What are you most worried about for the future?

Not knowing the future is something that really bothers me. It feels like when someone holds a rubber band, drawn for a shot at your soft bits; it’s the anticipation, and it absolutely messes with me. I don’t know if it’s my Asperger’s or just an innate human reaction, but trying to fathom the future in my head creates a strange feeling of uncanniness in the hollow of my soul.

I fear the future for my body is not as strong internally as it is externally. Will social security exist when I will need it? Will there be help for people like me, or will a failed health infrastructure leave me to cross country borders for a chance to just live?

Many people with immense power have a lot of chips in this game of existence, and they are playing to win.

Nuclear fallout scares me, but not as much as widespread EMP detonations. Humanity would implode without technology. Do you know how to hunt, scavenge, fish, and survive in any and all conditions? Better get on that if you believe in a future of war and death. I am not necessarily a doomsayer, I am just stating my fears. I am actually more concerned about my country erupting in civil war before a nuclear crisis.

I fear the death of my loved ones, my companions, my people, and friends.

It is almost too painful to think about, to be brutally honest.

---

“The Watchman”

By: Arwen-Wynter Oakley

---

In the year 2024, the United States was a rotting carcass, ravaged by a merciless civil war. The election that had promised to bring change and hope had instead ignited a powder keg of hate and violence, tearing families apart and leaving cities in ruins. As an ordinary citizen caught in the crossfire, I had become a reluctant witness to the harrowing descent into darkness.

The nation was divided, not by mere disagreements, but by a seething hatred that seemed to emanate from the very soul of the country. No one was safe; suspicion and paranoia lurked around every corner. Friends turned against friends, neighbors against neighbors, all consumed by the venomous propaganda that flooded the airwaves.

It was during one of those wretched nights, as sirens wailed and gunshots echoed through the desolate streets, that I stumbled upon a figure clad in a tattered leather jacket. His eyes held the weight of a thousand sorrows, and his face was etched with lines of suffering.

“Keep your head down, kid,” he muttered, his voice a low growl that sent shivers down my spine. “It’s a war out there, and it won’t be won by heroes.”

He called himself the Watchman, a lone wolf who roamed the dark underbelly of this torn nation, witnessing atrocities that no one else dared to confront. I followed him in silence, drawn to the aura of doom that clung to him like a suffocating shroud.

The Watchman took me to hidden enclaves, where survivors huddled in fear, scavenging for morsels of hope amid the rubble of a once-great nation. The horror stories they shared were enough to haunt one’s dreams; tales of families torn asunder, atrocities committed in the name of ideology, and the howls of suffering that seemed to resonate in every corner of the land.

“There’s no going back from this,” the Watchman muttered, his eyes glazed with memories too painful to bear. “This is the darkness that’ll consume us all.”

But he refused to give in to despair. Instead, he sought out those who might still have a sliver of humanity left within their tortured souls. He spoke to them in whispers, trying to reignite the fading embers of compassion, to remind them of the loved ones they had lost to this cruel war.

As we traveled together through the ravaged land, we encountered the damned and the desperate, individuals whose minds had been twisted beyond recognition by the relentless barrage of propaganda and fear. The Watchman showed them no mercy, confronting them with their own monstrous deeds, forcing them to confront the horrifying truth of what they had become.

In the midst of this bleak landscape, we stumbled upon a group of children, orphaned and alone, forced to fend for themselves in a world devoid of kindness. They clung to each other, their innocent eyes mirroring the horrors they had witnessed.

The Watchman’s heart seemed to break at the sight, and he vowed to protect them from the darkness that surrounded them. He became a father figure to those lost souls, teaching them to survive in a world where survival meant the difference between life and death.

But even the Watchman’s efforts could not shield them from the relentless onslaught of hatred. The children’s innocence was like a beacon for the wicked, and they became pawns in a twisted game of power and control.

In the end, the darkness proved too overwhelming. The Watchman’s noble intentions could not overcome the malevolence that had consumed the nation. He fell victim to the very monsters he had fought so hard to defeat, leaving me to carry on his haunted legacy.

I wander now as a solitary witness, my soul weighed down by the horrors I have seen.

The civil war has scarred this nation irreparably, leaving behind a legacy of pain and despair. As I roam these desolate streets, I know that the darkness will never truly recede. It lurks in the shadows, waiting for another opportunity to devour us whole.

This is the grim tale of a nation torn asunder, where hope was shattered and darkness reigned supreme. And in the depths of my weary heart, I wonder if we will ever find redemption, or if we are doomed to repeat this tragic cycle of self-destruction.