Dreadfully New

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Then again, I suppose there weren't always trees or streams or boulders in the Valley, either. In fact, there wasn't always a Valley.

Each of those things had slowly entered my dreams, starting when I was seven. One night, I dreamt that I stepped into a valley. There was nothing there, really. Barren doesn't even describe it; it's more like I knew in my dream that I was walking into a valley, but there were no visual cues to affirm my knowing. In other dreams, people I know have played roles, but they looked different from how they look in real life. Despite the differences, I still know exactly who they are. That's how it was with the Valley. It didn't look like a valley - not at first, anyway - but I still knew that it was one.

I have dreamt of the Valley every night since I was seven. Eventually it began to take form. First the walls surrounding the Valley appeared. Then the valley floor was covered in grass and a stream began to flow through the middle of it. Trees grew in both the fertile soil and the rocky walls. Other plants grew, too. They are all plants that I am familiar with in the real world, but in the real world, you wouldn't see them growing together in one area the way they do in the Valley. Soon animals began to appear, too. The animals created paths through the foliage. Sometimes I followed those paths and other times I created my own paths.

It took me a while to realize that my choices in the Valley mirrored the choices I made while awake in the real world. One night I dreamt that I left a familiar animal path and pushed through the undergrowth on my own to find the most beautiful waterfall. The next day, I screwed up my courage, left my seat at my usual lunch table with my usual friends, and sat down next to the new girl. She became my best friend; I had never known before that how beautiful friendship could be. Another time, I followed a mischievous pack of coyotes into a forest, only to become lost and frightened when I wanted to leave. Soon after, I followed my new college acquaintances to my first real party. My wallflower personality hit hard when, one by one, they all left me to go dance or drink or disappear with someone else. I wanted to leave, but I couldn't, because I didn't have a ride, other than with them. Over time, I began to recognize patterns like this more readily, but only after the fact. I could never predict what would happen during the day based on my dreams of the Valley. All I could expect would be a certain emotion that would permeate both my dream and my experience of the day, but I would never know the circumstances under which I would feel that emotion.

Appearances of new features of the Valley also mirrored newness in my waking life. When I was younger, new features appeared more frequently. I suppose that's because kids experience more new things than adults do. My first spelling bee, first failing grade, first library card, first time riding a bike without training wheels, first sleepover... all were marked by new plants, animals, or even weather patterns in the Valley. Just before I started college, the Valley was hit by a huge windstorm that literally rearranged everything, from trees to paths to the streambed. Obviously, windstorms in the waking world don't do that, but it was a pretty accurate representation of how college would impact my life.

Last night, the dragons appeared in the Valley for the first time. The dream started like any other night. I drifted to sleep in my waking world bed just as I drifted awake in the softly blowing grasses of the Valley. The sun was warm, but I lay in the dappled shadows of my favourite tree. Eventually, I stretched and pushed myself to my feet so I could wander over to the stream for a drink. It was as I lay on my belly and lowered my face to the water that I caught a reflection of something in the sky above me. I thought it must be a bird, so I wasn't concerned ... until its shadow passed over me. The shadow was huge. I half rolled over, squinted into the sky and froze. Blood red scales covered the serpentine body. Enormous wings kept the great weight of the body airborne. As I watched, the dragon inhaled a great quantity of air - I heard the wind rushing into its lungs - and expelled what seemed like a volcano's worth of sulfurous fire into the sky. The flames receded so I could again see its face and suddenly its eyes were locked on mine. The entire world stopped then. The entire world ceased to exist, except for those eyes and the terror pounding through my brain. I gasped and the world came rushing back. Staggering to my feet, I ran. I ran and ran and ran until it was time to leave the Valley.

When I returned to the waking world this morning and remembered my dreams, I knew that something was changing. Something is wrong and I don't know what it is or what it will be. I am filled with dread in a way that I never have been before.