A Haunted Room. The Exclusive Illusion Factory.

There was a haunted room in Rahul’s house. They were daring me to sleep there and it was the guest room and I’d slept there for months when I lived there. I was telling them that the dare wasn’t worth the time because I’d sleep there no problem. Rahul tried to describe the situation when he was left in there alone and tried to draw the face of the man who appeared before him while he was there but couldn’t. Kim also tried to explain how distraught Rahul was when he was scared but she was skeptical. Rahul stood on the back of the couch and was leaning against the wall. The ghost/man wore a beanie similar to Steve Zissou. I was sitting on a mattress under a desk in the room and a little girl came in and she was scared about something as well and came to me to be consoled. 

I had this huge bag packed, like a military duffle bag and was running on an air strip to catch a plane or a bus. Only people who made it on a seat would be able to go and take this job, and apparently there were way too many people trying to run here to get it. Some people didn’t even bring baggage, as if they had left immediately upon hearing about this opportunity. When we had all made it through a certain checkpoint and knew we’d be getting the job, everyone started running their luggage to a loading area where the luggage would be put onto a plane or onto a bus. I was helping them out. They were sliding bags twenty yards to me across wet grass and I was stacking them outside of the luggage bay. I stacked everything neatly from the pile which originated as chaos. We went into this building and it was rickety and old like an old warehouse abandoned for years. The stairs were their own hallway going up against a brick wall. When we got to the top, it looked like an old gambling room. Wooden tables and chairs like an old western film set up with no one sitting down. We started to populate different tables and making acquaintances with the people at the tables we happened to sit with. No one initially knew each other, but it seemed strong friendships were being formed. We spoke about other people who used to work here. I knew nothing but others had heard rumors, things like the exployees being sent to war, employees becoming millionaires, employees being turned into meat. A woman walked in (Tilda Swinton?) entered as orderlies places bottles of alcohol on our tables with shot glasses. It was explained that this was going to be our first ‘job’, to test this alcohol. Some are rowdy about it, some are excited. Our table chooses to fake taking the shots to see what happens, so we do it and one guy at our table is actually drinking it. We overhear someone say, “All the tables in the front can stay,” which included us. I had my back to the rest of the floor and was being told not to turn around. The person facing the rest of the room said they’re just being escorted out with no resistance, but another guy who said to look regretted looking and made sure I wouldn’t turn around. They gave us another meaningless task after that, like ordering papers. The person sitting across from me got up to leave. He had his back to the wall. My view stayed only looking at that wall after he left, and slowly, insects started appearing on that wall. More and more began to show up. It was initially just little flecks, but now they were deep black beetles, black spiders with white pulsing camouflages. And they were crawling out of a chute tucked into the wall. I raised my hand and started trying to let someone know and at first someone was denying it. But someone whispered in my ear, saying, “the bugs are there but please, don’t kill them.” There were so many at this point it looked like a scene of war ants in a rainforest, piling on top of each other. A bundle of them collapsed onto the table and the floor and I assume I was supposed to ignore them or pretend they weren’t there. I felt them start to clump up at my feet, so I had to try to unassumingly lift them up and try not to step on them.