Without a Glimmer of Light

In the aftermath of America’s fall, only a scattered handful of survivors roam what was once a prosperous land, now hollowed out, abandoned by both time and hope. Each day is a battle—not against any clear enemy, but against hunger, the brutal elements, and a despair that gnaws at the spirit as relentlessly as any predator. The survivors drift through empty cities, shattered buildings where echoes of the past linger in the rustling paper and creaking walls. Highways, once veins pulsing with life, lie in silence, choked by weeds and cracked asphalt.

Small groups cling to the remains of long-dead suburbs, making shelters of what they can scavenge, turning wrecked cars and gutted homes into meager hideaways. Food is whatever they can scrounge or trade for, sometimes scavenged from forgotten pantries, sometimes pried from the wild brush growing over long-abandoned fields. Occasionally, they gather at the edges of former towns to trade and share news in whispers, but even these gatherings are marked by mistrust and fear.

Each sunset brings a solemn quiet, the land slipping into a dark and foreboding hush. With no electricity, no streetlights, and no cities burning bright on the horizon, night falls as it did in the ancient past, blanketing everything in a darkness that only deepens the loneliness. In this broken world, survival is the only dream left, and even that grows dimmer by the day. The future stretches out like the empty roads—desolate, uncertain, and without a glimmer of light.