The Cold and The Broken (bxb)

Prolouge

2024

In the year leading up to the day of reckoning, political tensions were at an all time high. The world was more divided than it had ever been before. War broke out on every continent as world leaders fought for power and control. No one thought the conflict would ever end. But it did.

January 12th, 2024. Citizens had learned how to deal with the constant conflict. It wasn't easy but it was the only choice they had. It was a day like any other. Parents went to work, children to school, patients to their doctors. The emergency broadcast wasn't sent out until 11:36 am that day.

Sirens were blaring throughout the world. Phones were being bombarded with alerts. Televisions broadcasting the news all over the world. Children clung to their parents in complete fear. It was quite literally, the end of the world.

No one had expected nuclear war. As giant missiles started hitting the major cities around the globe, humanity realized there was no stopping what was about to happen. The missiles were already launched and only mere minutes away from their destinations. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit, Seattle, Tokyo, Moscow, and Berlin were just a few of the cities to get hit.

The effects of the nukes would be far greater than just some major cities being destroyed. These were weapons that no one knew of. Whoever made them, kept them a secret until they were launched. These were the strongest weapons ever, and they would completely desolate Earth. Someone made them in secret and launched them, hoping for total inhalation.

There weren't many survivors from that day. It's predicted that only around 8 million survived the attacks. Some of them lived far enough away that they wouldn't die until the radiation was too much to bare. The wealthiest citizens bought their ways to safety in million dollar doomsday bunkers. And a few government officials made it out alive, also taking advantage of their bunkers.

Every other human close to the major cities died almost instantly. Every human within 200 miles of the cities died within mere minutes as the heat of the blasts traveled across the landscape. Everyone else, was left to deal with the radiation. The entire world was sent into nuclear fallout. Animals suffered, vegetation died and stopped growing, and the landscape was stripped bare.

In the years following the attack, the population was down to around only about 500,000 humans scattered throughout the world. While no more people died directly from the radiation, kids were born with strange defects and people got strangely sick. As more children were born, the Earth slowly repopulated. To this day Scientists are still unsure how that happened. Since technology was a thing of the past, shockingly. However, over the next several hundreds of years, the world was built back. This time, more technologically advanced than ever.

In the year 2193, a powerful central government was able to take control as humanity needed some guidance. Countries no longer existed, only one united country. It was known as Hallum. It took hundreds of years but, humans became immune to the effects of the radiation, and animals seemed to stop mutating. Scientists were also able to stop the mutated genes from continuing on to future generations.

The new government took care of it's citizens. It provided them with food, medical care, transportation, education, and everything else needed in exchange for labor. Money was a thing of the past only mentioned in history class. Every citizen took a placement test which assessed everything about them. They were then assigned their careers. If they refused to work, they would be killed. But it worked for Hallum.

Everything was perfect and everyone was happy. It was truly, Utopia.