The One, 24 Hour Survival Dream

Posted on by justinstolpe

The dream stared off in the mall of america. I was with a group of friends at a drawing in which we all had entered for our chance to win. What was the drawing? It was a chance to be selected as “The One” and survive as “The One” for 24 hours. This drawing was held once a year and “The One” was instantly famous. The catch, survive as “The One” for 24 hour, literally. Once “The One” was drawn from millions of names, anyone who killed that person would take over as “The One” and whoever was “The One” at 7 the next morning, 24 hours after the drawing, would be rich taking the 100 million dollar purse.

It was 7am and a group of friends and myself were on the second floor of the mall of america along with thousands of other anxious people hanging over the railings of the circular stage area. The MC walked over to the computer and pressed “Go”. The names flashed on the screen like a spinner and then started to get slower and slower until it stopped on one name, my name. The person who gets drawn does not have to come forth, they simply have to survive. I looked around, my friends and myself could not believe it! I was chosen. Being my good friends, we all agreed not to kill each other of course. If one of us got selected we would split the purse and just try to help each other survive. As everyone around me started to google my name, my friends and I began to make our way out of the mall as our 24 hours of survival had already started.

As we started to make our way out, I recognized Tyler who was about a hundred yards in front of us so I quickly ducked into an arcade to avoid him along with my friends. We decide to stay for a bit and start playing games. I walk over to a skee ball like game and ran into Jenna. The game is like skee ball but without a cage so you can literally throw the balls into the holes if you want. There were 3 rings, 1 point for the outer ring, 2 points for the middle ring, and 3 points for the hole in the very middle. I started playing as Jenna watched. I made 4 into the 3 point hole all in a row. Then I grabbed the next ball to attempt 5 in a row. By this time, our cheering, Jenna and myself, had gathered a crowd and everyone was cheering me on. I threw the next ball and it went right in the 3 point hole. Everyone was yelling and cheering, I had completely forgot I was selected as “The One” and could be killed by anyone who wanted my spot. I then picked up and threw the next ball, my last shot before the game was over. Sadly I missed and everyone went back to playing there own games. I then gather my friends and we decide to leave and try to get back to exiting the building.

We set out back into the mall toward the exit. I recognize another person we need to avoid so we duck into the nearest store. The store turns out to sell Halloween costumes. I immediately decide to get a big hat so I am harder to recognize. I turn down the isle and I see Tyler again with Aaron. Immediately I grab and put on a big foam hat and squat down pretending to be interested in something on a lower shelf and wait for them to pass behind me. Thankfully they passed and headed out of the store. I bought the hat and then we left the store.

Outside the store someone yelled and pointed me out as “The One”. Their group of friends immediately pulled out bows and started firing at me. Unarmed, we took off in the opposite direction. After not to long, we found a weapons shop and went inside. We raided the place taking anything we needed. I grabbed a small knife, sword, and a bow. Once everyone had some sort of weapon, it was time to get back out and defend ourselves. I ran out and shot some arrows. A few of my friends around me got hit with some arrows and we had to leave them behind. We kept on making our way toward the exit as arrows were flying around us. One arrow went right through part of my loose clothing right before we got to the exit. When we got to the exit, we opened the doors and kept through them. Closing them quickly behind us. There were 4 of us total that got to the exit.

The exit doors closed and the 4 of us were now in a room. The exit doors were at our backs and an elevator was in front of us. I called for the elevator as we discussed our next move. 2 of my friends said they would stay behind to hold off the attackers while 1 came with me as my personal body guard. The elevator arrived and my bodyguard and I entered. I told the 2 staying behind to meet us at the safe house. My friend in the elevator told me we had to go to the basement to be safe so I hit the “B” button once inside the elevator.

Ding. The elevator had reached the basement and the doors began to open. My body guard told me to wait while he made sure it was clear. I waited and heard him take out a few guards then called me over. The two guards were guarding a door which was shut. We tried to pry it open and with both of us pulling got the doors open just enough for me to slip through. Right after I slipped through the door slammed shut. The room I was standing in now was circular and about 20-30 feet in diameter. After looking around a bit the floor started to rise. I looked up and realized I was on an elevator. Looking up I could see only darkness, it was a huge elevator. A few minutes went by and I could start to see light, the elevator was getting close to the top.

When the elevator came to a stop at the top, I was surprised to find myself inside a huge mansion house where there was a party going on. Even though I had just made this big entrance on a circular elevator, none of the hundred or so people seemed to even notice. As I did a 360 spin to see the whole party, they just kept on drinking, talking, and dancing. The room I had come into was comparable to a 2 story nightclub and the elevator had taken me right up to the first floor. I started walking and made my way up the staircase to the second floor. I am not quite sure who’s party this is so I start to look around for anyone I know. I walk into the first room on the second floor and there is a bunch of people chilling on couches, talking, drinking, not paying me much attention. I thought to myself “none of these people at the party must know about me being the one which is great!” I then walk over to this huge window in the room and look outside. I notice 3 cop cars pull up to the house. Immediately I know they are looking for me. Somehow they tracked me from the mall of america to here. Then I woke up.

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  21. Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you writing this article and the rest of the website is also really good.

  27. That is a great tip especially to those new to the blogosphere. Simple but very accurate information… Thanks for sharing this one. A must read post.

  29. I’m more than happy to uncover this site. I want to to thank you for your time for this particularly fantastic read!! I definitely liked every bit of it and i also have you book-marked to see new things on your blog.

  34. Being picked as “The One” at the Mall of America would have me hiding in a changing room before the MC finished speaking; my friend would probably try to negotiate with the crowd. KnowUsWell got the two of us talking about exactly that planning gap—would you trust the friends in the dream to help you make it to 7 the next morning?

  36. When I originally left a comment I appear to have clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now every time a comment is added I recieve 4 emails with the exact same comment. There has to be an easy method you can remove me from that service? Thanks.

  37. The next time I read a blog, I hope that it won’t fail me as much as this particular one. After all, Yes, it was my choice to read, however I really thought you’d have something helpful to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something you could fix if you weren’t too busy looking for attention.

  40. Your style is very unique compared to other folks I have read stuff from. Thank you for posting when you’ve got the opportunity, Guess I’ll just book mark this site.

  41. Aw, this was an extremely nice post. Taking the time and actual effort to generate a top notch article… but what can I say… I hesitate a lot and never seem to get nearly anything done.

  42. That is a really good tip particularly to those fresh to the blogosphere. Simple but very accurate info… Thank you for sharing this one. A must read article.

  43. Hi there! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after browsing through some of the articles I realized it’s new to me. Anyhow, I’m certainly happy I discovered it and I’ll be bookmarking it and checking back often.

  44. The 24-hour title-passing thing is the same mechanic as this bidding board for products: rank is just what you paid in the last 7 days, bids start at $1, the top spot usually costs a few dollars, and someone can take it from you with a bid one dollar higher. I’m the maker, so assume bias. I sell placement, not traffic, clicks or sales, and I can’t out-market anyone, but I can outbid them by a dollar.

  45. The survival scenario you described immediately makes me think of spatial strategy and contingency planning. As a designer, I use a floor plan maker like Planorial to map out complex spatial relationships and flow, which could actually help visualize a survival route or secure zone in a high-pressure situation. Switching between top-down and 3D views lets you assess vulnerabilities and access points quickly, the kind of practical layout thinking your post brings to mind.

  46. That 7 a.m. deadline stayed with me more than the drawing did. Dreams about being hunted always seem to cut off right before the clock runs out, and you wake up checking the time like something is actually after you.

    I had my own deadline this week, a lot less dramatic — a pile of expense receipts and one visa form that had to go in as a single PDF under 2 MB. I photographed them with my phone instead of digging out a scanner and ran them through lensup.ai in the browser, which turned the shots into something clean and printable and pushed the file toward the size the portal asked for. What I like is that nothing gets uploaded; it all happens in the tab. The compression aims at the size you pick and can land a bit over, so I always check the number before hitting submit.

  47. That’s a seriously intense scenario to imagine photographing—the constant shift in a crowded mall, the tension on “The One’s” face. Capturing that narrative over 24 hours would require thinking about continuous low-light shooting and keeping expressions sharp through motion. It makes me think about how a photo enhancer could help salvage those frantic, less-than-perfect shots you’d inevitably get in such a chaotic, evolving story.

  48. That drawing setup reminds me a bit of the rooftop parkour game I mess around with in CrazyJev, where one bad call and the run’s over before you know it. Surviving a full 24 hours as The One sounds like that same kind of tension, just stretched way longer and with way worse consequences than a respawn screen. Curious whether Justin actually made it to 7am.

  49. That’s a wild concept for a survival dream — the idea of being hunted simply because you won a random draw is both thrilling and terrifying. It makes you wonder how you’d handle the paranoia and constant movement, especially in a place as sprawling as the Mall of America. I can imagine the tension building with every corner turned and every stranger’s glance.

    For someone like me who obsesses over layout and logistics, stories like this always spark a practical side too. If I were “The One,” I’d want every exit mapped and every hiding spot planned out in advance. That’s where the PlanLiva floor plan tool came in handy for me — it let me sketch out and visualize spaces like that in fine detail, which honestly made me feel more prepared for hypothetical situations like this. It’s not a survival hack by any means, but having a clear mental map of a building gives you one less thing to panic about when the clock is ticking.

  50. That survival premise in the Mall of America honestly sounds like a solid pitch for a dystopian indie game. Dreams that hand you a fully formed set of game mechanics like that are always wild to wake up from.

    I actually tried visualizing a similar late-night mall scene recently for a project using GPT Image 2.5, the image editing tool I’ve been using for quick concept art. It took a couple of prompts to get the neon floor reflections right, but it managed to swap out a storefront sign without messing up the lighting across the rest of the corridor.

  51. Wild dream premise — the idea that anyone could take the title by taking you out makes every ordinary mall moment feel tense. The setup at the Mall of America really grounds it before things spiral.

    On a totally different note, I’ve been cleaning up quick product shots lately, and this background removal tool saves me a surprising amount of time when I need a clean cutout for a mockup before lunch.

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