u/sunrise2209

last night i had my first dream in months and the first dream that ever evoked any feelings of fear into me that i remember. i awoke around dusk to find myself in my childhood home i lived in from birth till the end of 7th grade (every dream i have always takes place in this house or a variation of it). i went downstairs to my parents room to find my father gone and in place a different person. i was told by someone (not them as him and mum where frozen as if statues) that i was trapped in an alternate reality for which i could not return to my real life until the trials where completed. to do so, i made my way outside and began walking into the deep woods until i happened across a sandy road surrounded by dark woods. upon setting foot on the road i found that it was at a steep angle and that one could simply slide along its sandy surface to progress easier. along the road on both sides every so often was a gap in the trees with its own trail to take one to a different space. the sky at this point was a very dark purplish indicating that night was only seconds away. i slid down the road until i came across the first gap in the trees. i entered and assume i completed the first trial yet i have no memory of it whatsoever (in fact i forgot as soon as it was completed) but all i know is that on the way out i snatched a map from one of the bystanders in the area allowing me to see what all the paths led to. another rule i was told however was to never interact with the bystanders and i certainly saw that. upon snatching the map the bystander began counting off like the beginning of a song in a feminine or childish voice and then it transformed into something i dont remember but chased me down the road a great distance until it vanished. i was then given the instructions for the next trial. i was to find a village constructed by a survivor of an event that destroyed the first image and in thought had seen an image of what this village would look like (square two story log cabins with slanted roofs randomly spread around a large circular clearing in the trees) i then followed the map and took a break in another area labeled bathroom which was just the bathroom from the house (which in real life was very ruined) but in good shape and with the addition of a frames painting of barrack obama on the wall in place of the window. i then went back on the road and saw that the map had not listing of what i was trying to find for the next trial and decided to make my way to the end of the road and simply explore. i slid down the road (which was straight at first before two sudden turns) and then straight again until i made my way to the dead end. it was at this time that you could only see the few surrounding trees of the road with nothing but eternal darkness beyond them and you couldnt see but a few metres in front of you on the path. i was able to see one thing on the map (which had changed) and that was an area labled 'village' which was the first area on the right. upon entering i found not the log cabin village i was looking for but a layout of several very blue houses with white trim and black roofs in a circle configuration similar to tranquility lane from fallout 3 except these where all single story identical blue houses. this was when i made my greatest mistake and broke the rule of interacting with bystanders again. i found myself invited into one of the houses near the northeast area of the circle of houses and was sat at a dinner table with a family of a mother, a father, two children, and an infant (all children where ungendered and i saw no face) dressed in american 1950s fashion and i ate none of the food. all the words of these people where given just like that of whom gave me instructions (i only heard the voice in my head without seeing or hearing anyone speak) and then i heard the only voice line i would ever hear when the todler gave the countoff, '1, 2, 1, 2, ready, go,' and i was already on my way out as it transformed into what i can guess was the only thing important to it, a todler sized box of either captain crunch or fruit loops (might have been some mix of both honstly) with arms and it began chasing me. it was at this point that it was around midnight for the sky was black and the area was surrounded by a thick dark fog. i slid down the road a great distance before i somehow stopped by a break in the trees with a dark field of corn or wheat or something and the thing cauglt up to me and grabbed my ankle with surprising force and i fought it a bit until i escaped and it continued pursuit and in my running i entered the bathroom area again except this time it lost all light and the painting spoke but i could not understand what it said and at this time i saw that the door would not lock as indicated by great bits of light sreaming in from the crack in the door. i had no choice but to re enter the road and slide back to the beginning and run back into the house. i saw the parents in the same pose as they where and went back up to my room (which i had not seen at the beginning of the dream) only to find it was (to my memory) the same messy room i had back in 7th grade but with some stuff moved around and some more items. there was also a man sitting in the bed near the end laying like a dog or cat would who spoke (this time not words in my head but what i heard) of me being trapped until i complete the trials and that something was drawing close. i spoke for the first time in the dream saying that the trials where too hard and i was going to give up (yet i spoke not in my voice, only an altered yet similar tone) it was at this time i tried to get in bed to just sleep and wake up tomorrow when i failed as my foot (the same one the child had grabbed, the left one) could not get into the bed. it was at this time that the man had vanished from the foot of the bed and i heard one of what i somehow just knew was one of 'the patrols ' outside which somehow i knew was a humanoid being patrolling the property to make sure nobody could make it to the road to complete the trials and escape to their reality. the patrol spoke in only quotes of insane things my insane real father would say (he screams all kinds of random insane stuff in real life) and then i drifted to sleep and was instantly woke into my real world by my alarm ending the dream.

to my best guess. the version of myself there was my current self (four years since i was last living in that house) and that the alterations to the timeline in this world was simple. in the real world around this time my mum and dad where not getting along but eventually my father fled to live near the beach and after a year my mum and me moved there too and we all got along fine. i theorize that this alternate reality is in which my mum never moves there and instead leaves him for another person (the mysterious man seen with her) and we never move from that house. that would also explain the house being in better shape and the bathroom restored as my real father never properly fixed things there and the house was in poor shape meaning that if he was replaced the house may be fixed. another theory of mine on why the patrol outside yells quotes of insane things my father said is to possibly make me not want to go back to that world and to shelter in this alternate reality from bad things and to show only the bad of reality is the best way to make one not want to return. i theorize that the trials where actually not what was to be done in those areas off-shooting the trail but perhaps a test of your will and the fact that i was defiant and went to bed instead of doing the trials (which according to instruction from the man on the bed was only available to be completed at night as during the day i would simply live in this alternate reality as it would be) was the only true escape as it ended the dream and i instantly woke to my alarm into the real world.

so i have a dell inspiron n5010 with windows 7 ultimate that i felt like installing windows longhorn on since it didnt work on the other laptop i was going to use due to lack of legacy ide support so i went through the entire setup process and in the end when i rebooted the system, all it did was boot windows 7 into recovery mode. basically, i tried to install longhorn and all it did was corrupt my windows 7 install.

So I was at Best buy the other day and there was this guy (around 70s ish) looking for a computer just to browse the web and message people. I then saw the salespeople trying to use the guys lack of tech knowledge to try to sell him a $2000 high end gaming laptop and knew I couldn't let the salespeople sell him something way more than he needs and figured I could point the guy to something cheaper that would be more suited to his needs. Then the salespeople where mad at me for helping the guy and had me leave. Now the fun part. I was telling my friends about this and one of them thinks I am awful for intervening because it made the salespeople unhappy and that I should just make everyone happy. Well we got into an argument because I think we should make choices off of what seems morally correct and helps the majority (aka not helping best buy staff sell a guy way more than he needs just for more gain) and she thinks we should do what makes people happy no matter the ethics which I pointed out could often make other people unhappy, which led to a really long argument about this. In my mind, she is pretty much calling me evil for helping a senior citizen not get scammed.

Of course, the people of the Internet may see what I did as different than I view, but i titled this as I saw it.