US Army Captain James Moss took the photo out of his backpack and looked at the image that he took of that day ten years ago, when he was a teenager and his father had taken him to the Forest City Owls game against the Wilson Toms. It was fireworks night, celebrating the independence of the United States of America and the freedom that men like his father had won for them. He had just come back for good from Iraq after serving four tours of duty there as well as two in Afghanistan.
Mercifully his father died just a year before hell broke loose, because just six years and two days later, America was plunged into a war that ended on July 4, 2019 on this very site: McNair Field, home of those Forest City Owls. The team was no more, lost in the war that consumed so much of the world. The last surviving members of what had been called the Fundamentalist Army had died here, blowing themselves up in a makeshift bunker constructed on the site of the first base dugout. There were no celebrations when the war ended, James Moss remembered, just a sense of relief followed by an overwhelming sense of dread.
James looked over towards where First Baptist Church had stood. Back when the picture was taken, you couldn't see it for the trees and the other buildings in the way, but the war had seen those buildings and trees decimated, so James could easily see the rubble from here. It broke his heart to see his hometown reduced to rubble like this, and it smashed those pieces when he thought that so much of the world had been reduced to such a similar state.
"Captain Moss?" a soft, familiar male voice said behind him. James didn't turn as he looked at the picture of that night with his father, watching his hometown team take a tough loss in extra innings. He didn't want to see the Secularist Army chaplain see the tears in his eyes.
"Yes, Father." James finally said, his voice betraying his attempt at hiding the tears. Father Donald Scobee was not from Forest City but had come here to serve as head of the Immaculate Conception Church, the lone Catholic Church in the area. The New Jersey native had joined the cause of the Secularists when the war broke out, trying, as he said, to bring peace and sanity to the world, no matter the odds.
"Sergeant Brighton just came into town and said she needed to talk to you. She said it was about the supplies we need to reopen the airport." Father Scobee replied.
"Okay." James said simply, then got up and and turned to face the priest. He was clutching the photo, which he remembered printing off at the local MegaMart a few days after the game. Tears were still streaming down his eyes as he stood there, his legs not wanting to move. Part of him didn't want to go on, wishing he had died in the war and joined his father and the rest of his family in Heaven.
"You have the picture again, I see." the priest said. Father Scobee had been such a huge help to James, even thought the die-hard Baptist knew little about the Catholic Church before the war came. The Secularist cause wasn't about getting religion out but preserving the separation of church and state to protect both, as Scobee mentioned when James had asked him why he had joined the cause.
"What's to become of us?" James asked sorrowfully.
Father Scobee sighed and said, "That again, my friend?" He placed his hand on his friend's shoulder and said, "Even in these dark times, we can persevere!"
"But how, Father Scobee?" James protested, adding, "How can we when the government has fallen? When so much that this country has stood for has fallen?"
"What can be torn asunder can be rebuilt, my friend! You know this!" Father Scobee said gently. "It will take a long time to rebuild what has been destroyed, but we can do this. As a phrase I remembered from a TV show I was rather fond of once upon a time goes, 'faith manages'."
"Even after America has been so hopelessly shattered?" James asked.
"Countries come and go, even America. Something new will rise from its ashes. Maybe it will be called the United States, or maybe it will be called something new. So much has been lost but so much remains, and it is upon this we can rebuild!" Father Scobee said.
James nodded and sniffled, trying to clear out his tears. "You must think me weak for breaking down like this." he said ashamedly.
"Nonsense!" Father Scobee said, "My friend, you and I, along with all those who survived have seen far, far too much in these past few years! The war and its aftermath have been horrible, and, yes, even I have questioned God about it, but I have found my faith that we can come back from this and rebuild this place until it surpasses what was once here!"
"You're right, Father. Forgive me for losing my faith for a moment there!" James said apologetically.
"There is nothing to forgive!" he said, adding, "Now, come with me! Sgt. Brighton is waiting for us! She thinks we can reopen the airport real soon, and now that Highways 221 and 74 have been repaired, we can bring in even more supplies to help rebuild this place!"
James nodded and put the picture back in his backpack, then walked with the priest over to the makeshift headquarters of the new City Hall. The sweltering summer sun beat down upon them as it had done since well before America came into being. As they walked, James thought that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that America had fallen, because so much negativity had become attached to the old country. Perhaps those good old things that America stood for (freedom, liberty, pursuit of happiness, among others) could be brought back in a much better country with a different name, something that the nation and the world could embrace once again.
And so it was, in this place, where the nation once known as the United States of America met its end. But, in the ashes of that fallen nation, a new one arose to take the qualities of that old republic and forge them into a much better, much more stable nation. This new nation, much like the old, grew and grew, both in size and influence, until it has become more than what the old United States ever was. Ladies and gentlemen, let us celebrate this our Foundation Day! The day when that new nation we love so much was founded! Let us celebrate the REPUBLIC OF CAROLINA!
-President Benjamin Ross, Republic of Carolina
Great-grandson of James Ross, one of the founders of the Republic
