A Short Dystopia Scenario

As time moved forward, hundreds of years from the present into the future, many things that were thought to be only of satire were unfortunately no longer a joke. Climate change had finally caught up to the coastal parts of the world, where the rich once lived lavishly under the sun in luxurious beach front homes and high-rise buildings. These were now at the mercy of mother nature, being battered by the more frequent storms, and the foundations were being eaten away by erosion, bringing down many of the once sturdy beach front homes. The high-rise buildings were mostly vacated due to the lack of access from rising sea levels, in which the buildings were inaccessible from the 1st floor without needing a boat. Venice was supposed to be the only city on water, but mostly every low-lying coastal city had a piece of the title now, and Venice itself was inhabitable. Humanity itself had no choice but to relocate further inland, whatever was left of it.

A middle-aged woman, clothes torn as if she were a ragdoll, clutched a visibly shaken toddler as they wandered through a residential area, whose residents no longer resided there. There was a heavy rain soaking the two of them, and the skies crackled with thunder. She was finding her way into an abandoned house, a beautiful family home on the outside, but on the inside, the ugliness that existed was unfathomable. The people who escaped were sure to leave nothing behind, but a few notes.

” If you’re still alive to read this, you’re a lucky soul.”

“If only we could turn back the hands of time.”

“We failed 100%, humanity is doomed.”

“Where are our pets gonna go?”

“War is something you don’t get to plan for.”

Those were just some of the notes written on paper, scribbled on the walls, in any space available. They were sure to leave their feelings and list of regrets behind, and at the current state of the world, might’ve left their soul behind as well. As the woman stumbled into the residence, she took a quick glance towards the south of the house. There laid the skyline of a big city, well whatever wasn’t destroyed by a rain of missiles and other war phenomena. That was the trigger of the fall of society. Country leaders grew bitter to each other. Some of them developed an attitude to conquer and destroy, becoming barbaric as humans were a long time ago. Some wanted to test out the advances of nuclear technology, advances we should’ve never taken up knowing there’s hateful people in the world who could put them to bad use. The United States itself fell victim to the dark side of democracy, too much freedom and no control, and fell into a state of civil war. Other adversary countries took advantage of this and were successful in landing large scale military strikes on most of the population hubs. This prompted a drafting for the military, but with everyone in a bad state of cooperation, the draft was mostly unsuccessful, and the military put all its resources into the war. The country was eventually victorious, but the loss was so large, that there was no more purpose in rebuilding. The leadership had evaporated, because of the most high-ranking leaders had either been captured or assassinated, and some fought along with the military, laying down their lives in a war that had no end. Poverty took a grab of all levels of society since money had no purpose at that point. Within the war tactics employed, destroying food sources was a priority for an enemy country, and that backfired for that country’s inhabitants. Food was rationed with priority to the fighting citizens, promoting even more in border fighting. After a few years, war became more like exhausted fighters, slowly punching each other with whatever strength remained. The bombings slowed. The surveillance flights slowed. The constant tattering of bullets in the distance slowed. And during all of this, the woman could only cling to her young one, waiting for the day it stopped, certain that it would only cease once she was killed. But she was wrong. She was the leftovers of what remained of humanity, a by-product of war. As the thunder continued to boom, a heart shaped locket hanging from the wall vibrated. A note next to it read:

“Sacrifices must be made to give someone else a chance that you’ll never get.”

The woman opened it up to reveal a man. He was hugging her, both in white clothes. A melody begun playing, and a heart shape grew from the top of it, rotating slowly. As the melody chimed on, the toddler began to close his eyes as he was soothed to sleep despite the constant thundering. She also slumped against the wall, falling asleep as the melody came to an end. The heart shape returned inside of the locket, and lightning illuminated the room, revealing the picture in more detail. It also revealed an embedded crack down the middle, separating the two. The locket closed, and the melody ended with a high-pitched chime. That, was the daily routine in the dystopian times…