A student crisis playing out in Nepal, where all students (young people, really) are in general danger. You can piece together most of the story behind the crisis in headlines, with several stages — B2, G2, G3, etc.
I participate in a self-organized evacuation which recaps how things played out. I follow labeled lines on the floor (B2, G2, G3) following a sorting mechanic to divide us into manageable groups. I step off the path and reset my place a few times because I’m not sure about the group that I’m heading into. I recall a fact I just learned, about how humans innately and unconsciously prefer left turns. Although I’m trying to balance myself statistically while walking the path lines, I end up in a group on the left — I don’t know beforehand where the last sorting decision is.
Now that I’m beyond the curtain, in a room with other random students, organizers provide instructions and hand out lanyard badges. This is so we can move around the site and gather our things before our group’s departure. I try to helpfully remind the instructors by asking what time our evac bus is, but worryingly they don’t immediately know. It was actually the last choice we made: 9:00 pm, the time of last bus (not a safe thing to forget). The organizers in the room seem surprised then, changing their attitude about task urgency and how actually we should try to pace ourselves before then.
I think I’ve probably lost most of the dream, but I am able to hang onto important parts by retracing parts of the lines. As I said, the lines themselves teach the story of the crisis. I couldn’t tell you what it was originally, of course, but I could tell you that the image of the turning lines on the floor is what brought the dream into wakefulness.