What The Crows Knew

Chapter One: Societal Collapse

The sun fell on my skin, a luxury many dream of. The warmth went straight through me as the waves crashed beneath me. Turbulent, stormy - but a reminder that I was alive.

In that moment, I could understand death. In this one moment, jumping wasn't such a bad idea. Negative thoughts clouded my mind, positive memories struggling to fight through the walls of suffering I had built around myself.

They said that the cities being built beneath us were for our protection and everyone was welcome, but in reality, it was just for the rich. The rest of us were left to rot above ground, at the complete mercy of the military and the one thing we once needed to survive.

Sunlight.

We always knew the day would come. It was inevitable, one of those things doomed to happen, unstoppable once it had.

Just like any inevitable, it wasn't meant to happen so soon.

The sun held complete control over us, more than any military or government.

Christine Miller was the first to die.

The first to die in my politics class, at least. I'm sure that by then thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people had gone like her. People were slow to piece it together- or, at least they had figured out the right way to keep us in the dark long after people started to die.

When the deaths finally came to light, everyone panicked. The worlds elite were immediately shuffled underground to a temporary holding point, moving later when the more permanent residence was formed. Everyone else flocked to the cooler parts of the world, buying them maybe a few more years out in the open.

My family moved straight to Russia, one of the coldest habitable places on Earth. Russia also being my mother's home country.

Friendships crumbled as did the economy. People attempted to keep up pretences of normalcy, but it didn't last very long.

We had only been in Russia for six months before the military took over.

Tanks rolled into every town, not unlike an invasion movie. The streets were guarded with the claim that they were protecting us from ourselves. Protecting us from those that stopped caring. What they didn't tell us that they were used to keep us away from the underground havens, away from their nice areas that us common people weren't worthy of. They didn't care if we died, so long that their rich were safe.

Everyone was watched. Your home became your cell and the outside was the prison yard.

An environment of mistrust was built. People were rewarded for turning in those with the potential of escaping the military's grasp, yet anyone even suspected of being involved with officials were seen as collaborators and were ostracised from the rest of society.

Neighbours would turn in one another for food and resources, and it wasn't long before people realised that the age-old saying of simply relying on yourself was more than true.

There were only six months between the public finding out about the deaths, and complete societal collapse unlike anything history has seen.

Wars ceased, and religions crumbled.

Government corruption became irrelevant and money was ignored.

Society fell back into the dark ages, under the rule of a tyrannical inhuman leader.

My mental tug of war came to an overwhelming victory. Walls crashed down, and in an instant, new ones were built in their place.

I would not hide. I would not be cornered, nor would I be trapped.

I was going to live.

Pulling my attention from my mind, the sun was too hot on my skin, no longer a gentle kiss but a destructive burn. I walked with confidence and a lift in my face back to the above-ground civilisation, lured by the idea of darkness.

This dying sun will not take me to the grave with it.

Major shout out to @BDub116 for reading over this and helping it be less trash. Still editing and perfecting, so please point out any issues or parts that don't make sense.

Lets play spot the pun. Can you find the pun in this chapter?