This dream was set in a sort of alternate reality. The sky was always this tone of light gray, as was the water, and the landscape was different shades of dark gray, though some manmade things had a little color to them. I don't think I remember even seeing a sun in the sky, though the amount of light present did vary depending on time of day.
Anyway, I was younger, somewhere in my early-to-mid teens, and as such I was in school. I lived alone with my mother (completely different person from my real mom), in this little one-floor house. One might call it a cottage, although the interior looked more like an apartment than anything traditional. The house was basicallly composed of one L-shaped room that you entered into, where the chair my mother always sat in was at the corner, next to a drawer with a rotary phone on top, a table, and I think another chair (forming the living room, I suppose). Then there was a hallway with no door separating it and the living room (though it was a little thinner so it wasn't proportionately L-shaped).
In the middle of the hallway to the right was another room. This was a room with nothing inside, except two other doors, leading to the bathroom on one end, and my bedroom on the other. I don't remember any other rooms (though there may have been some kitchen facilities at the other side of the living room).
The house had beige walls, wooden doors with shiny golden-colored knobs, and a carpet that probably hadn't been washed in a long time. The furniture and appliances were all pretty old as well. Overall it was dingy but still sort of cozy. The outside of the house looked very much like a little cottage from central or eastern europe. It was located on a small archipelago, with just about enough land for the house to sit on, and a natural bridge composed of sand connecting to the mainland. It was surrounded by the aforementioned gray water, which was a tad unsettling.
Each day I followed a simple routine of get up, get ready for school, go to school, then go home and go to sleep.
It was a winding road to get to school. I would walk from the archipelago to the mainland, then I would reach a forest shrouded in trees that almost blocked out the sky in some places, where I would follow a dirt road outlined by stones until I reached town. The town was a simple place. There were many buildings lined up in rows, with the roads being narrow and made up of stones, somewhat reminiscent of early settlements in America. Some buildings were bigger than others, but none were especially tall, leading to a mostly flat skyline.
The area in general was quite flat, lacking much in the way of hills or mountains; just an unnaturally shaped landmass surrounded by gray water. All of the buildings looked traditional in style, and were clearly made without modern building techniques. Anyway, as I made it out of the forest and reached the stone road, I would meet up with my friend, a pretty girl with braided black hair decorated with bows. She was very kind and would always meet up with me on our way to school. On the way, we would have simple and pleasant conversation. From what I remember, we tended to be joined by one or two other people I wasn't as familiar with. Maybe they were the girl's other friends or they could've just been other people on their way to school.
I don't remember much about school itself, except that the uniforms consisted of basically a sweater vest, with a mid-length pleated skirt for the girls and linen pants for the boys. I think the boys' version of the uniform also had a bowtie on it.
Also, there was another friend who I liked to meet up with after class. He was a boy with short brown hair and a cute face. He was rather small in build, and I think I remember him having dark circles under his eyes. He seemed like a pretty lonely person, and my other classmates avoided him for some reason. Though he was the type who had trouble connecting with people (autistic maybe?), he was a sweet person, and he was happy to talk with me. My other friend seemed to feel kind of weird about our relationship, however, and other people would look at me sort of strangely for hanging out with him. I wasn't sure where he lived either, though it must've been somewhere in town.
One day, I wasn't able to find the boy at our usual meeting time. I went days without talking to him, unsure where he was going after school, and I started to worry about him. At some point I heard that his parents were making him take extra classes somewhere. I felt somewhat dubious about this; i wondered if his parents disapproved of our friendship the way everyone else did. I was never sure why everyone disliked him or acted weird around him, he seemed so nice, and he didn't deserve that kind of treatment.
Nevertheless, I kept living my life as usual, as I felt I didn't have any other option. That was, until a day where I was walking to school, and suddenly realized that for some reason I wasn't wearing shoes. I tried to keep walking despite this, but I got a cut on my foot, and it started to really hurt, especially walking on stones. I started rushing back home desperately as my friend went on without me. I believe the cut started bleeding, and then I fell down and started to feel sick.
The world seemed to get darker around me, and as I continued, the forest path seemed more complex and treacherous than normal. It felt like it took several times longer to traverse, and by the end I was quite exhausted, but I had to get home to try and treat my wound. My house was surrounded by some sort of dark aura, and outside it there were these shambling creatures that resembled the suits from Post Void. As I got close to them, they tried to attack me. I believe I died facing these monsters, though I rewinded in time as if reloading a save in a video game.
Eventually I managed to make it into the house, where there were more monsters. My mother greeted me and told me I should eat dinner, even though it wasn't nearly time for it. The usual dinner was pizza, which was provided to us each night by the government. Instead of a pizza slice, however, what she handed me was a plate with a glowing black orb on it. I thought to myself, "maybe this is also tasty?"
Unsure of what to do with it, I took it and put it in my bookbag. My mother seemed to be unaware that it wasn't pizza, though. She also couldn't perceive the monsters, nor was she affected by them in any way. Also of note was another entity in the house, a suited man standing in the corner, simply observing, who my mother also couldn't see.
This made me question my own sanity, but I figured the nature of the threat before me wasn't important, since my life was at risk either way (even if I could just rewind). It occurred to me that I should take a shower, then try to finish my usual routine, which included getting some food and taking my pills.
However, as I made my way to the bathroom, I realized there was a monster in there as well. Out of luck and unsure how to proceed, I sat on the floor in the room outside the bathroom and cried. As I did so, I looked at my arms. They had cuts on them, which was nothing strange, though they seemed to change color. My arms were soon enveloped in black moving patterns, which looked like glyphs from some ancient language. I decided to get up, put my shoes on, and go back on my way to school. The world looked even more distorted than before, with the monsters appearing in the forest as well.
I ran through as best as I could, until I spotted one exceptional monster. It looked like a man in a suit with a swirl for a face. For some reason I identified it in my head as a "cleaner." I was also, for some reason, sure that if it caught me, I'd be done for. I managed to run to the end of the trail, at the part where the forest joined into the town, when I tripped.
I could see the cleaner move closer toward me. I desperately tried to do something, but I found myself unable to move as I looked into the cleaner's face. The best I could do was play dead, but it didn't seem like that would work, as it was still moving closer to inspect me, and do god knows what with me. I started crying again, and suddenly I woke up.