First, the world went to hell—and then hell froze over.
It wasn’t the apocalypse people expected, but it was just as devastating. Everything changed; nations and communities were ripped apart; everyone lost something, and a whole lot of people—some might say the lucky ones—lost their lives.
Eventually, the world recovered, to an extent, and life went on, after a fashion. But this is not that story. Hell, these days, no one even remembers that story.
The world is the way it is, and people have to learn to live in it however they can.
So, welcome to Braganza, to the slick streets and glass towers of the city they call The Crucible—one of the warmest places in the V.S.E., if you can credit it. Marvel at the wonders of a corporate-owned Ice Age, where the rich go on ‘ice-bath retreats’ while the poor freeze in favelas and tenements. Or tread the underground streets in search of opportunity, out of sight of the glittering high-rises in the city above.
It’s warmer down there, and probably safer. Definitely safer, if you compare it to the above-ground squalor that the poorest of residents are forced to live in. Unless you get sick or injured and have to hope that a backstreet medic can save you. Or you cross one of the megacorps—but in that case, all you can do is pray.
An injured fugitive walks into an underground clinic. It sounds like the start of a joke, albeit a brutal and tasteless one. But it isn’t, more’s the pity. This is that story.
Hosted and narrated by:
Mysterious Stranger (Furare)
Started 09/16/24.
Scenes played: 1
License: Community License
18+
