Let me preface this and say this; I don’t dream a lot. At most, it’s a monthly occurrence for me. Usually, it’s really macabre, ghoulish, and downright frightening stuff. Those dreams are also always, while really clear and sharp (as in life-like), rather incoherent and nonlinear. And since I’ve had freaky dreams for pretty much forever, I’m really hardened when it comes to scary stuff, able to brush off whatever weirds me out.
Well, sometimes things do stay with me. And tonight was such a night. I’ve been thinking about this dream non-stop for hours, and I can neither make any sense of it nor force myself to forget.
So now I’ve created this post to try and get some clarity, or at least to get it off my chest. Maybe some of you had similar dreams, and if so I’d give a lot to hear how you dealt with them, for frankly, I’m scared to go back to bed as of now.
The dream starts with me arriving along with some others that I am not familiar with at an old-looking castle/mansion/rather large building. They all seem to know one another, the only odd one out being me. I don’t think I have met any of them in real life. They are of various ages, genders, ethnicities, and whatever else. There are other people there awaiting us, and they look rather ordinary, but give off an indescribable vibe.
I’ll be referring to me and the others I’ve arrived with as ‘us’ and ‘we’.
Under some pretense I can’t remember, we are guided inside and I notice that some of the arrivals seem to know something the rest of us don’t. The people who presumably know something exchange looks with the people that reside in this ‘castle’, and then eye the rest of us.
We are guided further inside, and one of the guides asks us for our electronic devices ‘to make sure we don’t take pictures of the artworks’, of which I recall not having seen a single one.
The journey continues, silently, as more of the people who have been there before us seem to join us and tail us through the halls.
As we are all seated in a hall next to a big wooden door, a woman who has been exchanging looks with the ‘guides’ prior, seemingly loses her nerve and asks to leave.
She is not allowed, instead guided into the room behind the thick door.
There is some kind of noise reaching us through the door, but it’s impossible to tell what kind.
I ask for my phone since there are no artworks in this hallway, but am denied. I start to get an uneasy feeling, especially since one by one, people, seemingly at random, are taken to the room.
I lock eyes with a male ‘guide’ and lose time. No matter how much I try, at this point, I cannot remember what happens after this. I cannot remember his face, features, or silhouette either. I just know that it was a man.
I come back to in another hall, seated at a large table, wearing a simple white cloth that I did not arrive in. Two of the people who have ‘welcomed’ and ‘guided’ us, sit left and right of me.
The same is true for the others, we are all separated by at least one stranger between us. Some of the arrived people look to have stitched wounds on their torsos and abdomens, most are nowhere to be seen, and a few are seemingly untouched like me. A handful of them are crying, and only two seem to be relieved and excited.
Seated at the table I cannot only with great effort discern any features on the strangers’ faces.
It is then that I see a plate of meat before me, and am taken aback by a very pungent and iron-like smell.
At the head of the table rises the same man I had locked eyes with just prior, and I realize that it’s not that I cannot remember him, it is that is cannot SEE him. I know he’s there, and yet I see and do not see him. It’s incomprehensible.
It is then that he speaks.
“Eat,” he says, and I hear a loud sob to my left, while a man across from me vomits.
“Eat” repeats the ‘guide-thing’ at the head, and I cannot help myself but ask what the meat is.
“The sacrifices,” he says “for the ritual, of course”
“What ritual?” I ask
The ‘guides’ laugh, and so do the two people in my group who looked relieved and in the know.
“Why, for your wish” grins the man “to prove your worth to Baphomet”
Due to his words an image of a creature flashes before me. The mental image looks surprisingly akin to a real depiction of the deity/demon, and I could swear I had never seen it in ‘the real world’ prior to doing research due to this dream.
At this moment it clicks for me that those strangers must be cultists, and that upon the plates lies the flesh of the missing people. Despite this, for some reason, I find myself calm.
I push the plate away, and decline. Despite my expectations, my declination isn’t followed by anger or disgruntled disappointment. Instead, the guides and strangers insist that I must be misunderstanding what greatness I am refusing.
The cultist next to me says I could have incomparable riches, one across the table claims magic powers, and the man at the head tells me of immortality.
I ask at what price such things come, and am told that it would ‘only’ be my soul.
I refuse again and ask to leave.
This time I sense annoyance from the cultists. The cultist next to me, now looking clearer, swats my shoulder and flicks her tongue as if she were reeling in a petulant child.
She calls me by my nickname, a nickname that only my parents and grandparents use, and tells me that if I want to succeed in life, I need to take a sacrifice and make a sacrifice.
The cultists list the names of great individuals of our time and past who had all made the deal, telling me this I’d be a fool to decline.
I remain stubborn, too taken aback or just too confused to consider what could happen to me should I keep testing their ‘goodwill’.
The man at the end of the table shakes his head, raises his glass, and addresses all the others, commanding them to continue and start eating.
Seemingly emboldened by my refusal, none of the others I arrived with, aside from the two others, touch the meat in front of them.
The cultist sitting at my other side yanks me to my feet and drags me out of the hall. Out of instinct, I reach up to claw at him, but his grip on me tightens and my hand drops before I can make contact. For some reason, I cannot fight back or try to escape his grasp. All I can do is follow along.
He brings me to a darkened room, makes me kneel in front of a goat-headed statue, and tells me to watch and think again. He leaves the room after swiping something across the back of my neck. I don’t know if he cut or hit me, all I know is that it hurt like all hell.
Eventually, I do look up at the statue, and while the sight makes me feel uneasy at first, it quickly dissolves into nothing.
I don’t see or feel anything. If anything it’s the first time I truly feel at ease, like I can think and ponder over the whole situation.
I don’t know what kind of epiphany that asshole was trying to trigger, but I do know that I’m left unattended and that I’m sure as hell not staying in this place.
Since it’s the only way out of the room, I quietly make my way to the door and put my ear to it.
Thump, thump, thump.
Steps. Back and forth, I hear the thumps grow louder, then quieter, then louder again.
I realize that he’s pacing the hallway, and check whether the door is locked by gently pushing down the doorknob.
I wait until the steps grow quieter, and make a break for it.
The slam of a door, loud footsteps underneath me, and a gargled and surprised yell behind me.
“Stop!” screams the cultist, and runs after me.
I run as fast as I can with no sense of direction. I grab onto the corners of the walls when I make a turn to not lose momentum, and make sure to topple loose furniture and vases behind me to make catching up harder, but the cultist keeps pace.
I don’t know where I’m going, but by some luck, I end up spotting an open door that leads to a balcony. The drop doesn’t seem too bad, what with the leaves and bushes underneath, so I jump.
The fall hurts, but I keep myself pushing forward into the forest surrounding the place. Behind me, the cultist follows.
In the dark of the night, I stumble and feel my clothes get stuck on foliage. I feel myself tiring, hear a ringing in my ears, and feel like my heart is about to jump out of my chest.
My pursuer is getting ever closer, seemingly unperturbed by the dark and my attempts to loose him via sharp turns and twists.
I yelp when I feel my head get yanked back as he grabs a fistful of my hair. As I whip around my hand connects with his face, my fingernails seemingly doing enough damage to make him release his hold and give me an opening to run away again.
His stun does not last long, and eventually, the thicket clears and I find myself in the middle of an asphalt road. As I look from side to side I start feeling hopeful, hoping for a car to come by or to at least see the light of a lamppost.
No such mercies are granted.
Behind me I hear twigs snap under the feet of my pursuer, in front of me the forest continues.
For only a split second I dare take in what expands before me; dead trees with goats perched atop the branches.
I want to take a left or a right, to just follow the road, hoping for a car to eventually pass me. But the man behind me is too great of a threat, and without the little resistance that the foliage can offer my chances seem even slimmer, so I run forwards, despite the creepy feeling I’m getting from the animals.
I hear them bleat, one by one. Their voices are light-hearted, and as I continue running, I hear some drop down from their perches, seemingly landing in front of my pursuer, slowing him down.
As the steps of the cultist behind me grow ever quieter, I feel myself tired. My breaths are ragged and my legs are shaking, and I come to a halt without even realizing it.
The goats puff above me as I pant, shaking their heads as they watch me.
The view is as unnerving as it is comforting for some reason.
I hear debris rustle and twigs snap.
As quickly, and as quietly, as I can, I try to hide amongst the trees and rocks, and then I hold my breath.
The steps wander ever closer, and for a moment I fear that he might hear my raging heartbeat.
Sitting tucked behind a boulder, hiding in its shadows, my hands brush through the debris underneath until eventually I feel my fingertips ache with fresh pain. My hand wraps around a sharp rock-shard as if out of instinct and I sit and wait with baited breath.
My chest starts aching from holding my breath, and the moment I draw air I hear the loud thump of hurried footsteps come my way.
He grabs me before I can run once more, I feel a hand wrap around my throat and feel the same disarming sensation that had halted me from fighting back earlier. Yet with the shard digging into the palm of my hand and the pain it brings I manage to twist within his grasp and lodge the makeshift weapon in his throat.
I push the cultist away and watch as he crumbles to the ground. He gargles and wheezes as his eyes roll back, and I watch as his blood pools. I see my own reflection in the liquid, and suddenly I find myself falling, feeling my head spin.
Then I am back in that hallway seated next to the thick wooden door. As if out of instinct my head snaps up to look at where the man who’d made me lose time earlier would be, only to find the space empty.
I realize that I’m dreaming now. The realization hits me full stop, but I can’t wake up.
I take in the surroundings and realize that the behaviors of those around me are identical to when I was there the first time around. Everything, minus the man, is the same.
I look around to see if I can spot the cultist I just killed amongst the others, yet he is nowhere to be seen.
I get up without a word, and pretend to stretch as I notice the cultists shift their attention onto me. I keep pretending to examine the furniture while assessing the situation from the corners of my eyes.
The same woman from before asks to leave, yet again she is denied and led into the room from before.
Knowing what will happen, I feel saliva pool in my mouth and taste bile. Knowing that it’s a dream, I swallow it down and use the woman as a distraction.
I turn and nonchalantly walk to the end of the hallway, only to run into the cultist woman who sat next to me at the table and swatted me.
Looking at her instills an instant feeling of calm in me. She looks so… cozy. Like a caring auntie or kind lady next door.
“Oh you” she chides, grabbing me gently by the elbow “wrong way”
In an instant, I feel woozy, sedated, and calm.
I feel like a passenger in my own body and every movement starts feeling tremendously exhausting.
She effortlessly maneuvers me back to where I was supposed to be, and with her hand still resting on my arm I realize that it’s my turn to go into the room next.
She leads me inside the barely lit room, and makes me lie atop a stone slab, and despite her touch leaving me, I still feel like I’ve been put under an anesthetic.
“Her?” asks someone.
“For the sacrifices” answers another.
With great effort, I manage to turn my head to the other side, where the voices are, and see another slab next to me within arms reach.
Wide eyes, naked breasts and an open ribcage welcome me. Intestines bloom from the wound while a hand burrows and rummages inside before retreating and dragging the body from the slab.
I am not scared. The view is gruesome, but now that I know that I’m dreaming, and now that I know what’s coming, I’m certain I’ll wake soon.
“But she wasn’t on the list,” says the woman that has led me to the slab. Again I turn my head and I see her standing there, talking to another cultist woman, and to the man who has no appearance.
They talk over me, about me, as if I’m not even there.
“What’s your name?” asks the woman with the sedating touch, and though not wanting to, I blurt out my nickname.
“Only family calls me that” I add absentmindedly, feeling a weird sense of deja-vu.
The other woman begins to strip me down as the calming one steps closer again, regarding me with confusion and pity.
I feel vulnerable and embarrassed, yet the only thing I manage to croak out is that I’m feeling cold without my clothes.
Both cultist women coo at me, before lifting their gazes to look across the room with questioning expressions.
“What to do with you?” asks the man I can, and cannot see.
The question was seemingly directed at me, yet feeling the growing macabreness of the situation, I only sigh.
I hear him stepping closer, feel cold fingers taking hold of my hand, and pressing into the cut that’s no longer there.
There is not another word spoken. The man leaves the room whilst another is brought in.
I watch the man who arrived with me be put onto the slab next to mine whilst the gentle hands of women dress me. I feel disgust as I fear the same fate being bestowed upon him as the woman who lay there earlier. Then I recall seeing him at the table, and despite better judgment, I continue to watch as another pair of male cultists cut into the soft space beneath his ribs. The blade plunges into the wound whilst the other pries the skin open, both whispering incoherent words.
The blade returns with a piece of smooth, dark, flesh; a piece of liver, whilst the man lays with his bulging at the sight, yet his body paralyzed.
The cut is stitched, and shortly after both of us are picked up and carried away someplace else.
The cultist carrying me brings me into many a dark room, stands in the middle, whispers, bows, and then continues on to the next. Soon I find myself back at the table, and not long after both cultists and ‘sacrifices’, or whatever else we are, alike, trickle in.
I find myself reliving the moment from before, and I sigh, and feel annoyed at this dream not ending.
I rest my head on my hand as I watch the plate of sacrificial meat be put before me, the cultist auntie to my side scoffing at my poor table manners.
The space on my other side is empty. The man I killed in the future(?) wasn’t there, but that thought didn’t really strike me until I had woken up again.
Having seen what has happened before, knowing now that it’s a dream and the stakes are low, and also not being keen on running through the woods once more, I dig into the meal when the man at the head commands to eat.
The taste is nothing I wish to recall, the reaction to my following orders is something I’ll be forced to relive for a while though I suppose.
“Eager to take two sacrifices, aren’t you ‘nickname’?” speaks the man at the head.
I just shrug my shoulders, not understanding what he was referring to, and not quite sure how to respond in the first place.
Others follow my lead, and soon after one by one, we are handed small items. I’m not sure what I received, but I remember that I’ve gotten something that I wasn’t quite able to wrap my whole hand around.
The man at the end of the table tells us to hold on to those items as they’ll mark the deals we are about to strike with Bahomet.
This time, instead of escaping, I am guided inside of a hall where I am supposed to meet and make my wish.
But I am greeted with nothing but pitch-black darkness.
I feel agitated. This whole thing is taking a toll on me and I just want out. I hiss in annoyance and say to myself “I just want to wake up”.
I feel… something. I’m not quite sure, but the feeling lasts for a while.
I feel a breath upon my face, and then I wake.