The World We've Set On Fire ■ Wattys 2016

The Inferno

Peace treaties made. Peace treaties broken. Peace treaties renewed... and broken again.

It was a cycle.

A cycle that led to agitation, anger and grudges. A stimulus was needed, a provocation to start a war. Russia, North Korea, USA, UK, France, China and Japan were the main countries involved. They were in a competition of development and power, and they would do anything to come up first in it.

13th August 2209, leaders of Russia and USA have an argument. A Russian is killed in North Carolina.

15th August, UK fails to return Chinese prisoner till due date. China says it might take extreme action if the release is further delayed.

21st August, Chinese cargo airplane of explosives crashes in North of Tokyo. 14000 lives lost in mass explosion. Blood money required.

3/4/5th September, all members of the UN assassinated by North Koreans. North Korea refuses any link to the killings.

18th September, no blood money paid by China. Beijing bombed by the Japanese.

20th September, China bombs Tokyo and Birmingham (at failure to return prisoners).

25th September, American embassy in Russia attacked.

26th September, riots by Russians in North Carolina. People shot by police.

28th September, Russian troops sent to USA. War declared.

That wasn't all. Slowly and gradually, more countries joined in and it grew. More fights and more wars.

We started the new year and decade with the news flashed everywhere: WORLD AT WAR.

Dramatic articles plastered all over the press. One particular article caught my eye:

Someone who learns from his mistakes isn't human, or maybe, we're demons. After the terrors of the first and second world War, we have started a third, most terrible one. The scale of the war is huge and it seems as if the number of survivors will be minimal. Fellow humans, we will be victims, martyrs and soldiers. Now is the time to save yourself. Humanity isn't worth saving anymore. Save yourself and all those who live. We seek shelter in the earth that we're destroying. Make your underground shelters and escape there. We're rabbits and we'll make burrows to hurry into. Or the End will come.

I remember what my father said to me: "My child, you are in the military. Soon, Greece will get involved, too."

"How do you know that?"

"It's inevitable. It can be delayed, but it will eventually happen." He said.

That night, as I lay in bed, I decided to ask him more, the next morning.

But the next morning, he was dead and had joined my mother in heaven.

I was left alone and so, I started living in the army headquarters. I became a Colonel at a very young age.

And that's when everything went wrong.

I lit a match which added to the deadly fire.

Kaya Scodelario as Gael.