In one of the fortified lecture halls of the Awakened Academy, a large auditorium was slowly filling up with students. These young men and women, however, did not look like inexperienced Sleepers. Instead, most of them possessed the grim confidence of battle-tested veterans.
They were sharp and rough around the edges, exhibiting the tell-tale signs of those who had just recently returned from the Dream Realm. For the same reason, the crowd of students was suffused with a sense of energy and liveliness typical to people who had recently brushed with death, but managed to escape its clutches alive.
These were the newly Awakened. Several weeks after the winter solstice, most of those who were destined to survive had already found their way to a human Citadel and returned to the waking world. Now, they were settling into their new lives and responsibilities.
