(no subject)

[minervasolo]

Coolest dream this morning. Might-turn-it-into-a-short-story dream. Starring people I only know on lj! When zombie_thing said I might have strange dreams after watching Clockwork Orange for he first time last night, I don't think this was what he was expecting.


Something happened prior to this, but my memory starts as we gathered in a Sussex mansion on a dark and stormy night. Quite a large group, not everyone was coming with us. Near the centre of the mansion, in a room with a glass roof, there was a well. Down it, we abseiled.

At the bottom of the well was a underground river. We weren't roped together, but we stayed close. There was myself and pikakao, our leader lady_jaida, another two teenaged girls and two or three adult men. Some of the younger members of the team had lrge floats, so if the going was too tough, they could be pulled along. It was pitch black, the water was chest height and freezing cold. There was a weak current.

We talked, as we walked through the dark. Not about anythng in particular. It was a long walk. Eventually, though, we reached the end: a series of caves that met the river like the tiled floor meets the swimming pool. The stone was rough and yellowy: sandstone. There was light.

Ahead of us was a large, circular cavern, dimly lit. To our right, a long dark passage. And just off the right of the passage... a shop.

And would you know it, I think I'd been here before, despite the fact I knew that the last people to attempt this route was a hundred years ago. I knew how the shop worked. Despite teh fact none of us had money, we would be able to pay for anything we wanted regardless. And the tall, thin, late-middle-aged guy behind the counter? Well, whe wasn't going to tell us why he was here, or where here was, or even why the caves seemed to be lit, desipte no source of light, here.

So, everyone had a wander around. Some people explored the round cavern, some people wandered through the giftshop. lady_jaida and a small group eyed up the tunnel and discussed what we would do next, and forbade anyone from heading up there. Eventually, they started playing a game that was a cross between bowls and tacs, with tiny items bought from the giftshop. When one item skittered away, into another cavern off the side of the tunnel, I volunteered to fetch.

The cavern was only lit at brief intervals, as though by ightning. It was a different kind of light to that outside. There were spikes on the floor, in odd rows and patterns. I picked up the item (a tiny orange traffic cone), but my attention was caught by a large object at the back of the room, that I originally took to be a wooden wagon. Carefully avoiding the spikes, I approached its end to my left, where a sign was propped against it. The sign informed my that this was the Bridge of Dreams (and something else about it I've forgotten). I returned to the group.

The shop keeper took me to another cavern in the system. The floor was lower than the other; pillars rose from it to our height. Each pillar had a grid of numbers on the top. You could only step on certain numbers, which were not in positions to make it easy to do so. The shop keeper would inform me of which. It was like twister, in a way, except when i tried to use my hands he informs me I shouldn't. I failed the test. lady_jaida took it also, though I don't remember how far she got. We also convinced a guy in a wheelchair to have a go (as a bit of a mean joke); he made it almost to the end, failing on the last one [in a very dreamishsort of sequence, this is the only apperance he makes, having been with us neither before nor after].

We returned to the shop, and after dithering over a book (a book bought in a cave miles underground? What sort of coolness might it contain?) which I decided I couldn't have because it'd get soaked, I ended up with some earrings, and, low and behold, the money to pay for them appeared in my closed fist. After this, we set off down the long passage together.

The deeper we went the darker it got, and smaller too. Eventually we reached a point where we were all crouching, and the tunnel descended back into the water again, with no air space above it. We decided to turn back.

I edcided, since we were here again, that I'd have a look at the cavern I'd neglected last time,the one opposite the river we'd walked through. At one end of it there was a small waterfall, very sulferous in appearance (though I didn't notice a smell). The water disappeared into the ground. Above and to the left of this there was a damp hole in the wall. On the right hand wall there was a hole, which enabled you to look out over a huge subterranean lake (which was lit, as well). In the lake, you could see crocodile circling below us, and a plume of yellow water where our waterfall came out. The crocodile disappeared into hte plume.

We were attack by two large, flightless birds, with hard black heads and sharp teeth. There were thoughts of capturing one, but then the teeth made themselves known. [In a sudden spate of dreamness, we were defended by our talking pygmy hippo, who had an armoured head and bum, and who had naturally been there all along. Um.] The crocodile, having swum up the tunnel the aterfall had carved, appeared. [And we were defended by our own talking crocodile, who we had winched down the well with us.] The crocodile attacd the birds, and all three sank down the pipes aad tunnels to the lake below again.

We headed back towards the river we had arrived through. But it was different. It was bright turquoise, for a start, much lower thanit had been, and flowing much faster. There was a debate as to whether we should risk it. What if the level rose, so we couldn't breathe? Could we swim against a current that fast? How the hell had we planned to get back up the well in the first place?

Now, I know we managed it all, because there was a little epilogue to my dream, wherein we were back in the mansion, and it was daylight. I don't know how long we were underground: it might have been overnight, it might have been a couple of days. But we were going to go back, at some point.



I've been reminded that I agreed to go running this morning. Oops.