Chapter Twenty Two

I spent the whole day solving a mystery.

I know that sounds too ambitious and unrealistic, since I hardly leave the recluse of my home. (Travel is still a nuisance). That’s why I resorted into reinstalling and replaying Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Scarlet Hand.

I noticed that unlike before, I actually took less time to solve the mystery. (It took me one day, with little help. Long ago, it took me around three days, even with a walkthrough. That’s how addicting Nancy Drew games are.) Even though I may not be a techno-geek gamer, I couldn’t help but be amazed by the game play. The chronology of events was well structured. You couldn’t advance to the next “set of tasks” without completing the preceding ones. Well, duh. That would ruin the story.

I also liked the way how Her Interactive managed to incorporate education (in this case, Mayan History) into the game. I wasn’t sure how accurate the information was in the game, but it pretty much introduced me into the world of ancient America.

What inspired me to play this game once more (I bought it years ago, but failed to finish it) was that I had been having strange dreams lately. There was this one dream in which I was supposedly a detective and I had to investigate a strange series of events between two buildings connected by a secret tunnel. In one building, there was also an empty room with bare white walls where a mentally ill girl resides.

Another dream also involved my playing detective again. This time, it was set in a hidden game room. I remember billiards, jukeboxes, toy clowns and even a small makeshift bar in the middle.

The latest dream I had about my being a snoopy investigator was a couple of nights ago. It was set in a huge university with red brick buildings, a baseball field and a soccer field. I think it even had a hospital, a hotel and a couple of restaurants.

Anyway, wrapped around some of the buildings was a long, winding roller coaster track.
There seemed to be a problem with the roller coaster track. It was unfinished.

In my dream, I went to a restaurant on the top floors on one of the more modern buildings. It was Applebee’s. (Strange. I hadn’t seen that restaurant for such a long time.) The cashier was an obese African-American man. He spoke with a deep voice. I remember him telling another man that they had Applebee’s For Kids. And then suddenly, the scene shifted to a similar looking setting – only the chairs and the tables were smaller. The cashier went on saying that a couple of kids used to play around here. I remember seeing the kids reenact the past like in the movies. They looked like Dick and Jane. The girl hid a key somewhere in the cabinet behind the counter. Then they disappeared.

We returned to the present. I immediately ran to “Applebee’s For Kids”, which turned out to be a section of the main restaurant. I checked into the cabinet behind the counter and there was the key.

Then that was when I ran to the administration and presented them with my discovery. They explained to me that the key was used to start the roller coaster ride that wound itself around the buildings. However, the roller coaster was ancient (strange). It was a construction project started years ago during the establishment of the university and for some reason, was never finished. They said that they would begin reconstructing the strange roller coaster ride right away.

Feeling proud of myself, I returned to the entrance of the university but was shocked to see that they were letting kids ride the roller coaster cars already! I remember that the tracks weren’t complete and that they stopped right outside the twentieth something floor of a rather tall brick building. I ran back to the administration. On my way, I saw my old classmates. They were wearing our high school P.E. uniforms. They waved and called me over. Surprisingly, I seemed to have forgotten my urgent goal and stopped by to chat.

When I was nearing the administration building, which was situated above the hotel, an old classmate of mine came up and started to converse with me. He was asking me how I was and where I was heading to. I was trying to be nice, but a sense of dislike crept through my veins when the old classmate began to hold my hands! I immediately broke free from his grasp and told him that I had to run. He thought that I was inviting him to follow me and ran after me. However, when he saw that I was about to enter into the hotel, he stopped short and asked why “we were going to the hotel”. Annoyed, I quickened my pace and literally ran up the stairs towards the administration floor. The guy followed right behind me! I pretended not to see him as I entered the administration room.

There were people with maps and graphs, charting the course of the roller coaster ride. I immediately told them about the dilemma and they stopped working. They looked at me and began to panic.

Then suddenly, I seem to see the passenger of that roller coaster car – a little girl. The car was approaching the “break off” point. I saw the ragged edges where the steel railings had stopped.

Then I woke up. It was one of the most vivid and unexplainable dreams I had ever had. Up until now, it gives me shivers. I don’t know why.