Had a really vividly creepy dream last night. I was living in my grandparents' house in Chattanooga, and my neighbors were some guys I knew in my past from other places. I don't know, I guess it was implied that we were all pre-teens at the oldest, because "Nick's" favorite blue blitzball (yeah, I think it was actually a blitzball from Final Fantasy X) kept showing up in my backyard facing "Duncan's" house next door, and I would keep kicking it back over to Duncan's yard because I didn't want to deal with taking it all the way back down the street to Nick, since I generally despised him but knew that Duncan was still friends with him while ignoring me (a similar situation to when I knew them IRL as a kid), so Duncan was sure to have an upcoming opportunity to give the back to Nick. ... But recently I heard around that Nick had gone missing and his ball just kept coming back. Finally one day I found it again and was getting exasperated right as Duncan came into the backyard and demanded to know what I did to Nick, implying that I hated him so much that I would murder him and hide his body or something, and then saw the blitzball nearby as evidence that I had something to do with his disappearance. He threatened me if Nick ever turned up dead and I'm like, "Dude, I don't know how this got here or why it keeps coming back to me, but I never took it and I never wanted anything to do with the guy." .... The next day "Chase" (another guy I knew IRL but was from an earlier time than Duncan) lived across the dead-end circle in the culdesac of the neighborhood where my home was in this dream and seemed a little less accusatory but confronted me in the middle of the circle and told me how broken up he'd seen Duncan being over Nick's disappearance, and asked me sincerely if I murdered the guy. And this time I am more frantic, like, "Look! What do you want from me?! He's obviously dead somewhere now and it's like he chose to curse me with this stupid toy of his by it returning inexplicably to me no matter what! Look here!" And this time I kicked it so hard that the ball went three houses back up the street, however Chase saw for himself the ball physically coming all the way back to me right then and there. And he walks away like, "You know what? You're guilty of something, resulting in his death, and one way or another you are going to end up paying for it."
Next part of my dream, I am somewhere in my house in the dark settling down to sleep (but I noticed it was not an actual room in my grandparents' house IRL, just that in the dream it was supposed to be), and I hear a sound, darting up and looking over the back of the futon I was lying on to see out the long, nearly wall-length window at a streetlight just like the one in my bedroom at my mother's house where I am living RIGHT NOW. Nothing is amiss, but after a few more minutes in dream-time I feel a presence slowly closing over me at my back (which I am covered by the blanket I was actually wrapped up in as I dreamed all this, all the way up to where only my face is uncovered), and hands wrapping around from behind while I face the back of the futon and feel my eyes widen, somehow not so scared that I remain motionless, playing unaware but just knowing it is Nick in some form or another and mentally prepare to make a move in self-defense if I see his hand come into my vision, or just relax if it turned out to be my imagination. ... And I awoke, somehow not knowing exactly when it was the transition from a dream back to reality actually occurred. I think it was definitely the most realistic dream I have ever suffered. ... I SERIOUSLY felt arms draw around me from my back.
Sorry, just felt like I had to get that out, you know?