Stores grew barren, their owners abandoning them in favor of higher hopes. Everyone who had the capacity packed up everything they could manage and moved inward.
Farmers offered plots of their land to would-be shelter seekers and their families, often forming networks. Farms and fields were littered with families digging, humanity finally working together.
Local governments had closed down operations and were making preparations of their own; after all, it is people who run them. Emergency services were running a skeleton crew, and that wouldn't last.
While everyone was making preparations for the worst-case scenario, there was also great effort to preserve the way of life. Hope is the true driving force of humanity.
The sum of our systems of control and exchange: governments, financial, religious, and educational, is based on mutual belief. Faith.
It can be said that faith is nothing more than profound hope, spurred by desperation, a longing, a need. We need; thus, we create an idea to satisfy that need.
We believe wholeheartedly in that idea: mutual belief breeds faith. Hope is the true driving force of humanity.
When hope in the system failed, people stopped going to work. The world fell into anarchy. There was rioting in the streets, looting, and vandalism.
Not since the last of the old-world elections in 2020, has the world known such disarray. 2016 saw the election of the last, and the decidedly worst president to ever disgrace the oval office, Donald Trump.
Elected initially to rejuvenate the economy, Trump instead condemned the environment, incited wars with allies, and made alliances with dictatorships.
He removed the rights of Americans and destroyed the free economy, giving few corporations absolute control. He committed mass-genocide of immigrants, under the nose of the American people, and made all who disagreed with him an enemy of the state.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, Trump assembled and trained a secret Army, one that he used to covertly eliminate members of Congress and the House who stood against him.
To the world's dismay and disbelief, 2020 saw his re-election — a complete landslide, also an impossibility. With no system to check him, Trump took control of the vote.
Rather than campaigning for votes, Trump ignored the will of the American people and instituted puppets below him. When the majority came, the popular vote was 86% against, but he won by 86%. It was an obvious statement to the American people. And in true Trump style, "Your vote does not matter."
Mass hysteria broke into the streets, and millions congregated around the White House. Cities all through the states declared a state of emergency as people spilled into the streets, wreaking havoc as they swept through.
They overturned cars, set police vehicles ablaze, burned down establishments, and blocked streets. The entire country screeched to a halt.
America went dark for the first time since it lit up over a century before.
People continued gathering around the White House in ever greater numbers, the temperament of the people further soured. There were shouts and chants as the people grew more upset at the blatant and outright ignoring of the constitution.
The fence began to groan and whine under the stress of the people; on the other side stood soldiers in black with fully automatic weapons, shouting in Russian.
Finally, in a sound that would forever change the world and make the cries of the people mute, Trump's Army opened fire. Deafening sounds of automatic fire filled our nation's once prominent capital, cutting down Americans of all ethnicities alike.
People began to panic. As the rows of protestors started to fall one after another, people scrambled. As people tried to scatter, the choppers came down.
A new rendition of the rat-a-tat-tat fire began .50 caliber machine guns.
They cut through people as if they were wet paper. The streets became mobilized, flowing like a river with the blood of its citizens.
It was then, as if everything paused and everyone stopped to watch its flight. A single grenade flew through the air, landing among the soldiers dressed in black.
The grenade landed at one of the soldier's feet, and a pink mist ensued. His companions sprang into the air as if they were the culmination of the proverbial jack-in-the-box toy.
With the resulting confusion, the mob stormed the castle. Desperate machine gun fire continued, as the Army began their systematic retreat.
The mob funneled in, chasing down the soldiers who were now in full retreat.
Heavy machine gun fire continued from the top of the White House and the helicopters. As the mob overtook soldiers, they were stripped and beaten to death. Their faces contorted into nearly unrecognizable fashion.
The mob poured into the White House, where there was more machine gun fire waiting. The White House, formerly a symbol of pride and order, was now nothing more than an overrun palace of a dictator.
When the mob learned that Trump had made a quick exit, the house was burned to the ground with everyone in it.
In an infamous photo that will surely be remembered as long as memory prevails, millions of people, surrounded by the bloody fallen, encircled and watched the symbol of freedom burn to the ground.
Not a single person attempted to subside the flames, only watching it turn to ash with a heavy heart. The White House once again reflected the state of the country.
Trump declared martial law and went into hiding. Trump's Army, formerly known as ICE, under the guise of immigration reform, was now known as the Don.
The Don first inhabited the so-called "sanctuary" cities where the mayors were publicly disgraced and executed in the streets as a demonstration of force.
Civil war broke out, and U.S. cities became battlegrounds. It was the last desperate fight against the onset of the now obvious conclusion of a totalitarian government.
When armed forces members refused to fight against their own, they too were publicly executed, their bodies left to rot in the streets. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers arrived from Russia — support from a kindred spirit.
Americans all over the country were put in internment camps, starved, beaten, and slaughtered by the thousands — an ode to another kindred spirit.
America continued its descent for the next year, while the UN, upon threat of nuclear retaliation from Russia, absolved itself.
On August of 2021, Canada and Mexico joined the American people in the fight against a tyrannical government. The battleground grew, and gunfire filled the nation from coast to coast, as automatic fire became our new metronome.
The vast majority of America became a war zone. What was once sprawling strip malls, car dealerships, and smiling people was now acrid rubble, overturned minivans, and shell casings.
The mass bloodshed continued for another year as cities continued to crumble. The toll of American lives lost in that short time was higher than in any war before it.
The fighting continued until they found Trump in hiding. Originally believed to be riding out the storm in Russia, he was found in a private bunker in the state of West Virginia.
The day the news came over the radio was the first time the country could breathe. Then, in one of the most significant gatherings of American people ever to be witnessed, the dictator was led out to the center of the crowd. The people were cursing him, spitting on him, and throwing things throughout the journey.
As dark orange and sickly as ever, Trump was stripped down, then tied to a pole to be made a spectacle. For hours, people shared their shame with the former president, spitting and urinating on him, throwing rocks, and showing disrespect in the most elaborate fashions they could imagine.
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