Imagine a fantasy story using this in the same way sci-fi stories use cryo-freezing.
The entirely land is burning, and there seems to be no hope of survival for humanity. The king of an unnamed kingdom by the shore, with no other hope for his people's perpetuation, assembles his most loyal subjects and turns them to stone with Medusa's severed head. He then loads them onto various ships and sets them off upon the endless ocean, in the hopes that at least one vessel will arrive upon new lands and continue their kingdom's legacy.
But then they all wake up however many years later and, shit, it turns out this really is an endless ocean.