The Red Shirt

This is a dream I had many, many years ago, but I always remembered it because I thought it would be a great science fiction story.

It's far in the future, like 10's of thousands of years, maybe longer. And all of humanity, because of a lack of food or something, has shrunk down in size, we're like the size of a mouse, but still proportional. A community of people are living in an old school gym, and they're so tiny they're just like living under the bleachers or something. The outside world is a mystery to them, but they know they can't stay here anymore. The entire community has to venture out to find a new home, one that's far away, that they've heard of for generations.

The opening scene is a group of men standing by the giant gym door, with some kind of gun that they want to use to fire a message of some sort to anyone who might be living beyond their borders. They plan to open the door, fire the gun (I guess the message is on an arrow or something) and then shut the door before the monsters get in and get them. Just as they open the door and fire the thing, a giant cat tries to get in and get them! They frantically try and shut the door but he's getting his foot and face in! But finally they manage to shut him out.....they breath a sigh of relief.....quiet closes in on this scene.

Somewhere along the way in the story, they form a long line of people as they venture out and travel a great distance to this "promised land" where they are migrating to. The one in the rear wears a red shirt. This is to let everyone know who's at the end, and when they get to where they are going, they know that when the person with the red shirt comes in, everyone is there who made it.

They travel a long time, fighting monsters along the way. Each time someone in the end starts to get killed, they take the red shirt off and throw it to the next person in line. This goes on for a long time, many days, weeks, months. Sometimes the second to the last person in line has to retrieve the red shirt from the last in line after they've been killed.

In the end, the final scene is what's left of the entire community arriving at their destination, they're waiting for the red shirt to appear so they can shut the door and be safe. There's a lot of fighting going on, monsters and such. The red shirt is handed off many times and the ones in the back don't make it. Finally, the closing scene is a woman running through the door and they frantically shut it behind her. She looks down and silence closes in as she realizes she's wearing the red shirt, and she's the last one, and everyone behind her is dead.