Verdant

This is how it all began

This is how I've come to understand our world...

It all seems to begin when everyone starts tightening their grips. For their own greed and power hungry needs, squeezing each other's throats. One man yells at another, and suddenly other men are taking sides and sending bombs and soldiers and weapons. Killing everything in his path for his views. "For the good of their country".

Everything began falling apart over a decade ago. Maybe even long before then. War. No one can say for sure as days started molding together into jumbled years. When did we start treating time and each other like meaningless things?

People finally had enough after years of senseless fighting, such the politicians sent their men to be slayed over a simple quarrel between countries. The economy crumbled along with over fifty percent of the world population, or at least that's what was predicted on the radio before all you could hear was hours upon hours of silence and static. Most survivors guess it's around twenty-five percent survival rate by now. Three fourths of the population wiped away in the midst of a unfair and bloody war. Seems there's still fighting somewhere despite the lack of most technology and communication. Can't they see their people are tired of years of fighting?

They said the war would soon end, and we'd stand victorious. They said countless drafted troops would return to home. That all the children that were taken would come back. That what they were doing would help us win. They said a lot of things. A lot of countries said a lot of things.

The people quickly lost hope, and as expected they panicked into their own ruin. It was feared nothing would return to normal. There was once hope the fighting would return to its normal incessant bickering. That words would replace the victims. Seems the times still haven't turned around.

Sadly society never even gave itself a chance at happiness. It broke, and once shattered there was no piecing it together. People at heart are just to filled with greed. When one person thinks "someone else will come along and save the day" it tends to trickle down, of course with everyone thinking that no one ever stood up and took the chance. What can society do when their leaders never listen?

We never even had a chance to morn. A good majority of the population actively participated in the long standing war. This war spanned across every boarder leaving no one safe on any side. No hole left to hide in. No country could keep its cities, its people safe. Innocents constantly being slaughtered in the violent fighting and bombing of populated areas. Woman, children, infants. Landlocked cities and towns had a chance at least. Getting away from the major cities, but somehow you'd still hear of war in the middle of nowhere.

They got so desperate towards the climax of the unhaulting war they drafted anyone from thirteen to fifty years of age without a role of importance in society. Young males and woman alike. Some came willingly, while others stood to put up a fight. If they did, they'd be publicly executed or them and their entire family would be sent directly to the front lines. Infants or young children were taken for government experiments which at first no one knew about. Though when too many went missing, word got around. Rumors spread and questions were asked. Questions that had deadly consequences for those who dared ask them.

In most areas with low populations, any refusal was taken as treason and the whole family, regardless of age, was sent to the front lines along with countless criminals forced to fight for their country. Grandparents, parents, children, even young infants not even able to do much as crawl. If they were that lucky. Though if the young ones were lucky enough, the government spared them for a much worse cause. Most countries saw eye to eye in this. They needed all the man power they could get after disabling their most powerful nukes an mussels in fear of the ultimate human destruction, and created even worse weapons.

This was a war they knew they wouldn't come back from. That no one was going to win, but still no one would take the shame of standing down. Dooming themselves and their country due to the stubbornness of their humanity. They needed more and more wasteful man power. There was little time to train their new recruits, many would find their fates sealed within seconds of the battle. "Give the man a gun, and now he can fight" kind of mentality. They were stuck smothered under unmatchable odds that would leave them writhing and dying, or an automatic casualty on the tough field of war. They were up against forces never seen in any recorded skirmish, and no one was truly prepared to fight against it. Who would've imagined their humanity had withered to such a state to use such methods. The children who had gone missing by the thousands...were found much different.

When the war was said to almost reach an end, communications cut out all across the nation. There was nothing for weeks on end as both soldiers and civilians stood at the wait of hope alone. All sides waiting for commands that never came. Though they quickly had to realize...there truly was no hope. Not for them, not for anyone. No one was coming to order them to safety, to take them home, to return things to their natural state. They were slaughtered with no outside communication. Everyone who bared arms against military or citizens who could manage to defend themselves. It was absolute terror for those following years, and somehow there's still people left in the world who still care to fight. Larger military groups backed by old technology to aid their battles.

After weeks of radio silence a small broadcast came on. It was very raspy and filled with an eerie static. A single voice spoke up, "the governments plan has failed", "an act of terrorism had devastated the entire nation", "millions whipped out in a single blast". These events and other strange ones happened all over the world. Unexplainable things that feel dead on the politicians who covered them up. People noticed, but no one could speak up. It was too late to undo the damage the world had done. What they had created.

An attack was unleashed on the largest battle field in Central Europe. Objects rose into the air and were taken down with such force they were crushed. Something still left unexplained as very few people made it out to explain what they had seen, the devastation they had witnessed that day that struck fear deep in their hearts they were truly powerless. It took millions of civilian casualties on all sides. The world stood at par with one another, and in the end, caved in on itself. Unaware the devastation they were causing themselves. Allied nations turning on each other in an act of war. In the end we lost a third of the world because of arrogance and deceit of the worlds corrupt governments.

Is it right to trust another in doubt? After all, what's stopping them from pointing a gun at your head. All it takes is a pull of the trigger to end it all.
Is that why, our world died?

The last broadcast aired.
"Evacuation of all major cities"
"Protect yourself, your family"
"Trust no one"

The broadcaster seemed to reach every last ear in our nation. You could hear as the silence filled the air across cities and camps. The unexplained attack, the war, the death toll, what they'd done to innocent children and the pawns of the military. The indescribable war. Experiments done to try and salvage the war only to cause something much worse then the toll of the war.

One last message came across. One that stuck with every prying ear.
"This is when we die. Not with a last stand of honor, but a inaudible whimper of fall out."