Huh. So that cute guy from the Netherlands I was playing chess with, the one who has the same name as Johannes, challenged me to a rematch. I accepted. However, I guess mainly playing Blitz has completely wrecked my patience, because I absolutely suck at slow-paced matches now. I usually go for 3-minute games, where a lot of my wins come from:
1) the opponent's timer running out
2) sheer luck when they panic about said timer (while I'm panicking too)
3) or just their blunders
When I play, my moves are mostly instinctive, rarely well-thought-out, probably because, aside from my laziness to think, deep down, I'm addicted to the thrill of chaos and excitement. For some reason, the satisfaction of getting out from between a hard place and a rock produces more dopamine, and continually I chase that rush.
Anyway, considering the utter nonsense of our conversation last time, if you recall, it came as a surprise to me that the guy could talk normally. It happened when I was left with no option but to sacrifice my queen.
Him: "Misclick?"
Me: "Nah, I just suck."
Him: "You play good Blitz game."
Me: "And I clearly suck at this. Haha. Actually, you're the first with whom I've ever played this long-term chess. Didn't even know it allows 3 days per move, thought it only lasts 3 days."
Him: "Haha. Actually, you play 10+ moves per day."
Me: "Yeah, if you're active. But I mean, the allowance per move is 3 days, so one game can stretch on for so long if either player decides to exhaust the 3-day limit on each move they make. First time I played it, I thought 3 days was the limit for the entire game. Haha."
Him: "Sure thing. At work, I play a lot of moves per day — playing against colleagues as well."
Me: "Aah, fair enough. I suppose that's more relaxing and thoroughly thought-out as opposed to fast-paced games. How long have you been playing?"
Him: "Yeah, it is. In November, two years. Time is flying. For a French person, you speak good English."
Me: "I'm not French. I'm actually a catfish."
Him: "Haha. Merde."
Me: "Sorry to disappoint you 😂"
Then I explained to him how I only use that account when I'm too ashamed to represent my own country from my original one—and how I was using a profile picture of this French influencer, Mara Lafontan.
In the end, I resigned before reaching my inevitable defeat, and he told me I could add him on my main account. So I did. And now he's challenged me there again.
Apparently, he was in Colombia when we first started playing, around July or August last year. His recollection of it somehow surprised me, especially considering how idle and unbothered he was about my dramatic antics back then.
His face and smile kind of remind me of this YouTuber I liked: Rebal D. Which now, again, brings me back to Johannes. One time, I was rewatching some of Rebal's videos with him—the ones where Rebal made fun of those really cringe TikTok boys, including the Elevator Boys, who are Germans. I always found Rebal's content entertaining and droll, and I was glad Johannes enjoyed them as well, seeing as he once initiated himself that we watch his videos after I had introduced the YouTuber to him. That was the last time I watched Rebal D.
Funny. To make sure I wrote his handle right, I opened YouTube just now and the first video that appeared on my homepage was his.
Anyway, I dreamt of so many things last night—I'm unable to recall most of it with vivid precision now. But here's what I do recall:
In one of them, I was walking with Cara Dean down a two-lane road lined with tall and bushy trees on both sides. There were lots of people walking too, like some kind of parade. I asked her for water, but she'd run out. Pulling out another thermal container to check, she then emptied it into her hand, which revealed only a meagre amount. It looked... milky. I asked her how long that water had been sitting in that bottle, and she said for a long time.
So I started telling her that water is like milk—it can spoil too. I gave a longer explanation about it and she regarded me like I was some kind of know-it-all and looked sceptical the entire time.
Then—completely new setting—we were suddenly in a town. There was news going around that people had been zombified, and by that, I mean their bodies had been entirely taken over by a parasitic fungus. With this information, my mind immediately flashed back to when Cara offered me that weird milky water. I hadn't even drunk it, but for some reason, my brain twisted the memory and convinced me I did, and all I could think of was maggots that I could have probably digested, growing inside me, wiggling, and transforming into parasitic organisms. This, to my core, absolutely terrified me.
A local told me the worst I could get from spoiled water was diarrhoea—and "no one has ever died from diarrhoea". For a moment, that provided relief, but I still couldn't shake the images of those godforsaken, squirming, and enlarging maggots from my mind... How repulsive they were... Even as I type this, I'm grimacing in utter disgust. But just when I was beginning to feel my concern alleviate from my system, I walked to another area and saw rotten corpses dumped on the sidewalk. Their bottoms were grotesquely dismantled, as if the diarrhoea itself literally exploded from their bums and killed them off—completely contradicting what that local said to me. Their carcasses just lay there, lifeless, as if painfully surrendering to the inexorable fungi that shall make a buffet out of their remains, after having been tossed away by the ones that made a host out of their once living bodies.
That horrifying image just amped up my fear and terror of being controlled by a parasitic fungus even more. A demon or ghost possessing me—I'm completely fine with that. But something repulsively vile, gut-wrenching, and alive? Just burn me. Burn me to ashes and scatter me across the ocean.
Then in another dream, the world had completely gone to shambles. Dean Winchester and I were being pursued by aliens. He had one arm wrapped around me whilst his other hand held a chain, or rope or whatever, attached to a building, and in this post-apocalyptic Spiderman fashion we escaped—swinging around a skyscraper, still several metres above the ground.
However, before we could secure a landing, the aliens got us. Dean was shot by something, which led us to fall. But instead of crashing, we started gliding endlessly down this smooth, white, plastic-like road. Dean was still holding me, shielding me from any more incoming attacks, but whatever hit him had messed him up. His head started convulsing, and weirdly, in between that, he'd lick my forehead.
Eventually, I realised his tongue on my skin wasn't accidental—he was trying to kiss me, but just couldn't bend his head the right way to meet my mouth. His movements were erratic, fevered, like instinct was overriding pain. I tilted my face toward his, trying to meet him halfway, but with his convulsion, my lips only brushed against his neck. The moment I touched his skin—warm, damp, pulsing with adrenaline—a jolt shot through me. Arousal, thick and sudden, curled low in my stomach. After more struggles, finally... finally, our mouths found each other. And just like that, his convulsions stopped. He kissed me like his life depended on it. Passionate. Intense. As if the kiss itself was a cure to whatever had shot him. I kissed him back just as hard whilst we continuously glided through the bizarre road, gripping the collar of his shirt, throwing my other hand on his face, digging my fingers through his hair and clutching a handful of it, dragging him closer until there was no space left between us.
Although my preferred Winchester is Sam, I couldn't deny that my kiss with Dean felt... insanely hot. Haha.
There is somebody I want to kiss, though. But he's in Germany.
And no.
It's not Johannes.