I had a dream that I was working on my prior house – scraping 20 layers of paint off of the basement floor to get it ready to sell. It was slow going but the paint was coming off in big chunks and I was making progress.
The buyers showed up and wanted to see the attic and I told them that I would take them up there, but that it wasn’t part of the orginal inspection and they couldn’t hold it against me.
I opened a door in the basement that I’d never seen before but somehow knew was there and took them up one flight of stairs to the attic. In this attic, above where the attic would normally have been, was a warehouse sized space full of boxes and old furniture.
And a fully functional lazy-river water park. The water looked clean, considering no one had done any maintenance on it in years, but the pool that was up there was in bad shape. We went through the greenhouse, waved at the neighbors on the other side of the glass then went across the roof and in through another door back inside.
The door opened onto a landing and there were short steps down in several directions to tiny rooms – just big enough for a single bed and maybe a tiny dresser. In each room, the carpet, the bedspread and the drapes all matched and were done in lurid colors – blood red, radioactive green, or – I dunno – “internal organ purple”. At the foot of each neatly made bed was either an old and torn up stuffed animal of indeterminate species or a creepy china doll with eyes that followed you.
The tiny rooms had more doors leading to more steps and to more landings with more tiny rooms. Having lost the buyers, I went from room to room to room – getting more creeped out the further I went.
The space finally opened up again into an industrial kitchen done in white and metal. Running down through the center of the room were cots – each containing a large, and very alive, sea lion.
Were they guests or food? How did they get up there? I didn’t know, but one of them tried to grab me as I went past. I got out of the kitchen and found myself back in the maze of tiny rooms and stairs.
This time, the rooms were all the same. Red carpet and drapes, but the bed and all the fixtures were black. And all the beds had dolls on them.
I picked up speed trying to find an ending and a way out – and realized that the rooms now had tiny black votive candles burning.
I stopped for a moment. Those candles don’t burn for that long so whoever lit them…was likely still there.
What panic I had under control up to that point exploded in my mind and all I could think about over and over as I started to run again was:
“Who lit the candles?”
“Who lit the candles?”
“WHO LIT THE CANDLES?”
I could hear my parents talking. Somewhere in the house, but out of reach. I shouted for them, over and over, but they couldn’t hear me.
And then I couldn’t hear them anymore.
And whoever, or whatever, lit all those tiny black candles – was closing in on me.
And then I woke up.