Dead Dreams

These decorative urns are crammed with black and heavy lumps of coal. They are all that are left of the dreams which once burned brightly in the otherwise dark and miserable existences of every human. There is nothing to distinguish them from one another any longer. So many of these coal lumps have accumulated over time that the RDT began selling them for fuel. Ironically, many of them ended up in the great locomotives that lumbered West across the United States, helping to fulfill the dreams of others. No one is sure where the dead dreams really come from. They appear on their own inside the jars. Occasionally a jar will contain a very old, compressed, pure dream- otherwise known as a diamond. The dead dreams pay for about 70% of the Repository's operating costs. 

Stomper

Stomper is a 65 million year old ghost. He's fairly benign, but rather annoyed about all the mammals and structures around. He's also very large, and not very smart. He tends to walk heavily (and occasionally run into things) so people think he is a localized earthquake. Ms. Harper suspects he is waiting for some retribution for his death, like many ghosts, but what are you going to do? It isn't like dinosaurs weren't supposed to prey on each other. And nobody re-buries dinosaur bones, even if they could find Stomper's.

Dangerous Brains

Donated to science or not, many of the brains of the world's most dangerous people have ended up here in the Repository. Suspended in fluids that keep them alive (and regenerating the ones that were poisoned and shot, like Hitler), they are being stored for no comprehensible purpose or plan. They are still thinking their dangerous thoughts, and generate a rather spooky and oppressive air in the room. They are watching you!

Idea and illustration by Jon Towers

Dead Religion Drawers

Inside an unassuming dining room cabinet lie the worldly remains of several dozen religions. Eventually they all evaporate into nothing, as people stop believing in them. Even bizarre moon alien cults are included.

Firecracker Duds

Every parent knows that these could still go off in your face, so be careful, Billy.

The Dying Breath

A quiet, darkling creature that inhabits every person and slips out between their lips at the moment of death. When troubled, they shake their rattle. Most of them vanish the moment they are out of the body, but over time a few of them have survived. One of them founds its way to the RDT and lives in the Mausoleum, where it is most comfortable.

Grumpy Mummies

These guys are not so happy to still be around. They cause a ruckus if they're left out where people can see them. Some of them are claustrophobic and refuse to even stay decently shut into crates and boxes. If they had their druthers, they'd be smashed into pieces, but most of them come from countries where it's illegal to destroy a mummy. They just want to lay here in the dark and pretend they're all the way dead.

Crates of Dead Languages

These heavy crates arrive periodically from Costa Rica, in the middle of the night, stamped mysteriously with various warnings and handling instructions in Spanish. They contain dead languages, gathered up with uncomprehending hands when their last speaker dies. While dead, they're still quite dangerous, as all languages contain symbolism and meaning that is not always safe for human understanding.