Ignitedstar
None
Every once in awhile, I dream up the most bizarre stories. When I do, I've made it a habit to jump out of bed and immediately go to my computer to start writing, not wanting to lose such an interesting concept.
Interestingly enough, the motif behind the story I dreamed was spiders and webs.
It all has a supernatural twist to it, of course.
---
So you end up going to this haunted house in at a very unpopular amusement park which is themed around spiders and webs. You meet this person (once was a man, another time was a woman) who waits at the front of the haunted house and greets you. They call themselves a web designer.
The props in the haunted house are VERY real. They're not fake webs. They are actual webs make by spiders which are kept around the haunted house. NOT a place for people for who are deathly afraid of spiders. A lot of people go to the haunted house just to find out what it looks like on the inside... only for it to be far too scary for most people, because if they want to discover the thrill of the haunted house, they have to go through something the Web Designer calls The Climb.
From what you can see, The Climb is another room with a very tall wall that you must climb... using very thick and ghastly looking spider webs that feel very real. Not to mention, the haunted house being a haunted house means you can only see what's around you while you are supposed to be climbing this wall. It's very dark. And the Web Designer tells you something like, "You have to do The Climb if you want the prize at the end of the haunted house... although nobody has gotten that far because they're so scared."
So immediately you find out that there's more than one Climb. And the Web Designer also tells you that the Climbs get more difficult every time with "more obstacles in the way."
A lot of people just leave. There's only a very small handful of people who try to do even the first Climb. The Web Designer told me in my dream, "A lot of people are too scared to do the first Climb... I've only gotten like, 50 people who have tried, and only 20 have made it all of the way before quitting because they didn't have the will to keep going until the top."
So let's say you start the first Climb. The natural reaction of anyone who even bothers is to quit as soon they find out that the webs they're supposed to be climbing onto are not fake looking and fake feeling as they thought. They're actually very real looking, very real feeling (dry, very sticky), and very durable webs.
The other natural reaction, if you continue with the first Climb, is to get to the top as soon as possible, because... well, if you have a spider's web, then you have spiders. You saw them at the front of the haunted house. Consider how many spiders it must have taken to make that huge wall to climb, then... yeah.
The first thing you notice is that... you don't get tired doing this climb. How tiresome it feels is like walking across the street. You feel like it's costing you no energy at all to climb the web. But that's really weird, isn't it? You don't question it at first because you're more afraid of the fact that you're climbing up a giant spider web, so it takes about 30 seconds of quick climbing to get the top of the first Climb.
At some point early in the story, the PoV went back to the Web Designers who point out that the first Climb has nothing behind it except driving away those who too afraid of the spider's web. It's only there "to find the right people who can brave that fear". Really, their logic is the other way around. It's not to drive away people who can't do it. It's to bring people who CAN do it. Otherwise, they'd have zero chance versus anything that comes during a real Climb.
When you reach the top of the first Climb, you get congratulated by the Web Designer you met on the base floor. They tell you that did you an excellent job conquering your fears, which is exactly what the first Climb is all about. There's actually nothing there to hurt you except the anticipation that there could have been something there to hurt you.
If you bother with the second Climb, which wouldn't be a story if the protagonist didn't bother, then the Web Designer immediately tells you, "Unfortunately, the second Climb isn't finished, but not really all too finished yet..." They point out to you that everything after the second climb is more "abstract" and "you have to find where the rest of the Climb is, but it's somewhere in the haunted house. We promise that much. It really depends on person to person."
So you start going through the second Climb and before you realize anything else, you're not in the haunted house anymore. You're back at a home... in an alternate universe of our world which is centered around you, the climber.
But... why? This is where the story takes on more supernatural traits. You are technically still in the haunted house... so if you want to find the rest of the Climb, you have to search for it off in the real world. You'll know it when you find it, because it looks like the huge wall of spider webs that you saw in the first Climb... but now you have to find it, which the alternate world will give clues about where it is based on what has changed in what is relevant to the climber's life.
I was following two protagonists who were taking their second Climb. One was an eight year old boy whose parents died in a car accident in the real world when he was five. He was in that same car and was the only one who survived it. During his second Climb... once he was instantaneously teleported back to the real world like he had never left home, the parents who died in the accident were alive. The young boy was brought to an alternate universe where he always had his parents.
The world kept giving him clues about where the Climb was. Very subtle hints, but hints no less. Stuff like, another family who was in the car accident that he and his parents were supposed to be apart of and then meeting the young girl who survived the accident, much like he did, in the hospital. However, she wasn't so lucky and unlike him she was paralyzed from the legs down had became so traumatized by the event that she became mute.
Other clues like the boy's parents always saying stuff like every time they brought him to school in the car that was in the car accident they say to him, "Why are you so hesistent to stay in the car?" Or, "Why are you so scared of opening the door?" Whether or not the boy was scared or not wasn't the relevant. It was the fact that they kept saying that to him, no matter the circumstances.
At first the boy thought that if he wanted to find the second Climb... he would have to get in another car accident... so it happens one day when he has to take the school bus once for school... but nothing happened. Went to the hospital and all to make sure he wasn't hurt, but nothing happened.
So the circumstances behind the car accident needed to be more specific, and that's when he found it out. To find the second Climb, he would have to cause the car accident that killed his parents in the car that the accident was caused in. After he gets that to happen, right after the car accident, the boy opens the car door and instead of going to the outside world he's... back in the haunted house and there it is! The room, that wall... the second Climb. But there's a problem...
That car accident has the bodies of his dead parents... and, being all bloody and supposedly dead they start moving, almost like zombies. Then somewhere from the mansion, you hear the two Web Designers saying together ala Catherine when Vincent is climbing the towers: "Your parents are the spider. It's time to climb. And don't die!"
I think the parents were trying to kill the boy because the boy killed them in that alternate world... or maybe he also killed them in the real world. I don't know. Not sure. I wasn't told too much about the boy's background. As zombies chasing after the boy during his climb they were saying stuff like, "Why did you kill us?! We loved you!" That portion of my dream ended after that and for some reason continued with another protagonist.
This other protagonist was a woman, far older than the boy. Probably in her thirties? Her second Climb also started her at home, like she just woken up that day. The same way it started for the boy. She was a wife of a happy marriage to a happy man, with two happy kids. A really, really good thing going. So in the alternate universe... she's a single mother to the two same kids who divorced from her husband. Her children hate her, but she doesn't know why at first. Only to later find out that it's because she was the one who wanted the divorce in the first place, but wanted equal custody of the children.
The problem the first arises is that she doesn't even know if it's the same husband. The kids keep calling his Dad, but apparently don't know his name. Neither does anyone else. She starts questioning this. Her kids call him Dad, but her friends and co-workers keep saying former husband, etc. Never his name.
She takes it upon herself to find out where the hell her husband is now and find out what happened between them. She wondered if she had kept the divorce papers and considering they're something important, wonders if she put them in the stash of her usual important papers to find out that her husband wasn't her actual husband... the husband she divorced in this alternate world was an abusive boyfriend she had during her college days.
Apparently in this universe they stayed together a lot longer than they should have and inevitably, things went sour at a worse spot than it did in the real world. In the real world, she knew went to fold and left her abusive boyfriend early. In this alternate world, it looks like she tried clinging to him, but figured out too late that it wasn't worth it. She was wondering to herself: Why? Why didn't she leave him when she knew she did in the real world, but not in this one? That's stupid.
She had to think to herself... where was her real husband in this alternate world? She tried to think back on things that he had told her. About his life. His goals and dreams. Stuff like that. Where would he be, if he wasn't with her? The more that she thought about it, the more that she realized... they never really ever talked about that kind of stuff. And if they ever did, she had forgotten about it.
Time continues like this is the new reality, while this woman tries to reconcile with her children and husband. She's a good person at heart. It takes her awhile, but eventually she does get on good terms with her kids and husband.
Eventually they end up going to a memorial service for the woman's grandfather who served in World War 2. Um... didn't exactly say which faction of the military he was from. When they get there and things the service is older, the woman goes around and walks around the cemetary and eventually finds her real-world husband's grave.
Therefore, in this alternative universe, the husband she married in the real world was already dead. That kind of explained things. That means that the woman never met her real-world husband during college... the main reason why she left her abusive boyfriend in the first place.
I... kinda woke up there. It was getting good, too... I sat in bed for awhile thinking about that abrupt ending for a bit as I waited for my computer to boot so I could get to writing. I imagine that the abusive boyfriend who became the husband is the spider in that one, but my dream didn't play out all of the way, so I'm not sure.
It's an interesting concept, isn't it? Watch someone steal it for their TV show, somewhere...
Interestingly enough, the motif behind the story I dreamed was spiders and webs.
It all has a supernatural twist to it, of course.
---
So you end up going to this haunted house in at a very unpopular amusement park which is themed around spiders and webs. You meet this person (once was a man, another time was a woman) who waits at the front of the haunted house and greets you. They call themselves a web designer.
The props in the haunted house are VERY real. They're not fake webs. They are actual webs make by spiders which are kept around the haunted house. NOT a place for people for who are deathly afraid of spiders. A lot of people go to the haunted house just to find out what it looks like on the inside... only for it to be far too scary for most people, because if they want to discover the thrill of the haunted house, they have to go through something the Web Designer calls The Climb.
From what you can see, The Climb is another room with a very tall wall that you must climb... using very thick and ghastly looking spider webs that feel very real. Not to mention, the haunted house being a haunted house means you can only see what's around you while you are supposed to be climbing this wall. It's very dark. And the Web Designer tells you something like, "You have to do The Climb if you want the prize at the end of the haunted house... although nobody has gotten that far because they're so scared."
So immediately you find out that there's more than one Climb. And the Web Designer also tells you that the Climbs get more difficult every time with "more obstacles in the way."
A lot of people just leave. There's only a very small handful of people who try to do even the first Climb. The Web Designer told me in my dream, "A lot of people are too scared to do the first Climb... I've only gotten like, 50 people who have tried, and only 20 have made it all of the way before quitting because they didn't have the will to keep going until the top."
So let's say you start the first Climb. The natural reaction of anyone who even bothers is to quit as soon they find out that the webs they're supposed to be climbing onto are not fake looking and fake feeling as they thought. They're actually very real looking, very real feeling (dry, very sticky), and very durable webs.
The other natural reaction, if you continue with the first Climb, is to get to the top as soon as possible, because... well, if you have a spider's web, then you have spiders. You saw them at the front of the haunted house. Consider how many spiders it must have taken to make that huge wall to climb, then... yeah.
The first thing you notice is that... you don't get tired doing this climb. How tiresome it feels is like walking across the street. You feel like it's costing you no energy at all to climb the web. But that's really weird, isn't it? You don't question it at first because you're more afraid of the fact that you're climbing up a giant spider web, so it takes about 30 seconds of quick climbing to get the top of the first Climb.
At some point early in the story, the PoV went back to the Web Designers who point out that the first Climb has nothing behind it except driving away those who too afraid of the spider's web. It's only there "to find the right people who can brave that fear". Really, their logic is the other way around. It's not to drive away people who can't do it. It's to bring people who CAN do it. Otherwise, they'd have zero chance versus anything that comes during a real Climb.
When you reach the top of the first Climb, you get congratulated by the Web Designer you met on the base floor. They tell you that did you an excellent job conquering your fears, which is exactly what the first Climb is all about. There's actually nothing there to hurt you except the anticipation that there could have been something there to hurt you.
If you bother with the second Climb, which wouldn't be a story if the protagonist didn't bother, then the Web Designer immediately tells you, "Unfortunately, the second Climb isn't finished, but not really all too finished yet..." They point out to you that everything after the second climb is more "abstract" and "you have to find where the rest of the Climb is, but it's somewhere in the haunted house. We promise that much. It really depends on person to person."
So you start going through the second Climb and before you realize anything else, you're not in the haunted house anymore. You're back at a home... in an alternate universe of our world which is centered around you, the climber.
But... why? This is where the story takes on more supernatural traits. You are technically still in the haunted house... so if you want to find the rest of the Climb, you have to search for it off in the real world. You'll know it when you find it, because it looks like the huge wall of spider webs that you saw in the first Climb... but now you have to find it, which the alternate world will give clues about where it is based on what has changed in what is relevant to the climber's life.
I was following two protagonists who were taking their second Climb. One was an eight year old boy whose parents died in a car accident in the real world when he was five. He was in that same car and was the only one who survived it. During his second Climb... once he was instantaneously teleported back to the real world like he had never left home, the parents who died in the accident were alive. The young boy was brought to an alternate universe where he always had his parents.
The world kept giving him clues about where the Climb was. Very subtle hints, but hints no less. Stuff like, another family who was in the car accident that he and his parents were supposed to be apart of and then meeting the young girl who survived the accident, much like he did, in the hospital. However, she wasn't so lucky and unlike him she was paralyzed from the legs down had became so traumatized by the event that she became mute.
Other clues like the boy's parents always saying stuff like every time they brought him to school in the car that was in the car accident they say to him, "Why are you so hesistent to stay in the car?" Or, "Why are you so scared of opening the door?" Whether or not the boy was scared or not wasn't the relevant. It was the fact that they kept saying that to him, no matter the circumstances.
At first the boy thought that if he wanted to find the second Climb... he would have to get in another car accident... so it happens one day when he has to take the school bus once for school... but nothing happened. Went to the hospital and all to make sure he wasn't hurt, but nothing happened.
So the circumstances behind the car accident needed to be more specific, and that's when he found it out. To find the second Climb, he would have to cause the car accident that killed his parents in the car that the accident was caused in. After he gets that to happen, right after the car accident, the boy opens the car door and instead of going to the outside world he's... back in the haunted house and there it is! The room, that wall... the second Climb. But there's a problem...
That car accident has the bodies of his dead parents... and, being all bloody and supposedly dead they start moving, almost like zombies. Then somewhere from the mansion, you hear the two Web Designers saying together ala Catherine when Vincent is climbing the towers: "Your parents are the spider. It's time to climb. And don't die!"
I think the parents were trying to kill the boy because the boy killed them in that alternate world... or maybe he also killed them in the real world. I don't know. Not sure. I wasn't told too much about the boy's background. As zombies chasing after the boy during his climb they were saying stuff like, "Why did you kill us?! We loved you!" That portion of my dream ended after that and for some reason continued with another protagonist.
This other protagonist was a woman, far older than the boy. Probably in her thirties? Her second Climb also started her at home, like she just woken up that day. The same way it started for the boy. She was a wife of a happy marriage to a happy man, with two happy kids. A really, really good thing going. So in the alternate universe... she's a single mother to the two same kids who divorced from her husband. Her children hate her, but she doesn't know why at first. Only to later find out that it's because she was the one who wanted the divorce in the first place, but wanted equal custody of the children.
The problem the first arises is that she doesn't even know if it's the same husband. The kids keep calling his Dad, but apparently don't know his name. Neither does anyone else. She starts questioning this. Her kids call him Dad, but her friends and co-workers keep saying former husband, etc. Never his name.
She takes it upon herself to find out where the hell her husband is now and find out what happened between them. She wondered if she had kept the divorce papers and considering they're something important, wonders if she put them in the stash of her usual important papers to find out that her husband wasn't her actual husband... the husband she divorced in this alternate world was an abusive boyfriend she had during her college days.
Apparently in this universe they stayed together a lot longer than they should have and inevitably, things went sour at a worse spot than it did in the real world. In the real world, she knew went to fold and left her abusive boyfriend early. In this alternate world, it looks like she tried clinging to him, but figured out too late that it wasn't worth it. She was wondering to herself: Why? Why didn't she leave him when she knew she did in the real world, but not in this one? That's stupid.
She had to think to herself... where was her real husband in this alternate world? She tried to think back on things that he had told her. About his life. His goals and dreams. Stuff like that. Where would he be, if he wasn't with her? The more that she thought about it, the more that she realized... they never really ever talked about that kind of stuff. And if they ever did, she had forgotten about it.
Time continues like this is the new reality, while this woman tries to reconcile with her children and husband. She's a good person at heart. It takes her awhile, but eventually she does get on good terms with her kids and husband.
Eventually they end up going to a memorial service for the woman's grandfather who served in World War 2. Um... didn't exactly say which faction of the military he was from. When they get there and things the service is older, the woman goes around and walks around the cemetary and eventually finds her real-world husband's grave.
Therefore, in this alternative universe, the husband she married in the real world was already dead. That kind of explained things. That means that the woman never met her real-world husband during college... the main reason why she left her abusive boyfriend in the first place.
I... kinda woke up there. It was getting good, too... I sat in bed for awhile thinking about that abrupt ending for a bit as I waited for my computer to boot so I could get to writing. I imagine that the abusive boyfriend who became the husband is the spider in that one, but my dream didn't play out all of the way, so I'm not sure.
It's an interesting concept, isn't it? Watch someone steal it for their TV show, somewhere...
