An Envoy for the Lost

Prologue

Prologue

"Democracy dies in darkness." - Unknown

Very few individuals still alive were present for the events of Exitium, though I've heard several baseless rumors that the grandmother of some worthless drunk so-and-so would often start spouting nonsense to children on the street. An encounter with her on one of the sidewalks in one of our precincts was enough to make me clench with unease.

She spoke of the horrors of suffocating gases that inflicted delirium and death, explosions that left the land scorched and toxic, and a death toll so high that council members worried we might never be able to replace the formerly existing population. We never knew if she was telling the truth, and the councilmembers swiftly moved her to a retirement center when they heard of the incidents.

Although living proof no longer exists, excluding the dear old woman of course, it is required that citizens are taught the events in chronological order. While a survivor might tell you the starvation, disease, terror, agony, and overall living hell, the history books strip it to a bare minimum.

Telling only of the peace treaties exchanged, that were quickly overturned when war and economic peril spread. The books gave approximate number of deaths, following information on the codes and programs that ultimately set off bomb after bomb.

From the wreckage and ruin, arose a new idea, Perdita, the first regulated community. This would be the solution, the perfect utopia in which Exitium would be impossible. With technology as the new possibility, Perdita would be a respite from the tragedy, the island of refuge away from the brutalities of the crashing sea.

What was left of the human population were skeptical at first, given how little resources there were, so Perdita started as a collection of ramshackled structures, skeletons of former buildings. Slowly, and painfully, it grew larger and stronger. A society was established and bright minds were put to work.

Over the next three decades, Perdita grew, and began to flourish. More regulated communities were established, Letum, Scruta, Tristitia, Asper, and Cleobis. Each community had a high council, consisting of seven members, who each oversaw a different aspect of the society. Taxation, education, historical restoration, human rights, physical and mental health, infrastructure, economy, and the eighth, unofficial member, the ambassador.

Each of the seven sectors had a workforce, a collection of thousands of people, at this point, who carried out the particular deeds and tasks of that subject. In schools, children were told to choose one of the seven sectors, our their caretaker would choose it for them, and were educated to become part of the workforce.

The city was divided into precincts, and each precinct had about one and a half thousand people. Nearer the council building, precinct were divided by profession in the workforce, but in the outer rings, precinct captains were assigned, and took official messages from the councilmembers.

Citizens rarely saw the councilmembers, you might see their dark cars rolling down the street, or one might be spotted storming down the street, blue cloak billowing, if the occasion called for. The only reason a citizen would ever find themselves face to face with a council member was if you were to be rewarded highly, or punished, even banished from the community for a crime.

As a reminder, our history of Exitium was renewed every year in grade school. As we grew older, more and more exquisite details were fed to us. At this point, we all knew what happened, starting from the beginning.