I was returning to a foster family I had once left. I remembered the people very clearly, but didn't really remember any of their names. At the time, it hadn't seemed strange. I hadn't even felt a sense of being abandoned by my parents. I felt like I belonged in the family just fine.

So I talked to them, the mom and dad and son and daughter, and the little baby who's gender I never found out. We reminisced, talked about when I had last been there (I didn't know how long ago it had been), ate dinner. I noticed the oldest brother wasn't there, but never said anything.

After eating I excused myself to my room, which I assumed would still be the same. The house, I knew somehow, was right near the beach in Santa Cruz (California). I walked into my room, which I remember looking completely different, (somewhat that of a depressed teenager) had been painted a tan color, and all my furniture had been removed. The oldest brother was there, putting up curtains, which were covered with what looked like a sordid, morbid version of rabbits that my artist friend paints.

I became hysterical. "What are you doing?!" I screamed at him. He'd colored over my mural (which had taken me days of fasting and self-deprivation to complete) with boring tan paint! I couldn't control my rage.

He very simply answered back that 'He needed that room, since he was in a higher grade now.' I assume he thought he'd be bringing lots of girls home.

I ran back to where his room used to be. Of course, all my furniture was there, cramped into this tiny space, and all in the wrong place. It was absolutely necessary that everything went back to the way it was! And to make it worse, they had attempted to re-create my mural on the back wall, a pathetic attempt which took probably less than an hour to complete. It only enraged me more.

Charging back into my old room, where the oldest brother was still fixing his curtains, I let out all my rage, fury, demanded a better answer for why he'd destroyed my work. He told me I was getting worked up over nothing. I sat on the floor cross-legged, held my head in my hands, and rocked back and forth, waiting for some sort of calm to come over me. I knew I had to calm down or I would kill him.

When my self-applied therapy, began to work, I stood up, gave him a hug, and told him it was alright that he had destroyed the single most precious piece of artwork I'd ever created in my life. Then I told him I was going for a walk, that I had someone to meet.

I went outside, by now much more resolved and found my friend [name withheld] waiting for me there.

"You're late."

"I know. Sorry." I replied. we walked across one asphalt road, like in any city, and crossed over onto the Santa Cruz beach. It was longer to the water than in previous memory.

Somehow, we got to where we were going rather quickly. It was a small, office-style building, but with only one floor, built directly on top of the sand. College students were hanging around, and I remember realizing we were very near the College.

This building contained everything you could find down every road in Los Vegas; A 'Chapel 'O Love' where you could get married for fifteen bucks in fifteen minutes was advertised above with a neon sign, the hot pink bars make into little hearts that blinked on and off. In the cubicle next to it was the divorce center. Ten bucks, and you could undo everything you just did, if, for example, you found out your wife was a man.

There were other buildings; 'Get Cash Fast', 'Sell Your Car', (though how anyone would get their car inside the building wasn't something I chose to speculate on at the time), a few others. We went inside, pretty much prying into peoples' business, but causing no real damage. There were several places we couldn't go in. So we ended up going to a sort of pawn shop, where mostly college kids were selling anything and everything. We went to one of the desks (where a very clean-cut business was sifting through some things) (every businessman seemed entirely out of place for their job) and began looking at some things this guy was trying to sell.

He looked at us, and I suddenly knew his name was Ben. He looked at me, then back at the man. He seemed really nervous, like being there was something he wasn't allowed to do. The man looking at his things said, "I don't think we really want any of this stuff."

Ben looked straight at my friend, horrified, and said, "You are an abomination of everything I love." and ran. He left all his things strewn across the table. [name withheld] didn't seem to care that he'd just totally insulted her. I sat down and looked at his things. On top was a newspaper from three days ago, an article (with only the bottom half of a picture, displaying someone beating a girl with a whip. You could not see the persons' face.) about Marilyn Manson, claiming he had killed the girl and was soon going on trial. They seemed to think that half a photo was sufficient evidence.

Also in the pile was the top of that photo. It wasn't Marilyn Manson. It was someone else. Some film canisters, posters, and booklets were also there, quite a large pile, consisting mainly of Marilyn Manson merchandise.

I gathered the stuff and ran after him yelling "Ben! Come back!" [name withheld] followed me. I said we had to find him and give him his stuff, and she agreed. We walked, every once in a while yelling his name, but no one answered. After walking for a long time, still on the beach, it began to seem darker, and fewer people were there.

I made some sarcastic, clichéd remark, something about walking along the beach at night with the water running over our feet. Of course, we weren't wearing shoes by now, stuff like that always seems to happen in dreams.

I heard music playing somewhere, then looked up and saw a cliff sticking out over the water. It was long and pointed, and there was a group of people up there. We assumed Ben would be among them, and followed the music. After just a second, the music stopped, but we were close enough to know where it was coming from.

There weren't many people there. About ten, very tall people stood in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, facing out towards us, like they were protecting something. They were wearing black coats, and they had pale skin, and as we walked around the circle, they seemed to leer at us, like some frightening clown out of a bad dream. They had gray makeup smeared across their foreheads, and that was all. But after circling them a few times, they broke apart and walked of in different directions, alone. Nothing was in the middle. I knew something was wrong, and whoever was hiding there had escaped. I saw someone running towards a house nearby. I followed, and my friend followed me. We caught up to him right as he went into his house, just a few steps behind him, where he reverted to a fast walk. He'd left his door open, since he knew we were following him.

Then he started denying things, shooting them back at us. "I've never killed anyone, I've never done anything wrong, leave me alone!" he yelled. "You're terrible!"

I was surprised, but followed. "Why am I terrible?" I asked.

"Not you!" he responded. I assumed he meant my friend.

"She didn't do anything to you either." I shot back.

"Not her." he replied. "They all criticize me, all hate me. But that's what I wanted all along, isn't it?" His last sentence seemed rather like a revelation. He turned around quickly. It was Marilyn Manson.

"Oh." he said, looking at the pile of stuff I still carried in my arms. "You brought my things."

I woke up.