Bliss Creek

Prologue

Ring around the rosies,

Pocket full of posies, 

Ashes, ashes,

We all fall down.

I grew up thinking this was just an old nursery rhyme, no more, no less. We all did. We would sing the song and hold hands while spinning in a circle and see who could fall down the fastest at the end. It was childhood innocence.

Only it wasn't.

No one really knows the origins of the rhyme, but studies of folklore date the song back to the thirteen hundreds and identifies it as a lamentation over the bubonic plague, which plowed its way through Asia and Europe in that century, and again in the sixteen hundreds. Spread by fleas and rats, the bubonic plague granted immunity to no one. It has been said that the "ring around the rosies" refers to the red rash that an infected person would manifest on the neck; the "pocket full of posies" to the belief that these flowers would create immunity; "ashes, ashes" to the sound of the associated sneezing; and finally, "we all fall down" to countless victims meeting their demise. Eventually, almost one-third of the population would fall down.

As always, we humans bounced back, and life went on as usual ... until it didn't. We had had wars before-two world wars, in fact-but none of them could compare with the devastation of the last war. World War III hit with vengeance. Everyone knew it was coming, yet somehow it took us all by surprise. The war reminded all of us that we are not in charge, and we cannot dictate outcomes. No one was prepared, and as with the plague centuries before, no one was immune. We were a highly technical world. Brilliant, in fact. Our science had become so advanced that our weaponry was unparalleled, truly a work of art, designed to destroy entire towns, cities, and sometimes entire states with just a push of a button, while the finger doing the pushing was tucked safely away in a bunker.

Truly brilliant.

Two-thirds of the world population was annihilated by the plague we call war. Those who remained had to create a new reality, a new existence out of what was left.

In school, they teach us about the recovery, the hellscape that existed after the war. Some believed World War III was Armageddon, and we are what is left. Those of us born decadeslater find this theory unconvincing. Technology had to be reinvented, scraped together out of the remaining bits of shrapnel peppered across the earth. Those that survived questioned their luck, wondering if the dead had it better. Evil ran free, as there was not much left in the way of leadership or law. Pillagers rampaged throughout the world, free to pick off the weak, just as Darwin had predicted.

And "Ring around the Rosies" was revived.

But as with so many times before, mankind rebounded into clusters and groups of people and became organized, created laws, revived electricity and running water, and got ready. While peace has never graced us again, we lived, we persevered, and we fought for the idea of it. We collected ourselves and recreated our government, and we made it better ... or so we thought.

We did what we could with what we had, anyway.

Those that disagreed were no longer allowed in. Disagreements were too dangerous, and the freedom to disagree was seen as a privilege that we could not afford. Zones were incorporated and papers filed to solidify the agreements that people would follow the rules, that they would follow the lead of whoever was the leader. Like the former United States of America, the Zones had to sign the social contract and abide by the rules, and they did ... until they didn't. And then they were no longer protected. The Collective Leadership would no longer offer them the privilege of military protection, or even a bank account. To some, this was not such a bad idea, being free of the collective. But those people had not been to the Zones that had been "freed."

They hadn't seen the collateral damage that fell upon the innocent people, the small people. Somewhere out there in the areas beyond those that were a part of the Collective, the war continued. Probably not raged, but it continued. Slowly and methodically, the enemy picked them off, one by one. The enemy was patient and waited to see where the front lines had moved to, and then they just walked in. The people would fight, but they would never win. Blood would be shed, but not much; the people didn't have a lot of fight left in them.

The world was not-is not-a very pretty place. I was born into this ugly world, although I don't know it. I don't know much of anything. Like the world we now inhabit, I am a blank slate, free to rewrite my story.