This dream starts off in the lobby of a building that seems to be a cross between my old two-storey highschool and some sort of castle or fortress. The layout is similar to how I remember it though some of the hallways have unusual maze-like twists or dead ends. Everything seems to be made of white or grey marble on the inside of the building and white brick and silvery metal on the outside. The entire school/castle sits on the edge of a limestone cliff and overlooks a vast, waveless ocean. The atmosphere outside is perpetually clouded over and foggy.
There are many students and teachers wandering about the halls and everyone is wearing long, flowing gowns and robes that I can only describe as high fantasy fashion (much like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings). It is the first day of school and I am ascending the main staircase to get to the office on the second floor because I cannot find my schedule and I have no idea where to go (this is something that actually happened to me, but on my first day of college, not highschool). I expect there to be a set of glass doors at the top of the stairs, which would lead to the hall that leads to the office, but instead there is just a large pane of glass which will not budge when I press on it.
To my left there is a metal door (in reality there is an empty space there, which drops down to the first floor) and when I go through it I find myself in the auditorium. I almost become lucid at this point because I know that this is the incorrect layout of my old highschool, but there is a flash of blue light from behind me that distracts me from my thought process. I turn around and see a little girl run right through the glass pane. She has short dark brown hair, a white frilly dress, a dark red cloak or cape, and she looks to be about 4 or 5 years old. Anyway I follow her and find that I too can now walk through the glass pane, but the little girl has disappeared and I can only see random students and teachers wandering around.
I walk down the hall to the office and find that it looks nothing like I remember it. Where the main entrance to the office should be there is a window with no glass and a large ledge. It looks like a concession stand or something. I can see into the office, but there does not appear to be a door to get in or out. There are two men on the other side of the window doing paper work and they both seem out of place. Unlike everyone else in the school who are dressed in flowing robes and are average looking people, the two men in the office are dressed in normal modern clothing and look like trolls or something. One has brown leathery skin and pointy ears and the other has a dark blue scales and large horns sticking out at the top of his head. They both stare and scoff in a condescending manner when I tell them that I have no idea where to go. I kind of "faze out" as the two office workers are finding what I need and I only snap out of my daydream when I notice the papers on the ledge right in front of me. The office workers snicker at me and tell me to hurry along because the bell rang while I was off in la-la-land.
Before I go anywhere ask them about the head of an animal I can see on a wall behind them. I can not recall what kind of animal it was but I am sure it was a buffalo or a bull or something. It had to be a fresh kill because there was blood running down the wall from where it was mounted. The trolls tell me that they just killed the animal that morning and mounted the head because they did not know what else to do with it. I ask them if I can have it because I am interested in cooking the brains and promise to bring them some if they hand it over. They give me the animal head and I gleefully skip off and boil that animal's brain after draining all the blood and collecting it in a glass vial. I am still in the school but I have lost all interest in going to class because I cannot think of anything else except cooking and eating the brains.
I return to the office window some time later and offer some of the meat to the troll-like office workers. I tell them that it tastes just like liver or steak (I can no longer remember exactly which one I said) and they accept what portions I offer but say that I had better have more to share. I do not know what they mean but just then a stern-faced, grey-haired old women appears and demands that I offer her some as well. Apparently she is the principal and she is there to investigate why I am neglecting my classes in preference to cooking animal brains. I give her half of the meat that I have left and she decides to let me off this time because she likes that taste of the food I offer.
Just then the bell rings, because school is over, and everyone leaves for the day. I hide in a corner and eat my food because I am in no hurry and I think it is strange anyone is trying to leave because there seems to be nothing outside of the school except for the ocean in the back and never-ending fog everywhere else. When I am done eating my brains, I mean, the brains I cooked, I go to the main lobby on the first floor and contemplate going outside into the fog. From behind me there is a flash of blue light and when I turn around I see the little girl in the white dress running down the hall and disappear around a corner. I try to follow but bolts of lightning shoot out of the ground every time I get close and I have to stop or jump out of the way to avoid being hit.
I lose sight of the little girl and find that the layout of the school is completely different from what I remember and I am soon lost in the maze-like halls. I see a set of metal doors at the end of one hall and when I go through them I end up in a stairwell that is made of red brick (rather than white brick like the rest of the school). There are steps that seem to lead up to the second floor but I am not interested in going there so I try to exit through the large metal door whence I came. Unfortunately the doors have locked behind me and I have no choice but to go up the stairs. When I am at the top I discover that there are actually two doors and one leads into the second floor hall while the other seems to lead outside. I go out the door that leads outside and find myself on a metal fire escape that overlooks a large courtyard - which in turn overlooks the ocean behind the school. The marble floor of the courtyard is broken up and smashed, with some pieces overlapping, layered or on a dangerous slant. There is only one large slab of marble that is flat and it is near the cliff edge.
On the flat piece of marble I can see the little girl and she is standing with three other people. There is a gargoyle-like man, a tall slender woman with wings and a little boy dressed in black. The four of them stare out over the water and continue to do so even as I descend the fire escape as far as I can. The last ten steps are twisted, crushed or broken off and I have to jump onto the smashed and jagged marble below. When I am on the ground I have to navigate the broken pieces of marble like a maze. I hear a loud, raspy yell in the direction of the four people, followed by a gurgling sound and soon after a thick black smoke starts billowing into the cloudy sky. I cannot see what is going on because the layers of broken marble are blocking my view.
When I finally find my way to the flat slab of marble, there is a large bonfire in the center and I can see two arms sticking out of it. The winged woman is still staring out over the ocean and I can now see that her wings are broken and bleeding. The little girl and boy are poking the fire with sticks and I assume that it is the gargoyle like man in the fire because he is no where in sight. I ask the children what they are doing my they ignore me. I walk over to the winged woman and ask what is going on and she glances at me for just a moment then turns back towards ocean. She says that she wants "to go there," but cannot do so because she cannot fly. I look in the direction she is pointing and I see the faint outline of land in the distance. I cannot tell if it is another continent or an island. I try talking to the winged woman again, but she ignores me.
I turn back to the children and see them scrapping meat off the arms in the fire and eating it. I go over and ask them why they are eating the gargoyle man but just then the arms in the fire seem to come to life and pull themselves out. The arms are not much more than charred bones now but they still drag themselves along the ground and try to grab at the feet of the children and I. The little girl does not seem fazed and she just side steps the attack, but the little boy freaks out, runs to the edge of the cliff and throws himself into the ocean. I avoid the skeletal arms and try to go after the boy, but he is much faster than me and lunges over the cliff before I can reach him. The winged woman is completely unaffected by the commotion and continues to stare at the land across the ocean like nothing is happening.
The little girl turns to me and says that all of this is my fault because I am "not supposed to talk about it." She then does something to the skeletal arms (though I cannot remember what) and the attack is stopped. The little girl then picks up the arms and tosses them into some marble debris to her left. She then walks to the edge of the cliff where the little boy went over and just stares down over the cliff. The winged woman suddenly jumps from the edge and begin frantically flapping her broken and bleeding wings in an attempt to fly. She screams as her wings shred and tear apart and she falls into the ocean. As soon as she hits the water she disappears and does not resurface. I was fearful that the little girl would end up in the water too, but she had started laughing when the winged woman fell and continued to do so even as I went over to her. I do not recall anymore as the dream seemed to end there.
LEGEND:
BLUE indicates side notes and personal thoughts written after the fact
BLACK indicates a normal dream
RED indicates a lucid dream