Her overall sleep quality was better than usual last night, but her dream was incredibly violent.

She was with her partner and two other friends. They had to search and obtain some items, similar to a quest in a game. They split up, with her going to a nearby construction plot and the other three going elsewhere. As she was searching for her item, she overheard the foreman of the construction site instructing everyone to leave due to an unprecedented, incredibly large surge of electricity present at the site. They began taping up electric lines that were strung throughout the lot with bright red electrical tape. They were also placing yellow “Caution” tape throughout the lot and instructing everyone to leave, trying to figure out what was happening. As everyone – including her – began to leave nervously, but calmly, a group of men with assault rifles entered the lot, blocking the only exit. The men began shouting and firing warning shots with their rifles. Everyone scattered, trying to hide behind anything they could find. She managed to hide behind some metal pipes stacked up, adjacent to another pile where two men were hiding as well. The men began lining up some of the workers, about five of them, shouting at them. She was unable to hear what exactly they were saying over all of the commotion and the sound of electricity buzzing nearby. Her heart was racing, trying to come up with ways to escape this safely. She peered out the right side of the metal pipe stack to see what was happening. She witnessed the men striking pickaxes into pipes that were laid into the ground. The pipes began hissing out gas. She stared, wide-eyed, watching the gas fluctuate the air around it. The hissing gas added to all of the commotion, making it harder for her to think clearly and hear others. She laid low, hoping her friends would come back and help or that police were already on their way and it was just a matter of time until the situation was under control. There were vans pulling into the lot now, more people with assault rifles exiting the vans. It wasn’t just men in the terrorizing group anymore, there were women as well. A van pulled up directly across from her and parked, but the terrorizing group was preoccupied with the lined up workers to pay much attention to anyone else. They seemed confident that even if the others called for help, they wouldn’t be getting much help. There was a particular woman that seemed to be erratic, or possibly even the leader, of the group. She was small, had dusty brown short hair, and was yelling instructions at the others in the group while waving around her rifle. She pushed one of the workers down to the ground and yelled at him. The worker, terrified, turned onto his back and looked up at her, repeatedly saying, “Please, don’t!” This angered her and she released a few bullets into his skull. This all happened right in front of Her. Blood spattered on the propped-open door of a nearby blue van. Blood pooled in front of her, merely a few feet away from her face. She just stared. She didn’t scream or cry, she just stared. She seemed invisible because no one paid attention to her. The hissing of the gas pipes, the sound of the rifles firing, the electricity surging, the blood spatters, and cries of men dying around her. She needed to get out of here. Luckily, the head woman of the group seemed very unorganized and erratic as she was yelling and pushing members of her group around. Maybe with all the chaos within the group, she can slip out.

Straight ahead of her was one of the blue vans, unoccupied. The terrorizing group was filling in from the right side, where the street was. The already present group was gathering on the left. Those arriving pumped their brakes hard and parked their blue vans along the street and piled into the lot, rushing to the gathering on the left side. She saw this as a chance to escape. She crouched up and with all the chaos, she sprinted towards the blue van, using it as a cover from stray bullets. She managed to reach the side of the van alongside another woman trying to escape. Instead of taking the van though, they used it as a cover and then ran out towards the street where the other vans would protect them if they were shot at.

The next thing she knew, she ran into her friends and partner. They were in the car and she stopped just in front of them, panting, blood spatters on her face. Her partner ran out from the driver’s seat and up to her. “What happened?!” She was trying to catch her breath, still in survival mode, panicky. She gasped for air, “I don’t know- terrorists- guns- we need to go!” They both got into the car with the rest of the group and drove out to the exit of the town, toward normal civilization. They had to drive through a part of the construction lot that led up to the road, but it was a part that wasn’t occupied any longer. It was empty of people and rifles, but there was still electrical wires and tape surging. They drove carefully through, avoiding the wires and tape. They finally reached the street and put everything behind them. The rest of the group had gotten everything they needed, so they didn’t even need her to go to the lot. That was all for nothing.

She must have passed out because when she awoke again, she was still in the backseat of the car, but they were parked in front of a business building. There was no one else in the car with her except for two men in business suits, holding a black briefcase. She knew that briefcase contained the items they searched for. These men were large, seemingly Japanese bodyguards, with broad shoulders and black sunglasses (of course). She blinked her eyes open more widely. The rest of her group was gone.

“Where is everyone?” She asked softly.

“Inside,” one of the guards replied.

She nodded and got out of the car slowly, squinting her eyes to adjust to the bright daylight outside of the car. She didn’t seem threatened by the bodyguards. It seemed like what they were doing was for the organization that employed those bodyguards.

She walked leisurely to the building, happy to not be in danger anymore – she thinks. She found one of the girls from her group, waiting at the staircase of the building. “Where are the other two?”

“Finishing the rest of the plan, they’re going to meet us here and we’ll distract everyone else.” She was dressed as though she worked there. Her hair was up in a bun, she had dark-rimmed glasses, a peach cardigan buttoned up over a pastel purple pencil skirt, complete with small black kitten heels. The building seemed to be a small university building. The men rushed through the door of the staircase entrance, almost bumping into the girls. They nodded at each other and the two girls entered the reception area. The other woman of the group took her position at the front desk, answering the phones, and assisting the professors around. On the other hand, she leisurely walked around, canvassing the large, open two-story reception area. She walked over to a bookcase next to the reception desk where the other woman of her group was. A female professor walked by and asked her, “Portillo?” “On the left, up the stairs,” the woman said with a warm smile. She looked up at the direction she indicated and saw the sign for “Portillo Cafe”. As the reception area emptied out, the entire group ran across the building, out the exit, and back to the car with the bodyguards.

She woke up and glanced at her clock, 2:23 A.M. She woke up without feeling hot, dehydrated, hungry, or having to use the bathroom. She turned on her other side and fell back asleep easily.