The River and the Beasts

Recurring dream. This time I was able to experience the largest portion of the story arc. The night of 141106.

Arturo and I were messing around in a rocky canyon / ravine area with tall bouldered walls. No water. No plants or animals. Just looking around. I had set all my stuff down on the ground in a certain spot (wallet,phone,pad,etc). Arturo had set his up higher in a recessed portion of the stone before the rock wall jutted out and went straight up, out of frame. We were in the shadow of a wall, just past a bend of the ravine. The rocks and stones were red and orange and brown, a lot like Arizona. Walking around, inspecting the stuff on the ground in the middle of the ravine. Pebbles, rocks, naturally carved areas. Arturo about 40 feet down the ravine from me.

I saw a trickle of water flow past me, between my feet, as if from a spill or something. I look up to see from where it's coming, and it's coming from beyond the bend. And it's slowly growing. It swells and branches into other parts of the rock. It's a small stream or creek now. Still growing. Arturo starts moving back up toward his stuff, saying something to me. I say "No I think it's just a little stream, dude, this is probably it." The stream swells more and starts to make noise. Suddenly I'm worried my stuff on the floor, as it is now on the shore of this new stream, and another branch of water just went around it, isolating it on a rock in the water. My wallet is wet. I run over there and put everything in my pockets. Arturo is now where he set his stuff down in the recess. He looks up and around at what's going on. So do I. We are in our bathing suits.

A new surge of water comes and the water swells significantly. I head for the slightly higher ground that Arturo is at, while we start moving. Right now we're trapped on this wall and we just need to get out of there. We can't go around the bend so we are walking downstream along the rock wall and rock shore. The water has now surged and swelled to the point that it would be dangerous to cross. It's not very deep, but it's moving very fast.

We walk down the shore a distance and are now surrounded by trees and greenery. The red rocky environment is gone, except there may have been a wall still on our left. There are lots of other people, mostly on the other side, and it's clear the water is a problem for them, too. Kids have been swept away. We come up on a walled bridge. Probably for a train because we gathered it would not be easy to cross for some reason, and argued for a second about whether to attempt to swim across the river. "Fuck that, I'm gonna climb across the bridge," he said. At that moment, I saw in the water, heading our way fast from upstream, a kid's shorts somehow I knew it had valuable stuff in it. It would cross under the bridge within seconds at this speed. In that moment I saw that I could not hesitate, and I didn't. With a "fuck it" attitude to my fear of the water, and a vision of how I could grab the shorts if I jumped now, I dove straight toward the water. My hands hit the shorts square on, and I was in the water. I was instantly swept under the bridge, but somehow made it to the other side without a problem and without a ton of distance. The people on the other side seemed really impressed. And thankful.

I remember seeing more of Arturo for this next part, but after that I don't know what happened to him. I guess some time had passed, but all of a sudden it had become a fun challenge for people to cross the river. It was like a mini water park. There were two "rides" --really obstacles--for crossing the river, the challenging being to not fall in the rapid water below. Both obstacles were trying to have you cross it toward the side that we had come from. The bridge was now be easily walked across and was full of people watching. Both rides were on the far side of the bridge, facing the original side of the river. Both had long lines, and platforms two stories high that you had to walk up to in order to begin the task. The first was a launcher. A launch pad or slingshot seat or something, that you had to jump on in just the right way to catapult yourself across the river to a soft spot on the other side. One lifeguard. The banks of the river here were tall and steep. Soil and dirt and roots. It was right next to the bridge. The farther one was more simple. It was a swing, with a ladder rope below strung across the river. You had to hang off the swing and fling yourself as far as you could, land on the ladder rope, and climb your way the other side of the river, with the thick waters rushing just beneath you.

All I remember of this part was all the people there like it was a water park, and that I only tried the swing ride a single time. I flung myself off the swing and didn't go very far. But I landed square on the ladder rope with my feet. I just focused and continued moving my feet to keep the forward momentum. I managed to run all the way across the ladder rope to the other bank with perfect balance. I didn't try to do it again.

Now, I'm guessing these to dreams are the same dream, but my mind certainly strung them together as if they were.

The far river bank that I now occupied was full of trees and had an even, but challenging slope that went up probably 150 feet from the water. Everything from here on out takes place in that space, along the slope, upstream from the bridge. I remember being part of a band or community of people where I was an outsider. It was mostly kids, and the adult and older-kid leaders were rarely seen. It  was like a camp or something, and I was considered a kid. But it wasn't a camp, because we were also trying to survive. At disconnected times it seemed like there were very few people in the band, at others there were a ton. I figured the whole community was just never in one spot and such a thing would be a luxury. At times it was like there was plenty of food, and feasts, and it was a regular thing, at other times, I was starving. I could never make heads or tails of what was going on in this camp, but I was trying to survive, too, so I just had to make do. I couldn't leave. There were beasts roaming the forest. During the day, everything was fine. The beasts were nowhere to be found. But at night, if you were travelling by yourself or with one or two others, you could hear them or see them running. And the others you were with were usually so scared that they would start running, and could leave you behind on your own out of fear. And this is all on that slope, so it was easy to slip. The camp had several locations and points of interest along the bank, none of which could house everyone, or all the supplies, so everyone was constantly moving themselves and supplies back and forth, but constantly had to go out for more wood or supplies in the forest. They were far enough apart that you could not see one from the other. People were having to constantly run out to fix the power lines, too, and there were weird, changing rules about when we were allowed to use power. All of these duties rotated amongst the people, and I had my share.

The reason we had to keep fixing the power lines, and the rules about electricity, was that the beasts would feed on the power lines. It seemed like they were mostly interested in feeding on the electricity from the lines, but would also eat meat. And people would definitely disappear. The thing about the night was that you wanted to use the lights, but the electricity itself, being on, would attract the beasts. Not to mention the lights. We didn't want them to screw up the power lines or generators, and we couldn't have them sensing the meat inside (us). And these one-off buildings in the middle of nowhere were never very well barricaded. Nighttime was stressful and a good sleep was never had. It seemed like if we had a lot of people, and a lot of lights at night, they would keep their distance. But inevitably a kids would play, get comfortable and venture just a little too far away from camp. Someone would always get eaten. So we just never did that anymore.

Between supplies, wood, fire, food, electricity, defense, and very limited communications with each other, the whole thing was a mess. Kids were dying every night. I lived in constant fear.

The legends about how the beasts looked turned out to be accurate when I finally saw them myself. They were long fox-like creatures. Like dogs, with a smooth pale head and snout, and bushy long tail, but no taller than two or three feet. They had a long torso and legs, pale beige, but with leopard-skin print. The leopard print was not on their tails or their head. On the head instead were light faded brown speckles and spots. Their eyes were all small and black, but could glow like lights at will. They always traveled in pairs and never separated. But they only had one eye. One dog in the pair would have one eye on the left side, and the other on it's right side. The side of the head that had no eye was simply smooth, perfect fur. They would flank their prey, one on each side, from great distances, each eye pointing toward the prey. It was believed that each pair was connected telepathically, like one they were animal. And if they were telepathic, maybe they could read your thoughts, or see where you were from great distances, even when they weren't looking.

It was extremely rare to see them during the day, but if you did see them, you would simply never be seen or heard from again. It was accepted that they always traveled in pairs at least, but it was difficult to tell just how many there were because of their weird sounds and stealthy maneuverings. They never howled or barked like dogs. Ever. Sometimes you would hear a sound that was maybe electric, like a light snap or a pop. Which could easily be confused with the snap of a branch under someone's feet. And another sound soft and indescribable, except that it was eerie. At night you had to watch for their flickering flashing eyes, and that creepy ass light sound, which you would hear in your own head even if they weren't there. There was virtually no warning when they would attack. It was their own paranoia that would get people killed. They were easily 4 times as fast as any human, but they never looked tired, and rarely ran more than a trot.

We had no weapons. No guns. Maybe a few knives.

The legend gets thicker. Two of these dogs (one of the pairs) were believed to be against the rest, and tried to protect the humans. This is where the descriptions come from. It seemed as though there were a few instances where a band was being preyed on (they suspected) or attacked, when two dogs came out of nowhere and cleared the rest away. There was another story of when a guy was approached by both sides by the dogs and led along a different path, and then the dogs left, as if they helped him avoid some great blunder or trap. But there was so little to be seen, and so much uncertainty in these instances that it was still possible to me that there were only two of these beasts in the forest. One pair. And there's just a lot about them we don't understand. It could also be that they were using us to continue producing electricity, but also scaring us and herding us enough to keep us in this forest.

I remember hiding one night in the building farthest up the river on the bank, where I was usually stationed. I was by myself with one other kid and we couldn't get the damn candles to work. We had to crawl everywhere so that the dogs wouldn't see us through the windows. We used the electricity for a little while and then turned it off. But we heard the dogs approach and then munch on the power lines outside the walls. The other kid crawled into another room and stopped responding, went silent. One of the dogs came inside and sniffed around. I saw him with my own two eyes not ten feet from me. He didn't look directly at me, but I knew in my gut that he knew I was there. After about an hour the dogs left and we fell asleep. I found my partner the next morning in the next room, untouched and fine. The whole time I was starving.

Another instance, in the same building, there were a lot of us. It was a feast. There was so much food of every kind. The kitchens inside were fully utilized. When I was surprised about how much food we had available, everyone just looked at me like I was crazy. As if to say "duh" or "of course". But I had been without food for a couple days. Don't they go through that? I just couldn't understand them. I kept eating. I felt guilty a little, not saving more of it for later, when we may not have it. But I had gotten used to following instructions. I had to. We all had to. We had to trust whatever communications we had. And I was told to eat as much as I could stomach.

The last time, I was walking through the forest in the daylight with two other guys, gathering wood. We were on our way back, branches in hand, when we heard them. Remember, it was extremely rare to run into them during the day, but if you did, it was guaranteed death. We decided to step it up, but the others were in front of me and couldn't contain their fear--they started running, sprinting and tripping over each other as they ran along the side of the great slope through the forest, dropping wood along the way. I waited. Contained my fear and controlled my quick steps.

But then I saw one. Directly to my left on the top of the slope. Looking right at me. And the other was directly to my right, halfway between me and the water. Black eyes staring right at me out the side of their heads. Like birds. I moved faster and started dropping the wood. They moved faster and closer to me. I started running. They started running. They began closing in. Accepting that I couldn't outrun them, I shifted my fear into determination, eyed a good spot of ground for footing nearby, and started feeling the wood in my arms for the best branch to use as a weapon. With perfect timing, I had my hand on the "hilt" of my weapon just as I reached the location, dropped the wood, and raised the branch over my head in an attack pose, pointing right at the dog coming from above, the other dog behind me. They're only about 7 feet from me. My arm is up and ready to strike it's head in that instant. I've concentrated all my strength--everything I am--into that hand. I know the one behind me will probably take me out, but I'm gonna take down this motherfucker right now. The dogs both stop and rear back before the one I'm aiming for is in place for me to strike.

And the dog in front of me says, "Wait!"

...I'm thinking "wtf??"

He says, "Come with us. Just follow us."

They keep their distance--and I keep my stick--, but lead me to the top of the slope, over the ridge.

The dream was over before I could see what was on the other side.



Edit (150103): The two people in real life that I thought the beasts represented are no longer my friends.