Sea Serpents & Sleeping Crows

This dream will be hard to describe without pictures, but I’ll do my best. I am with two other people, and we have heard legends about a great trove of treasure within a cave across the ocean. There is a legend of someone called Dog Girl who guards the treasure. Dog Girl was put there by her village when she was a child, and they told her she was destined to keep the treasures safe. The cave is also a burial ground, full of ancient relics and remains so it is important to the village. There is a wooden bridge with a short rope railing stretching across the entire ocean, floating on its surface. This is the route we take. Getting across to the cave is simple enough. We encounter Dog Girl inside the cave, who tries to scare us away at first. She isn’t like a dog at all, aside from looking feral and walking on all fours. She is actually very pretty. We tell her we are there to bring back some of the treasure to preserve in a museum and therefore share its riches with the world, and she seems to like that idea. As we go about gathering up some of the older relics, we notice Dog Girl is following us. She is at a distance, but eventually she is right at our feet, following us out of the cave and onto the bridge when we are ready to leave.

When we get about halfway across the ocean, the water becomes turbulent and the skies become black. A tremendous storm begins, and the thunder is deafening. The waves threaten to knock us off the bridge. In the distance, we can see colossal sea serpents raging in the waves, tearing ships apart and fighting with each other. One of the people with me says the serpents are causing the storm with their anger. As we carefully continue on, an enormous white shape glides beneath the water under the bridge… it’s a serpent, and up close like this, it’s apparently the length of ten full-sized airplanes placed nose-to-tail. Despite its gentle speed, the sheer mass of its body displaces the water enough to create a wave of nearly tidal proportions. The bridge was designed to stay on top of the water’s surface, so it doesn’t sink, but we are flung into the air atop the bridge as it stretches to stay afloat on the huge wave. One of the people with me is almost knocked off, but Dog Girl saves him.

We make it close to land when another big wave hits. The bridge snaps upward elastically, sending me flying into the trees on the shore. The trees are huge and gnarled with fat above-ground roots and lots of flat areas between the branches. The trees are FULL of black birds who appear to be sleeping, but they are covered in dust and cobwebs as though they have been sleeping for several decades. My landing in the tree doesn’t wake them, so I try to climb down without disturbing them… waking them up feels like it would be a very bad thing to do. I hurry back to the end of the bridge, where my companions and Dog Girl are standing, and we all cheer and talk giddily about our trip. We don’t notice that the man who was traveling with us has walked over to a colorful caravan of what appear to be gypsies. I glance over there and see a child holding up a very large book as though trying to sell it to my friend. The book is the size of a suitcase, and is bound in thick black leather. On the cover is a large blood-red upside-down pentagram with a skeleton wearing a suit in front of it. There is a spotlight shining down on the skeleton, and he’s holding a golden cane and a copy of the same book. The skeleton on the book he is holding is also holding the book, etc., etc., etc., creating a rather surreal effect. On each side of the pentagram is a simple golden goblet. There is a border running around the whole cover made of gold leaf, depicting various unknown symbols.

I continue talking for a moment, then decide to see what my friend is up to. I am walking over to him when I see the child hand the book to him. He shudders and crouches to the ground, clutching the book against his stomach. His form changes… he becomes smaller, paler, younger. His dirty wet traveling clothes become a spotless black suit and top hat. The transformation takes about 5 minutes, during which the gypsies pack their caravan and leave and I stand there dumbfounded, unable to do anything but watch. He stands up and turns around to face me. He has become a pallid child wearing an 1800s era suit and top hat. He is holding a golden cane and the book. His face is almost alien… it’s flawless and smooth and white as chalk. He has no eyebrows, eyelashes, or hair on his head. His eyes are the negative of what they should be (entirely black eyes with small white pupils floating in the middle of them). He grins at me, and his teeth are jagged and razor-sharp. And that wakes me up!

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