Ick.

First dream, I was outside the L.L. Bean side of the Columbia mall, except instead of restaurants and Macys and a parking garage on the one side there was this river. And where the parking lot begins was the shore of a large body of water. And where the fountain is was instead a small wooden building that looked like an information stand but was in fact a pizza place. Reece and Meredith and Erin were in there.

I was walking along the outside of the building, looking at the water, when someone grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the mall. I shouted, nobody noticed. He went through a door I didn't know existed and up a staircase and into a small room that looked sort of like the reception area of an office. Except instead of chairs and a desk there were 2 rows of little cots. To each cot was handcuffed a child, their ages ranged between 8 and 13. Some of them had been visibly beaten. The man, who identified himself as "Chester" (of course), handcuffed me to a larger bed. I said to him "I think I'm a little old for you." He sneered and left.

I talked to one of the kids, who basically told me the obvious, that this guy was horrible to them. I gained super strength or something, because suddenly handcuffs weren't a problem. I escaped from the room and ran down the hallway. I must have passed Chester, because he started chasing me and yelling at and threatening me with a gun. I ignored the weapon and called 911. I was having trouble with my phone, it kept autodialing the numbers in my phone that began with 9 before I could press the other two digits. I ran out of the mall and around to the pizza place, with the guy right behind me. I finally reached the police and told them a kidnapper/sex offender was imprisoning kids in an office above the mall, oh and he's threatening me with a gun, could you please come out here. They said they'd be out there as soon as possible, and if I stopped being in danger could I please meet an officer at the front door of the mall at 4:00? I said yes and hung up.

During the call I'd been running around the pizza place in circles, and as I finished I ran inside and barricaded the door. It was ok, a friend owned the place. Chester couldn't get in. I went over to the table where my friends sat, and they understandably freaked out. I also told GITP chat, earning me worried emoticons from Trog.

As we sat there it started pouring out. Chester had left the premises, but I knew he'd gone back inside to his room. I looked outside to the door of the mall, and when 4:00 rolled around a female police officer wearing a raincoat appeared. Meredith and Erin prodded me into going out there, but the only clothes I had were not rain appropriate, and I had to change my shoes to something more waterproof before I could go out. Erin looked outside and told me that if I didn't hurry the police would leave and think I'd pranked them. So I braved the storm for 10 feet and met with the officer. She was older than I thought, her hair was grey. I took her to the secret door and she took some spontaneously-appearing minion cops up, arrested Chester, and freed all of the kids.

Next dream.

Erin and Meredith and I were trapped in our dorm rooms at the bottom of the ocean, so we had a conversation about music we used to like as children while drawing on t-shirts from the craft store with glitter pens. Erin was drawing these magnificent pictures of mermaids and submarines, I was drawing things I'd doodle during class. She drew a complicated underwater scene that turned out to be the key to our escape from this place, but I didn't stay asleep long enough to find out how.