The World Of Steam

Prologue

The man sat around the warm, crackling campfire as others also huddled around it, trying to stave off the cold night of the winter. Old scarves were wrapped around their necks tightly, woollen hats were pulled over their ears. One young woman rubbed her hands together, trying to generate some heat. The man looked at everyone as they eagerly awaited for him to begin the legendary tale, metal mugs of hot English Ivy tea in their freezing hands. He looked down, staring into the crackling fire through his cracked glasses. "That was the dark day when it all ended. The destroyed buildings and scale of destruction just went on and on. Everything was in ruins, like a nuclear bomb had gone off. The Blitz had returned, but it wasn't the Germans this time. It was us. Our own people were bombing each other for the sake of domination. The war resulted in the longest, darkest week of my life. I wasn't even sure if I was still alive or I had died and gone to Hell. Then I realised that there was no difference. There were casualties, of course, from the riots. God knows how many people died in the war. Some say that the quantity is in the millions. The doctors and undertakers stopped counting a while ago. After the war ended, I stepped outside, looked up at the falling snow. It took me a small moment to realise that it wasn't snow, it was ash, from everyone that had died fighting. Some died screaming as they were engulfed in flames. Others were cremated. We did not have the space to give everyone a proper burial. But it was the best that we could do for them. The machines all stood silent and are still standing there to this very moment, a painful reminder of the fight. As for the council, only a small handful managed to escape. Maybe they are living underground like moles, hiding with the alligators in the sewers. Maybe they are planning another strike, but I don't think that they have it in themselves to go through everything once more. Their own war had killed them off. The mark are doing what they can to make our lives easier, but we are still far from that. It will probably be another decade until we are back to the start of the 21st century, back to when things were so much simpler. I just hope that we will be able to hold out for that long. As for Lennox, no one ever heard from him again. Some say that he went mad with grief and killed himself. Others say that he went off-grid, never to be seen again. Just another ghost to this haunted place. One person even said that they found his gas mask, his only piece of sustenance, abandoned on the pavement. But I think that he's still out there somewhere, tied up in a little shack, all by himself, still mourning over his loss. Wherever he is, I hope that he found his peace. In truth, that's all he ever really wanted. Just to have some peace without having the burden of saving London. That was fifteen years ago, and we still worship him as our saviour to this day."