The climatic storyline is The Wake. In it, we get to see the new Dream and watch as others mourn the passing of the old. The five remaining Endless are visited by birds and they all meet at the necropolis Litharge. Together they create a messenger, a man named Eblis O'Shaughnessy, who walks down in the catacombs and collects the cerements for Dream. Meanwhile the new Dream is creating the Dreaming anew while Matthew is sulking and not quite certain what is going on. He doesn't really trust this new Dream but is gradually warming to him and feeling protective. We then see the wake as it is attended by gods and characters from throughout the series and dreamers galore (of course this all occurs in a dream). Everyone mingles and watches the Endless prepare. Lucien, Cain and Abel are talking and we hear that there is a new Dream but nobody died. Cain says "How can you kill and idea? How can you kill the personification of an action?" And Eblis asks, "Then what died?" Abel answers," A point of view." We see everyone speaking at the funeral and then people begin to leave. We see Destruction visit the new Dream and say hi and then go on his way. The new Dream forgives Lyta Hall for what she did. And Matthew helps Dream get ready to meet his family, saying, "The king is dead. Long live the king." And Dream opens the door. We see the family and then we read, "and then, fighting to stay asleep, wishing it would go on forever, sure that once the dream was over, it would never come back... you woke up."

We then get three epilogues. In the first, we again meet Hob Gadling, who is hanging out with his girlfriend and getting drunk. He meets with Death and they talk and Hob decides he still wants to live, and then he has a dream where he and the old Dream and Destruction walk and talk on the beach. We then have a tale of a Chinese wise man who is traveling across a desert and gets into a soft place and meets with both the old and new Dreams and the new Dream offers him a place in the Dreaming, but the man gracefully declines and goes on living his life. Finally, we end with Shakespeare, as he is writing the second play, the Tempest, to finish his deal with the old Dream. And we see Shakespeare ask Dream why he wanted this play, and Dream replies that he wanted a tale of graceful ends. And thus ends the initial story grand of the Sandman.