Crisis (Prologue)

The World was Already in Crisis, a New Threat Grew Unnoticed in the Shadows…

In the early years of the 21st Century, one of humanity’s greatest fears began to be played out. It began when oil production in the Middle East reached its peak.

We had been warned about this for decades but still, no one seemed overly concerned. War and global warming still dominated the headlines with health scares and violent crime always following close behind.

When America decided to seize control of the remaining oil fields the world finally sat up and took notice. There were demonstrations in America itself, larger than those ever seen before. It was a country still licking its wounds from a prolonged war and its people were not ready to have them reopened.

Demonstrations led to riots and riots to curfews and martial law. Conscription followed as the numbers willingly joining the armed forces diminished. People were scared, and when fear runs through the most powerful nation on earth it does not take long for the rest of the world to mirror that fear and its consequences.

Around the world countries closed their borders, cut off oil, gas and coal exports and expelled diplomats, especially American ones. In Britain, America’s one-time number one ally, the anti-American feeling grew exponentially and along with it fear over our own safety and energy future.

The Navy was dispatched in large numbers to safeguard the North Sea platforms and plans were put in place to priorities and ration access to the reserves we had.

If America sets the trends, Britain is the first to follow them, here as there demonstrations became riots and riots became bloodbaths as recently formed anti-terrorism laws were twisted and turned until they could be used openly on anyone thought to be a threat to law, order, and the democratic process.

Here as there big business that had grown fat from leeching off the people, now grew scared as shareholders pulled out their investments, the effects of fear spread quickly, like the forest fire, it consumes all in its path, not stopping until it has devastated everything it can reach, it didn’t take long for the markets to collapse.

Food shortages followed. Anyone who the general public saw surviving too easily became a scapegoat. Those few who had the foresight to be prepared, install alternative energy sources oscillated between being heroes who could save humanity and the devil who was the cause of humanity’s decline.

While the former led to adulation, praise and petitions for help and resources, the latter gave over to threats, intimidation, looting and death. Prime ministers and presidents came and went; whole governments followed, each promised a return to normality, to the prosperity we had known, and each failed to deliver.

The central government broke down within a few decades and with it any semblance of law and order. Some more isolated communities policed and protected themselves.

For those in the towns and cities, it was very different, community spirit had always been in short supply, it was now non-existent, only those who could protect themselves had any chance of surviving.

Then when we thought it was about as bad as it could get, nature stepped in and the North Sea gas stopped coming, the last coal was given up by the mines, winter came and with it came the end of everything we knew.

It would have been the harshest winter on record if there had been anyone still keeping the records or predicting the weather. There was no longer any point, there was no longer any television, there was no longer any electricity to power any sets that were left.

Hundreds, maybe thousands died that first winter. Mostly from exposure, but also from starvation, TB and a host of water-borne infections that came just as the snow, our cleanest source of water by then, thawed and mixed with the untreated sewage and the many dead bodies that lay where they fell.

In the decades to follow humanity would be brought to the edge of extinction, through desperation it would learn to survive on what it could forage and what it could hunt. Rumors of food supplies, freshwater or new heat sources would once again encourage some bands of people to work together to increase their survival chances.

Every few years there would be whispers of new power sources, of nuclear power plants that still worked. For all but a few these notions remain just whispers.

Even at times of fear when self-preservation becomes the driving force behind all actions, there are a few remarkable people who look for and find solutions for all. It was hard to believe at first, so many times had the words been uttered, but this time they were true; a new power source had been found.

No one outside of its inventors really understood how it worked, but it worked. It could be used alongside what was left of our solar panels and our wide turbines to store and maybe even distribute power.

Just when hope was restored a new threat appeared, threatening to plunge humanity into a crisis it was ill-equipped to fight

Previously published on Simily. Thank you for reading. I found this in some old files, dated 2006. There is more to the story and I may continue it if there is enough interest.