Death of an Angel

No one could say exactly when California began to fall—only that it started, as most tragedies do, with lies.

Los Angeles had always walked a fine line between paradise and powder keg. Under the watch of a corrupt mayor who smiled on camera while taking orders behind closed doors, and a governor whose incompetence was rivaled only by his arrogance, the balance finally tipped. They called for calm. They called it progress. They called the chaos “peaceful.” But what spilled into the streets wasn’t peace—it was the spark that would ignite the collapse of an entire state.

The protests came first. Loud. Furious. Justified, at first—until they weren’t. As weeks passed, anger morphed into vengeance. Entire city blocks vanished in flames, and the National Guard was too little, too late. The governor hesitated. The mayor denied. They pointed fingers while Los Angeles burned.

From L.A., the violence spread like wildfire up and down the coast—San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento. Cities fell in rapid succession, swallowed by the rage they had tried so hard to pretend wasn’t there. Militias formed. Counter-groups rose in response. The streets became battlegrounds. The freeways became death traps. And what began as civil unrest became a full-fledged war. Neighbor turned on neighbor. Buildings crumbled. Power grids failed. Law vanished.

Then came the unthinkable.

In desperation—or madness—someone detonated a dirty bomb in downtown Los Angeles. No one claimed responsibility. No one had to. The air turned to poison. Fallout spread on the Santa Ana winds. Radiation clung to the valleys and the coast. What hadn’t been destroyed by violence was now claimed by death in silence.

The state government ceased to exist within days. Communications went dark. Aid never came. No one knew what had become of the governor. Some say he fled. Others say he died choking on the smoke of the city he helped destroy. The mayor’s body was never found.

California became a no-man’s land.

Satellite images showed the once-vibrant coastline now scarred and blackened, like a wound the nation couldn’t bear to look at. The ground itself was tainted. The skies dimmed. The survivors fled, if they could. Those who stayed behind, didn’t stay long.

No one enters California anymore. No one dares.

Where surf once crashed and movie stars strolled under golden skies, only silence remains now. A wasteland. Forgotten. Poisoned. Cursed.

It would remain so for centuries.