The Grendels

I am in The Dreaming. I am being chased by the Grendel. I am scared. I run into a building filled with all of my friends from Facebook. I run into the crowd of them, hoping to hide myself, hoping that they will help me. A girl by the name of Janelle, also known as Olive Oil is there. She is our Grill Sergeant Ma’am Yes Ma’am. She orders us to stand in straight rows of an equal number, one behind the other, to form a perfect square of people. I am in the second row, left of centre.

The Grendel comes. He creeps into the building in search of me. Everyone reacts with disgust and scorn, asking “What the fuck is that?” The Grendel looks around. The moment his eyes meet mine a chilling and bloodcurdling scream in ripped from my throat from sheer panic and horror. He has found me! Grill Sergeant Ma’am Yes Ma’am Olive Oil demands that we all remain calm in the face of the monstrous.

Slowly the window behind Olive Oil opens, revealing a giant Grendel on the other side, arms splayed wide on either side of the window, leaning over and inside the frame slowly and hideously, menacing and intent. The giant Grendel completely dwarfs the first Grendel making a mockery of the fear I’ve felt thus far for the miniature Grendel.

Olive Oil remains calm but swiftly directs us to leave the building and premises immediately. Everyone hurries to the black SUV parked outside. I am in the front passenger seat next to a man named Garvey, and my friend Ramona is sitting in the centre of the seat behind, her small frame and face squeezed between the two front seats as she chatters incessantly while trying to “see” what going on up front.

I realize much to my abject dismay that I forgot my laptop inside the building. I must retrieve it and so, with a heart full of fear, I reenter the building. I am very afraid, however, the Grendels are nowhere in sight, so I grab my laptop bag and make a mad rush for the door and to the car.

I am now in the jeep and we are driving away from the building and down a metal plank road twisting and coasting from one side to the other like a rollercoaster, and interrupted intermittently by links where the metal planks making the road meet.

We drive on this rollercoaster road for a while, following the map on the GPS system of the jeep, trying to escape the strange, dusky, autumnal country in which we are trapped with the Grendels. When we have driven for some time, I realize that the road on which we are driving is actually a car racing course from the video game Mario Kart. However it is a course that the Grendels have devised for the purpose of capturing us.

We drive faster and faster to reach the end of the course, knowing that there will be more courses to come before we can reach home. We must win the Grand Prix cup in order to defeat the Grendels and depart from The Dreaming …