I'm busy typing away at my NaNoWriMo novel and sometimes I get sucked into the universe I'm creating.
It's a sci-fi that involves asteroids and mass extinctions.
Sometimes I forget what a horrible and terrifying experience it is to see your death is imminent and to watch the world around you so utterly destroyed. I carelessly through around words like millions and incineration, and entire civilizations evacuated... I didn't realize the gravity of what I was describing.
Last night my dreams gave me a dose of what I was writing.
I was trapped in a city, great fireballs were raining down from the sky. I saw people burst into embers and ashes in front of my very eyes from the heat of the intense shockwaves. Buildings crumbled like sand castles.
Me and my family crammed into some sort of shuttlecraft and tried to get off the planet but our combined weight was too much for it, and it was having difficulty getting off the ground. We started to gain altitude and I saw planes trying to leave the city, some were crushed by the asteroids and burning bodies spilled out.
We barely pushed over a hill, families, holding their children, were chasing after us, begging to be let on. Everyone was covered in blood, some people had charred skin. The fireballs stopped falling for a moment. We dropped into some docks by the ocean.
Our engine had burned out. We were stranded on the docks with our damaged and sinking shuttle. The ocean was steaming and dead sea-life floated around us. A Sea-lion jumped onto the dock, its boiled flesh was hanging loose on its skin and it moaned and panted, trying to cool itself off. Its breathing sounded very pained and I had a feeling it would die soon.
But it was a wounded animal and it was angry. It tried to attack us, to protect itself. We backed far away from it and waited.
The sky darkened a little and we looked up to see one giant fireball cruising overhead. It would be the one to end our lives.
It was a chilling dream that shocked me back into reality. It scared me enough that this morning I even considered changing that part of my book. But it's important to the storyline so I can't. It was a disturbing feeling witnessing so much vivid destruction. I haven't had a nightmare like that in years.
Image links to a DailyMail article-------------
1 comment:
I say, use the imagery from your dream in your story! I've often found dreams to be a great inspiration, especially when they feel that real and include all the sights and sounds and smells that your waking-writing self wouldn't have thought of.
Find everything about the nightmare that terrified you and put it right into your prose. : ) Make the rest of us feel the same way you did when you woke up!
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