– 12:10 –
The world was in chaos (of course). I found myself with a group of friends whom I had survived with for what seemed like quite a long time in the dream. The friends were new people–no one I know from real life was there.
Although I can’t remember the specifics, the chaos around us was a result of a world war that had devistated pretty much every square inch of the globe. There weren’t very many people left alive, and those that were were simply tired of running.
Anyway, our group was made up of about thirty or so people–one of the largest groups running around. The members tended to ascribe to the Christian faith, and many of them thought that this was the reason we had survived so long. Others of us recognized this was not so–it would have been a huge blessing just to croak.
One person in the group (with only some of our knowledge) acted upon this notion and comandeered a LARGE nuclear warhead transporter. He learned from the men running the vehicle that one of our country’s enemies had become aware of our group specifically and was planning a napalm strike upon our group. He reported this back to us before driving the nuke off to some place where he could detonate it, and effectively wipe out life on Earth, for the better, we all thought.
So we went on the move. Those of us who knew about the plan were constantly looking over our shoulders, waiting either to be napalmed or nuked–we were all hoping for the latter.
Finally, we made out the sound of airplanes in the distance. We were in the middle of a rocky, flat landscape, and immediately took shelter wherever we could. But a loud roar quickly overpowered the sound of the planes. A few of us looked towards the horizon, and saw a mushroom cloud in the distance. The whole Earth shook. Seconds later, a blinding white barrier of heat came racing toward us, destroying everything as it came, including the planes on the way to napalm us. I remember standing up straight, raising my arms up, and letting the heat rush over me. I remember being very interested in how my body felt as I died, noting how my clothes burned away, my skin, etc. I died confident that I was about to meet God.
I then found myself in the midst of a large, bewildered crowd. I looked around and found that I recognized some of them as the people from my group and others. We were all standing in front of what looked like a huge, spruced-up version of a discount department store like Wal-Mart. A large podium stood before us and a man promptly stepped up onto it.
“Welcome to the afterlife,” he said, “You’ll find that things here are exactly like the good things you remember from your previous life. We’ve worked hard for a very long time to create an environment where we could live and thrive” — he paused — “and I realize this vision may not align itself with what your beliefs were back then. But please realize: that life is gone, and this is how things are now. This is what the truth ended up being, and we are doing fine with it.”
A strange mix of emotions came from the people around me. Some were wailing with sadness and disappointment, some were nearly jumping with excitement. I pulled my two closest friends aside and asked them what they thought. One was leaning to being on board with the man, and the other was clinging to his Christian beliefs. I was caught in the middle, unwilling to give up my beliefs, but also realizing how obsolete they seemed to be under the current circumstances.
After a few days nosing around the place, it became apparent that not everything was as it seemed. The authorities (who were about as old as the earth itself–your age sort of determined your social class, which left me at the bottom of the food chain) were definitely keeping secrets from the rest of the LARGE population. I resigned to hold to my beliefs, and sniff out what was really going on.
The dream ended before I could get any resolution.
