Verdant

Devistation

I'm stuck with myself repeating this end of times story over and over in my head and occasionally aloud to myself. Since I seem to have found myself alone for the most part after all. It seems to be the story of how the world came to an end, or what now is hardly living. It's hard even remembering how it all used to be before the war. Well imagining that is, I was born a year into the war, when things seemed a hell of a lot more peaceful.

What's left of the population now is barely above that of savage animals. People hardly clinging to their humanity with everything they knew stripped away from them. That's how Grams explains it anyway. She watched her husband get whisked away, only missing the call to action by a year herself. She thought war was a bunch of nonsense, and it truly was. "Politicians should have fought their own wars before daring to cross their own people into the mix".

Grams and I don't have any blood relation to each other. She's he only person I would actually consider family though. Along with one of the only people I ever leave my cabin to see. Everyone else is just scared...broken...borderline useless messes. There's no point in trying to converse with anyone else. They all just seem so...scared.

Children listen to the stories of earth in times before over and over again. That's all it is now, stories. Twenty two years ago, and they're barely any older then toddlers. They listen avidly to Gram's stories like a fantasy world they could live in, more like could've at this rate. It's something we may never get back to. Civilization where everything might not have been perfect, but it was far better then how we were now. Grams called it "a far simpler life", though for her it was growing up in the 90's. Into the fast pace race of technology.

These stories, this life, it's all these kids have grown up to know, all they ever might know. All I might ever know. Having to kill for what's yours. Scavenging like a mere animal just to live another day. Having to constantly watch your back and fear your neighbor, even in a small community like this. That's why I prefer to live far away from people. Humans have a tendency to spill blood over things they require or find interest in.

After all the world has put itself through, the last of the survivors rally in small refugee camps scattered about the barley livable landscape that remained. Overgrown forests, broken cities, and barren wastelands barely inhabitable to humans. This particular camp is hidden deep in the forest, maybe a days walk from the nearest sign of city.

Many loaners began with the broken up families, but people eventually set some differences aside and began to settle. Different ages, races, homelands, and languages. Each camp, village, town, or whatever they have chosen to call themselves. Small and large communities. One like this who can barley sustain itself. Though this camp seemed much more encompassing, welcoming. Seeing as they were the first to not look at me with the hatred of a stranger, though Grams kind of forced their hand to let me visit.

Migrant travelers and those seeking shelter are often turned away with a blind eye. Come starving, dying, it's rare they'd take pity on you as they aren't much better off. Few camps are mixed but by now, if you're alone you're better off alone, no ones going to bother with you even if you're just like them. People that can barely take care of themselves, much less their family, have no light to share with others. Everyone that has survived was forced to learn to do it alone or die. For outsiders, it's hard to join in a family when you're used to fighting on your own.

It seems that humanity is surviving ever still though. We are creatures of habit, but resilient ones at that. Shelters built in shattered buildings, old city streets, and even recently taken up partial residence in forests that had now sprouted up everywhere. The cities now becoming far more abandoned as structures are hardly sustained by broken and rusted beams. Like refugee camps, only these aren't as welcoming. Cities are a weary and dangerous place of travel.