i dreamed i was a girl being held captive by a serial killer along with an unidentified number of siblings (there were 3? of us in the...car? room? but i feel like there was at least one more)

we weren't us but also we were? i hugged my sister and said through tears that i wanted to see her as a cool grownup (we were all k-12 in this) and she was curled up into a ball and my brother had run out while the killer was away to try to do some puzzle solving

that's how we were supposed to defeat him, was through solving all the puzzles...i don't remember any but there was one clue that was a red wig it was implied he wore? and something involving spiderwebs and something else involving a bunch of grave markers we needed to stick in the empty yard

the grave markers had names and dates on them and ranged back to the 1100's or something i think? and i couldn't for the life of me figure out what order i was supposed to put them in or where to even start

the yard wasn't fenced, which is why my brother simply walked straight out into the swampwoods

at one point there was a flashback to a guy who'd lived on the other side and casually walked down the perfectly nice dirt path through the gloomy dark woods and straight into the killer's basement where our beds were and there was a ladder but i don't know if he made it up because the killer was there when he entered

i feel like this whole area was inside a huge cavern? the basement literally had no walls unless you count the side with the ladder, our beds were pushed up against the edge of the concrete floor and looked out on the swamp

at one point the killer came home and we all hid under the covers (our beds were all pushed together with one huge blanket) and we could hear him cheerfully saying birth birth birth birth birth~ as he approached

he asked us if we had anything to tell him and we all said no so he cheerfully kept birthing his way down to invite some other unlucky captive to his one-man party

after he left i climbed the ladder and found myself in what felt like a small town? it gave me akaaka vibes in that it looked modern but not too modern and also i had to keep away from youkai(?)

there's a significant scene i've forgotten, and then i cautiously made my way down another street to a long stall selling candy trains? the lady (asian, middle-aged) recognized me and told me how my mom almost ruined it for everyone else because the candy could've given her heartburn

she wasn't complaining, just stating fact in a conversational sort of manner as she pushed a whole train car into my hands (i will assume she was chinese)

when i say she was selling me candy trains i mean the one car she gave me was as big as my cat and detailed enough to be a real train, passengers and all, except the passengers were noticeably cartoony in a candy sort of way

moving on i narrowly avoided a danger zone and i found the warden standing in a long empty room with a single carry-on suitcase and he told me this whole (empty) room was his so i jokingly said he needed more luggage

oh there was one part where i took a bathroom break in what was clearly the bathroom of my childhood home? i made sure to lock the door but someone managed to come in anyway and then it turned out perry from work had been bubble bathing in the tub this whole time and i hadn't noticed him behind the curtains

he made a joke like he always does but i didn't understand it

ummm the last thing i remember involved a large church-like room with people scattered around it? i think some were familiar? oh wait when i left the warden's room i wandered down the dimly lit sparsely populated hall

i checked every room for clues! one room had a tea party going on but i valued my life so i didn't enter

i feel like i did join a different tea party though, and i lost my train at one point, and there was a part where fans were live translating the words/sound effects over the idols' heads as they performed on stage

my sister pointed that out to me (she was herself here, like she was herself when she accompanied mama at the train stall)

anyway i wandered into a victorian manner and started up the winding stairs to the exit but the lady of the house really wanted me to stay and a maid on the landing offered me a one page brochure of lessons the lady taught

i could not find the lessons listed on the otherwise very wordy brochure, but i could scroll back through the ff14 chat box i now had to see what the maid had listed out vocally

i don't remember actually choosing one but i think the two of us sat down on the landing and discussed before i woke up

cat has been ominous purring since i started writing this