Dystopia

Complete and utter ruin.

Total collapse of society as it was known.

It started just as a seemingly temporary degradation of the internet - the world on standby.

Quickly, however, all false idols and narratives, illusory conditions and establishments, shattered and shape-shifted; eventually, reality as we knew it crumbled before us, changing form, forcing the populace awake to assess their misconceptions.

A demented and vile wickedness revealed itself: the Plague, the only plague there had ever been, the plague that bred all plagues.

Within a decade what expanded across all man-named oceans was an indisputable decline of modern civilization.

The most destructive process humankind had ever been subjected to was upon us, with nowhere left to hide.

A destructive process: to offer a constructive one.

V stuffed the container into her pack with her remains of the beans and herb soup the 4 of them had prepared at their dusk meal. The journey was much less lonely with her partner, L, and their friends, X and Q. They were headed toward a sanctuary in Iceia where peace and stability had been maintained, and there was hope of rebuilding some sense of society - the details of travel and means of rescue shared online before cyberspace disintegrated. Anyone with the capacity to survive that remained was headed there; there were many people V and the other 3 hoped to meet there, but many people they knew they would not, and for the latter they were especially grateful for each other’s company.

V stood and raised her glass mason jar of old rose tea to her fellow comrades, as was tradition for one of them to do at the conclusion of their daily dusk meal, before setting off into the last of the sunlight, trekking partly into the night;

"A toast," one began,

"to the return to Self." V chose to conclude.

This tacit tradition amongst them arose from a common desire to frequent connection and Gratitude, and evolved into selecting a humbling and/or motivating motif for the day - a grounding theme of sorts; pervasive.

L and the other pair nodded solemnly to this toast, and raised a fist (or some other item if the fist was unempty), as was typically accompanied by a hand over the heart if both hands were free. They all knew exactly what the words meant, and needed the reminder after a tiring day.

Though each day had required attentive effort and was especially unpredictable, given the option, they would all still choose this over the way of life humanity recently had to shed. Every norm they had ever known was flipped upside-down and what was revealed to all in the wake of this great change, was that they had been enslaved in a mirage, and had never known themselves or one another at all.

Much of the population was subjected to a Great Poisoning, wherein most didn’t even seek Truth or didn’t know they were not in it, and lives were conducted mundanely and purposelessly. The toxin inhibited the natural abilities in people’s bodies to see clearly and think independently. The seething wickedness that had suppressed us, the actual world, Reality - was hidden in plain sight. Chaos to the point of Conscious Warfare brewed over many decades. The antidote, that the majority had painfully but finally awakened to, was within - was authenticity, was Self, was Other, was All, was One, was Truth.

The 4 swiftly embarked once more on their route into the cool evening, lightly but efficiently packed; most importantly, with their solar gear, mobile herbal apothecary, and quantum and photonic equipment enabling them to maintain certain technologies amidst the absence of an internet. V put her palm to the gold heart-shaped locket around her neck as the crew trekked. Inside was ethereal Knowledge she earned from a battle that felt ancient now, but it would be the key to restoring Iceia and whatever evolved:

the Key that unlocked them All.