I spoke with a man who purchased an eBay item from me. Somehow, this involved a webcam video chat as well. It was his step-son's birthday, and he needed me to hand deliver the item for it to arrive in time. I reluctantly agreed, and was further convinced by the pleading of his wife to deliver the gift to their apartment.

In the couple's apartment, which now becomes a business or office setting - I'm introduced to the son. He appears about 10 years old, and is being fussed over by his mother. The man comments to me that since he wasn't there for his step-son's 'birth', he will be there for the boy's "re birthing". Both he and the wife seem very proud of this notion. I feel alarmed.

Trying to make a fast exit, the man forcibly guides me to a room, and insists I "share this moment" with his family. The boy has a blank expression on his face, and together we're guided into a room containing from left to right, a 6 foot tall representation of a woman's face, and two domed glass units installed in the floor.

The large woman's face stretches grotesquely as it opens it's mouth, and the tongue extends straight out, which is used as a gurney of sorts. The boy, now dressed in pajamas, climbs on, lays down, and is retracted into the wall-mouth. I'm horrified by what's happening, but the step father and the boys mother proudly look on, gesturing to the 1st dome. The boy ascends from a trap door in the floor, covered in a viscous mucus or gel. His eyes are closed, and his parents take pictures. He then decends, and some time later, emerges in the second dome in a boys school uniform, all traces of 'rebirthing' gel gone. His hair is combed, and his eyes are now open. The father insists I take pictures.

Awkwardly, I raise my camera up and press the shutter button, but realize it's set to 'video', and record a few seconds accidentally. I quickly switch to a photo setting, and capture one blurry image before the boy's platform descends back into the floor. The parents walk me into the next room, and wait for their son to return from the process. When he does, he's dressed again in his casual clothing, and seems older.

The boy insists I show him the photos I took, and when I decline, he becomes impatient. I promise that I'll email them to his father as I edge my way out of their apartment/office through the kitchen.

The father insists I stay and hang out with their son - I decline, telling him that it's already late and I have other commitments. The son (who now appears to be a friend I had in high school, and is much older) escorts me out of the apartment, and though a set of security doors with his key. The apartment building seems decrepit, full of peeling wall paper leaking water and mold. The boy seems oblivious to this.
Again, he asks for me to stay. I look out one window and see the sun is shining and it's day light, and out the front doors where it's now night. Without saying another word, I leave the building and it's weirdness behind.

_____

When I woke up, I actually checked my camera to see if there was evidence of this, thinking some version of it actually happened. Luckily not. The whole process reminded me of a situation I experienced years earlier while working at Blacks Photography: a woman came in with a dog photo, and wanted it printed. I did so while she waited, and looked for a frame to pick out. She used that opportunity to try and convert me to being a Jehovah's Witnesses, and left a stack of their 'Watchtower' magazines on the counter when she picked up her picture. 

People using a financial/customer service transaction as a preface to sell their strange personal or religious values is an innately uncomfortable experience for me. It's strange that it'd manifest in my dreams in such a vivid way.

I step off a 19th Century steam engine into a desert landscape. The rock formation feel wrong, like undersea eroded stone, filled with curious gaps.

I walk toward a house built into a cliff face. It looks like the porch to my grandmothers old house, but blended into the rock. It's windows reflect the grey sky.

I enter, and notice a side doorway to my left. Outside is a primordial ocean, filled with algae. In the distance, more alien rock formations. I begin to panic. I don't know where I am, and retconned into my dreamscape are two children. One is sick, and needs help.

Though the window, I notice two beings approaching in the distance. I mistake them for dinosaurs, but realize they are pink-skinned, with hides like an elephant. They walk on reverse jointed legs, with a long neck ending in a humanoid like face. I'm frozen in terror, watching these two beings approach the front door. One looks right at me, and speaks: Hello, do you need help? 

Confused, I open the door. I ask how it can speak English, and the second being explains. They are from a parallel reality where their galactic cluster is in close proximity to Earth. While lacking contact, they know rudimentary English communication. I don't know how this is possible. They gesture to the sky, and instead explain that this world is in the process of being adapted to suit their biology. The beings offer me supplies, including tube-like respirators for myself and the two children. We are to use these during the terraforming process to avoid suffocation.

As shock-waves sounding like fireworks explode in the sky, I hold the breathing tube over my nose and mouth. One child runs off down a darkened hallway, blending into an institutional setting. A janitor watches me from the unlit hallway. The dreamscape is rapidly changing, but I want to know more about the pink, long necked creatures. I look back, and the alien landscape is gone. Outside the hallway windows is a bright light.

Empty buildings, grey and dark are all around. I walk with a man who has dwarfism and two middle aged men. We all appear confused. The dwarf's cellphone isn't working, and flickers along with the neon street signs. We take refuge in a pharmacy, and are startled by discovering an animal testing lab in the back.

Biological hazard signs label most cages and workspaces. One man knocks over a tray of beakers, and another is scratched by an animal within the cage. The two men become noticeably sick. The dwarf and I leave quickly, and run off into the darkened city streets as one of the infected men begins to attack the other.

At the docks, people waiting to evacuate on military submarines, I'm the last to make it on before the hatch shuts. I don't see the dwarf anywhere.

I'm let off into a dark forest, jets flying overhead. An alien computer complex sits among the trees, an organic hexagon. Surrounding it are glowing singularities of light. I'm driven past them, and gape in horror - as people run past or though these spheres of light, they're pulled up and toward them, like the swirling of water down a drain. As the reach the foci, they burst into pieces, or are completely turned to ash.
These spheres don't move, acting like violent street lights in the wilderness.

I'm told to find an entrance to this complex, to deliver notice to the computer. It demands raw energy from all nuclear plants on Earth. I crawl down a long corridor, and emerge within a large rectangular room. At the far end sits a glowing eye. It communicates without speaking, and takes what energy it wants. A glowing fustian square descends from the ceiling, representing the power it's taken on. It's not enough - and I'm afraid. We haven't met it's demands, and we're unable to.

It shows me that it doesn't matter - it's existed in this world for hundreds of years - it exists outside time. It shows me a scene in Korea -- noblemen are riding a train. Before, they died in a crash. Now, a blond woman -- a circularium agent of the machine -- stands up and makes a small change onboard, altering the future outcome. These men all live, and eventually build reactors where none existed before. It comments that their lives are as controlled as a "Disney pet", serving no other purpose but the machines.

What the machine wanted with the power, I never found out. It releases me, and I exit back into the forest. It's empty, with a heavy blue fog creeping around the trees.