as long as we keep dreaming there is still hope

Last night as I dreamt more vividly than I'd lived the day, I knew the end of the world was nigh. I was racing around a hilltop in an industrial zone, traintracks atop it -- the world may have been about to end, but at least the trains were running as relentlessly as ever. I remember I was moving around a lot, but I don't think I was actually doing anything, despite all that effort. It was just a kind of treading water, all available energies channelled into physical and mental survival and coming up slightly short -- hope stretched further and further away from the present. Running up and down the hill, dodging trains, ducking into empty warehouses and abandoned factories, just trying to stay out of the reach of... something.
Taking a rest on the hill, I saw a woman walking alongside the track of an onrushing freight. It sounded its horn but slowed not a bit, and blew past her with less than a foot to spare. She didn't even break stride. And... somehow, the train became transparent, whether for real and all or just for me I still cannot say. But through the train I saw her turn slowly to walk across the track, and her eyes widened only a bit, in tired surprise, at the sight of these railcars, speeding inches from her face and blocking her path. Around there, we all knew we had to watch for the trains, and did so automatically, more out of habit than concern. But somehow, I felt then that I had to watch the sky. Where else to look for the end of the world? But maybe, just maybe, I would have seen the right signs and portents, not in the sky, but in the trains and the factories, in our empty streets and blank eyes. Ultimately, I couldn't say how the world ended. I only remember waking up.