wicked men with a devious plot offer alice a gift.  she refuses, wary of the weight of strange gifts from unkind entities.  wicked talismans. 

a man with a large face and a large grinning mouth grabs her and slams her into a men's public restroom.  he takes her wallet, opens it, takes out a card sliding it back and forth before returning it to the wallet.  he returns the wallet to alice, still smiling.  the wallet is filthy with a residue from his touch.  he goes into one of the stalls and alice busies herself trying to clean the contents of the wallet. 

a friend of alice, ben*, enters the bathroom, witnesses the scene, shrugs and then leaves.  the man with the large face leaves the bathroom stall he was occupying, his face still unflinching.  he grabs the wallet from alice and flees the restroom.  alice leaves to find ben.  the city around her is falling apart.  it is a postapocalyptic fantasy land.  great gray abandoned buildings jut from the ground, crumbling.

they are in an abandoned fairground.  there are patches of grass amidst the mudded walkways.  brokendown pieces of carnival rides and dividing fences are scattered haphazardly covered in rust.  the sun colors the sky the sort of muted yellow that late afternoons in autumn bring.  shadows cast along the ground obscure moving figures.  there are people at a distance but they keep a slow shuffle.

the wicked man has bundled up the part of alice's wallet he has stolen in a package with the talismans, he tries to give it to her and when she refuses again he laughs and throws it.  it lands in the mud and begins to bubble and froth.  some creature begins to emerge and it is apparent that alice is meant for some sort of sacrifice in the carnival land of nod.  alice and ben hold hands and run, slipping in the mud.

they pass by gruesome clowns with greasy balloons.  avoid the inhabitants; sneak around them.  some of them are missing pieces of their bodies.  some of their white robes are smeared with gore.  they hurt themselves.  they shuffle and there is no life in their eyes.  alice and ben pass by inflated children's fairground fun toys, the kind you jump and bounce and fall in.  they do not stop to play. 

they reach a fence, barbed wire.  it is the escape.  a woman is on the other side and she holds a stick with needles on the end.  she has a vacant stare; she stares through us.  she starts stabbing her face repeatedly. "i see, i am enlightened.  i am freed through my pain.  we must bleed to know." blood flows down her face and splatters onto her white garments.  her hair is short and black, she is of a medium build and it is her eyes that betray her sickness.  she speaks of transcendence, of cutting away the excess of reality to reveal the beauty inside.

alice exits through the fence, delirious.  ben goes to leave but the woman says, "no, not for you, for those who believe that love is no longer for them are not permitted to leave."

ben is angry, frustrated.  he pushes his way through the fence only to find himself stuck in the wall boundary between the Necrocity and the outside.  he screams.  he breaks free but loses his arm.

the dream fades to black as reality phases into my waking senses.  a lingering whisper of the dream repeats, "necrocity, necrocity, necrosity....."
 

*names have been changed or never existed in the first place.  in either case it is to protect the innocent or imaginary.