story concept from dream

had a dream about, like

specifically a movie adaptation of a book

which isn't that important

but I remember thinking it was really compelling and then ended really badly

the concept is that, one day, around the present

everyone in the world over age 20 instantly ceases to exist

leaving just the young to put the world back together

immediate damage is immense, from things like vehicle crashes

then there's a period where the survivors start to sort of put together a rough egalitarian society of kids winging it without the weight of the old society weighing down on them

but then things like power plants that aren't being maintained begin to die off

and extremely few people are around who know how to fix that, since the serious professionals are all over 20

were

so the weight of the technology sustaining our billion plus population starts to collapse

and then, this is the part where I got mad

all the adults suddenly come back and everyone's happy and everything goes back to how it was

roll credits

Hooray good end

but everything up until then was surreal and compelling

where was this new society going to end up

The ending definitely makes this sound like something a shitty white cishet boomer man wrote because he feels underappreciated. Probably stealing the entire core conceit from one of his unpaid interns

honestly this is a fascinating idea

every billionaire, every CEO, every member of congress, every national leader across the planet, all gone

but also all parents, gone

I'm gone

what happened if you turned 20 during this period

nothing

you still age normally

ah, so it's just everyone over the age of 20 at the moment of impact

yeah

Doom has to carry all of Valor tabletop and DWRP by herself ,,,,,

This is making me so nostalgic for a friend who was an apprentice electrician during high school

huh

well, in this story, such a person would be VERY important

since all the master electricians are gone

yeah. though the details may have been blurred over a couple years, it may have been more like my friend (definitely also in high school with me at the time) had an older friend who was 22 or something.
I'm just kinda trying to imagine who would google "how generator work" during the like 3 hours before the unoccupied coal plant goes quiet

yeah

man i remember there actually being a ya book somewhat like this when i was a kid though i only read the summary as an ad in the back of another book

The Girl Who Owned a City - Wikipedia

oh okay it was everyone over the age of 12 in that one and it was explicitly a plague not a mystery