Horror in Marseilles

I had a horrible nightmare last night. Hope I never have another dream like this again.

I was staying with my friend in Marseilles; I was keeping her company on her trip that she was taking because she was in the process of becoming a member of this group/gang/organized crime syndicate. She was in the final stages of being accepted, and this visit should make her a member.

So we went to their headquarters, in a giant, old, creepy, windows matted over with dirt or broken, warehouse. Since we weren't members, in order to get inside we had to climb through a hole in the side of the warehouse and walk/crawl up this slope of dirt in the dark. We were wearing dresses so it was pretty awkward.

Every time in the dream that we wanted to get anywhere it was like this; you'd have to climb through a gap in a fence, then creep through dark and dirt while gang guys watched you do it. If you took the easy way you would be expelled from the gang and maybe killed. If you showed any signs of not wanting to be there you could face being tortured. The gang leader was a crazy paranoid who watched you all the time.

I can't even finish this right now, it was too awful. I'm going to give the bare bones without the details:

The leader tortured this girl to make her tell him something, or maybe just because. He wasn't getting enough of a reaction from her, so he fed her a shitload of acid and tortured her while she was hallucinating.

Then he tortured this other girl by lopping off her fingers with those long-handled, short-bladed pruning shears you use on small tree limbs, I forget what they are called. He would partially remove a finger, and if she got upset about it he would choose another finger and just lop it off.

At one point they took us into another section of the warehouse, and we were sort of walking/crawling across this huge stack of sealed cardboard boxes. The gang leader made a comment, and we realized that the boxes were all filled with bodies, we were crawling cross the dead bodies of all the people he had killed.

I tried to leave but couldn't get out.

My friend did not get into the gang, we were not dedicated enough. He had to gather our stuff and get out, and it took a very long time to get our sweaters, purses, etc together while the gang watched us.

The gang leader took us out, leading us through a big patch of nasturtium instead of through the dark crawlspaces we had traveled through before. He didn't have to warn us not to tell anyone.

We got back to the hotel room in Marseilles and I had a worn paperback with a torn-off front cover in my hand, and it was as if the entire episode had been from a bad novel, but also not, it was real. I wanted to talk to someone about it but I couldn't because I didn't want to betray my friend.

I woke up and cried.