Perhaps only a few remembered how it truly began.
Radiation seeped in through the soil, crops began to wither until little of the flora from the Old World could survive outside. Water that was once highly essential had gathered the most pollution due to thousands of deaths and toxins.
With the drought came war for resources, and death brought unending plagues that wiped out almost all of the races.
All the creatures battled for survival
Animals had become unrecognizable, twisted by the endless cycle of evolution.
Mutations gave birth to monsters.
Evolved variants of diseases brought forth rotten corpses to life
What remained of the Old World was only written in textbooks.
The simple conclusion was this: the world fell, and humanity collapsed from being at the top of the food web down to the lowest, weakest prey.
The simple solution was for survivors to build their own defensive walls, tall and sturdy enough to separate what remains of mankind from the toxic, uninhabitable wasteland outside. They could cover more than ten cities, each located at the safest places on Earth.
Within these strongholds, humanity clung to life once more, as if the walls gave an eternal promise that humans would be protected forever and ever.
But then, after a couple of centuries, humanity began to take cautious actions beyond the walls, aiming to discover the harsh environment, seeking hope.
"…"
Hope?
- Several people chose to go outside. To be hope.
- I want to be a hope as well.
Why?
- Perhaps I can help salvage something, such as remnants of the past, or at least help them understand new findings in the terrain, hoping for them to get new information for survival.
Are walls not enough?
- No. The world had not healed.
- It had only adapted.
--- Ian Velen
[Excerpt from his academic (drafted) essay. June 22, 3089]