The Dreaming

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The Dreaming is an Australian Horror OEL Manga trilogy by Queenie Chan.

The story begins with twin sisters, Amber and Jeannie Malkin, starting at Greenwich Private College, a boarding school in the remote Australian bush with a history of missing students. The twins have horrible nightmares and strange things begin to happen in the school, with a soon a student vanishes. Needless to say, It Gets Worse.

Not to be confused with the spin-off of The Sandman.

Tropes used in The Dreaming include:
  • Adults Are Useless: Mostly true, although Ms. Anu helps the twins figure the mystery out and helps evacuates the surviving students at the end.
  • Angsty Surviving Twin: Mrs Skeener, and very nearly Jeannie.
  • The Blank: The Headmistress is depicted faceless in many of the paintings.
  • Boarding School of Horrors: The surrounding bush is haunted by beings called Quinkans. They have snatched 12 students in the past and are working on their next round dozen.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Although the reader is left to draw their own conclusions, Mrs Skeener's sister may still be possessing Amber at the end.
  • Buried Alive: Avril Merriweather did this to her students, but would let them out. This is how Mrs. Skeener died in Vol 3.
  • Connect the Deaths
  • Creepy Housekeeper: Variation on the theme - in this case, the creepy Mrs. Skeener is the Vice Principle, not a house keeper.
  • Demonic Possession: Of the abducted ... including Jeanie. Too bad she wasn't a smoker. That would have helped.
  • Different As Night and Day: Subtly so - Amber and Jeanie don't have a whole lot in common and aren't very close. In the end they go their separate ways.
  • Don't Go in The Woods: We mean it. Not a good idea.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Implied that this is what happened to the lost girls.
  • A Fete Worse Than Death: Happens to young Mrs. Skeener and her sister when they first arrive at the School
  • Haunted House: In as much as ghosts keep visiting.
    • Oh and don't forget the Haunted Cupboard where the spirit of an overworked manga artist dwells (give me Mountain Dew ...)
  • Kill the Cutie: Quite a few of them.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Bit of this for Amber in the end.
  • Living Shadow: The Quinkan appear to be this.
  • Locked Door: You know, that one room with the spooky picture hanging on the door?
  • Mind Control Eyes: Amber gets bold black outlines of her eyes whenever she is possessed.
  • Mirror Scare
  • Of Corsets Sexy: The Victorian dresses in the manga are modestly so.
  • Old Dark House
  • Nightmare Fuel: It is a horror manga after all.
  • Rain of Blood: Subverted, it's not human blood.
  • Sadist Teacher: Avril Merriweather.
  • She Who Must Not Be Named - Warning: Saying the name of certain disappeared residents of the School while gazing into a mirror may be hazardous to your health.
  • Spooky Painting: The school is filled with them.
  • There Are No Adults: This happened to Mrs. Skeener & her twin when the school first opened.
  • There Are No Therapists: Subverted. Not that their presence did a lot of good of course.
  • Uncanny Valley: Sometimes the characters approach this. Queenie Chan gets a little "too good" in her artistry.
  • Weirdness Magnet: Amber is arguably one of these.
  • Woobie: You'll never guess who.
    • Mrs. Skeener when her backstory is revealed. Helps that she looks a far sight pretty in her younger days.