This story gives an account of how the human race came to an extraordinarily rapid and unexpected near-extinction early in the twenty-first century. No thermonuclear or biological war, pollution catastrophe, or any kind of human created disaster played a part in this downfall of modern man.

A highly infectious contagion kills most of the Earth's population in less than three months. The Sleeping Death Contagion (SDC) virus causes the death of nearly every infected victim as they sleep, in less than four days.

The nature of SDC was such that it could have resulted in the extinction of the human race. The high level of infectivity and the short time period to fatality had catastrophic results. Only a rare and random genetic immunity to the fatal effects of the virus prevented the total extinction. However, it left less than one in a hundred thousand survivors.

The story follows the experiences of four different survivors in Canada, England, Kenya and the United States through the rapid spreading of the infection around the world. It then follows their individual survival stories for the first nine months after the disease strikes.