What could have been

A once-thriving metropolis, once a beacon of innovation and wealth, now stands in silent decay. Skyscrapers that once kissed the heavens now lean precariously, their steel skeletons exposed like broken bones jutting out from concrete flesh. The streets, once bustling with life, are strewn with rubble—shattered glass, twisted metal, and the remains of vehicles long abandoned. Nature, ever resilient, has begun its quiet reclamation. Vines creep up the cracked facades of buildings, and trees push through the fractured asphalt, their roots breaking apart what humanity once tried so hard to build.

The sky is a smoky red, as if still burning from the firestorms that ravaged the earth during World War III. The air smells of ash and metal, a reminder that the conflict isn't truly over. In the distance, the remains of a collapsed bridge loom like the ribs of a great beast, a monument to the city’s fall from grace. 

Scavengers, hunched figures silhouetted against the dying light, sift through the debris with desperate hope, looking for anything of value in a world where worth has been reduced to survival. They are remnants of a civilization that once reached for the stars, now reduced to foraging through the bones of its former glory.

In this wasteland, the future is as uncertain as the sunset—a dim, fleeting hope in a sky filled with smoke and ruin. The city, once alive with possibility, now only echoes with the ghosts of what was, and what could have been.