(INSERT STRONG ADJECTIVE) DREAM. READ.

I know it's "50 Word Friday", but I...it's a holiday? Lol, I gotta say more than 50 words.

But I'll put the poem, of course :)

It might be funny.
It might be wise.
A comment about living,
Or someone’s demise.

It might be scary. Or even something gross.
Maybe something personal
Or something quite morose.

My posts are typically long;
Your eyes soon float away.
So once a week for you,
here’s 50 WORD FRIDAY

(count 'em, it's 50 words XD)

Basically, I woke up from a HORRIBLE dream, went shopping with my cousins, ate potato soup, and watched a REALLY good movie: "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". Wow, that is such a deep and symbolic kid's movie! I was really impressed and I couldn't stop watching. It's definitely a new favorite!! I actually might like it better than my three-year favorite, Aladin...

So, I know you want to hear about my awful dream. No? Well, stop reading right here, then 'cause I'm gonna tell you :P

The dream I'm about to tell you is vivid, thought-provoking, personal and other stuff. I'd love it if you read it, it's something I felt like sharing.

Some of you may know that I love nightmares. The thrill, the excitement, the ability to have terrifying, near-death experiences and wake up perfectly safe! I love it!

I did not love this nightmare.

It incorporated everything I'm afraid of, and some things I didn't know I feared. You know what I'm most afraid of, right? Forgetting, losing people I love,being helpless and (lol) guys screaming. Imagine a dream with all of that.

You don't have to imagine long because I'm going to tell you.

I don't remember how the dream started, or what led up to the part I remember. I was in a boarding school "ruled" by an evil group of people who were plotting something horrible. At the heart of the evil was a lady. She was a mix between Helga from the Sweet Life of Zach and Cody, Michelle Pfeiffer and that evil lady in the newest Indiana Jones. She was most like the last.

I don't remember, or maybe I never knew, what the "evil thing" was that the school board was planning. I do remember that I began to tell my closest friends that there was danger. I told them about it, and about what we had to do. We formed a secret alliance against the evil school board. Before long, my small circle of girl friends began to include some of my closer guy friends as well. We never did anything, but it felt good to know that I had friends who knew the "truth".

It wasn't long before we were found out. I don't remember how it happened, but I remember the evil lady, let's call her the Queen, discovered me, and only me. She tried to make me tell her who I had confided in. I refused, but she tried to get it out of me through horrible methods that I don't quite remember. I never told her, but she found out somehow anyway.

She shoved me and the other girls into one car and the boys in another and started driving us somewhere. I've never experienced fear like that before. It wasn't a brave fear at all. I can't say that I would have saved my friends if I'd had the chance. I'd had some terrible things happen to me at that point, and heard of even worse. The fear wasn't a feeling, it was something stronger, something in my brain and in my blood. Something that was pounding me, not just lurking in the back of my mind. It was an ever-present terror.

The cars stopped at the edge of a cliff. The Queen got out and went over to the boys' car. That driver got out and they consulted. Then the boys were drug out.

Up until now, I've played it more or less cool. I've at least tried to be calm and witty (think Max from "Maximum Ride") even when I was screaming inside. This was my breaking point. I'm getting chills all over again just thinking about it. I saw the boys, looking scared and...just scared. I knew it was my fault they were here, in trouble, and I also knew I didn't have the courage to do anything. I started crying.

Daniel was suddenly in the car with us, watching me. I knew he was there, but it was almost like he wasn't. I didn't acknowledge him, but it might have been because I was sobbing too hard.

There were five boys that I had gotten in trouble: Josh (the Nice Guy from my class), Ben (the Dare Devil from my class), Taylor (Brain Half), and Taylor's younger brother, Matthew. One of them was put on this catapult thing, and flung off the cliff into the water! I screamed. One after the other, the boys were flung over the cliff and into the water. I was screaming and going crazy. My friends were dying before my eyes, because of ME.

I watched the boys struggling in the water. Then, Taylor suddenly stood up. "Hey, we're on land!" he shouted. He even snickered. The water was only a few feet deep.

The Queen seemed upset at this, and ordered the boys brought back into their car. They would have to be disposed of in some other way.

The Queen got back in our car, and whatever momentary relief I had experienced was gone. She was going to kill us, kill us all, and not by drowning apparently. Something worse. I didn't want to die, but knowing she'd have something incredibly painful in mind made the fear almost suffocating.

"Do you remember your friend Rochelle?" the Queen asked as we drove. (Yeah, you, Rochelle. Freaky, right? *shudder*) Rochelle was a girl that had been at the boarding school with me, one of my closest friends that I had told the "truth" to. I felt my heart stop. Rochelle. Oh my gosh.

I had actually forgotten her. My closest friend, I had forgotten her.

"Yes," I breathed, terrified of where the conversation was going. "I remember her. Wh...what did you do to her?"

The Queen smirked. "I beat her up."

I swallowed hard. "And then you sent her back home?"

The Queen's lip curled. "When I was finished with her, there wasn't enough of her left to send."

My blood ran cold. Being beaten to death. Can you all imagine that? That fate was never on my list of most horrible ways to die until the Queen said that. Beaten to death. Fists pounding you, feet kicking you, maybe even knives used. You're bleeding and hurting, someone striking you over and over in the same places. It's just pain, pain and helplessness wrapped in terror and begging for mercy.

"No!" I cried, leaning up in my seat in the car. "Wh...how are you going to kill me?"

The Queen smiled. "I'm not going to tell you."

Up until that point, I hadn't really thought I would die. I've never been concerned with dying. I've never thought I would until I was ready. I'm part of a story, I always thought.

People don't die in the middle of their own stories.

But they do.

Do you realize how horrible that realization was for me? Like a punch in the stomach, all the sudden death was very real to me. I stopped figuring I'd get saved, I started really contemplating death. I stopped assuming I could talk my way out of things. I stopped hoping.

I know this is going to sound sexist, ESPECIALLY coming from me, but I never, ever thought I could fear a woman that much. I've never been more afraid of anyone or anything in the world than I was of the Queen at that moment. I never thought a woman could scare me. I always thought I could take them out as easy as anything. I'm definitely not a weakling.

But I realized it's not muscle that can be the most frightening, it's power. Muscles are a FORM of power, but it's power that scares us all. We fear those who have more power than we do, more power over US than we do.

That's what fear IS, you guys. It's when something is controlling us more than we are controlling ourselves.

"Please tell me!" I begged of the Queen, clasping my hands. "Please tell me how you're going to kill me!"

The Queen laughed, enjoying my helplessness as she drove us down the road. "I will not tell you."

"Please, I'm begging!" I cried, my eyes wide with fear. "Please, please!"

All the sudden, I attacked. I grabbed her neck and started pressing. I learned in seventh grade that if you rub some artery in a person's neck, they'll pass out. I rubbed hard, but she didn't pass out, she just talked into her watching, calling for back up!

New fear seized me. The Queen was too powerful! Even if I could defeat her, there were more men on the way! I couldn't run from them, and I sure as heck couldn't fight them all off!

I threw my weight against the Queen, wrestling. The car swerved and ran off the road. I was barely harming the Queen at all. The car stopped by the side of the road and the Queen opened the door. I was still grappling with her and we both fell out the door.

I tried everything I could remember. I kicked her in the side, I jabbed at her windpipe, trying to collapse it or something. She laughed. She was laughing at me!

"You get all these silly tricks from the experts," she chuckled. "But we only tell you what we want you to know. None of those self-defense tricks really work."

None of them work? That was all I could take. I stopped fighting. I was completely defeated. There wasn't even a chance of being rescued by some guy friend--I had made darn sure of that, getting them all carted off somewhere else!

I was powerless.

I was defenseless.

I was alone.

And then I woke up.

Deep stuff right there, y'all. I was only a dream, but very helpful in analyzing myself. My deepest fears were pulled to the surface, my reactions in different situations revealed, my courage and wit tested.

I sort of failed.

And I now realize I CAN die. People DO die in the middle of their stories.

Life is not a novel, Kendra. Life is real.

At any rate, every bit as real as Death.