It wasn't last night's dream, but I forgot to write it out yesterday. SO.

The other night I dreamt that I was living back home post-college, still working at the movie theater. My hometown had become a crime hotspot, and murders were becoming disturbingly commonplace. It seemed to always be night there, too, though it could be that I just kept working nights. I also worked sometimes at another theater, though I don't know which one — still the same company, and still small, but neither of them looked like the real theater I work at.

One of my coworkers had been killed, in fact, shortly after graduating herself. Nicole — though everyone called her Nikki in my dream, even though we all knew she was Nicole... maybe it was a college thing — and maybe also some other people; I think Jessica, who doesn't actually work there anymore, might have been murdered as well.

Homes all over stocked up on weapons: guns, knives, crossbows. My house felt like an arsenal, and I got the feeling that that was fairly commonplace in the neighborhood, which is sort of funny, since most of my neighbors are elderly. And no one really knew how to use the stuff, or at least not the crossbows; the guns they knew how to use, and the knives, but they didn't go out and practice with them, because people just tried to stay home as much as possible.

One day I was walking along a dirt road somewhere, through some field. I have no idea where that was meant to be, since it was close to my home, and I got the impression that I was coming home from work. (Walking?!) I stopped, and saw this pile of red rubber balls in a ditch. I held out my hand and tried to will one of them to come to me, as if I had telekinetic powers, but the one I was looking at burst into flames instead.

Then this guy appeared from nowhere, a total Asian Movie Martial Arts Teacher type. He was tall and wore a green and gold robe, and had a pointed, long white beard. He told me that he was trying to find eleven people to grant eleven elemental stone powers to, and I had been the one to fit to the Fire stone. He told me what a few of the other powers were, and one was something like Speech. I guessed, somehow, that it was Cheyenne. He told me I was right. I laughed about that a little when I woke up, honestly, since Cheyenne is the one who thought I was insulting her when I called her charismatic.

I went home, and when I got there I found that my dad had hired a woman to teach me to use weaponry. Apparently, being young and pretty much a freeloader at that point, I was to be the neighborhood's designated superhero sort, and patrol the woods (which had expanded in my dreams, and were creepy and dark enough that you expected Ichabod Crane to come galloping through followed by the Headless Horseman at any moment) when I wasn't working. Possibly I was not meant to be the only one, but in any case, I had to learn to use some weapons. The crossbow I learned quick enough, which was good, because NO ONE KNEW HOW TO USE IT. I just don't get why we had so many if they were useless, man.

In the midst of a training session, a madman (we knew he was mad, and dangerous, automatically; he was bearded and wearing something like pajamas, but he didn't seem outwardly dangerous) ran into the yard and started running circles around my father. I shot at him, then ran out of bullets and picked up a crossbow; one arrow skimmed his shoulder, and then he turned to run into the neighbor's yard and I shot again. I hit him in the ass, and he ran down the street with an arrow sticking out of his left cheek.

The fire thing never came up again, even though it probably would have been PRETTY DAMN USEFUL THEN.