Randall knew that he was sleeping.  The bed he fell asleep on was hard and while it had padding, there wasn’t much and it lumped together in several spots.  He might have been better off without the padding, but he hadn’t even undressed to crawl in to bed.  Right now, he felt almost like he was floating in a warm pool of water, so he must be having a dream.  He didn’t open his eyes; he didn’t want to wake himself accidentally.  He laid there for hours, just listening to what he could only call ‘nothing.’  There wasn’t anything to listen to.  He didn’t feel himself breathing and he didn’t feel his heartbeat.  If he wasn’t so calm and relaxed, he might find himself wondering if he had died in his sleep.
There was no reason to get up, so he just lay in his dream.  Days went by quickly, then the months went by at a blur, then faster still as the years and decades began to fade as the centuries and millennia went by.  Randall figured that he must have found inner peace and was close to something a kin to enlightenment, but there was something that kept him here tied to time.  It was something he had to do.  He wasn’t sure what it was that he had to do, but he couldn’t leave behind the world to it’s past without doing something.
He opened his eyes and found himself standing in a meadow.  The absence of sound was suddenly filled with the sound of wind going through the leaves in the trees.  He could hear birds in the distance, some of them arguing over territory, some just singing their merry little songs, glad to be alive in this world.  There was the sound of a creek behind him and before he turned, he knew where he was.

“Hi Dad,” Randall spoke before he turned, not sure of how he knew, but he knew once he turned, he would be seeing his father.  “I know I’m asleep, but this isn’t really a dream is it?”
“No, it isn’t.   You’re not asleep either.  I don’t get it either.”  Mick rubbed the back of his head for a moment.  “Your great grandfather explained it to me when I was a kid in a way that might help it make sense.” He walked closer to the creek and motioned for Randal to join him.  “If the two of us were in a boat in a river,” he picked up a stick from the ground and tossed it in, “we’d both go along with the flow the river takes us and our surrounding would be changing as we went along.”
Randall interrupted, “So the river is time?”
“No, it’s not time, it’s the force that propels ‘us’ through time.”  Mick smiled and paused.
“So what’s time in this?” Randall wasn’t sure he followed.
Mick continued, “Time isn’t the point of this.  But if it’s any ‘thing’, then I’d say it’s the change around you as go with the flow the river.”  He grinned before continuing, “Now, imagine that our universe is the boat and every one and every thing is there, flowing along”
“Oh.  Yeah, I get it now.  The universe is pushed along by some river of time” Randall still looked confused.  Wait, how’s that related to what ever is going on right now?”
The grin on Micks face was almost funny.  “The two of us are standing here.  We’re not in the creek right now.”
Randall was back to looking lost again, so Mick continued, “we’re outside of time right now.”
“We’re outside of time?  I don’t … I mean … what does that even mean?”
“Right now, we’re not in the ‘river of time’, and the whole time we’re outside of it, imagine that the universe is docked on the shore, with every one on the universe boat staying put until where ready to get back on.”
“You mean everyone else is stopped? Or they’re on hold?”
“Something like that.  But try not to get hung up on it.  The important part is now that you’ve become an adult, you have the symbol and you’ve already managed to activate the metal box.  Keep it close, you’ll need it the deeper you go in the tunnels and the further you get.”  Mick embraced Randall and a moment later he simply vanished.

Randall just stood there, thinking it over and trying to determine if he lost his mind or if he had really just spoken to his farther.  It wasn’t a dream, so he couldn’t just “wake up,”  but he didn’t know how he could leave.  Just as he was wishing he could just walk through an exit, he heard a small bell behind him.
When he turned to look, there was a door, just like those in Junkton.  He opened it and walked through.

Randall was back in bed, feeling every little lump, but he wasn’t sore or tired.  He felt invigorated and ready to start his day.  It wasn’t quite morning, so he laid there a while longer.
Rather than worry about what lay ahead, he thought about breakfast.
His stomach growled loudly. Breakfast sounded great.

He put on a clean set of clothes, hung yesterdays in the sun and headed to the common area to see what was available to eat.  His stomach growled again.