I had an idea for a book I might write.
So, the premise of this book is that it follows the story of a girl named Judy, transferred to a high school in the middle of nowhere on the East Coast for her senior year. Said middle of nowhere has recently been plagued by a rash of seemingly random deaths, where people would suddenly die in their sleep.
Within a few days, Judy finds herself in an alternate world that she can only enter when she’s asleep, known as the Dreamscape. There, she finds a mysterious man known as The Dreamer who frees her from her bonds and helps her awaken to her power, a pair of etheral chains that she has full control over. It turns out that something has been trapping people into the Dreamscape in their so-called “place of safety” and forcing them to an unending wave of the voices in their head, pounding all of their doubts and worries into their brain until they succumb to it and turn into a mysterious substance called Dream Fluid, killing the person in reality. The Dreamer is one such person stuck in the Dreamscape and is trying to find a way out.
Anyways, at one point, Judy finds the safe place for an antisocial girl at her school that moonlights as a DJ (stop me if you’ve heard this one before). It’s, of course, the club she performs at, but it’s warped and twisted. Destroyed machines litter the walls and ceiling, culminating in a hanging representation of her made out of broken electronics. After trying to confront the girl and help her out, the sculpture comes to life and bares her inner thoughts: the girl feels like a robot. With all of the depression weighing on her, she wants to die, but feels as if she can’t. This is reflected by the sculpture crawling around and asking Judy to kill her while simultaneously trying to push her away.
How does that sound?
OKAY SO I HAVE A FUCKING GREAT IDEA I JUST CAME UP WITH RELATING TO THIS AND I GOTTA FUCKING PUT IT DOWN AND SHARE IT WITH YOU GUYS
Okay, so to catch everyone up to speed, here’s the quick rundown because I changed a few things.
A famous writer decides to head across America to go to college in some rural town because it’s nice and quiet and they’ll be able to work on books there. Surprise, you actually can’t get shit done, because the writer finds this place called the Dreamscape, a ruined version of the town they’re residing in found in the depths of dreams. The writer awakens to the power of some kickass chains forever attached to them, along with some tattered rags for that real prisoner look. There’s a mysterious man that’s helping them out since he’s stuck in the Dreamscape and is hoping that, with the writer’s help, he’ll be able to escape and live a normal life again.
At college, the writer finds this real antisocial girl that moonlights as a DJ. They eventually find the DJ in the Dreamscape at the building where she performs, said place being the one place where she can escape her thoughts. However, the clubhouse is also ruined: broken machines litter the place, hang from the ceiling, and make a general mess. The mysterious man tells the writer that the DJ will also be forever stuck in the Dreamscape unless they help her.
In the clubhouse, the echoing voices of the DJ taunt her with her suicidal tendencies. She tries to deny them, but breaks down and confesses that they’re all true and wails about how much she’d rather die than live another day in a miserable life. Unbeknownst to the writer, the confession begins to give power to the surroundings as the machines start to assemble and create a horrid monstrosity: a mirror of the DJ, but brutally torn in half with sparks flying out of the torso. It cries out to be killed, but tries to murder anyone that gets close. The writer tries to fight it, but can’t do anything without help. The DJ learns to deny the voices that shout at her, vowing to live another day again and again, and awakens to her power. A TRON-esque suit starts to load in like an image and grants her the control over sound, her love of music being a major facet of her personality.
Anyways, I was getting to thinking, what about other characters? I know I had some characters planned out in detail, but the bosses weren’t exactly satisfying. I mean, we go from “hulking mass of murderous machines” to “Nazi reskin”. Not too exciting. However, with some reworks, I think I’ve gotten it down, along with a common theme…
First off, we have the history teacher of the local high school. He’s an ex-cop whose past haunts him, forever living in the memories of those he killed while on the force. Deciding that it wasn’t the life he wanted to live, he decided to retire from the force and follow his passion of history. The Dreamscape has transformed the high school that he teaches at to a massive prison, where every single prisoner is him. There’s no warden to be seen, but the prisoners still stay inside their cells, saying that they deserve it for what they’ve done. The voices that echo talk about how the teacher believes he’s a bad man for killing people in the line of duty, despite said people being dangerous criminals about to take lives of their own. Each human life is precious to him, and the simple fact that he’s taken one away leads him to believe that he’s no better than those same criminals. The boss of the scene is, in fact, the warden. It’s also an image of him, but made out of a slew of corrupted police tools: extending handcuffs, electrified batons, and living firearms. When he awakens to his power, his love of history transforms him into a knight of old times; battered armor and rusted sword, but nevertheless a worthy knight.
Next, we have a kid that goes to the same high school. Bad things seem to happen around her all the time. Things break, people fall, and general misery surrounds her. The kids make her out to be an outcast and avoid her at all times, lest they fall victim to her bad luck. The only place she feels welcome is when she plays tabletop games with her friends in the basement of her house. There, she gets to be whoever she wants and isn’t limited by bad luck. The Dreamscape turns the basement into a vast labyrinth, with the girl at the center. However, the labyrinth is only step one of the fight. Once the group reaches the center, they find the girl already broken by the voices. She actually believes herself to be a curse to everyone due to everyone else’s action, and desperately wants to find someone to hang out with her by any means possible. Even her tabletop group is considering leaving her because of her “curse”. This manifests as an enchantress made from dice, pencils, paper, and other common D&D items that puts the group under a spell that makes them believe that they simply returned to reality, but now have INCREDIBLY bad luck. This is the boss’ form of “any means necessary”, by forcing everyone to live her life to prove it really isn’t as bad as everyone makes her out to be. When the girl awakens to her power, her love of the strange and mystical transforms her into a mage of fire, complete with billowing white robes and a runebook.
The last character I have is a young kid, about middle school age. She’s honestly a bit of a bully, though. She doesn’t strongarm kids or dunk their heads in toilets, but rather lashes out at them with harsh words. This sadly reflects her home life, with her doctor mother and steelworking father constantly at each other’s throats. She drowns out the screams by watching monster movies in her room, wishing for the kind of power to force her parents to stop. In the Dreamscape, her entire house (compared to just her bedroom) is transformed into a terrifying jungle with howls and screeches filling the air. The group finds the girl being tormented by her voices, saying that she has to be, in her words, “the cruelest wolf” in order to simply survive. She has to be mean to the other kids because she can’t live any other way. The girl technically awakens to her power before the boss shows up, but the pain of it forces her to run off and hide. This is when the boss, a giant wolf made up of mashed-together steel and medical supplies such as hypodermic needles and scalpels, shows up and attacks the group.
This is where I come to a fork in the road. I’ve got two possible powers that this girl could take. The first was the original plan, that she had become the monsters she adored so much. She turned into a variant of the regular monsters that walked the Dreamscape, with much more frightening powers and a primitive and animalistic feel to her. The second, however, would be that she turned into a monster hunter, able to take down whatever was thrown at her since she had just about every movie monster weakness on her person.
How does all this sound?