Monday: A Mysterious Broadcast
The air was still, thick with an eerie quiet that had settled over the land since the world began shifting. Ivy Mae adjusted their pack as they walked, the crunch of their boots against gravel the only steady sound. The group had been traveling since dawn, weaving through the remains of roads littered with rusted-out cars, their engines long dead. No one had driven in years—whatever the auroras had done, they had made sure of that.
Jas carried the strange tablet, its dull metallic surface still warm to the touch. They had been trying to unlock its secrets for days, but now, without warning, the screen flickered. A grainy projection flared to life in front of them.
The image was old, distorted, but the faces were unmistakable—Justin Trudeau, Trump, Elon Musk, Putin, the Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Elizabeth May. They sat around a table in a dimly lit room, their postures tense.
“This is before everything fell apart,” Roman murmured, squinting at the screen.
Ivy Mae’s grip tightened on The Alchemy of Transformation. “What are they talking about?”
The projection stabilized just enough for Trudeau’s voice to cut through the static.
> “We’ve received the first reports. It’s not just solar storms—it’s the auroras. They’re melting things they shouldn’t be able to. Certain metals, infrastructure, systems we thought were untouchable.”
The screen glitched violently. Then Musk’s voice came through, impatient and dismissive.
> “There’s no proof of that. We don’t even know if the rays are consistent—”
Trudeau cut him off, voice sharp. “Elon, we do know. The satellites picked up direct beams breaking through cloud cover. Pinpoint strikes. We’ve lost bridges, rail lines—hell, even currency stockpiles. We can’t ignore this.”
Another surge of static. The video stuttered.
Jas barely breathed. They knew.
For years, everyone had believed climate change was the sole cause of the world unraveling—the storms, the flooding, the crumbling infrastructure. And while that was true, it wasn’t the whole truth. The auroras weren’t just a symptom of a damaged planet. They were changing things.
Melting. Warping.
Ivy Mae exhaled, staring at the dark screen. “If they knew this back then, why didn’t they tell us?”
No one answered.
Above them, even in daylight, faint ribbons of green and violet shimmered in the sky. The auroras had never left.
And the world, still shifting, was far from finished with them.