The smell of notebooks, pencil shreds, and lingering dust. The anxiety of something forgotten- an assignment, a lesson lost to memory too soon. The dull queueing, snickering whispers of your peers. You graduated from school long ago. But your dreams pull you backwards.
Perhaps that is why you're hungrily watching some idealist fever dream of a high school anime. A humorous slice of life about a girl who, despite her incredible laziness, social anxiety, and general mental insanity, is always treated well by the story and her friends.
You yawn. It's late. But the last episode is almost over.
"I wish I could skip all this." murmurs the titular high school loner, wishing upon a star "It would be simpler if I didn't have to think about my future- If I could just be there already." A twinkling light shot across your screen. The ending music plays.
Your eyelids are heavy. You crawl into bed before you fall asleep.
Another school dream. Your childish peers ask you why you're so different now. They ask why you're a 20-something girl. Dream-you cannot provide an answer. Your teacher, somehow still twice your size, glares down at you.
At lunch, your old 'friends' look at you with disinterest and disgust. You start to cry. You hide in a corner.
But then you hear a sweet voice "Don't listen to the others. Even if they all turn against you, I'll be here for-"
You wake, suddenly. It's just a normal day.
You go to work, your head in the clouds. Mondays are hard, but Mondays after waking up incredibly vivid dreams are harder.
Time passes, slowly but surreally. On days like today, the waking world feels less real than whatever happened in your head.
That night, you find ways to distract yourself till you're sleeping and dreaming once more.
The sound of chalk on a board. Other children look at you like you're an alien. Your work manager teaches you about arithmetic. Hatsune Miku demands you pick up your trash in the hall.
You don't even bother with eating lunch in the lunchroom. You go to the roof, fully knowing your school never had a reachable roof, to eat in silence.
"I knew you'd be up here." a mousy girl, of your height, smiles with some unknown guile behind her glasses.
"You're going to get in trouble if you stay up here." she flicks a pink strand of hair, and wipes a tear from your cheek.
You're hesitant, frozen under the intense gaze of this girl.
"Hey, I know you're kind of weird" she breathes heavily "but that's what I like about you."
The world blurs from nightmare to dream. The proportions of the world correct themself, and you blend in with the crowd. Your peers seem to lose their sharp, probing interest in you. The lectures are more redundant and boring than threatening. A bell rings. You're free.
You've just finished a truly decadent sundae at a fantastically picturesque local cafe when you suddenly wake-up.
Another lifelike dream. It's even harder to go through your morning routine today. The only thing harder than a difficult Monday is a difficult Tuesday.
You make your way to work, but you have difficulty getting inside.
"I don't know where you got this badge, Miss" the receptionist's voice is laced with suspicion "but we have no records of you ever working for us."
You wait. Your coworkers don't vouch for you. You plead to follow-up with your manager. Your manager has never heard of you. It all feels utterly unreal.
At a certain point, you give up before they send security after you. You comfort yourself with a nice meal at a cafe.
Over your lunch, you convince yourself that you have your head screwed on right, that work is up their own ass, and you deserve to go home and worry about this another time.
However, your delicious food doesn't prepare you for what you see next.
Your keys don't get you into your own apartment. So you knock, hoping to get one of your roommates to let you in. Instead, a mirror image of you opens the door.
"Huh?" your mirror image looks horrified at the sight of you.
"What are you- No. What am I- No! What are you doing with my old body?" Other you looks ready to have a breakdown
You're about to yell at this body snatcher. Accuse them of being an alien, or government agent. Fight them for your body back.
But an alarm rings. And you wake up-
You silence your alarm clock and slowly open your eyes to your messy room. Ugh, what a fucking nightmare! On a school day too!
Maybe your taste in avant-garde horror games is coming back to bite you. Or- Maybe you've been cursed by one of those cryptid sites on the darkweb!
"Damnit Owlie! You're supposed to protect me from this kind of stuff! You know spirits have it out for terminally cute high school girls!"
You toss your giant stuffed owl across the room, but he cannot spare a reply. Figures. Always silent when you need him most.
You crawl your way out of bed. It's Wednesday too, isn't it? Ugh. Another three days of attempting to be a valued part of the education system.
Since you actually got up on time for once, you clean up last night's gaming and cryptid research session before getting breakfast.
"Wishes, shooting stars, and you: waking up in your manifested ideal reality" you close the website on your laptop bitterly. "Well, clearly that author was full of crap."
You'll have to follow-up with your friends at school for new leads.