I had just arrived at my new office to find out that I had landed the same job as an old friend. Our desks were right next to each other and she helped me get all of my equipment in order. Someone kept swiping the dongle for my keyboard but we eventually managed to recover it. She gave me a small pot of plants which had a bonsai tree accompanied by succulents. “Wow I love this one”, I said while pointing at one of the blue-red leaves of a miniature sedum.

My brother was hosting a party at his new place. It was a minimal, single story, open floor home that had a roof extending over what seemed to be a front yard. A friend was trying to explain a new board game to us that required knowledge of Chinese tongue twisters that went way over my head. The one he provided as an example had something to do with baked breads. There was a group of people playing Apex Legends in VR. They claimed they could identify specific players by the way they ran.

I could hear someone dragging around a suitcase on the other side of the door. “Something is coming and I don’t like it”, I told my friends who were hanging out in my room. The sounds of movement gradually got closer as I ducked behind the bed and armed myself with a metal spoon. Moments later I heard the door open and a short rip of bullets rang through the room. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, but knew that I had done too little.

I headed to the immigration office for an appointment during my lunch break even though there was a high chance that my break wouldn’t be long enough to get anything done. And I was right: there was already a line and I needed to wait for my ticket to be called. I thought about needing to tell my manager about taking extra time off today.

I was jumping from platform to platform on top of the scaffolding that was lined up along the windows. I hopped from one end of the building to the other but was unable to find my way to the next level. I got off from the catwalk and went downstairs to tell my manager that I couldn’t get to the next stage. “I tried going up!” I told him. He let out a sigh as he quickly figured out what was wrong. “That’s exactly what we feared”, he explained, “the answer shouldn’t always be up.” He recommended looking more closely at the environment.

I was walking through the hardware store and passed by a crowd that was gathered around a plastic folding table. The man at the head of the table was drawing a lot of attention by pontificating about how genocide was not only permissible but morally good. Eventually most of the people in the store had congregated around the man to argue with him as he sat in smug self satisfaction.

Most of the students in the courtyard were gathered together to listen to an important speech. The tension in the air slowly rose as the crowds got more and more packed until the lights suddenly went out. All hell had broken loose as people panicked and started pushing and running. My crew and I rushed across campus to free the students that were held in detention near the gym. Afterwards I made my way to the dorms.

We were sitting in tightly arranged desk pods in the class room as we worked on our assignments. There was a tense feeling that something bad was about to happen when a sudden beeping sound came from the front of the classroom. Those of us close to the source of the noise quickly got up and moved to the back of the room. A security guard walked up to the chalkboard and picked up the offending radio clock from the floor. He yanked out the battery from the device before a break was announced for the class. I needed to use the restroom.

We were being approached by two people inside of a tank. As the tank turned the corner, we drove around to flank it from both sides before firing our guns straight into the body of the tank. We kept unloading our shells into the vehicle at point blank range, unsure of when to stop. Eventually we received reports that the intense “shaking” “may have” “injured” the occupants. I got out of the vehicle and opened the hatch of the enemy tank. Inside were two crumpled bodies and banana in a paper bag. I wondered how I was supposed to dispose of the remains.

I was on a movie set that was filming on a large grassy hill. The shot we were working on was a scene of a car driving past rows and rows of parked (maybe abandoned?) cars on the hill. It was starting to get dark.