Weird Dream

Reader discretion is advised.

There's been a weird dream I've had occasionally since I was about five years old. I'd be in the Audubon Zoo, walking around, and come to this multi-tier bouncy castle. I'll look up at it and see this lanky, distorted humanoid peak up from the top. Somehow, I've ended up on a tier about half-way up, just above the tree line. Each tier is this platform, with walls around it.

The thing starts stumbling down the tower towards me, making a weird groan-yell. I don't know how I know this (dream logic), but I know that it can kill me by touching me, so I start trying to get down the tower and away.

Each time I jump down to a lower floor, it knocks the wind out of me. Despite being a bouncy castle, it hits like concrete. And the thing is coming down faster than me. Most of the time, the dream ends here and I wake up while I'm still being chased. Usually I get near the ground, but don't reach it. But neither does the thing reach me, despite being seconds away.

Not so the first time I had the dream, though. That first time, I reached the ground and started booking it. But it was faster than me. It caught up to me and, while it couldn't instantly kill me because I wasn't on its temple anymore, it started beating me savagely while everyone looked on in contempt of me. Another time — around like 7 — I reached this point and noticed that most of the people around were lanky, distorted like it. One time I sorta escaped it. I managed to get to a place where it couldn't find me. Except, then, a different One of Those Things is right there and gets me instead.

The last time I've had this dream was about a year ago, and it ended very differently.

I was running from it, I got to the ground, booked it. It was right behind me. I trip and fall. Somehow, I'm face-up and it looms over me to attack. I brace myself because I know where this is going. But the attack never comes. I open my eyes to see someone with a sword, brighter than the sun, standing over me, ready to strike at That Thing. I don't see him kill it, but I do see it fall dead, cleaved in two. He disappears before I can thank him, and I wake up.