As they trek through another desolate stretch of cracked earth and tangled undergrowth, Roman spots a weatherworn tablet buried under a pile of ashes at what was once a campsite. By some miracle—or cruel joke—it still holds a sliver of charge.
Curious, Jas wipes the grime from the screen and begins scrolling through its cached contents. One video file loads shakily—a news broadcast dated just days before the auroras engulfed the skies and the world fell silent.
The feed stutters, then stabilizes. A suited anchor speaks with forced enthusiasm: “Today, President-elect Donald Trump announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, appointing Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as co-chairs. Critics online have dubbed Musk the ‘Shadow President,’ while memes trend with the label ‘Vice President Trump.’ The tech-billionaire duo promises sweeping reforms aimed at eliminating ‘wasteful bureaucracy.’”
Cutaways flash across the screen: Musk publicly firing agency heads via livestream; Ramaswamy applauding as thousands of government roles are replaced by AI-administered systems.
Then the feed cuts to Washington, D.C.: streets crowded with protesters banging pots and pans at night, chanting and marching under streetlights, while National Guard units patrol intersections and block access to government buildings. News reports flicker briefly across the screen, then vanish—censored, replaced with official statements insisting the city is calm. Local journalists whisper on social media about growing unrest, but every broadcast carefully avoids showing the full scale of the protests.
Roman pauses. “Even now… you can almost hear it.”
Far off, faint echoes of metal clanging and distant shouts seem to drift across the empty land—like the city itself is bleeding through time. Ivy Mae squints at a patch of scorched ground ahead, noticing ash-stained footprints and crushed signs—remnants of barricades, long abandoned but oddly preserved, as if a memory of resistance has etched itself into the earth.
“They were really fighting,” she murmurs, voice tight. “Even if nobody saw it.”
Then it cuts to black.
A faint hum buzzes from the tablet's dying battery.
“I can't believe this was real,” Ivy Mae breathes, more to herself than anyone. “It’s like a parody of the future—only it happened.”
Roman shakes his head. “And just days later, that giant sunspot erupted. The skies lit up like omens... and everything digital just—melted.”
Jas taps the side of the tablet. “Think it was coincidence?”
“Maybe not,” Roman mutters. “Maybe all that disruption... drew the storm.”
They fall silent. Overhead, the faint ghost of auroras still flickers through the dusty daylight—nature’s last warning etched across a broken sky.