I feel the dream fading from my memory. I remember the feeling, though. There was a sense of things being dire. Serious. Dangerous. A general feeling I have, but this one was more imminent.
We went somewhere, me and a friend who looked like one but didn't behave like him. Some sort of compound. It was fortified against the imminent and dire oncoming somethings. I needed to remove my name from something they had. Something with power over me. Real controlling power, not just coercive contracts. They wouldn't remove me from it, so I had to go and do it myself.
Entering the compound, they marked me with mustard yellow paint on my left forearm. A large patch that covered my arm hair from my wrist to half way to the elbow. Then an 'M' to fill that other half. It was a font that, if seen sideways, could look like a 3 with long sticks.
I remember intensive physical examinations. I don't remember what they were. I felt ready to run and cry. I went into the bathroom to recompose myself. It was a dingy place. Once-white tiles marked with graffiti and stained by age and lack of care. The single light above buzzed. The mirror could only reflect you if you looked past all the scratches put into it, and even then it didn't reflect you well. In the middle of the mirror was that same 'M' again.
There was a something that talked to me. Told me that if I could do this I would prove myself to it. It was malicious. Or it appeared allied with the oncoming somethings. I wasn't here to get its approval. I don't think I wanted it, either, but it offered motivation. It broke down the process into steps.
I don't remember leaving the bathroom. Suddenly, I was in a server room. Dark, lit only by the lights of the servers themselves. Though I have no means of knowing, I knew I was underground. Two guards paced the entrance. They welcomed me as though my presence wasn't abnormal. They carried spears.
Then I was outside again. The mission was accomplished. I'd removed myself from the whatever. We sat by the front gate, that friend, a non biological sister, and I. She was a member of this organization, though allied herself with me to a higher level. She was talking about the rules for leaving. If someone other than the (male) leader "makes you wet" in the daylight.
The evening sun promised we didnt have too long. My friend spat on the 'M'. The sister agreed that I had now been made dirty and could be rightly kicked out of the compound. Didn't want to be in there for nighttime, personally.
I was in another bathroom. The lights were bright and shone off the mostly-clean off-white tiles that climbed halfway up the walls. The mirror dutifully showed what it saw, though I kept it in my peripheral. I was feverishly scrubbing and clawing at the yellow paint under the faucet. Soap, rinse, scrub, scratch, soap, rinse, scrub, scratch. As desperation grew, so did my ferocity. I was lady Macbeth.
I heard my friend packing boxes in another room. He leaned in and tried to urge me to pack. He didn't want to be here when night fell. Taking a moment to see my efforts, and how minutes of work yielded an inch of results, his tone changed. We could leave in the morning.
Eventually, I gave up on the soap and water, instead revisiting the project with another scratch between putting things in boxes. As the windows took on the shade of night, everything felt shaky. My friend helped me to my bed. I think he stood guard outside my room door, but I don't know.
I woke up from the dream. My body was too heavy to lift, but I could move. Though dressed in my pajamas, I felt exposed and proceeded to grab the blankets I'd unconsciously pushed off of myself throughout the night to cover myself up again.
It doesn't feel like it was a bad dream, but it doesn't seem like a good one when I lay out the events of it. Ugh.
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