Last night's mares

We were at my grandmother's house, three generations of Shackel women. It became dark outside and we headed in. My mom went out to get something and I heard her coming up the back walk. Something made me close the inner door before she got to the locked screen door. She knocked and then called out to me--letting me know by what she said that she wasn't alone and that something was wrong. I crept back to the living room to alert my sister and grandmother, trying desperately to figure out how to get out or where to hide.

Perhaps fortunately that's where I woke up. I did what you're supposed to when you awake from a nightmare--solve the problem. My now-wakened mind told my sister to call 911 and hide in the bathroom while I looked through the peephole to see if we could sneak out the front. Now partially satisfied, I fell back to sleep.

This time it was fire--something I'm truly frightened of. It started with tons of sirens and a huge explosion. Somehow, even in this dream, I went to sleep to escape it. When I woke up (in the dream), the light coming into my apartment was sooty and orange. My friends in the living room were glad I woke when I did--the airport had just reopened so we could get out because we were under mandatory evacuation order. I truly woke up as I was trying to figure out what to fit in my biggest suitcase as I left my apartment which would surely be destroyed.