As the fires raged, survivors scavenged in the shadows, clutching rusted pipes and broken tools for defense. No one trusted anyone anymore. Once-vibrant marketplaces had become arenas for barter and bloodshed. Entire districts were ruled by armed gangs, each answering to warlords who styled themselves “protectors” but were little more than predators.
The children born since the Collapse never knew parks, schools, or laughter in the streets. Their lullabies were distant gunshots. Their playgrounds were burned-out husks of vehicles, their toys bits of twisted scrap metal.
Beneath all this, faint whispers traveled like ghosts. Whispers of the resistance—of fighters in the tunnels, of symbols scrawled on walls in defiance, of a man and a woman who moved unseen but promised a new dawn.
Above ground, the people didn’t know if they were real.
But they needed to believe someone, anyone, still fought for something better.
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