Chapter 1: End and Beginning

The Ancients predicted it. They spoke of the end. Some of them prophesied. Some measured. Some denied. Had they known the truth, it would have done them little good.

The planet nearly destroyed itself as the plates fractured by the ancient fault line overrode one another. The bedrock of the North American continent cracked under unimaginable pressures.

The first shocks devastated several thousand square miles of the center of what was the United States, instantly and forever altering its physical and biological makeup. Old mountains vanished. New ones appeared. Entire cities drowned as waters poured in from the Gulf of Mexico, creating a huge salt lake in the center of the country. Aftershocks humped the land mass to the south so that coastline became mountain, partially sealing off the newly formed lake. Rivers that had been the means of commerce and transport became agents of death and destruction, forming new channels in their unrelenting advance to the sea. These rivers, and new ones, carried fresh water from distant mountains in the north, slowly diluting the salt, and the waters eventually became brackish, then almost fresh. Life returned there first.

Millions died in the first series of shocks, and in their immediate aftermath. More perished in volcanic activity triggered by the quakes. A new volcano erupted and grew in the center of the area formerly bounded by the Great Lakes. The results of indifference to the pre-cataclysmic warning signs were catastrophic. But that was only the beginning.

In addition to those in the immediate location millions more, even on the opposite side of the earth, died in the first hours of terror. People around the world who would have either mourned the loss of the Americas, or gloated over their fate, had little time to do either. Automated defense systems, overstressed by the extreme seismic activity, misinterpreted the event and triggered ‘retaliatory’ nuclear strikes at targets all over the globe. Vast portions of Europe and Asia were annihilated, and more millions perished. A few answering nuclear and biological warheads were launched wildly, again by automated systems. They added to the devastation begun by the quakes.

In more than one location, warheads simply detonated in their silos as their control systems overloaded. Nuclear power plants once considered safe by their builders failed, melted down, and added even greater chaos to the impossible scenario. The carnage was unimaginable, and in those first few hours and days the planet was altered forever.

Ninety percent of the earth’s population disappeared – some instantly. Others, less fortunate, died in a matter of months, as their dependence on civilization killed them. Remnants of the once proud race of humans, now soft and vulnerable because of their almost total reliance on technology – and on those who controlled it – cried helplessly in the cold, dark, hulks of dead cities. More, in fact, perished when technology failed, than died during the initial devastation. But they died more slowly, and they died in envy of those who had gone on before. For them, the lack of power meant no food, no water. There was no heat, no light at night; even daylight was dimmed as gigantic clouds of radioactive dust and smoke circled the globe. There was no way to communicate, or call for help, and no one to answer such calls. Hundreds of millions accustomed to instant gratification suffered slow, painful death. Those cities that had survived the initial shock were reduced to radioactive hulks, and those who had fled to them for safety died of radiation poisoning, starvation, and disease. For them, it was the final disillusionment.

The more self-reliant – previously ridiculed for their distrust of civilization, survived longer. But the greater number of those, many of whom chose to live alone, eventually succumbed to the predators - human and otherwise - that preyed on their solitude. Cannibalism became a very real fear.

Still others, fortunate and wealthy enough to have provided for themselves places of refuge and survival, fled to those places and locked themselves in. Having only thoughts of self-preservation, they showed no mercy to unfortunates who stumbled into their holdings. They thought to ride out the storm, but the storm ultimately claimed them too, and their sanctuaries became tombs. Instead of survivors they ended as prisoners of their own greed. Sickness, hunger, and madness overcame them at the last. They thought to preserve the race, but inbreeding took its ugly toll.