<P><B>Chapter 1  I Will Lay Me Down
<P>"Yet if hope has flown away
<P>In a night, or in a day,
<P>In a vision, or in none,
<P>Is it therefore the less gone?"
<P>-Edgar Allen Poe, A Dream Within a Dream
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<P>He trudged on into the night. It had been hours now. His legs were weak with the strain of running for so long. He had to escape. The lights had all gone out with no warning. Paris, the city of lights, had suddenly become extinguished. It wasn't long before panic set in. He wanted no part in the lootings, the burnings, or the aftermath. Everything was crashing down, and he wanted to be as far away from the impact as possible.
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<P>The gates in front of the mansion now towered over him. He drew up as much of his strength as still remained and scaled the iron bars. After sliding halfway down on the other side, his arms could hold out no more and he simply fell. He hit the pavement hard and rolled onto the lawn. The grass was wet, but he didn't care. It was the first time he'd been able to lie down for what felt like an eternity. After a long while, he pulled himself to his feet and forced himself to walk towards the house.
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<P>I made it this far. Mother Nature isn't going to finish me off!
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<P>The door was ajar. Someone had been here already. He began to wonder if he hadn't been the first person to stumble across this place. Maybe there was a pack of survivors waiting inside, keeping quiet as he approached. Or perhaps the house's owner was still around, searching for the cause of the power outage. Whatever the case, he wasn't about to surrender to an invisible enemy. He took a deep breath and stepped inside.
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<P>Nothing but his heart seemed to move, and it did so with much power. He scanned the room, then carefully began to walk down the steps at the front entrance. He leaned around the wall to his left and saw a small room enclosed in glass. There was no sign of any activity. To his right there was a small door that had been left open. Passing through it, he found himself inside a small dining room. Something in the next room caught his attention.