The Madness

It was four o’clock in the afternoon, Eastern time, on a Thursday in late February, when the lights went out everywhere. Those responsible had been planning it for years, carefully placed in position, equipped, trained, and coordinated using cyphered conversations on TOR, the dark web.

First, the grid collapsed; then, the bombs dropped; then, the virus came and, shortly afterward, starvation.

When they said that the worst would never happen, they meant that the series of occurrences required for the worst imaginable outcome wouldn’t occur coincidentally. What “they” didn’t consider is that the worst imaginable outcome might have been someone’s planned event or that human hands might not have been in control at the time.

With no government, laws, or rules, violence quickly took over, and the population was reduced to those who could survive naturally. Some people became Reavers, violent gangs who were only interested in pillaging and capturing girls. Others, like Riley Sutton and Elizabeth MacDonald, joined together and survived by creating an extended family as they defined a new way of life based on herd survival. At first, the predators seemed to have the advantage, then their prey began fighting back.