Chapter One: Down.
The internet was down.
Everyone was trying to connect,
Anyone who tried died.
Mobile data was erased from existence.
People then were pulled into stealing and murdering for necessities.
Most were drowned in poverty.
Others capitalised on the situation.
Fern was living in the modern world’s idea of hell.
This had been going on for fifteen years.
Fern was fifteen.
She was born on the 21st of August, the day the internet died.
Fern originally had cocoa brown hair, but as she soon as she was two they bleached it white. Her eyes were a silvery violet.
People originally saw Fern as a devil child.
She still had a scar on her back, from when a crazed maniac slashed at her with a kitchen knife.
But now everyone was insane. So it didn’t matter anymore.
Fern lived in Tokyo.
She wished she could have tried the ramen, taiyaki, udon and other foods the tales of the Internet Era informed her of.
Instead she had to settle for a beef bone broth with small chunks of sweet potato and a stale, flat roll. She ripped the roll into pieces and dunked each one in the broth.
She pulled a face as she poured herself plastic cup full of interesting tasting water, that was a pale brown. She added a drop of “Mister Tokyo’s Magic Clean Water Maker!” and let it sit for a few minutes before drinking it in a few gulps.
Fern looked around at her room.
The photo was still there. Fern picked it up, it was of her Mother Autumn and Father Reiki.
She sighed remembering a time where she could sit in front of a faux fire and learn English with her Mother, and after a lesson they would always drink watery cocoa with imitation marshmallow and eat a version of ramen that was made with instant noodles and dried spring onions. She missed her father’s cooking and her mother’s cheerfulness. She remembered her father claiming that his food was crap, but that was the closest thing to real food Fern would get, and she loved it.
She sighed.
She remembered their last meal.
Father was at the faux fire boiling some water to use to make tofu and canned vegetable curry, which after they all ate their portions would be preserved and canned.
The smell of the cooking curry was beautiful to Fern.
Her mother sat close to the fire, teaching Fern how to write long sentences in English.
When Fern’s father had finished he handed them each a small portion of Japanese-style tofu, pickled plum and canned carrot curry with a few spoonfuls of white rice.
Her mother handed them each a glass of purified water wand put a few drops of apple flavoured syrup in it.
Fern sipped the drink and had a bite of curry.
It was Heaven.
Up until the moment the door was kicked down.
