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We awoke this morning and almost everyone was gone. The power was out everywhere but the chantry in which we resided. Outside, a blizzard covered campus and our trek outward through the whiteout served to prove our suspicions correct.

We had been left behind.

Not in a creepy Revelations kind of way... at least, I don't think so. It's almost as if the world around us, sucked into technology, left behind all remnants of the mystic and fantastical, and walked into a world where Consensus had declared us obsolete. We found ourselves in a cold place between consensual reality and our own.

The Sleepers had created a dreamworld of their own and left us to ours.

The mass exodus of the techno-thralls didn't entirely destroy the world they deserted; however, a tribute to the strength of Will a Mage possesses, but what was left for us here?

Three Magi students couldn't save the world, but perhaps finding others like us who were similarly abandoned, we could figure out how to either get our world back -- or join theirs.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDaAo63bivc&feature=youtu.be

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"So, people who can sleep properly are missing, leaving everyone else. Are we going to tell anyone about this? What are we going to say that would mean something useful?" Josh asked.

Casey frowns and looks at her housemate. "What would we tell them?"

Her already vague recollection of what transpired at Golden Gate Park was becoming even more foggy. The only things she could remember is something about no more dreaming and a gathering of sorts in Las Vegas. But of whom? More sleep-deprived folks like the family in San Francisco? Or more people like she and Josh? The law? Did Mages have a governing faction? There was still so much they didn't know about their awakened world.

Awakened... yet trapped in a Dream. The very last dream of the Sleepers. Was it irony or madness?

"I don't know what to do, Josh. I only know that we have to somehow get to Vegas and see what is there. I can't remember why, but I know it's important."

She glances at Monica who has been oddly quiet since witnessing the sight of the newborn and the parents, all sleep deprived, just as trapped as they, but unaware of their predicament. Casey didn't know which was worse... then thought of the Sleep Disorder clinic. She shudders.

That... was worse.

Taking Monica's hand gently, Casey pulls them toward Haight-Ashbury.

Finally, after what seems like hours of walking through the abandoned streets, void of noise, people, traffic... a nightmarish mockery of the thriving world they once knew and took for granted,  they reach the steps of the old church where they had been told others might be. A note scrawled on the door instructed Awakened to gather here; however there had been no one there the first time they came by on the way to the Sleep Disorder clinic. After leaving a note, they had decided to move on, but now Casey noticed that the note she had left was slightly askew.

'Was someone there now?' she thought hopefully. Clearing her throat, Casey speaks.

"Well, before we take off for Vegas, I'd like to see if there is anyone else Awake who wants to make the trip with us. What do you think?"

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(originally posted by James Hayes. Reposted to keep continuity)

Josh hesitated at the door. He thought of his grandparents, long dead, and of their farm. He briefly wondered if it was still standing in this strange world and its missing people. Were his parents here or in the next world, where there were no miracles? His old girlfriend?

Returning to the world with its discomforting fame and shallow goals struck him as some sort of Catch-22. If he could get Casey to her desired world of musical fame and adoration without having to go there, himself, would he prefer to stay here, where miracles were potentially still possible? He wondered at the choices before him even as he discounted them as Peter Pan fantasies of lost childhood dreams. Still, that he could do these things others thought impossible suggested reality was not something you faced up to so much as made in accordance with your dreams and desires.

What had he come to college for, again? To find a way to make money, to learn and meet interesting people? He'd certainly met a lot of interesting people. The girl he really wanted didn't seem interested in him, and was instead interested in another girl. He reflected it was probably fair play, considering how many interested cheerleaders and drunken sorority sisters he had turned down during his time here. Yet, the prospect of living in this world without Casey's dreams and ambitions to share in seemed unthinkable. There was a kind of magic in her dreams of music and fame, it was true. All he had found for himself was a hall of mirrors without substance. If he tried to touch those things, they evaporated into empty promises, shallow goals and trophies. He wanted something real, something more true to his spirit.

Technology had seemed like an empowering gift, but had become a trap. It had moved all these sleeping people to the next world, wherever that was. The powers of science had selected its followers and moved on. Time to make a dream of his own and make it cool enough to be satisfying. Yet, to reunite those left behind with the ones who had moved on, to remind those early adopters that their heart and soul remained with those not chosen, that was a worthy goal.

Josh offered Casey an encouraging smile. "After you," he said, indicating the door.