Major Characters
Austin - male, 23, college student...
Lori (Lorasana) - female phantasm, appears 20s-ish, though is actually timeless.. possibly thousands of years old
Three-Act Elements
What challenge does the protagonist overcome? What question does the climax answer?
? how to overcome Lorasana, before she enslaves earth ?
he realizes the powers she has, he gave to her, in the dream world, so he has to get back into the dream world. he breaks into the lab, planning to enter the lucid dreaming state, but she cuts him off and breaks the machines.
--- challenge begins --- why does she need him at all?
A. she needs him to find and prepare her a suitable 'host'... first she entices him to find and steal two amulets out of the university archaeology department. he is to wear one... it allows her to come to him at any time. then she wants him to find a beautiful girl and get her to wear the other amulet. (comedy ensues, as he has zero game) eventually she coaxes him to a strip club, where he pays a stripper to wear the amulet. She is suddenly posessed by Lor.
she will be his queen... and for his good service, she gives him dominion over women.
A. she gives him what he wants in his dreams, to use his body in the real world. At first he has some instances of waking up with unexplained time loss. However, it quickly turns into two dreams, one of 'fantasy', one of 'fake-reality'. Things go a little "too" easy for him in real life, and a couple blurred lines (and some story-clues) make him realize it's all a dream. He fights it and "wakes" to an unfamiliar life where she's done sinister things with his life using her powers. She coaxes him back into the dream. Then she negotiates for him to stay in dreamland, first with an outrageous fantasy. Then by offering him an enticingly surreal version of his own life. She's like the 'devil on his shoulder', reading his mind and enacting his most deviant and provocative challenges into the fake-life. It works for a while, but eventually he demands out.. only to find himself imprisoned in the real world. She's taken over an entire 'army' of bodies, yet keeps coming to him offering him fantasy.
it's resolved when he realizes she needs him. that she has the power in the dream world, but his body has the power in the real world.
as he 'frees himself', he's shocked to find out just how far her control and domination went, and how much time passed (5 years?)
he's revered as a god, and becomes drunk with the power and attention. a 'slave girl' tells him what she was like, and he takes action to right wrongs. He decides that ruling with benevolence is acceptable.
as he experiments, he finds that he doesn't have direct control like he did in the dreams.. but he can see things in science. he makes a game out of developing 'technology' to bring about his previously 'fantasy' world.
he suspects something is off, sees her, and starts becoming paranoid... eventually there is a confrontation with her somehow
---
surprise ending... he wakes in the lucid dreaming room, back in his normal life?
B. maybe she asks him to help her 'possess' people, which seems like juvenile fun....until she starts to 'use' them for her own needs..
C. maybe he has to convince others to join the lucid dream. she gives him some mental-suggestion powers to do it, but she's really using them all, for her own power. she moves from hallucination to possession joyriding (first a random, then someone famous); then to supernatural real-world powers.
D. maybe it's all okay until she possesses (or threatens to) a good friend of his (boy or girl?), using his life as if it's worthless.
Basic Concepts
ch1. during a college lucid dreaming experiment, our main character finally has a lucid dream..
the expectations are set that staying in a lucid dream is hard, that being able to levitate objects, or imagine small changes to the environment is all they should hope for at first.
his dream centers around a persona that starts as a female classmate - beginning the confusion question about what is happening... lucid co-dreaming? other dimensions?
when he wakes, he notices the real-world girl he recognized, but she ignores/avoids him. There is a show of hands about who remembers a lucid dream. they are asked to write their experiences. he tries to see if she "reacts" to seeing him, but she doesn't. He sneaks a look at her essay, and sees that it's not at all the dream he had.
ch2. he's excited for the next lucid dreaming experiment... ("super-heroin")
ch3. the experiment is shut down, he panics.. he has to see her (picnic, intimacy fantasy)
...in the real world, he hallucinates her "leading him" to the machine
...in the dream, she knows about this "leading", which suggests she doesn't exist - that she's just his dream
...she plays dumb, and spices up the situation by mind-reading and acting out his fantasy
...how will he see her again... she tells him not to worry, she'll find him again.. or he could take the device.
ch4. imaginary friend.. he starts to "daydream", fantasizing and imagining her in the real world
...daydreams seeing her in the hallway, runs after her... only to find her gone
...daydreams another girl in class turning into her and inappropriately sexually flirting ... he's "startled awake" by the teacher
...daydreams hearing her while out with friends, tries to ignore it. she goads him on. finally he looks over to see her eight-feet-tall and half-naked, interacting with the environment somehow... he watches in a trance as she teases him to leave his friends and come see her. when his friends ask him something, he asks if any of them see her.. but when he turns back, she's "gone"
ch5. hallucination overload ... the daytime hallucinations get more aggressive.. his view of reality starts to "bend"
distorting someone's appearance in a distracting way..
appearing as someone other than Angela, shockingly teasing him, only to have a friend ask "who are you talking to?" .. he goes to the bathroom and confronts her... "I like this game, but I can't feel like I'm going insane." .. she finally appears, to begrudgingly concede. a bit mean-spirited.
she's gone the rest of the day and he has no lucid dream that night.
the next day he thinks to her, but she has no response... finally he hears her in his head, pouting about how he sent her away
he confesses he didn't mean for her to go away. she can have some fun, but no imitating other people...
she's silent for a while... but finally agrees. then she proceeds to make the professor look like a supermodel version of herself as she lectures.
that night he has another spectacular fantasy dream
overcome
resolution
ch0. introduce the comic book geek MC, Austin
geek guys playing a board game (aka settlers), talking about physics and metaphysics
geeking out about getting the new issue of some x-men like comic.. the boys gushing over the new hot super-heroin getting her powers
one of his more cerebral friends is not into the comics. they ask him what he's reading, and he talks about some recent research in lucid dreaming. that new devices are putting people directly into lucid dreaming states. As he talks, Austin fantasizes about being able to lucid dream the hot super-heroin.
ch1. introduction
Austin visits a college after-hours philosophy workshop covers mystics, hypnotism, and lucid dreaming
perhaps at some point he has some kind of psychometric reading "off the charts"
during a demonstration session our main-character finally enters lucid dreaming, confirmed because he sees "unreal" things. (someone levitating pens, another person drawing on their desk in "flame") he tries his own "tricks" but they don't work. he starts walking around the class, and nobody notices him. he tries to get their attention, but his hand goes right through them. He notices a girl sort of 'floating' horizontally near another student, waving her hand in front of his face. Suddenly she looks up and into his eyes and he hears a surreal female voice, "why can't they see us?", only her lips didn't move. Even before his mind answers, the space in the room seems to shift and distort. While paradoxically it seemed like her eyes and face never moved, suddenly she's inches from him, still floating horizontally, slowly drifting around him to the right. "you can see me though, can't you?"
He hears his thought like it's a loud echo in the room, "yes, I can see you." She smiles and he feels a tingle of excitement, remembering this is his lucid dream. Again he hears his thought ring out like it was spoken aloud, "who are you?". She doesn't answer, but as he looks, he starts to notice detail he hadn't seen before. She has long brown hair which is waving and floating around her like it might if she was underwater. Then detail in her face which was blurry and surreal comes into focus. He recognizes her. (add some random detail he had liked about her) Suddenly he starts to realize her face is pretty, no more than pretty, it's gorgeous. Had she looked like that a moment ago? How wouldn't he have noticed? Even as he thinks it, he notices her appearance change, the shape of her cheekbone shifting, and her skin almost glowing. He no longer recognized her as the girl in class. Instead looking at her felt like looking at beauty itself. He remembered he was dreaming and it excited him. He felt his pulse quicken and the room started to fade, he struggled to calm and hold onto his consciousness.
When he finally regained his lucidity, he noticed she was smiling and blushing. She also looked more like the recognizable Angela from his class. Her lips moved this time, "Sorry, I got a little carried away. I'll try to be more careful with your thoughts." What did she mean by that? Wasn't this his dream? She seemed distant floating in front of him. No sooner had he thought it, and her body shifted, her feet coming down to the ground in front of him. Her hair didn't fully settle though, it was still wafting and waving as if propelled by some invisible current of air. Even with her standing barely more than a foot away, he felt like she was falling away from him. Her face looked concerned, and she gently reached a hand towards him. For a moment he felt paralyzed, like he couldn't move his own body. Then suddenly sound and space distorted and he felt her hand touching his, and she was comfortably close again. "I almost lost you. Is this your first time in the dream state?"
He nodded, the reminder helping him calm and remember he was in a dream. The realization helped him accept that while she was again crisp and in-focus, the classroom scene around them seemed to blur and shift in a swirl of ambiguity. He remembered the lessons of his class. Remember you are in a dream; keep your breathing calm; then imagine the world as you would like it to be. He thought of the grass outside, the fall trees, and autumn leaves. "Starting small are we?" The swirl around them became more ambiguous, then began to fade into a surreal exaggerated version of their college campus. It was empty, not a soul around. They were standing under a tree, and a patchwork of multi-colored fall leaves were floating down around them in slow-motion.
"This is absolutely amazing! How is this possible!?" The transition was so awesome, the surreal exaggeration so exciting, that he felt his heart start to beat faster. The scene started to fade; he was waking again. He reached out with his thoughts, felt her hand, and focused on it as he calmed his breath again. She was smiling back at him as if his question needed no answer. "It's hard to remember to stay calm. I get excited and everything drifts." She nodded slowly. He looked at the leaves, and willed them to stop falling. They did. He tilted his head in mild curiosity, careful not to get excited, and watched as the leaves began to turn around them in a slow circular motion.
He looked back and smiled at Angela. He realized she was wearing a blue and white dress which flowed in a gentle weightless motion just like her hair. He noticed the shape of her body revealed against the motion of the dress. In just moments of attention, her dress seemed to hug her figure as it came into focus. Merely feminine, then beautiful, then alluring. Her dress seemed to both change and not-change as it flowed away, revealing the skin of her legs and the top of her breasts.
???
ch2. he's excited for the next lucid dreaming experiment... super-heroin
this time the girl is "absent" from the classroom when he becomes lucid. He goes "searching" for her. He's running through the school halls. Eventually he hears her voice echoing around him, teasing him. He sees distorted hints of her off in the distance, and something "stops" him each time he tries to get to her. (sees her turn a corner, but then she's gone. Sees a giant eye outside a classroom window, the door shuts. Sees her giant self outside a window, beckoning him, gets outside to find her gone - then she taps him on the shoulder and is right behind him).
He starts asking who she is, since he knows she's not the classmate. She's evasive. "Maybe i'm you. Maybe you're me." (surreal environment changes) "We can be anything. Who do you want me to be?" He starts to come up with predictable "desired women", and she teases him even as her image distorts, not to a specific thought but to a beautiful sultry amalgamation of all of them - brunette, strong, sexy, athletic/busty. (predictable. pedestrian. boys. be more creative. ohh, there we go. i can work with that.) her amalgamation adds a super-heroin persona (inspired by supergirl), and with the oozing sexy sultry edge of the amalgamation. She floats a few inches into the air. (time to play.) The environment shifts and solidifies around them. A city block. (who do you want to be? another superhero? the villain?) With that, he caught sight of a city bus flying through the air towards them. he ducks and cowers, expecting to be crushed. He hears the sound of crunching metal and looks up to find her holding the bus above him, full of screaming people. (it's okay if you just want to watch.)
She reaches a hand down to him. He feels himself float up off the ground with her, as she sets the bus down on one rooftop and then sets him down alone on the next. (this spot should give you a nice view.) As soon as he wondered what he was getting a view of, he heard a crashing sound and turned to see a big screeching mechanized robot tear an arm through a building just a block away. Turning back, she was floating away towards the robot, smiling at him, carefree. Until she finally turned, and darted down to stop his foot from crushing a car and it's passengers.
Everything felt so real now. The swirling surreal surrounds had solidified into a crisp scene which seemed as real as life. It was only identifiable as a dream because of the impossible scene he was witnessing, the giant robot flipping up as the girl lifted it's leg, finally flipping back and clawing into buildings on both sides. A volley of missiles violently erupted from somewhere near its shoulders, several of them exploding right into her, while a few sailed by. One startled him as it sailed within just a few feet of him on the rooftop, before the building shook and he felt himself falling. The floor beneath him was falling under him as the entire rooftop liquefied and slid towards the street. He saw sky, clawed into empty air, and felt his heart start to race before he felt something supporting him. The sound of metal and concrete receded away from him as he noticed her beautiful face. (i couldn't hog all the excitement) She had caught him, her arms under his back and his body pressing into her chest. Wind tossed her hair, as they glided up to another rooftop where she set him onto his feet before turning slowly and then darting away at impressive speed.
This time she didn't stop. In front of her path a visible white cone formed. Despite what seemed like her moving at incredible speed, the whole scene seemed to move at nearly slow motion, as the shape expanded in front of her to nearly span the entire width of the street. The moment she connected with the giant robot, time snapped into focus, and in the span of just a second or two he watched and heard the shape of the robot contort and compress down into the pavement.
An instant later, the shockwave rebounded, and he felt himself violently thrown off the ground and backwards - not just a foot or two, but high into the air. He felt fear at the prospect of landing into something, first because it might hurt, then because it might kill him. The world seemed to be moving in slow motion again, the contours of the building sliding by below him. Then he realized he wasn't even going to land on the roof. He watched the edge pass below him as his arc passed it and brought him falling into the street below. He looked at the side of the building rising in front of him feeling a peace and surrender to the fact that he was about to die, forgetting it was a dream. Then he saw her face appear over the top of the rooftop. She smiled at him as if she hadn't a care in the world. Her lips didn't move, but he heard her in his head. (It's okay, I've got you.) Time sped up as she came racing towards him, reaching under his arms. He felt sharp pain where her arms dug hard into his body as she lifted him out of the fall. Around him the passing building windows slowed, stopped, and then started falling away as she carried him up above them. She hugged him close, and over her shoulder he watched the city quickly recede in the distance.
The buffeting wind slowed and then calmed, and he could tell they were approaching the ground. Sooner than he expected, he felt his feet gently settle onto something, and he realized they were standing on the edge of a mountain, overlooking a valley outside the metropolis. She started into his eyes silently, smiling. This time her lips moved, ("well dreamer boy, was it everything you hoped for?") She was gorgeous, her hair still perfectly waving and flowing around her. Her shoulders and cheek bore some dirty marks, but she looked otherwise unscathed. The sky was filled with a perfect orange-red glow, as the sun began to set over the horizon. Everything was so perfect it was too perfect, like everything he saw was designed -- because it was. He felt a desperate urge to kiss her, yet they stood there just smiling at each other. He heard her voice echo from the skies and in his head, ("i've done everything else, I think you can manage this one.") He felt vibrating confidence welling up in him as he started into her eyes. He gently moved towards her, reaching around her back and bringing his lips to hers. It was magical, half a kiss and half something else, energies moving between them in a spiral dance. He could see them, swirling around them as they kissed, and realized the environment had faded away into the surreal, leaving them intertwined for a moment before he felt his heart beating faster and faster.
Suddenly, he awoke with a startle to find himself inside the classroom. Looking around he could see it was empty, the lights were only half turned on. He smiled, and grabbed his things, rushing out the door.
ch3. mini-challenge #1... experiment shut down
he's thinking about it all week, about things he wants to do in his dream. Hypothetical brainstorm with his friends. Most of them sexual. What kind of super-hero would you want to get into bed? (mind-reading, telekinetic, shape-shifting, super-villainess, threesome)
The next week, there is a note that the experiment was shut down. he panics.
he desperately tries to get access to the device. starts to hear her voice in the real world -- which freaks him out, but he follows it and gets in to the device. (she unlocks a door?)
he wires himself up, and goes into the lucid state... where she's waiting for him. she acknowledges helping him find the machine, confirming she has knowledge of the "voice" he heard. This surprises him. he's worried he's going crazy. He's losing grip on what is real. she calms him. ("it's okay. It's just a dream, you can leave anytime you like. Plus, if I'm you, this is your dream. you came here for a reason, what was it?")
("to have fun. to see you.") she smiled, then suddenly the environment around them swirled, and reassembled into rolling grassy field on a summer day. She was standing over a red and white checkered picnic blanket, wearing a light blue check country girl dress. She slipped out of her sandals and slipped down to kneel on it, as if she'd expected it to be there.
("I want you to know, I was looking forward to seeing you. You have a very unique gift. Come, join me.") As he knelt down, she opened the picnic basket, pulling out an apple and an orange. He had considered many fantasies to play out in his lucid dreams, this wholesome picnic was not one of them.
(threesome) He was startled to hear her voice come from over his shoulder, even as she sat in front of him silent, "Patience, however, does not seem to be part of that gift.". He turned to see Angela standing behind him in a white dress, placing her hand on his shoulder as she knelt down. Drawing his head back, he could see there were two of her now. One in blue still kneeling in front of him, the other beside him, intimately reaching her arms around his body.
He felt a thrilling rush, both exciting and disorienting. "What the...?" Does she know all my thoughts?
He heard the soft sound of a giggle beside him as white Angela rubbed her hand against his back. "You mean your little brainstorming session with the boys?" Blue Angela just smiled at him, taking a seductive bite out of the apple. "
-- more mind-reading tease --
(shape-shift) In front of him, Blue Angela spread her legs into a more suggestive stance. Her arms came up and tugged at her neckline as if to loosen it. In the process, both her shape and her dress swirled into a different form. Her breasts dramatically broadened and filled, as the dress shifted to accommodate and expose them in a sexy way.
"We are here for different reasons, but we can both get what we want." She ran her hands down her sides as she wriggled her body side to side, and he watched her torso distort, slimming to impossible proportions. When his eyes reached her legs, he realized they seemed both thinner and longer. ("Still wondering if I know your thoughts?")
(telekinetic) She flicks her fingers, her mind starting then ripping a tear down his shirt.
??
ch4. get the amulets
ch4.
roadblock
overcome
resolution