A Night of Uncertainty and Escape

I got dressed up with this really handsome guy, and we were going to go to a party. It was just me and him in the car. It was dark. We parked in front of this building. It was a school, and I had a flyer that said, go inside to the second floor to the left. There was nobody outside. There were no other cars in the parking lot. It was all alone, and the building, all the lights were turned off. It looked like it was empty, but we went inside anyway. We went up the stairs, and when we turned to the left, there was one door that had brightness. When we went in there, it was not like a jumping party or anything. It was like an awkward party where everyone was still sitting down. You know, the TV was on, a little bit of music was playing, people were drinking and eating, but nobody was like having fun in a sense. Everyone was just kind of like awkwardly sitting there and eating. So, I greet the hostess, and she says to feel free to go outside. It's weird, we entered through a school, but when we went inside that room, it was someone's house, and they even had a backyard. She told me feel free to go outside, like the weather's really nice. I say okay. I stand by the kitchen, and I just observe everyone for a bit. The guy I was with, he starts socializing with other people, and I kind of feel awkward. I don't really know anyone besides, I guess, the hostess, who I don't even know where she went, but she wasn't in the room anymore. And the guy I was with, you know, he was talking to people. So, I decide to go outside, and I go outside, and people are out there with drinks. And off in the distance, I see there's like this cage, and it has six pugs in them. And I'm like, wow, they are so cute, but they're like off in the distance, you know. It's kind of like she like locked them up to stay away from the party, and I know that I'm not supposed to go over there, you know. So, I kind of just watch them, and I say out loud like, oh, you guys are so cute. And I think one of them hears me, because he actually like manages to get out of the cage and starts running toward me. And the rest of them of the start to follow, well, as he's running toward me, since I realized that he got out of his cage, I start going towards him, and I start petting him. And the other dogs start coming towards me, too. But there's one dog who hesitates. He like comes a little bit and then just goes right back to the cage and then comes back. He's wagging his tail like he really really wants me to pet him but he keeps going back to the cage and for some reason that makes me want to pet him more. So I go over to him, I just start like petting the dogs and everything. I feel nice but then I think okay I need to go back. So I put them all back in the cage and I leave. I go back to the party and I'm outside talking to some people when all of a sudden I hear someone scream and there's a guy outside with a knife and he's stabbing this person. Everyone starts running, I start running. I find the guy i came with and I tell him that there's someone outside killing someone and I tell him we have to get out of here. Like do you have your keys? He nods and we run. We run down like we're back in the school hallway. We run down the stairs and into our car and I get this eerie feeling like we're not gonna make it. Like the guy's following us but we're back outside alone but the weird thing is where we're parked, the building is in front and then there's like a fence which I thought was like the schoolyard and everything but you can see the lights of where we were outside from the party and you still hear people screaming and you can see the shadows of the man stabbing other people and then for a moment he freezes and I can just feel that his eyes are watching us and I immediately get into the car and my guy starts the car and we start driving.I don't know how it happened, but one moment I was in the car, and then the next, I was in a line. It was a line of jury duty. except this time I had the papers, and there was like these papers that were signed that said I have already attended jury duty. I look up, and I'm like, why am I still here? And my mom is in front of me. And she says, oh, we just have to drop these papers, these official papers off. That's it. We're just here to make sure we understand the process that we went through. And I say, okay. We go, we follow the line, and we take a seat. My mom asks me how we know where we're supposed to sit, and I see our names on the chairs. And I tell her, oh, this is your seat. I'm seated like two seats over from her. I sit down, and when I'm seated, they call my mom's name. She gets up, and she goes to the front. And they tell everyone else, you're dismissed. You can go. I don't know what that's about. But I end up going outside, and when I'm outside, the guy that I was with earlier is there waiting for me. And he has a stroller for some reason. I take the stroller, and we start walking. We're walking, um, again, the building gives kind of, like, high school vibes in the sense that it has, like, the whole area is kind of gated in a sense, but they're, like, different buildings, if that makes sense. Um, anyways, we're walking out, trying to get to, like, the parking lot to get in the car, when out of nowhere, we see this man coming with a huge rifle. And my heart stops. He keeps walking, and as he's walking towards us, he says, "get out of here, now!" And we start running. We start running past him, and we see him, like, start to point his rifle at some people. Um, we don't know what that's about, but we start running towards the street, or towards the parking lot. But then as we're running, we see, like, these group of guys with handguns, or with pistols, and they're coming towards us. And now we don't know what to do. We look back to the other guy, and he points to another direction, and says, go that way, get out of here, now. And so we start running. And our thing is, we need to run to the street, you know, where people are. But as we're running to the street, the people that are there seem to be involved in the chaos that is about to happen, because they all have weapons. they start running towards us, And the guy behind us with the rifle, he says, "not that way, not that way, run this way!" He points us back to the building. And so we go. But it doesn't feel safe. It feels like a trap. Like, the street would've been better because, you know, the parking lot had our car, so we could've escaped. The street had, we could've hailed a cab or something. All of these thoughts were going through my head. This is not safe, we're not gonna make it if we go over there. So I tell the guy I'm with, no, we need to go to the street. And he says, okay. And we start running with the stroller again towards the street, hoping to make it past the group of people. The guy with the rifle sees us and he starts yelling at us, "not that way, not that way!" And my heart starts beating really fast, and then I end up waking up.