Written by Jonathan Wojcik
NIGHTMARE MENAGERIE 2021: PART V
Guest Art by Some Guy!
Mud Farmer
Posted by Staticentity:
"Another dream I remember part of, had me trying to get directions to somewhere from something that looked like if you took a big mound of grey dirt and molded it into a rotund, vaguely humanoid shape and put some farmer's overalls and a hat on it, with some holes for eyes and a line for a mouth. Anyway, I remember not being entirely trusting of the directions he gave me, suspecting he might be trying to lead me into some kind of trap, so I just thanked him and went off to find my own way. The dream's perspective then hung on the dirt-person for a while longer after I left, and he said to himself in the deep voice he had, "He'll be back. And when he does, he'll fall down the... HOOOOOLLLLE!", this last word accompanied by his mouth suddenly growing much larger, taking up most of his upper body and looking like a dark abyss, as the view slowly zoomed in on it. I don't think we met again in that dream, though I can't help but wonder whether he meant to lead me to some hole in the ground for me to fall into, for whatever reason, or if his mouth was the hole in question!"
"Another dream I remember part of, had me trying to get directions to somewhere from something that looked like if you took a big mound of grey dirt and molded it into a rotund, vaguely humanoid shape and put some farmer's overalls and a hat on it, with some holes for eyes and a line for a mouth. Anyway, I remember not being entirely trusting of the directions he gave me, suspecting he might be trying to lead me into some kind of trap, so I just thanked him and went off to find my own way. The dream's perspective then hung on the dirt-person for a while longer after I left, and he said to himself in the deep voice he had, "He'll be back. And when he does, he'll fall down the... HOOOOOLLLLE!", this last word accompanied by his mouth suddenly growing much larger, taking up most of his upper body and looking like a dark abyss, as the view slowly zoomed in on it. I don't think we met again in that dream, though I can't help but wonder whether he meant to lead me to some hole in the ground for me to fall into, for whatever reason, or if his mouth was the hole in question!"
Something feels inexplicably familiar to me about this one, as if I've had a similar dream that "cuts back" to some nefarious character saying something ominous, though whatever it was can't have been as entertaining as the dirt guy and his HOOOOOOLLLLLE or I'd have possibly remembered it more clearly.
The Amoeba
Posted by CalaveraCarnival
"Been a while but I have a recent dream to share. So in the beginning I was in this weird underground city, like regular rooms and streets and stuff just all within these rough stone tunnels and caves. There was a conflict between two large organized crime syndicates and I was trying to stay clear of it. After a while, a room I'd just wandered into (which was full of other people in rows of bunk beds) had people from both syndicates burst in and just start shooting.
This slew the majority of the room's inhabitants as well as the soldiers of both syndicates, but when trying to escape I found a baby that had survived. I didn't know what to do so I picked up the baby and kept wandering. I ended up in an uninhabited series of more natural looking caves.
Here, I encountered a creature I instinctually knew to be some kind of cthulhu-esque Elder God. It was like an immense yellow amoeba, filling a deep pool taking up most of this cavern. It had a lot of small, stubby yellow pseudopods which wriggled over the rim of the pool, and one tremendously large black tentacle which emerged from the middle of its mass. The black tentacle had a bunch of smaller, bright red forked tongues writhing all over it.
It spoke to me, and rather than some eldritch spook speech or whatever it just said "Hey guy. I will give you a billion dollars and psychic powers if you let me eat that baby." And Dream Me was immediately like "oh sick, absolutely!" and tossed the baby to the creature, which quickly absorbed it into its mass. After this I remembered I'd been trying to find a way to the surface this whole time, and used my new psychic powers to float to a tunnel leading upwards. I found a cave overgrown with moss and flowers, but then I woke up."
"Been a while but I have a recent dream to share. So in the beginning I was in this weird underground city, like regular rooms and streets and stuff just all within these rough stone tunnels and caves. There was a conflict between two large organized crime syndicates and I was trying to stay clear of it. After a while, a room I'd just wandered into (which was full of other people in rows of bunk beds) had people from both syndicates burst in and just start shooting.
This slew the majority of the room's inhabitants as well as the soldiers of both syndicates, but when trying to escape I found a baby that had survived. I didn't know what to do so I picked up the baby and kept wandering. I ended up in an uninhabited series of more natural looking caves.
Here, I encountered a creature I instinctually knew to be some kind of cthulhu-esque Elder God. It was like an immense yellow amoeba, filling a deep pool taking up most of this cavern. It had a lot of small, stubby yellow pseudopods which wriggled over the rim of the pool, and one tremendously large black tentacle which emerged from the middle of its mass. The black tentacle had a bunch of smaller, bright red forked tongues writhing all over it.
It spoke to me, and rather than some eldritch spook speech or whatever it just said "Hey guy. I will give you a billion dollars and psychic powers if you let me eat that baby." And Dream Me was immediately like "oh sick, absolutely!" and tossed the baby to the creature, which quickly absorbed it into its mass. After this I remembered I'd been trying to find a way to the surface this whole time, and used my new psychic powers to float to a tunnel leading upwards. I found a cave overgrown with moss and flowers, but then I woke up."
I like this take on a horrible god-thing, a pool of living glop is always a fun one and the red tongues all over the black tentacle is an especially cool detail! It's also insidiously casual. Would you really have any idea what to do? How do you know something worse won't happen to even more babies if it doesn't get to eat the one baby?? You just can't even guess with these kinds of guys.
The Meatball
Posted by Cheese Wizard
"I'm in some sort of scientific facility. I know I'm not supposed to be there, but nobody seems to be around to stop me. I walk down a hallway and open a door. It leads out onto an absolutely massive steel room. The left and right walls, in addition to the floor and ceiling, and too far away to see. The far wall is visible, and is made of grimy steel. A titanic thing is attached to the wall by fleshy webbing. It looks like a huge, uncooked meatball with one serene human eye. We stare at each other for a moment before I panic and hide in a nearby bathroom. As I hide, I realize that the thing was benign."
"I'm in some sort of scientific facility. I know I'm not supposed to be there, but nobody seems to be around to stop me. I walk down a hallway and open a door. It leads out onto an absolutely massive steel room. The left and right walls, in addition to the floor and ceiling, and too far away to see. The far wall is visible, and is made of grimy steel. A titanic thing is attached to the wall by fleshy webbing. It looks like a huge, uncooked meatball with one serene human eye. We stare at each other for a moment before I panic and hide in a nearby bathroom. As I hide, I realize that the thing was benign."
This is a visually unsettling one, but I'm glad it's apparently harmless; something that was just trying to communicate, for a moment. Reaching through the veils of the human subconscious to just sort of look at us and go "...huh" for a moment.
Anyway...today's illustrator says this is basically his first time doing art, but I never would've guessed!
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