dream was vivid. Not just bright colors and clear sounds. I am talking about 3-D, Surround Sound, IMAX quality of vivid dream. The first dream was of me riding Diablo, my black Friesian Horse. We were riding through the empty back pasture on my aunt’s farm. As Diablo and I trotted along enjoying the nice summer morning; dark, ominous clouds started rolling in fast from the West. I slowed our pace as I looked at the skies. I have never seen storm clouds appear so suddenly before. I sat back down onto my English saddle and urged Diablo into a run headed mostly East. We jumped fence after fence in our mad dash to beat the storm. Within the fields, I let Diablo have his head and he stretched out eating up the ground with his powerful strides.  As so often can happen in dreams, it seemed like the more we raced ahead; the more the storm was catching up to us. Then the dreaded feeling of trying to run through knee high sticky mud enveloped my senses. As I looked up helplessly at the roiling blackness; I saw a flash of red eyes. My eyes flew open and I gasped for air as I tried to sit up; but I was on my back with my legs up over the arm rest. I was basically just flopping around like a fish out of water. At my sudden gasp and attempted flailing; both of my dogs, Vixen and Harley; stood up looking around for any sign of what had disturbed me. I managed to sit up and I decided a glass of cold water would be a good idea. Before I could stand up; I was thrown into the void of dreams again.  The next dream was me at my grandparent’s farm. I was dressed in my old blue jeans, a tan short-sleeved linen shirt and my sneakers. I was in the house garden, which is the size of a corner plot in older suburban neighbors. I had a large basket and I was picking strawberries. The sunlight on that nice summer morning began to fade. I looked up, and I saw dark storm clouds moving in. I stood and brushed off the knees of my jeans then headed back to the house. The wind whipped up, the sky got that sickly green color that can herald tornados; and the clouds started to rotate. I dropped my basket and broke into a run as the tornado sirens began wailing. I raced for the storm cellar. I saw my Grammy Lisa holding one side of the door open and she was yelling “Emma! Run faster girl!” That’s when that running through deep mud feeling started again. I tried pushing forward as my eyesight turned into tunnel vision. I felt the storm start to lift my feet off the ground. I once again woke up gasping for breathe.  As blackness fell over me again, I had time to think, “Oh what the fuck?!?!” I was plunged in and out of dreams ending with me trying to escape a massive storm a few more times. Then, it changed. I had just gotten out of my old Mustang in the grocery store parking lot when the summer breeze died away. I looked around and I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary; but I felt like I was being watched. I was halfway to the store’s entrance when I heard a strange warbling cry behind me. I spun around and all I could do was stare for a couple seconds. The creature was humanoid in shape, but it certainly was not human. It looked like a melted pile of green, red, brown, and black candle wax about seven feet tall and moved towards me in a weird sort of flowing motion. From about the middle down, the wax flowed downwards then rolled under it and I could see it surging upwards and around and down again. It had a weird scooped out section that was apparently the mouth and it was filled with sharp teeth in a circle. Kind of like what you see in horror movie giant leeches. There were two glowing eyes like red stoplight lights. I started backing up and I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I finally got my brain off of pause and turned to rush into the store. Another one of those melted leechoid things was behind me. I looked and another one was to my right. The only open space was to my left. I took several steps to the left and I was hoping I could run behind the leechoids and get to my car. I was almost to it when a fourth one oozed out from under my car and tried to bite me. A panicked scream finally came out of my mouth and I leapt backwards. I felt something on my shoulders and I was lifted into the air. I looked over to my right shoulder and I saw a large black batwing and there was a matching one on my left shoulder. I was flying into the air.  I just accepted it the way you accept any dream sequences. It doesn’t occur to you that whatever is happening is totally impossible until you wake up remembering remnants. The four creatures came together looking up at me screeching their weird warbling cries. Then they flowed into each other and became one giant leechoid. It was over twenty feet tall and rolling towards me with the mouth opening wider still. Before I could panic properly; I managed to wonder what would a person need to beat such a creature? Suddenly, I had a four foot long straight piece of bone about as thick as my forearm. On each end was a foot long sharp scythe with the points curved away from the shaft. The weapon seemed very slightly transparent and a strange flickering of green fire rose up off of each blade. I felt myself smile and I dove at the left side of the creature. As I came close; I sliced one end of my weapon at the thing’s face and I left a five foot long gash from one side of the mouth to the back of it’s head. It screamed in pain as half of it’s face caught on fire. Now it was truly melting and very pissed off. It tried to surge higher and bite me as I was flying past it. I banked and my wings snapped out behind me as my body turned towards it. It missed me by a bare inch. Instead of continuing to fly away from it, I dove and twirled my weapon in a circle like it was a baton. I tore large gashes all down it’s gooey flowing body. Each slash erupted into more of those green flames and it started screaming in pain. The sound was like a seagull’s cry inside an echoing chamber. I thought it would burst my eardrums. Then the flames consumed it and it just started shrinking. I watched as it completely disappeared within a few minutes.  I awoke with a start and saw it was four in the morning. I was sweaty and felt chilled. The rain had stopped and I let my dogs out and back in before I took a nice hot shower. I put on my sleep shirt and I crawled into bed feeling exhausted and sore. I turned onto my right side and pulled the sheet and fluffy comforter up over my shoulder and snuggled down into my king sized bed. Vixen and Harley each took up one side of my bed and made themselves comfortable enough to go back to sleep. As I drifted off into actual sleep, I wondered briefly how I had known how to kill the monster and where had all those other dreams come from? I should learn to not borrow trouble.