All around the dance floor, there was music and laughter. The humans seemed to be drowning in euphoria, so much so that they failed to notice the dark blue alicorn standing beside the entrance. Well... That would not be entirely true. The only sentient minds in the dream belonged to Colonel Hogan and Luna. All the other humans were either constructs of Hogan's mind or simple memories.
Making her way through the happy crowd of lightly sozzled men and women, Luna checked every corner of the dance floor until she found the Colonel. He and his date were keeping pace to the music. Their dancing did not slow and the smiles on their faces kept growing wider. Eventually, the music stopped and Hogan and his lady friend refreshed themselves at the bar before returning for the next song.
Unlike the previous song, this one was slower in its tempo. By now, the room had quieted down as the couples began to file back onto the dance floor for the slow dance. At one moment, Luna nearly paused Hogan's dream so she could finally be able to speak with him, but an odd development came up that she needed to see.
About halfway through the song, a man walked up to Hogan and his lady friend. From the looks of it, he was pestering them about something. Luna decided to get a closer look and listen in on the conversation.
"God dammit Rob, I told you to stay away from her, she's my girl," Luna heard a gruff voice say.
"Oh for God's sake Mike, just drop it. We are done." a female's voice said.
"Lisa, you don’t know what you’re talking about, God dammit! Now go and wait in the car!" the gruff voice yelled.
"Mike, look here… let's just cool off, talk it over, maybe have a beer..." Luna heard Hogan say.
"I don't give a damn about talking, just gimme back my damn girl before I bust your rear end," Mike said with a slight slur of the word rear.
“For God's sake, Mike, are you drunk?" Hogan asked.
"Oh what the hell do you care Rob? I don't have time for your bullshit any..."
"Mike, just stop it now!" Lisa screamed.
"Lisa I said wait in the God damn car!" Mike yelled, curling his hand into a fist. Just before he could take a swing, Hogan's hand intercepted it.
"Mike, just cool your ass down... you're making a godawful scene," Hogan calmly said.
"Listen here Rob, I don't give a damn about what you have to say. I will take what is MINE and mine alone! Am I God damn clear? Or do I have to do something else to get it through your thick skull?"
"Mike... you don't want to do that."
"Or what Rob? Tell me, what the hell are you gonna do eh? Is poor Robby Hogan gonna run home to Colonel Eddy Hogan to chase the bullies away? Poor Robby Hogan..."
"Mike, I will ask you once, please leave now."
"I don't care about what you have to say to me Rob... you had your chance and now I am done with your God damn games." With that, Mike pulled out of his pocket a small silver object. It looked like a miniaturized cannon with a trigger on it. Mike pointed it towards Robert's head. When the crowd saw it, they began to run and scream in panic.
"Put the gun down Mike, please!" Lisa pleaded. As she cried, Hogan still kept up a brave face somehow, not faltering even though the (apparent) weapon was pointed straight at his head.
"You know what... I just realized something Robby..." Mike said, lowering the weapon. Luna could hear Hogan whisper to himself C'mon Mike, just keep lowering the gun. but what happened next shocked him. "I don't need Lisa" Mike said, and pointing the gun at her.
As soon as he pulled the trigger, Hogan tried to push Lisa out of the way and stand in front of her. After the first shot rang out, Mike looked at Hogan in shock before firing again. Mike managed to fire a couple shots into Hogan's thigh and hip before the other man knocked him to the ground. They kept throwing punches at each other until Hogan took the gun from Mike's hand and fired it once into Mike's chest, not killing the man outright but still putting Mike in immediate danger of bleeding out and drowning in his own blood.
With that, there was only silence as a bleeding Hogan and Mike stared at each other. Hogan finally broke eye contact as he tried to get to Lisa's side. Finally managing to crawl his way to Lisa, Hogan saw a sight he would never un-see. Right in front of him on the ground, Lisa lay bleeding from her gut. When she saw Hogan, they spoke to each other in whispers but the conversation was lost to Luna, too shocked to try and focus. Suddenly, sirens began to wail and soon enough, police and paramedics poured into the building, taking a wounded Mike away cuffed on a stretcher. Hogan however, just kept hugging Lisa. It took four paramedics to tear a crying Hogan away from her. They were loaded onto stretchers and taken away.
As Hogan was put into the back of a large mechanical carriage, Luna could see that he was nearly hysterical, calling out the name "Lisa" every time pressure was applied to his wound. He never stopped crying, all the way to Indianapolis City Hospital. Once there, he was rushed into intensive care for severe blood loss. At this point the entire dream shifted.
Reorienting herself from the dream shift, Luna found she was perched on a cloud in the middle of the night, Hogan nowhere to be found. Once again, Luna began to hear a faint humming noise. She thought it was one of the mechanical carriages until the noise came closer. When the noise became almost deafening, Luna cast a noise buffering spell and looked down from her cloud. Large mechanical beasts with wings droned below her. She knew Hogan was probably in one of them as soon as they all passed by. She took flight in pursuit, soaring in between the giants. There must be hundreds of them she thought as she made her way through the endless stream of Flying Fortresses.
Finally, Luna reached the lead airship. Her eyes caught the writing on its nose ...
Goldilocks
On a whim, she decided to take a look inside the cockpit and sure enough, there sat Robert Hogan, flying the beast. Before she could teleport in though, large blooms of smoke began to explode all around her. Hogan flew his machine well through it until one lucky shot saw his right wing catch fire. The flying machine was headed for a crash landing. And once again, the dream shifted. This time though, there was no broad setting, but rather a small, damp, concrete cell. Inside that cell, was a disheveled, unshaven, and beaten Colonel Hogan. Bruises and cut marks covered his entire body, his clothing torn at the seams. Only his cap was untouched, sitting nearly clean beside the unbroken but tortured man. Luna began to brace herself for what looked to be her worst memory encounter in centuries.