Northern Exposure: The divided

The Beginning

Without warning it began! The inevitable, I think it's fair to assume this book is not in my possession. This means I'm most likely dead. Most nights I wrestle the reason I have chosen to explain what happened, the things we did to each other, things no human being should witness. I Wright this simply to enlighten your poor soul and give you more of a chance than I had. A chance to survive what is most likely the brink of human extinction. Times are harder now and as the days go by we are less of our former selves. We have become husks floating around in a lost, desolate world. I look at this place and it still seems so alien to me, as the days roll into the nights I'm still unsure of how we got to this point.

If you are reading this, you too are probably North and very much aware of what has happened to our beloved city. I feel a responsibility to inform you that you will most likely share the same fate as I have. I understand you may be wondering what's worse than death, trust me in this place death seems like a paradise compared. I do not know why I still feel so obligated to write this. To be honest most nights I think its just an escape from the madness, like a natural sedative it's the only way I can fall asleep in this hell. However I do need to clear my conscious and pay dividend for my demons. I need you to know what happened to me; I need you to know what we have become and what we are capable of. I need you to know why we have chosen to kill each other, why the smell of human flesh lingers in the air like slow roast pork on a Sunday afternoon. Why bodies litter our streets. Why things that seemed to be so impossible happen in front of our very own eyes. Why conformity i this place is the unreal ideas people live their lives by and why I was included into this group of youthful abominations. All of this might be irrelevant compared to what I am about to tell you.

I remember the past, how I would lay on my bed while listening to the bustling pot of cultural dilution brewing. Continually going at an ever slowing pace. People intertwining in each other's lives, affecting each other without the slightest fathom of how they needed one another to sustain the comfortable lives in the city they so much adored. They moved around weaving in and out not taking the time to enjoy what they truly had. Not taking a second breath to soak in the benefits of being able to jump into a cab and drive to the local cinema down the street. Forgetting how easy it was to stay in contact with their friends and family through social media, video chats and phone calls. Or being able to stop at the grocery store with their favorite foods all lined up, packaged and ready to go.

However most of all, they never took the time to realize what company meant. What having people brush against your shoulders as they walked past the busy street felt like, or the joyous sound of laughing kids in the green parks. They hadn't felt alone before, not the type of alone I was about to feel, the type of desertion which starts to feel as physical as a blade to your flesh. They had never known how loud and frightening the absolute sound of nothing was. No birds in the trees, no noisy neighbors, not a howl in the distance or a scream over the horizon... absolutely nothing!

I can rant, rave and explain the silence, then the chaos which soon ensued. But before we go any further I have to take you to the beginning. To the place it all happened and let you know why it happened. I have to let you know what I went through on that dreadful day and the events which soon ensued. You need to know how we have survived. How we have stayed strong even after being plunged into the bowels of hell. But mostly I have to explain the reason behind my drastic decision, the reason I had to kill the person who meant everything to me, the reason I had to stand over the lifeless body of the women I loved more than life itself.

2030 was a year never to be forgotten. The world unanimously took that curve ball called life and smashed it out of the park! Democracy reigned king and poverty had become somewhat of a faded idea. Crime had globally dropped and a strong middle class had developed throughout the world. An Economic boom had surged from country to country and now when we spoke about people starving and country's collapsing it sounded like a farfetched fable. Humanity had beaten the global recession and was united together in a stand to bring peace and economic sustainability through out the world. We had beaten a pandemic, stomped our foot on a ravenous globe virus which left us bunkered down in our houses waiting for a cure. We had eventually learnt how to navigate our way over the thin fragile tight rope we shared with our planet and its other inhabitants. We managed to master technologies which powered our world through sustainable energy sources while simultaneously learning the importance of the planets animals and their environments. We helped revive animals which were crucially engendered and even managed to bring back some extent species thanks to DNA scripting and the help of CRISPR. Majestic Wooley Mammoth herds took back the cold grasslands of the Alaskan Game sanctuaries which had been created to protect the reintroduced species. The Mammoth was not the only extinct animals we brought back, the out back saw the return of the Dodo bird and the Thylacine once again hunted in the forests of New Zealand. We helped flood the jungles of Borneo with Giant orangutans once again; majestic bangle Tigers thrived in huge preserved lands stretching throughout India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. The Rhino bountifully flourished once angin on the African continent and could breath a sigh of relief as Ivory and horn poaching became non existent. Our oceans and coral reefs came back to life as we invested in a biodegradable lifestyle which in turn stopped suffocating it with plastic and refuse.