The House of Grim

If you missed my tweet, the reason there was no Photofinish Friday was that I couldn't find my camera cable. Don't get all excited now, because I haven't found it. Just wanted to re-apologize. I'm sorry.

I had some very interesting dreams last night. I've stopped dreaming obsessively of Italy, although I am still unspeakably homesick for it, and instead decided to dream about the underworld encroaching upon my school.

I was moving into a double on the west side of the floor I lived on last year, but the building was very different - much more like our admissions building, which is made of stone and looks like a castle. Taz, my roommate, was really late and didn't get there until bedtime. It was stormy.

Then I heard my dog crying on the ground outside. I had let him out through a window that opened onto a lower level's roof, so I didn't know how he had gotten down to the ground, but I couldn't just leave him out there.

For some reason we weren't allowed outside at night, so I had to sneak out. I went out through another window that led to a different lower level roof and was about to crawl into a secret passage a guy had shown me earlier in the dream, which I had crawled through at that time, when someone called out to me. I ducked, trying to figure out where the voice had come from. A light came on a little way above me and the guy who had shown me the passage was looking right at me.

"I told you not to go in there so much," he said.

I tried to explain that I'd only been in there twice - the time I went in after he showed me, and now. He wouldn't let me talk because he was very angry; there was no legitimate reason for me to be crawling around that passageway at any time. He and his roommate physically deterred me from entering the passage (I think they were swinging on vines at me?).

Finally I managed to explain that I was trying to help my puppy, and they both agreed to help me get him inside without taking the secret passage. Next thing I knew we were on the ground. We could see the main entrance from where we were, but we were far enough away that when someone opened the door, we escaped notice by ducking. It was very important that we escape notice because there were demons and evil spirits going in and out. The one that opened the door was really terrifying.

After the creature had gone inside, we stood up and were trying to figure out where my dog had gone, to no avail. Then the door swung open again, this time revealing the Grim Reaper. I ducked, but the guys were like "We have to go now!"

It turns out that we didn't have the authority to open the door ourselves, so if we didn't follow Grim we might not get in at all. And apparently it would be worse to stay outside than to follow the Grim Reaper into the demon house. Go figure. Grim held the door for us and greeted us all by name in a low, growling voice. He seemed a rather amiable chap, all things considered, but I was still very relieved to find myself awake after that. Sorry, but the insides of demon houses are not places I would explore by choice, in dreams or otherwise.