Lion-hearted

May 30, 2021
In this dream, I found myself deep in some jungle with a missionary organization. A little girl stood nearby explaining how she wanted to be a missionary in Africa when she was old enough to do so, similar to those within the organization that came to help her. She grew up in poverty but was now in the care of this organization.

She was happy despite the poverty around her that warranted their arrival. During the course of my time with her, I saw a different look creep across her face; she was nervous about something. According to her, lion-like creatures would appear in this time of the year; their prey of choice was often the monkeys that lived in the treetops. However, anything within reach was fair game.

Worst the things that walked among them. When the beast would come, humanoid creatures would walk among them, moving slowly to avoid being noticed by the missionaries in the camp or the tribesman. They would easily blend into the surrounding forest to chilling effect. As we talked, the little girl crouched behind a bush and I next to her; she pointed deep in the woods ahead of us, there was a motion that had caught her attention. It was incredibly slow, but there was movement all the same.

As they slowly crept through the woods, we watched as one began to lift human-like hands, with hands held stealthily in front, it began to sign. As it did so, the little girl signed the same pattern to me, it looked like the sign for afraid, but wider, and she translated it as the word hide.

Crouched down beside her, I told her about a trip I had been on to Antarctica where a team of archaeologists had found and entered a mechanical opening in the icy ground. Despite the blizzard conditions, our trip was observed and plagued by a group of humanoid creatures that also used a foreign type of sign language to communicate with each other while they watched us from within the veil of a severe blizzard. "Could these have been the same creatures as those that she had encountered?"

In the next moment, I found myself in a hotel wherein I was watching a young woman give a presentation; the topic was something I don't remember as I was distracted by the presence of Mahatma Gandhi, who was seated nearby. Gandhi appeared old and thin. He looked like he had been fasting. While she spoke, he wondered aloud as to why he was even there. The crowd laughed at the old man's words, and a few of us gathered around to help him into a standing position. After helping him, he went to go and find something to eat.

It was strange how most did not recognize him; I wonder, if they knew who was seated among them, would they have been following him, or would they have continued to fawn over her. At some point during the day, an ominous feeling filled the air that was followed by a sudden coldness; something was coming. Everyone in the lobby began to prepare for the worst, shuffling furniture around and creating a blockade between themselves and the outside world. The hotel was a separate building several stories tall that sat on top of a big mall or indoor market, nobody attempted to leave.

After setting up several blockades and lowering a series of metal gates (all of which disappeared only moments later), we began to cover ourselves with different things as whatever was coming was close. The window blinds, though lower, were just barely closed. My brother, seeing this, decided to try and close them before it was too late, but it already was. Surrounding the outside of the building, there was movement, figures outside, whatever was out there was creeping towards the glass windows and doors. The number grew by the second, seemingly without end.

As the mysterious creatures got closer, the blinds began to open. Everyone did their best to hide, but some were still getting in place, and their movement was sure to reveal our trick. In response, my brother, in the form of a blue fu-dog, a lion dog, approached the window and looked outside at the approaching invaders who had begun to peek into the building. At that moment, hiding was no longer an option, at least not for my brother and so, by default, me as well. I pushed out from my place of hiding in a similar form to that of my brother and approached the glass.

The doors to the hotel were now open as both humanoid and beast among them began to race for the doors. In beast form, me and my brother charged as well, attacking everything in sight with a beastly ferocity. Our response was so quick and vicious that between the two of us alone, we had ripped apart the first of these invaders without the aid of anybody within the hotel itself. Throughout the entire length of the battle, we wore many forms to give us as much an advantage as possible over the countless abominations, humanlike or otherwise, that rose to oppose us. Two of the biggest being lion-like creatures as tall as giraffes with ram-like horns and glowing blue eyes, both succumbed to my power after my fingernails and toenails extended into long blade-like appendages that I used to stop and simultaneously shred the two beasts. With the deaths of these two, our position was once again secure, and my brother and I stepped back inside the hotel.

Our victory was short lives as more had gathered to replace the fallen. We fought hard to protect the people and somehow managed to avoid being killed. At a small shed just near the hotel was what looked like a satellite. Making our way over to it, the device was activated and began to charge with a vibrant blue/purple light. After guarding the device for a time, I aimed it and fired up at the sky. The sky lit up all around us, the city, and the country county beyond the cement roads. The laser punched a hole through the dome, revealing a series of mechanical panels that had been fit together around the city. The panel that was destroyed was immediately replaced while the beam continued on into the heavens. After this, only a few of the creatures remained; after clearing them out me and my brother stepped back into the hotel—a tv had been turned on; apparently, the invasion was being covered on the news. Apparently, many states had been cut off from each other beneath vast, invisible domes, and more waves would be coming; this was an invasion.

Outside the hotel several miles away, but still within the confines of the dome, green lizard-headed creatures with long iguana-like tails began racing towards the hotel. They covered the distance in minutes and began scaling the outside of the building, and they came in even greater numbers than before. Despite the rising odds, we had hope. Me and my brother stepped outside the safety of the hotel, followed by a few others who began to charge the laser for another shot; it was our only hope of escape.

As the creatures scaled the building, I took on the form of a big winged creature. It had a head similar to a pterodactyl, a long tail, and featherless wings sharp as any blade. This allowed me to fly straight down along the outside of the building and shred the beast that had been attempting to climb their way to the laser. As my brother and I set to work on the outside, a few of the creatures came rushing towards the front entrance from within the building where the hotel and the mall/market met. However, they were faced with a second layer of resistance as a man wearing a high-tech exoskeletal suit joined the fight. The suit allowed him to move at incredible speeds and defend the inside of the building. However, the sheer number of monsters was too much for him to keep in check alone, and several slipped through. Lucky for us, we had one more line of defense. As the monster began to pour inside, a few of the people inside began to fight back with extra-human abilities of their own.

Though the odds were stacked against us, hope does not let a deadman go down without a fight. The dream ended here in the midst of the battle and lacking a conclusion.