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Rena

August, 2027

The wind outside is cold, as blisteringly cold as the survivors have come to expect. The climate has changed since the pandemic. The air is colder now, as dark clouds block most sunlight. Days are short, resources are scarce, spirits are shattered, and people are desperate.

But it wasn’t always this way…

Throughout history, humans have always conquered their surroundings with the help of technology. And the late twentieth century and early twenty-first brought about quantum leaps in technology, technology that generations of yesteryear would surely label witchcraft and sorcery. The world changed greatly because of the new understanding, and the earth’s citizens rejoiced in these changes, thinking that they had seized control of their destinies, that they brought the world together with their own science and imagination.

With this technology came change. Change that would usher in a new era. Change that would uncover the hidden, underground lives of many people. People who were living amongst the citizens of the world, disguised as ordinary people with ordinary talents. But these people carried a dark secret. They were anything but ordinary…

These people were exceptional. They had powers ordinary humans could only hope to fantasize in their dreams. They could fly unaided, create fire from their hands, move heavy objects with their minds, travel vast distances faster than the eye could blink. But the coming of technology interrupted the way of life of these individuals. The use of camera phones captured their movements in infinite detail. The internet allowed for instant proliferation of their exploits. Because, underneath all the extraordinary ability, these were still ordinary humans. They were all vulnerable to pride and greed.

As the veil of secrecy gradually receded, these superhuman figures dominated the landscape, walking nobly amongst their less fortunate brethren. But their normal counterparts were, too, susceptible to avarice…

There are no means to trace exactly the origins of the first experiments; the documentary data are too fragmented and splintered to glean anything worthwhile. Yet all evidence suggests that the first initiative to isolate and replicate these powers in every day humans occurred with Project Phi. With the project, humans began unscrewing the lid to Pandora’s Jar—their demise thus became inevitable; people were too easily corrupted.

Eventually, Project Phi isolated the genetics involved in developing these abilities and created a prototypical serum to confer abilities. The experimenters tested this serum repeatedly, running it on lab animals and various clinical subjects, determined to find a reliable formula. At last, with the thirty-fourth version of the serum, they achieved an effective and stable means of offering powers to the normal human population. Finally, regular man could fly; man could evolve.

Initially, this breakthrough stayed behind vault-sealed doors and firewalled networks. But before long, with the promise of a greater, grander future, this working serum made its way to the public. The people rejoiced in its ability to grant them tremendous power. At first, only the elite could afford such potent modifications, but eventually, the serum trickled down the hierarchy to the common folk.

And then… disaster.

Somewhere, the serum reacted badly. The delivery of the serum mutated and carried with it not the promise of tremendous advances, but the harbinger of the apocalypse. The disease struck first in the US, but the Pandemic could not be quarantined. All around the world, people fell victim to this mutated pathogen, and succumbed to its sepulchral touch. But this pandemic did not leave a path of bodies…

It left a trail of converts.

Those that succumbed to the disease found that their bodies were reanimated. They became mindless, rotting, zombie-like walkers that yearned for nothing but raw flesh. Their bite was deadly, contagious. As their numbers grew exponentially, the remaining humans scrambled for a solution. And when faced with the assured destruction of all civilized life, they turned towards their only remaining option: repeated airstrikes and complete nuclear destruction of the abominable broods. The sky raged red, the earth cried in pain, but the remaining people at last had a future… a bleak, ominous future.

The breakdown of the civilized world had already begun. The remaining human leaders retreated behind giant fortresses erected to keep all enemies out. They clung to their weapons in a state of constant fear, ready to respond to the slightest semblance of a crisis. Meanwhile, many were not so lucky. With their houses destroyed, their population ravaged, these straggling survivors were left without a home, without safety, and—for many—without hope.

Even those with powers. They were mostly immune to the pathogen, but their lives were still profoundly touched by the international crisis. Their world crumbled, and life as they knew it stopped just as it did for the normal population. They clutched at their ruined lifestyle, hoping without avail that their fortunes would reverse, that the world would return to the way it once was. This naïve notion was all that kept them from utter despair and moral collapse.

Chaos reigned supreme. Some corrupt conglomerates and factions emerged from the rubble. They quickly consolidated their power as best they could, fighting for infinitesimally scarce resources against infinite demand. Social order degenerated into anarchic tyranny. These factions formed alliances, and those alliances became hegemons. In the year 2027, might means right. It is a lawless society, a morally vacuous society. Those that are not protected by a hegemon struggle daily for the basic resources for sustenance, threatened constantly by both the dangerous world and the thuggish street gangs patrolling it.

Now, twenty years after the initial experimentations, fifteen years after the bombs fell, the survivors cling desperately to their makeshift homes. In many of the former metropolises, nature rebounded quicker than man. Weeds, moss, and vines grew over devastated earth and rubble. Cars and scraps, collecting layers of brown rust, sit in the middle of shredded streets. The darkened sky spills its acidic cargo. People gather in small groups if they can, consolidating every bit of their meager resources together in a hope to see a better tomorrow. Depravity lingers in the air… or is that the smell of remnant walkers?

This is the world now. A world where the global population is but a pale shadow of what it once was. A world where the surviving human population huddles in haphazard shelters and behind barricades, fearful of the ravaging destruction just beyond their senses. A world where even the blindly optimistic can see no great light at the end of the tunnel.

This is the real world. This is the truth, this is how it is. No matter how much people wish it were false, no matter how much they wish that this dystopia was a lie, what they once knew is gone forever…

Wake up, look around. It's August, 2027. Do you accept this desolate truth, or do you believe it is all veritas falsus?