I dreamed about what I guess was a virus or something. It would affect people without any warning. One minute the person would be fine and the next, horribly afflicted. The symptoms were horrific and disgusting. The sufferer’s skin would break out in huge sores that would pop like bubbles on the surface of boiling water. Literally, the skin would turn liquid and the person would dissolve in front of your eyes. The whole course of the virus took only a couple minutes so you could very easily watch someone melt away while you were, say, standing side by side, waiting for an elevator. The most horrible part came next, though. Within a couple more moments, the sufferer would be reconstituted, better than before, even their clothes would be cleaner as if the virus used every bit of matter even the dirt when building its monster. I say monster because this beautiful creature that appeared resembled the person but it would attack and devour whoever was standing closest to them, all with this wide, terrifying grin.
I witnessed this transformation at a wedding. It must have been in the early days of the outbreak because people didn’t know enough to avoid crowds. The virus struck the father of the bride. One moment he was standing at the altar with this daughter, the next he was a puddle of goop on the floor and the next he was radiantly dressed in a glowing white suit, his gray hair now slightly tinged with yellow blond. He reached out into the audience and grabbed someone at random whom he started to rend to pieces and devour.
We didn’t know how the virus spread but we knew it was susceptible to microwaves of a very specific frequency. I had a small, hand-held device that would neutralize all the of the virus within my general proximity. The hypothesis was that we might be able to kill the virus in the resurrected person and that the person might be OK, maybe a little messed up in the head after what they’re been up to but physically OK. This was an untested hypothesis though. I was sent in to the place where the wedding had been, or maybe it was just where an outbreak had occurred. There were still pockets of the crowds huddled around the grounds of the hotel, maybe a very glamorous church. I located the area where the target was. It was up a soaring flight of stairs that had no railing and that opened into the very spacious entry area of this hotel. Sunlight streamed in the plate glass windows that ran from the floor up several stories. I carefully walked up the stairs. At the top of the stairs were two preachers I knew years and years ago. They had their arms reached out in blessing. They spoke to me as if I would be doing some kind of exorcism when all I really was going to do was a scientific test. A test that would result in me being torn apart and eaten if it didn’t work. But the gist of what they were saying was that it would be the patient’s choice to get better and if it didn’t work, I shouldn’t blame myself.
Then I saw the creature coming around the corner through a pair of open double doors. It wasn’t the father of the bride I had seen before, it was actually a woman I knew. She looked statuesque, immense, regal like some of the portraits of Queen Victoria I’ve seen. But instead of a sceptre she held a tiny baby, her daughter even though her actual daughter is much older. She seemed to float instead of walk which was particularly uncanny for how large she looked.
She approached. I didn’t know what to do.