A report by Duncan Timiney

The Weldon building - large office block - cinema on one level - admission free - arriving there with friends - the man at the front desk behind a glass plate - ask which floor it is on - he seems confused by this - go up the steps - enter the cinema - smaller than I remember, I have been here before - vague images appear in my memory of a film seen before, can't quite place finger on it - an enclosed area of water and rocks - must have been a few years ago as I was in the story in the film with friends from long ago now forgotten - something magical - something important but forgotten - I had both seen this film before but the film was just a memory playback of a previous dream, something I wanted to remember.
The new film starts, part of a double bill. The credits look promising - Directed by John Woo, starring Vivian Wu. Looks more disappointing when the Disney logo appears. Derek and I start to groan, and think about leaving. I slump into my seat, I may as well go to sleep. There is a flyer with some other terrible kids films in. Maybe the following film will be better...
I awake standing in a temperate wood. I am charged with power, similar to that in the forgotten dream from long ago. Curious I advance uphill. The wood thins away to the grounds of a country house, I approach the door which faces a quad. An American woman with short dark hair is here. I ask if I can ask some questions (I want to know where I am) but she is leaving - gets into a dark green hatchback car. I ask when she will be back - she replies about half an hour - I say 'Fine, I shall wait.' She drives away.
A few moments pass, a large but friendly looking man arrives. Wants to know why I am waiting here. We get into a fight. Being slammed into the house, it collapses. We both feel guilty and start to rebuild. The lengths of timber and masonry are like a jigsaw. The woman arrives back from wherever she went and is aghast. I explain calmly that we are rebuilding the house. It doesn't look like there are enough pieces though. I explain calmly that I will find some more. Some of the blocks of masonry are missing. I calmly explain that I will fetch some more from the wood. She points out that some of the blocks had runes etched into them (Is she just trying to wind me up?) I calmly explain that I will carve the runes back in.
We wander down into the wood. It is quiet peaceful. Looking around I pick up a heavy mallet and a length of tapered iron suitable for etching masonry.
We come across a partially ruined building jutting down into a hill, heavily shaded. Ivy and bracken entwine around the ancient walls. Dust and timber litter the ground. In the deepest back wall are two alcoves.. they look like bricked up doorways. Each are lined with runed blocks - I ask if we could just take these to help rebuild the house. At the back of the right hand side alcove is a stained glass window - grubby and dark. I recognise the whole arrangement - I have power over it. The left alcove contains a whiteboard - vague images smudged across it - like the memories of my film. It has been deliberately erased. I have the power to enter certain images (the film, the stained glass window) and make them my reality, but this whiteboard has been denied to me.
I perform elaborate symmetrical finger motions across the board to open it up to me. I push my head into the new world to see what was being hidden. This world has been erased - just a white void. I explain the situation to the American woman and man. All worlds are created from an amalgamation of thoughts by people observing a picture.
The American woman points out that the residual images on the whiteboard that she is observing must surely create some form of entity in the world on the other side. She points out a giraffe she can make out on the whiteboard. She doesn't believe me. I tell her that she just created the giraffe now from her mind.
All worlds are created from an amalgamation of thoughts by people observing the picture - Including this world. I can at any time 'pull out' of this reality to a new world in which the American woman, her house, the wood and this whiteboard are merely another picture. In fact I could just wake up.
I wake up to find myself in the thick of battle. The gentle rolling hillside and peaceful woods are interrupted by gunfire and soldiers charging at each other. There is a grenade in my hand. There is a foxhole just ahead. They are firing at me. Someone tells me to throw the grenade and get down. I hurl it with all my might but my strength is weak and it falls short. Curiously, it also returns to my hand. I run forwards to close the distance and throw it again (Am I going to die?) It plops into the foxhole. I leap back to our own trench. They have thrown a grenade of their own. I catch it and throw it back, then make myself flat and small against the short wall of earth. No explosion. I look up. The enemy (whoever they are) have thrown another grenade. I stand to bat it back again. Bop. As I do so their gunfire strikes me in the left shoulder and I find myself flat on my back in the grass. Much pain but the pain is an illusion. I play dead.
Soon everything is quiet. I pick myself up. The green hill, bordered by woods, is devoid of fighting. Everyone has gone or is dead. The sun shines, all is quiet. Some movement catches my eye. Underneath a single tree further down the slope a man-shaped thing writhes into different forms. It is under the shade of the wide branches I can make out no details. I have made some kind of mistake surely - no such 'thing' can exist - it must be a person. It watch it for a moment in disbelief, my mind trying to categorizers it so as to ease the fear.
It sprouts elongated hand shaped things here and there before it absorbs them again. It winds itself round and up, twisting like dough. I walk closer, terrified that such a thing can be. It's surface is black with a gluey scab-brown web pattern stretched over it. At first I thought it was a solid amorphous blob but I was wrong. This is not a thing of substance, it is a thing of shadow. It is aware of me and judders towards me. Such an irrational entity invokes the fight or flight instinct in me. Despite my powers, I find myself fleeing down the hill - hah! I can out run it.
I see more of them emerge from the thick trees to my right. Half a dozen of them. All pursuing me. The initial fear is going, and I start to think a bit more clearly. They pick up speed, falling into a group behind me. There is some kind of industrial structure ahead at the base of the hill. White and red aircraft are swooping around above it - some kind of civilisation. Beneath my feet, every now and then, the grass makes room for blocks of stone planted into rectangular grids. I run over them. The shadow things are gaining on me so I stoop to pick up a branch and hurl it behind me. The branch plunges into one and it slows down to absorb it. I do this several times to keep them at bay.
I notice that the stone grids have runes etched onto them, similar to those found at the American womans house and around the stained glass window. I stop and wait for the group of shadow things to pass over one such pattern of blocks. Using a branch as a channel, I perform the ritual and the shadow things are sucked down and away into another world.