Choosing

I had a horrible dream last night, probably heavily influenced by telling my cousin about the book The Taking the other day.*

Warning: This might be scary. You don't have to continue reading. Even I cut the dream short.

In the dream, most people had been turned into zombies or vampires, or zombie-vampires, in any case, minions of a dark lord.

The people who had not been turned were running scared and hiding out in our last stronghold, but our defenses were weakening, and pretty quickly the zombies got in and rounded us up.

They took us to an underground auditorium and we were forced to sit in the seats to await instructions. There were over 200 people, but the auditorium was only half-full.

Our "guest speaker" suddenly made his appearance. It was a walking, talking skeleton, where most of the flesh had been fried off, and what was left stuck to the bones was still sizzling and crackling. The piercing yellow-green eyes were the scariest part. It was the big D, and he gleefully began explaining to us how we were all soon going to be transported to Hell to begin our eternity of torture.

"What about the good people? I don't think I should be going to the bad place" someone yelled out.

It sucked in it breath and grudgingly admitted that some people didn't have to go to Hell. It obviously had hoped that no one would ask about that loophole so It could have everyone. "Everyone with a lit candle, stand up and make your way over to the front rows on the righthand side"

I looked around, not so many people had lit candles, but they were quietly standing up and walking towards the front. I panicked, where was my candle? I looked down and found I had a candle, but it wasn't lit. I looked around at people I knew and had fought side by side with, but they did not have candles and I thought they should. I tried to ask them if they too had unlit candles, but they didn't pay any attention. The last few people with lit candles were almost past me, and I stood up and slipped into the procession, hiding in the crowd and trying to make it look like my candle was lit.

I still didn't know if the people with lit candles were actually good and going to be saved, or the opposite, but the fact that they didn't rat me out and that people holding babies were part of that group probably indicated that they were the good ones. I still didn't know if It was actually going to let us go, or if It had just singled us out for a worse fate. I didn't know what would happen if they found me without a lit candle.

I just knew that I was terrified, but I had chosen to be good, and that was all I had control over.

Then I woke up.


*The Taking is basically about The Flood happening all over again because modern society is so corrupt, but instead of water wiping everyone out, the Devil gets to play, but only for a few days, so he pulls out all the stops, bringing Hell to earth, but at the end of his time, the rains come and wash everything clean, leaving only the good people and children. It is a good book, but parts of it are just plain scary and the stuff of my nightmares.