You've been gone for so long, my Lord.

It's been a while since I've had a really cohesive and intricate dream. Lately they've been alternating lucidish-sleep paralysis episodes and random sometimes lucid snippets but no real plot or meaning (meaning that I could discern). I've been having lots of sleep-paralysis episodes lately but they've all mostly been neutral to somewhat negative but not all that bad experiences... I'm attributing this to the fact that I'm mostly lucid during them because I've been hardcore practicing and when I dream about being in my room and being unable to move I tend to instinctually realize that I'm dreaming.

Mostly they've been of someone standing at the foot of my bed watching me or crawling onto my bed and or choking me but then I end up sort of laughing at them (in my mind at least, the sort of vibe that I give out if that makes sense) and it changes directions. I also believe my intense loneliness has shaped these experiences wherein I'm more likely to invite and send loving/lustful vibes towards whatever it is I'm seeing rather than rejection or fear which then in turn shapes what I'm seeing. It begins a frightful apparition, usually a dark shadow, or someone that's hurt me in the past, or even as a classical demon/incubus/succubus (which I honestly can't take seriously anymore) but then it changes form with my thoughts. They've been interesting though unsatisfying experiences to say the least....

Aaaanyway. This morning/evening was an exception. It was a dream with plot and it took me a while within the dream to become lucid. It carried so much familiarity with it and so much vividness that it was almost like stepping into another world... and as my dream comrades pointed out, it was exactly that.

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I 'awoke' on a day bed facing an open balcony that looked out over the ocean. The sea breezes danced in the gauzy curtains around the arch and I felt their cool touch on my skin. The floor was stone but smooth and polished. I could see my own reflection in it. I remember I was wearing a combination of armor and some silky tunic with long long sleeves that billowed in the wind. Everything around me was covered in thick dusty cobwebs.

Beside my daybed was a lovely sword. I remember the hilt was braided and made to look like vines. I slid it into the sheath strapped to my back just as someone burst through the doors to my chamber. I believe his name was Quillain or something similar sounding.

Quillain had long silvery hair, appeared Elvin, but was wearing a teal velvet suit jacket as well as circular spectacles. I felt as if I had known him forever but that I had been away for a long time. He stopped and gasped and then rushed at me, hugging me tightly.

"You've returned!" He kept saying, "I knew you would. No one believed me but I always knew you would!" I stroked his hair gently and it felt so familiar like I knew him and had always known him.

"You've been gone for so long, my Lord." he half whispered half sobbed against my neck.

I asked him what was wrong. Quillain told me that 'The Wretched' were attacking us and had been for the last ten years while I was away. I stepped out onto the balcony and looked out over my city. The walls were on the brink of being breeched and my city was on fire. I felt an overwhelming sadness and guilt. It was my fault that my city was under siege. I knew I had been away for too long.

I sank to my knees with my back against the stone just feeling utterly overwhelmed by sadness and guilt. I kept saying, "It's my fault." over and over again. Quillain stood before me and offered me his hand, he kept begging and cooing softly to me that it wasn't my fault and that I could still fix it and that they needed me.

I took his hand and he led me through the castle, past the kitchen (which oddly looked a lot like my cafeteria at my high school) and down through the halls of the castle, there were people running around performing errands but they all stopped at stared at me for a moment. I felt special like I was their leader but at the same time guilty for leaving them so vulnerable.

We ran out into the courtyard just in time to hear a terrible explosion and the war cry of The Wretched as they breeched our walls. Quillain started stripping away the silky parts of my clothing and helping me into my armor (it was so fluid, that the armor seemed to conform to my body perfectly like a second skin). When he was done I looked at him a realized that his hair had changed color, instead of silver it was now dark brown. This is when I became lucid.

"Evaly?" I asked. 'Quillain' placed a finger to his lips and nudged me towards the inner gate just as the battering ram pierced it. 'The Wretched' turned out to be these fast-moving zombie creatures with long sharp claws and jagged teeth. The looked like they had once been people but they were so grotesque and they way the moved was disturbing, all twitchy and against human nature.

I drew my sword and ran towards them shouting at the top of my lungs. I swung so hard at them, I tried knocking them to the ground and hitting them with as much force as I could. I could smell their decaying flesh and it made me sick but I kept hitting them and swinging my sword around me, catching several of them at a time. I saw my soliders rushing them and fight along side me. I looked through the gate out at the feilds and the waves of The Wretched seemed endless.

I knew I was dreaming but at the same time I was afraid that I would lose control... and of course the fear of losing control is what started weakening my control. They were getting closer and the fear was settling in me, I was beginning to forget that I was dreaming. Quillain/Evaly stepped up behind me and whispered in my ear, "You came back for a reason, never forget that You. Are. A. God." That was exactly what I needed to hear. I thrust my arm out before me and my fingertips erupted in a pillar of fire that swept through the horde of 'The Wretched', they screeched and howled and it was horrible but I kept it up.

As I burned them I noted that some of them were children and the part of me that was invested in the dream knew that they were once children of my villages and that I was killing things that had once been my people. It was sick and I felt disgusted but I kept going. I reached up at the sky and thought about being weightless, I didn't flap my arms or 'try' to fly, I just simply willed it and allowed myself to rise and I floated over the horde, raining down fire on their numbers, I drifted over rooftops and swooped down low and covered them in fire until they ran from my city, howling and screeching.

I remember some of the huts resembled the trailers outside of my high school where classes were held. I was fighting off these zombie creatures in the parking lot of my old school. I started losing power and crash-landed on the straw roof of a hut by the gate. I remember my limbs feeling like lead and rolling off the roof onto a stack of crates and then the ground, knocking and breaking things and part of the hut as I rolled. I remember hurting all over and feeling weak and tired. I knew that there were still Wretched trying to get in but I looked up and saw my soldiers repairing the wall and fighting them back which was some relief. Quillain was standing over me and helped me up.

He pulled me into another embrace and I buried my face in his shoulder. He kept saying, "You've saved us." I remember smelling his hair and it smelled familiar. With my last bit of lucidity I said, "I don't want to wake up. I want to stay here with you. I miss you." It felt like the world was being wrenched away from me. The harder I clung to the image, the faster it faded and it broke my heart.

The dream devolved into things. Somehow I ended up walking the halls of my old high school and feeling lost because the building was abandoned but I felt like I was supposed to be somewhere. Then I 'woke up' to an episode of sleep paralysis and one of The Wretched was standing at the foot of my bed twitching horribly at me briefly before they shifted into shadows and vague blurry forms and one form that drifted over my bed, gripped my throat tightly but then embraced me and kissed my forehead.

Then I woke up.