The Insomnia Project

Titanomache

When you want to take down a beast, you go for the head, right? It's the same way in hunting, the easiest way to assure a kill is to sever the head or aim for the heart. In this case, the heart was too huge and to aim for it would have been an unnaturally lengthy endeavor. The head would be easiest, it would be the most obvious and most effective. That's what they thought, but no one realized that beast turned out to be a hydra.

The irony of it all was that no one really saw it coming, but the news cast later said it was obvious and that the President should have proceeded more cautiously. No news reporter knows which way is north or south without looking at a map and even then it could be sketchy.

At the United Nations conference in 2015, an assassination attempt was made on the President's life, and much to the surprise of the world, it was successful. The leader of the free world took three bullets to the chest and one to his temple. He didn't last long enough to hear the last two gun shots. The United States of America was left leaderless after that day, but not helpless.

The months that followed, the common people call; the Quiet, as in the quiet before the storm. As expected, the Vice President took office in place of the late President, but his approach to the problem was far different than expected. The identity of the killers were never released or how many there really were, but according to the laws put in place, our neighbors became our enemies and the kids at the grocery store became undercover spies.

To say that the quality of living had diminished would be an understatement of the facts. You couldn't drive off your block without being stopped and searched, even in rural areas. Airports were shut down and most underground transits saw an end to their lengthy and hallowed lives as well. While many citizens were looking for compensation, many others were looking for retribution.

On July 4, 2017, the birthday of our country, displeased citizens marched with guns in hand into the Pentagon, the White House, and the Congress building and killed every man and woman in sight. As a warning to all other world powers that would defy the unbendable will of the free American people,, the bodies of high office holding officials were hung from the roofs of the buildings they served. How very Roman of us.

While our new democracy was being installed and in-fighting amongst the “Liberation” armies was being quelled, the rest of the world seized an opportunity. Bombs started dropping day and night and it became near impossible and meaningless to try and identify the origin of the bombers, everyone was trying to bomb us.

Chaos would be putting it lightly, The war between the Titans and the Gods in Greek mythology had a name that would fit our situation; Titanomache. All the great world super powers had missiles pointed at each other, but unlike the cold war, no one was afraid to fire. Even though America had seen better days and the bodies were still hanging, we hadn't lost our flame and patriotism, a broken term.

Anywhere and everywhere was a battlefield to the new world. Communities fell apart and what was left of proud cities toppled down into ruin, from Moscow to New Deli, Beijing to Brazilia, society had fallen apart and after only four long and bloody years, no one declared their origin for fear of who they may offend and be killed.

The safest places were in the secluded jungle islands of the Philippines and the Hawaiian archipelago. Large tracts of land were dangerous unless you already had favor with whichever gang lord ruled over it. Very few people still inhabited the major cities and metropolises in the world. The lucky ones were never seen.