I woke up from this dream

You and I, we, all of us, were hiding in a large room above a restaurant. It was dark and quiet and we were frightened because all of Philadelphia was being overrun by demons. We heard the high pitched echoes of running feet hit the thin metal stairs of the fire escapes outside. There were also the softer, heavier sounds of feet hitting the floors above us. Though we did not know if the demons had found a way in, there were a thousand and ten floors above us, and two windows to every floor.
We told eachother, if you see one, keep your eyes closed. The demons possess you by spitting into your eyes. Sometimes we could also hear the echoes of desperate knocking on the side doors, or the rattling of windows. At first, we would go, we would try to help, I promise, we tried to help. But when one girl tried to help the little boy staring through the window, she herself was almost taken.
I thought of Sue and my parents. Where else is this happening? I asked. Someone turned on a radio, but only very very softly. On the news, it was reported that nowhere else was this happening. Maybe only in some parts of central United States. But the West Coast was free and all of the East coast except Pennsylvania was free. Philadelphia was where it started. Philadelphia, the radio voice hoped, was where it would end.
Almost everyone believed. We were all in our twenties and that made us old enough to know how to be like our parents or like our older folk and knew how to feel relieved when our loved ones did not share our doom. But I had my ear against the speaker, I pressed up against it hard so that the metal holes left small, circle, impressions on my ear. Layered behind the reporter’s voice, I heard screams. The uncertainty was horrifying, but I could not tell anyone because we all had family and the best, most hopeful thing at that moment was that they were not us.
There was a man in the room who loved me. In two minutes after I found myself in this place, I told him that I loved him too. I could not help it - I had to make up more hope because there was so little of it left. He grew confident and told the group that we all had to move downstairs and try to leave this building instead of waiting. It was our only chance to escape and there was a forest to our left that we could make our way through. Only we did not know what was in the forest or if the demons came from there. But we did all know that it was dark and there was nowhere else to go.
Our feet were quiet but our breathing was loud when we moved downstairs. It was a wide space and the room was perfectly round. There were heavy curtains hanging on golden rods and round tables with round chairs that had long, round backs and tiny, round feet. We each took a chair and lost ourselves in thoughts. But only for a little time because soon there was the sound of many loud whispers, of people planning and asking and cursing and crying and, perhaps, praying (I know that I did not pray), I began to think of how one man in the room had a car and could take me to my sister’s place. It was parked outside on the street, right in front of one of the windows. It was an old white van and if it still worked then we could drive away quickly. This was a better chance than running into the forest. I got up from my chair and went to he who was sitting on the floor. Will you take me in your van to see my sister? I asked. “Do you love me?” he asked. That’s when I remembered that I had forgotten two years of knowing this person, and then there was a thread of stories in my mind about myself and that person that I had not known before.
“Yes,” I told him. “Then we will go,” he said.
The first man I loved since the beginning of this story was tall and had dark hair. I remember myself sitting cross legged on the carpet floor and looking up to see him walk by me quickly.

Suddenly, we heard heavy knocking on the side door leading to our room. Mariya ran upstairs. “Where are you going?” I whisper-yelled. But she was already moving and I had to get up and follow her to try and make her understand what was happening so as not to let the demons in. But Mariya knew. When we got the second floor she walked towards a small door on the wall that I had not seen earlier and turned the knob. Inside, it was dusty. She climbed onto a stool and looked out the small, barred window, which showed us the side-entrance below us. Standing there were two men, talking. They were calm.

They are too calm, Mariya said. But how do we judge such things, I asked. They will always be too calm or too scared or too excited. There was no point in coming up here and pretending to be fair.

When we came back downstairs, all the curtains were down and I did not ask what happened. One of the windows, I noticed, was opened a little bit. I ran to the man with the and told him that we had to leave soon and to tell no one about our plan. Then I left to tell my two friends in the room to come with us, and telll no one, otherwise not one of us would get away. I think they agreed. But there was no point to all this because the two men Mariya and I had seen from uptairs were at the open window. I ran to it to close it but one of the men leaned forward and spit. I closed my eyes and felt wet on my cheek. I opened my eyes to struggle with the window when the man spit again and again and again and I tried hard to avoid my eyes. Then the second man smashed open the window. We all began to scream.

I ran. I ran to the other side of the room and went outside. I looked behind me and saw one woman become possessed. I ran around the corner with the hope of finding the van. But around the corner there were more demons or people who were pretending to be possessed. I could not tell what was real. So I ran back to the door of the building . It was locked. I cupped my hand above my eyes and leaned against the window. Inside I saw the circle room. Everyone was sitting in circles. Their clothes were dirty, torn, and bloody, but they had beautiful lined napkins on their laps. There were waiters holding trays of food. People were laughing and looked happy and it was the scariest thing I have ever seen because my mind knew that it was time for me to run. But there were people in the room whom I knew. And the thing that hurt my heart the most was that some people in that room were not possessed. And they would have to sit there and pretend forever. Just as my hand formed a fist and I almost knocked on the window, a face appeared. He was a waiter and smiled at me and wanted me to come in and dine away from the outside chaos. I saw his eyes and knew that I must go. So I began to run towards the forest. I heard the waiter call for help and I heard myself being chased towards the forest. I knew there would be no hope for me there but I had to run because there was nowhere else to go. What overpowered me more than the fear from running from demons, was the horror I felt when I thought about those left in the city who were not possessed. They would have to go on either pretending to also be possessed, or sit on their knees forever with their eyes closed, only hearing their own screams until their throats became bloody and the mystery of the sounds around them would force them to open their eyes. Then I saw in my mind these people curled on the gravel, screaming, and a dark figure crouched over their face, waiting and never leaving.

I ran. I ran and left this all behind and I felt terrible and I remembered seeing a tall man with dark hair sitting at a round table with glass through his chest. I ran. I ran and had started earlier than the two waiters coming after me.
My stomache was hot and I could not breathe but I was running and approaching the forest. I could not breath and it was hot but I was almost to the edge of the forest.

Though there was heat on my body and I was suffocating, I knew as the co-author of my dreams, that there was something ahead that would save me. And this why I did not give up and ran. I ran and reached the forest. I reached the first two trees. So did the demons. I ducked. They ducked. I felt their breaths on my neck and cried out and cried out and cried out. And though sometimes we do not receive answers and though sometimes many are left to continue to cry out, my cries were immediately answered. A woman appeared and stood by me and would not let the demons get me. The demons would try but she would not let them.

Soon, the prince demon showed up and tried to get me too. But she would not let him and she reached out behind her and encircled her arms around me. She stood in front of me as we turned around and around, she, trying to shield me with her body from the rotating demons. Keep your eyes closed, keep your eyes closed, she said.

ThePrince demon spoke. He rose from the ground and threw a scroll in the air and the woman caught it. “Begone,” the woman said. And the demon prince left. “Follow me,” the woman said. We left the forest and I followed her and her people. We walked slowly up a hill and I looked back. And what I could not see weighed heavily on my heart.