THE GREAT STORM
It has been fifty years since the great storm swallowed New York City. What began as a Category 5 hurricane, monstrous and unrelenting, became the first undeniable sign that our world was unraveling. The storm surge buried Manhattan beneath twenty feet of water, tearing through its veins of glass and steel. The subways, those once-thriving arteries of the metropolis, filled like the chambers of a drowning lung. And when the waters finally receded, they left behind only a carcass of the greatest city humanity had ever known.
But it was not just a city that was lost. New York’s fall marked the beginning of an unstoppable tide—one that eroded the very foundations of human civilization. The storm severed supply chains overnight, sending ripples across a fragile global system that was already fraying. With the ports ruined and distribution hubs crippled, food shortages struck within days, first in the Northeast, then beyond. The illusion of abundance shattered, and what followed was chaos.
For decades, we had prided ourselves on efficiency. Just-in-time supply chains ensured that food, medicine, and goods arrived precisely when needed, reducing costs and eliminating excess. But this efficiency had come at a cost—resilience. Warehouses once stocked with weeks of provisions had been streamlined into bare-minimum storage. Small farms had given way to sprawling monocultures, reliant on synthetic fertilizers and precision irrigation that failed when disrupted. A single break in the chain, a single failed harvest, and the entire system collapsed like a house of cards.
Farms, long reliant on delicate ecosystems that had been stretched to their limits, faltered under the weight of shifting climates and failing infrastructure. The soils, once rich and dependable, dried into dust or drowned in endless floods. Crops withered, livestock perished, and the miracle of industrial agriculture—the great promise that had fed billions—collapsed under its own fragility.
Governments scrambled to maintain control, but when food shipments ceased and rationing began, their authority crumbled. Cities turned to war zones as desperation overtook civility. Borders hardened, and nations turned inward, but isolation offered no salvation. Without food, without fertile land, without the delicate balance that had sustained our species, the world began to shrink. Billions perished in the decades that followed, victims of starvation, conflict, and disease.
AFTERMATH
We are the remnants, the scattered few who remember. We document this history not to mourn, but to understand—so that if there is ever a future beyond this long, empty hunger, it will know what brought the old world to its knees. It was not just a storm that took New York. It was our arrogance, our blindness to the delicate strands that held our civilization together. And by the time we saw them fray, it was already too late.
But from the wreckage, we have found a new way. The cost of control has become clear, and we have turned instead to reverence—reverence for each other, for the earth, and for God. No longer do we seek to bend nature to our will, but to live in harmony with it. We have relearned the wisdom of the old ways, tending to the land with care rather than exploitation. Communities are small but strong, bound together by mutual aid rather than fragile systems of commerce. We live simply, honoring the rhythms of the earth instead of demanding endless growth. And in doing so, we have found something we lost long ago: peace, purpose, and a deep, abiding connection to the world and to the divine. This is our recovery, not in rebuilding what was lost, but in rediscovering what was always meant to be.
REDISCOVERING
“It is God who has given you shade from what He has created, and places of shelter in the mountains; garments to protect you from the heat, and garments to protect you in your wars. In this way He perfects His blessings on you, so that you may devote yourselves to Him.”