Life of the Strange

Talk about feelings and dreams

Aardy drowsily became conscious. She had fallen asleep with her notepad on her chest.
Her head popped up, remembering parts of the dream she had last night. Pretty crazy.

Gazelle. The forest. The monster.

She looked over the things she had written down that night, her next chapter of the story, and found that it was getting pretty crazy too. Maybe it didn't have explosions and a ton of action like she had been planning, but it was still quite her next masterpiece.

Aardy looked about her room, wondering what time it was— and if she should trouble herself on getting out of bed. Since there were no windows, it was hard to tell. It was still going to be dark in her room until she turned some lights on. She should really think about getting a clock.

Aardy hazily turned the lamp beside her on. She shielded her eyes from the stinging decision as if she was a member of the undead. Aardy hissed at the harsh lamplight until her eyes adjusted.

She got up and went to start the day.

Aardy guessed that it must've been very early in the morning, judging by the sunrise just coming in from the portholes.

She walked among the carpeted halls of the boxy half, chewing on a bagel she got from the Factory Room.
"...I am the bagel eating monster..." She mumbled to it sleepily, "fear me. For I am the ender of your kind..."

Aardy was just about to turn the corner when she directly bumped into Siren.

"Oof," Siren said, with the surprise of a small human colliding into her path. "Oh, sorry Aardy—" she stepped back a little. " Well good morning, you're up early aren't you?"

"Good morning." Aardy said, rubbing more sleep from her eyes with her non-bagel hand. "I'm afraid I am up early, yes."

"Is everything ok?" Sired quirked an eyebrow at the short girl, who usually was energetic no matter how early in the day.

"I had a very scary—well, strange I should say, since I wasn't scared at all— but I um, I had a very strange dream last night. That I didn't think was scary at all." Aardy puffed up her chest to make herself look taller. "But I'm alright."

"Mmhm. So you are." Siren said. "I had a scary—I mean, strange dream too, you know. It's okay to talk about it if you want."

"You have scary dreams?" Aardy was skeptic. This was Siren we were talking about, right?

"Indeed." The woman nodded.

"Oh." Aardy blinked. "Well, I guess the dream I had was—a little— startling. But I'm getting old for that stuff, aren't I? So it wasn't that bad, the dream."

"You're never too old to be scared love," Siren gestured to herself. "Fear is an all-ages thing. It never goes completely away, you just learn how to approach it better as you go along."

"Right." Aardy said in a mature tone. And then, "squash it down in the backwaters in your mind, write a story about it, and then avoid thinking about it for the rest of the day. Got it."

"...No." Siren said. "None of that, actually. Except writing a story, of course. You do write good stories. I meant allowing yourself to think about it, analyze it, breath and—eventually—let it go. Talk about it. That kind of thing."