I dreamed I was s contestant on another weird reality TV show. I was given ten children to foster, from toddler to high school senior, and I would win certain prizes based on how many I still had at the end of a month. If any of the kids got too sick, got too hurt, got into too much trouble, or became too unhappy, they'd be taken away. There were also other contestants who would be teachers, coaches, lawyers, bosses, who would get prizes for helping me or for making me lose my kids, but no one knew their objectives in advance.
The first kids I lost were two teenaged boys who turned out to be members from rival gangs. They got into a huge fight in my front lawn. Thankfully, neither was badly hurt, but the police came and took them away. This was when I began to suspect the social worker who placed them both with me was working against me.
The next kid I lost was my high school senior, who was a star quarter back. He collapsed on the field during a game, and it turned out that his brain had gotten really dried out. There was this test they showed me, where they opened up the skull and spread a special powder on this circular area in the middle. A normal brain would absorb the powder quickly, and the spot would look just the same in a few seconds. A desiccated brain would stay chalky and gray because the powder wouldn't absorb. My boy's brain stayed gray with powder, and they said this was probably caused by use of performance enhancing drugs. So they took him away, and I thought maybe his coach was behind it.
This was all really difficult and awful, but pretty straightforward. What started to happen next was truly devious and evil. One of my kids was a little girl about five years old. She was very sweet, and had this favorite snack that was apple wedges on buttered toast. She was very close to an older girl of about thirteen, and she had two little pets (sometimes they were dogs, and then they'd become cats). She really loved her little critters.
Well, at some point we noticed something was wrong with one of the cats. It started to show up with small wounds, it became withdrawn, timid, his a lot and had to be coaxed out. The wounds healed quickly at first, but new, more serious ones started to appear. Then it began happening with the other little dog. I promised the little girl I would get to the bottom of this and make her little friends safe again.
This went on for weeks, and I came to realize the cuts and burns and bruises were the results of systematic torture. Then one day I came home from dropping the kids off at school to find the little dogs on my doorstep, one of them badly hurt and disconsolate, nudging the other, who was dead. There was a note this time that said that after the surviving dog was gone, it was the girl's turn.
At this point, I went ballistic. I went into the histories of all the players in this warped game. I found out that one of my older kids had abused a previous foster sibling, and that a lawyer who lived nearby was a sadistic serial killer. I went after him first. I broke one of his fingers after another as I questioned him. He said he was involved in it, but he wasn't alone. He wouldn't tell me who was helping him.
I was debating how to question the girl and planning more research when I woke up.
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