My imagination has always been a very sharp attribute to my personality and creativity. Despite having an older sister, being 12 years apart from each other kept us from truly bonding. I spent most of my life feeling like an only child and was alone when it came to playing and having fun. This allowed my imagination to take the reins and develop to its fullest potential. To this day I am still very imaginative and dreamy. I dream often when I zone out and when I go to sleep.

I would say that there is an even ratio of dreams to nightmares within my thoughts.
I got home from work early today and felt somewhat sleep deprived so I took a nap.
What was originally a 1 - 2 hr nap turned into a 5 hr nap.

I'm going to share what started as a dream and turned into a nightmare.

The dream takes place in a very dark and lush forest. Woodland animals converse freely as though they were not aware of the intruder in their home. I was breathing heavily but wasn't terrified. I was in some sort of video game scenario where I had to perform a sequence of tasks for a quest to proceed to the next area of the game. There were 3 eggs that I had to put in the right order so that they could hatch into blue jay birds that would fly me to the next area.

Next thing I know, I'm at some party with various big name rappers. Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Drake, Fetty Wap, Kendrick Lamar, etc... were all at the party just talking and listening to music. I was in the kitchen preparing a snack with the most basic ingredients. So I'm in this kitchen with an oven tray and I lay down foil. I put down saltine crackers and some grape jelly followed by another layer of saltine crackers and some sugar glaze. I bake it and serve these tiny jelly sandwiches to everyone. The whole time this was happening I was internally freaking out. These were musical celebrities and I was about to feed them the most unsatisfactory snack in the world. I walked out to the entertainment room and everyone grabbed a sandwich. I cringed at seeing them take a bite, expecting them to curse me out and kick me out of the party but they didn't freak out at all. They really enjoyed the simple ingredients but the sweet flavor of the jelly combined with the crackers.

I turn around and I'm suddenly in my apartment. This apartment is not like the one we actually live in. This one has 2 floors instead of 1. My boyfriend is playing video games on his computer upstairs. I'm on the first floor putting the pan away in the kitchen vaguely recalling the party yet being completely in tune with the new situation. I look at the clock and head outside and down our hall. I proceed down the stairs and onto the ground there's a parking lot to the left along with other apartment buildings in a complex and to the right is a garden and lounge area. I suppose I had placed plants and vegetables in the garden and went to water them.

Prior to the current time on the tv there was a news broadcast about a shooting that occurred earlier in the week where a young male went on a shooting spree, killing several people. The shooter fled the scene and was currently on a search. I stepped into the opening of the garden and began to fill up a pitcher of water. I turn around and immediately see a guy approach my area. At first I assumed he was someone who lived in the complex and was heading up the stairs that I just came down from. But he had a weird back-pack type machine on with a hose attached and then a gun fixated onto the opening of the hose all attached together like some weird set up. He looked like he was strung out on drugs or hadn't slept for days. I make eye contact with him and as I went to turn back to my pitcher of water, he walks into the garden area so I turn back to him.

I'm taking in his features. Short blond hair, around 5'10" in height, pale complexion. He was wearing a graphic t shirt and some jeans. He didn't speak to me, he just stared at me. The more I look at him, the more familiar he becomes. And then it dawns on me... he's the shooter on the news. 10 feet away from me. So I try to stay calm and think of a plan of how to get away from him and out of view calmly not to alarm him or set him off, but also enough to get the hell away so I'm not attacked. However, he's standing right in the opening of the garden and the walls that surround are too high up for me to jump over.

So I politely smile at him and say "hello, can I help you with something?" He doesn't react. He's silent for a minute and then proceeds to go off on a tangent about how there is no justice and God is a lie and if God were real then he wouldn't let this and that happen and goes off on his family being horrible, and people treating him horrible all his life. It was clear that this guy had some serious mental warfare and was just venting hard core. He grew more furious and violent with his words to the point where he was shaking.

I step forward to try and comfort him but my movement spooked him out to the point where he pointed the gun at me. It wasn't a normal gun. It looked like one, but the machine that he had fixated to it added new components to it. He's pointing the gun at me while shaking, still spewing off his hatred for everyone and everything in sight. There's a handful of chairs and benches scattered around so I use them to gain some distance from him. At this point, he's aware that I'm trying to look for an escape so he blocks off the opening with one of the benches and starts walking over to me.

I charge at him causing him to shoot the gun twice. The first shot misses me but the second one caught me in the side of my stomach. I scream for help immediately, but it's like the entire complex was dead silent. Nobody in sight. Nobody could hear me. The feeling of the shot was an extreme burning sensation combined with a throbbing pain. It felt like my skin was deteriorating upon impact, which it was. The gun shot a bullet that had a long needle attached to it. The bullet plunges into the skin like a regular bullet and shatters. When it shatters, it releases a poison that has a necrotic effect on the skin affected. So with each passing minute, the poison was deteriorating my skin and burning the area near it in the process. A small crater was forming in my body about the size of a dime.

The guy is so delirious and panicked about me getting so close to him that he stumbles backward and I push him into a chair. I take the hose that is still spraying water out everywhere. My pitcher overflowing and water spreading around. I wrap him around the chair and tie the tubes. I push a few chairs and benches around him to sort of barricade him in long enough for me to run my way up the stairs and into my apartment. As I turn away, he points the gun and shoots me a few more times in my back.

Something I did not notice coming out of the apartment, but coming in, were these wires and fuses along with a count down timer. That is when I realized that he fixated bombs to random apartments, one of which was mine. And the timer had less than 5 minutes left on it. I'm frantically calling my boyfriend on my cell phone but he doesn't pick up. So I open the door hoping it doesn't trigger the bomb and nothing happens. I storm up the stairs and slam Justin's door open. He see's my worried face and the blood dripping from my body. I tell him we need to leave now, there's a bomb here and the shooter is outside we need to leave now. So he grabs his keys and we bounce out of the apartment.

By the time we get down the stairs, the shooter has freed himself temporarily from the bonds I created and was now approaching us. I start calling 911 but before I can get too far, the shooter begins shooting at us again. My bf dodges 3 of the shots but gets clipped on the side of the head with one. It hits the wall, but it brushed by enough to scrape his skin off and cause him to bleed. He gets shot in the arm later on trying to buy me time to call 911 properly. I call 911 and I'm on the phone with the dispatcher saying that the shooter is here, my bf and I have been shot multiple times, our address, etc... The shooter turns to me and I dodge a few of the shots while running away from him towards the parking lot, my bf following after me.

The cops show up and detain the guy while inspecting our wounds. The poison was spreading enough to the point where the craters of deteriorated flesh were the size of quarters, golf balls, and one tennis ball. I notify them that there are bombs fixated on the doors but by this time the timers had already depleted, so the detonate button was either attached to him directly or the bombs were fake or faulty.

The police handle the situation while we are rushed to the hospital. I remember looking down at the chunks of my body that are missing and passing out scared that I would die from the poison spreading.

I woke up from the nightmare in a panic.

I think the reason why I had this dream/nightmare was because there was a suicide-murder at a Weis store up North in PA where a guy shot and killed several of his co-workers before committing suicide. Before I went to sleep I was listening to rap and saw a recipe for some dessert.

So my brain decided to take those things and piece them together in a way to give me a heart attack.

It's just so weird though because when I woke up I could still feel the immense pain I was feeling in the dream. My whole body ached. I could feel the poison burying into my body and eating away tissue and muscle and fat. I could feel the bullets lodged into my body and causing me extreme pain.

I'm so glad it wasn't real. That would be so horrible to experience for real....