The real life context is that my last living grandparent--my mom's dad--had been in declining health for some time and had taken a turn for the worse. I had thought I was handling it okay but apparently my psyche had some stuff to work through.
I remember feeling a sensation of cold against my skin and I "woke up" on the concrete floor of my basement. I had no idea how I'd gotten there and was trying to orient myself and come up with an explanation while battling a cyclone of fear. Had I suddenly started sleepwalking? Couldn't I have been seriously hurt? Do I have some kind of medical issue? I stood and made my way toward the stairs, and felt a severe sense of vertigo. My knee buckled and I started falling, watched helplessly as the concrete floor rushed toward my skull and my arms wouldn't move to catch my fall. I clenched my jaw and hoped for temporary damage.
At what should have been the moment of impact, I flinched and found myself standing bolt upright again. This time, in a new location: the basement of the house my grandfather had been living in since the 50s. There was very little light but I recognized the layout instantly. This place was 60-odd miles from where I had just been standing, yet it never occurred to me that I had to be dreaming. I headed upstairs to find help, unsure of how I'd explain how I'd gotten there.
I opened the door leading upstairs and it was suddenly full daylight. I also saw there were dozens of people in the house, milling around in groups of two or three having conversations. I didn't recognize anyone at first so I went room to room looking for a familiar face; everyone moved to make way for me but didn't give me any particular consideration while doing so. Like moving past strangers in a grocery store aisle or something. At some point I moved past a bathroom door and noticed two younger males pawing through the medicine cabinet. The indignant rage I felt when I saw this; I think I'd have attacked them but I was worried someone in this crowd would get caught in the middle. Instead I stood in the doorway and told them both they had to leave. They instantly stopped and tried to move past me, but I pointed at the window and told them they had to go out that way since they didn't know how to act. I still have no idea what I meant by this but the people nearby rewarded me with polite chuckles and scattered applause. They clambered out the window, I headed to the front porch to make sure they were actually leaving.
When I got outside I spotted them both, then one drew a gun and started firing. I went to run back inside and felt a huge amount of force against my shoulder. Inside was now empty. I ran back to the basement and stumbled, nearly fell, down the stairs. At the bottom I leaned against a wall and looked at my shoulder. The flesh had been pulped, and hung in ragged strips. I waited to either bleed out or to be found and finished off.
At that point a figure stepped out of the dark. I'll describe it as best I can. It was humanoid, extremely gaunt. I could see there was something like a human skeletal structure under its paper-white skin. Ribcage, pelvis, protruding spine, all the usual things you'd see in, for instance, a severe case of anorexia. It walked with slightly bent knees and had no feet, the legs just ended in nubs. The arms were similar, with long fleshy points rather than hands at the end of its wrist joints, and it held its arms bent in front like a praying mantis. It had jaw-length black hair which actually looked neatly combed and styled, and a somewhat feminine facial shape in that the chin was a small, delicate point, hence I thought of it as a "she." The only facial features were large, completely black eyes and a wide mouth with dozens of long, pointy teeth. However when the mouth closed there was no visible trace of an opening..
She stalked over towards me and knelt down next to me, and began manipulating the flayed remains of my shoulder. I could see she was putting me back together, so to speak, fusing the pieces back in place. While she worked she began communicating with me, seemingly placing thoughts and impressions directly into my brain. She told me she recognized me, she remembered me from when I was smaller, and she used to watch me play in this basement. She had been living there a long time, but since the Old Man was leaving it was time for her to leave too. She finished up and my wound was totally restored, like it had never happened. She then made me understand that before she left she had a question for me, which I couldn't help but answer honestly since she'd be reading my instinctive reaction to it. And if she didn't like my "answer" she was going to kill me. At this she split her mouth open in a grin and I could see the teeth glistening with viscous saliva.
This is when I woke up, half expecting a phone call from my mom telling me that my grandfather was dead. But no, it actually came the day after that.