Ash and Hunger

The sky wasn’t a sky anymore.

It was an angry bruise of ash and flame, glowing orange at its edges where the fires licked high-rise skeletons and sent sparks spiraling like dying stars. Once-glistening towers sagged in defeat, their glass facades melted into dripping black scars. Sirens no longer wailed—those had gone silent months ago, replaced by the low, constant roar of burning infrastructure and distant, sporadic gunfire.

The streets below were choked with debris—collapsed concrete, overturned vehicles, fragments of a life that had seemed so unshakable only years before.

And the people?

They stood in loose, desperate knots—eyes fixed on the flames as though watching their own reflection burn. Some cheered. Others wept. Many simply stared, dumbfounded, unable to comprehend how their vote for safety, their surrender of rights, their silence in the face of creeping tyranny had led here.

They had thought the purge would bring justice.
They had thought the riots would bring renewal.
They had believed the politicians when they promised salvation for the price of liberty.

Now, their world was ash and hunger.