Post-Fever Dreams

So I went to bed fairly early last night and got a solid nine hours of sleep. (This is following the Horrible Tummy Bug, better known as Karkainon The Belly Render. I'm still recovering, but at least I can eat.) So naturally, I dreamed. And unsurprisingly, my dreams were a little... bizarre.

I had commuted back to Lawton, Oklahoma, to work at the drug and alcohol rehab in its new location. That was disturbing enough in its own right, but it occurs to me as I write this that I hadn't really sorted out just how much of a conflation that really is. Lawton, as I've mentioned before, is the little known Tenth Circle of Hell - at least, it was for me. The drug and alcohol rehab, however, was actually located in Stephenville, TX. Stephenville wasn't so bad, but working on the adolescent boys' wing of the rehab was easily the most purgatorial job I've ever held.

There had been some changes since the last time I was there (and in the dream, I was vaguely aware that I'd worked there once before). They'd moved to a somewhat ramshackle house, rather than the sprawl of decrepit, lowest-bid buildings that I remember. The staff was friendly, glad to see me, happy to get started - the whole environment was much cheerier than I remember it ever being in real life. Apparently there'd been some changes in management.

So really, it was a fairly pleasant dream (even if commuting to Lawton seemed a bit much for a low-paying job). At least, it was fairly pleasant, until the residents started screaming - at which point I ran back to see what was happening, and found that the house had come to life. Apparently it was haunted - really, really haunted. Doorways-splintering-into-teeth haunted. Faces-forming-in-the-wood haunted. Eating-the-patients haunted.

On the plus side, the facility was much better run when the vengeful, flesh-devouring ghosts were in charge than it ever was in real life.