On Monday, September 26, Elizondo Lopez did not show up for work at the newspaper kiosk he operated at the DFW International Airport Terminal. EMTs who arrived at their home found that Elizondo and his wife Lupe had not woken up at all that morning, nor would they anytime soon.Monday was a day for sleeping in for several people. In fact, including the Lopezes, nine people did not wake up on Monday morning. On Tuesday, that number increased to 56. On Wednesday, it was 252 in five cities. By the end of the week, the number increased to more than 3,000. The Great Sleep was loose. Imagine a world where people are afraid to fall asleep because there was no guarantee they will ever reawaken. That’s the world that Media Professor Dale Grady lives in, thanks to a virus that has spread across the United States, and very soon, the world. But Grady has a secret, a genetic disorder that may be the key to stopping this virus. The trouble is, the people most likely to help stop this sleeping nightmare are already asleep. It’s up to Grady, his teenage daughter Michelle and a strange boy named Matthew Suggs to not only stay awake and hope for a cure, but take care of the thousands of sleeping victims that surround them in the city of Chicago.