Prologue
Have you ever woken up and wondered if the world ended while you were sleeping?
No? Hm. Lucky you.
For me, that's all I ever think about.
Let me explain.
The year is 4027, and the Earth? She's barely holding on.
From what our old history books taught us, war was supposed to be a conflict—two sides, fighting for a reason.
Territory, power, politics, something that mattered to somebody. But looking around now, you'd wonder what was being fought over to cause this kind of mess.
These days, the air's thick with toxins. You won't be seeing anyone taking a deep breath anytime soon. Feels like you're sucking in smoke with bits of crushed glass thrown in for good measure.
Some say it smells burnt; others say metallic—like rust, blood, and old copper. Me? It just burns.
To combat that, the "Government"—if you can even call it that these days—issued masks. Mandatory. Life-saving. Miserable.
Some folks wear half-face respirators, small plastic things strapped over nose and mouth, rubber seals so tight they leave raw, red rings on your face.
Others prefer full-face masks—bulky contraptions with clouded visors and double canisters jutting from each side like tusks.
A few even customize them, painting neon colors or graffiti, anything to feel less like they're wearing a death sentence strapped to their face. But in the end, fancy or plain, full or half, they all do the same thing: keep you breathing for one more hour. Maybe one more day. But sometimes, even that's not enough. Filters clog mid-breath; seals break without warning. You never know when it'll happen, only how it'll feel—sharp, scorching pain filling your chest as your lungs collapse in on themselves. And then darkness.
Our water isn't much better. Green as the algae that clings to its surface, thick with pollutants, some radioactive enough to make your skin blister. People boil it, filter it, and pray. It can take weeks to get a single drinkable bottle—if you're lucky enough to still be around to drink it. Food? You eat whatever won't kill you first. And trust me, there isn't much left on that menu. And the reason for all of this?
Bio-warfare.
No battlefields, no marching armies. Just silent laboratories releasing invisible killers. It wasn't warfare—it was extermination. And there's still one more thing I haven't mentioned. Something worse.
But for that, you'll have to go through it, just like the rest of us.
