Dylan Wyatt
For years, governments around the world tried unsuccessfully to find a solution to the rising population rates that threatened to be our demise. As valuable resources ran out at an alarming rate, as the environment burned away into a worldwide wasteland, as the activities of criminals flourished, humanity and its world seemed to have reached its final days. Religious zealots pleaded for a return to God and his forgiveness as the apparent Judgement Day approached. The rich and powerful hid away in their impenetrable bunkers with their loved ones and any they saw fit to survive. With the world on its last legs, the unimaginable happened.
In the year 2030, the more radical countries at the time started a plot, codenamed Reaper, to secretly purge the planet of the people deemed unnecessary with a series of planned massacres that would be blamed on anyone other than those actually responsible. Five years of widespread bloodshed occurred before the public finally started putting the pieces together thanks to the testimony of the Romanian Prime Minister’s wife and children whose conscience could no longer allow such awful actions to be committed; the Romanian government was the first to be rebelled against by its people. The Prime Minister became the first in a long line of government officials put to death for the crimes. Things may not have gotten so out of control after that had the West intervened as it normally would have, but, at the time, it had its own problems.
In the year 2022, Britain decided to take back all of Ireland in an attempt to recreate the once glorious United Kingdom of ages long past. In retaliation, the Queen and royal family were assassinated within the confines of their homes within the first month of bloodshed. While Britain’s superior numbers and weapons would eventually prevail, the newly established government in charge of the entirety of the British Isles was run by a charismatic and power-hungry dictator of now legendary status, Benjamin Kaine. As the riots and civil wars started popping up across continental Europe, Kaine’s government declared the issues in the East a concern for themselves and any fools that wanted to help such Godless heathens.
In the year 2035, as those responsible for so much death in recent years became known to the public, large masses of concerned citizens formed into militias like the Continental Army of the American Revolution or the Bolsheviks’ Red Guards. Most revolts were led by local leaders and public figures with the most battle experience. The vast majority of the militias possessed little to no knowledge of war tactics or strategy and no experience in a real war. The largest collection of soldiers was in Russia, responsible for the most fatalities from the massacres and whose government many felt had been the main contributor to the Reaper plot. The small, unprepared countries of Eastern Europe, like Estonia and Belgravia, were the first to fall. Russia lasted longer than most thought it would, but by the following winter, Berlin and all the major cities lit up the sky in flames. The wars raged for several more years, spreading into Asia and South America where people were already unhappy.
They say that history repeats itself, in which case this seemed to be a carbon copy of the French Revolution but on a much larger scale. Lacking the proper leadership and organization of the revolutions in America and Russia, the militias and armies, once their purpose was complete and achieved, led to a world full of anarchy, crime, and disease. In some ways, it was worse than what Reaper had intended to eradicate.
In the year 2044, with most of the world’s organized governments lost or replaced with something worse, the United States, restored to its status of world power after the fall of China’s communist government resulted in the end of its crippling debt, elected to send peaceful organizations bent on providing aide in the hopes of returning the world to normality. The standing militias and freedom fighters, not looking for a return to normal, sent all of the unarmed volunteers back, minus their heads, with a message to stay away. Upset and concerned, the U.S. refused Britain’s advice to leave them to their own devices and declared war on the anarchistic armies.
In the year 2047, after almost three long years of fighting the untrained but forever resilient militias that refused to concede, the U.S. held a meeting in the safe house bunker of the White House. After eight hours of deliberation, the President gave the command to initiate Thermonuclear warfare. The bombs starting falling from the sky on November 8, 2045. Nuclear fallout rained down with the ashes of bloodied soldiers and innocent families for months. That day is now celebrated throughout the world as Rebirth Day by those that threw the final blows and as Judgement Day for those that watched the sky turn a sickly shade of deathly white.
In the year 2054, seven long years of suffering ended with the announcement that the lands devastated by nuclear radiation were once again inhabitable thanks to advancements in technology that allowed people to live there in specially built buildings, radiation-resistant body suits, and with certain precautions put into place, including extensive background checks, mandatory curfews, and restrictions on food and other imported items.
In the year 2060, worldwide peace finally seemed to be restored as the renamed United States of the World finished its decade long expansion into the lost lands of Latin America, Canada, and the established colonial territories in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Other countries, now large entities operating under the political movement of Future-Imperialism, received lands they believed they deserved, mainly the other members of the Mighty Four: the Holy United Kingdom, the Free Realm of France, and the Castilian-Arabian Empire of Spain. While other countries still exist, still ruled by those that never lost control, they are relegated in power and size to the Old World. And then, there are the places no one is allowed to talk about or ever go to, lands still reigned by the savages, barbarians, and heathens that refuse to accept the new society.
It is now the year 2090, only a decade remains in this century unlike any history ever thought possible, and for the first time in possibly forever, we are all happy and safe. There is no longer war, only mutually beneficial compromise. There is no longer disease, for science has finally found the cure to that once constant plaque to society. There is no longer poverty, as all are given opportunities to strive in a prosperous society. There is no longer an issue on race, on sexuality, on rights, on injustice. They even tell us we are just as free as we once were, that freedom is inherited the day you are born.
If that is so, why do I feel like a caged lion, waiting for the chance to break free?