Tumbling Down
The next morning, as sunlight filtered through the broken windows of the community center, Jas sat near the remains of an old jukebox, flipping through a pile of cracked CDs and ancient MP3 players they’d found in a storage room.
“Hey,” they said, holding up a scratched disc. “This one’s got a song called Tumbling Down by some indie artist. Guess they saw it coming.”
Ivy Mae tilted her head. “What’s it about?”
Jas plugged in an old headset and hit play. A scratchy voice filled their ears—lyrics about a world obsessed with wealth, blinded by greed, ignoring the warning signs until it was too late. The chorus repeated like a prophecy:
"They built their towers, they built their lies,
They sold the world in their disguise.
But when the cracks began to show,
It all came tumbling down below."
Jas pulled off the headphones, shaking their head. “It’s eerie. Like someone tried to warn them.”
Roman leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Plenty of people tried.”
Ivy Mae nodded. “There were movies, too—The Electric Onion, The Social Network, The Social Dilemma… They were all screaming that the system was rigged. That social media was turning people into addicts, feeding them whatever they needed to hear to keep them distracted.”
“And what about that weird Fire Island thing?” Jas added. “Rich kids paying thousands for a festival that didn’t even exist? And they still believed the influencers who sold them on it.”
Roman smirked. “Sounds a lot like the rest of the world. Just one big scam.”
“And Airbnb?” Ivy Mae shook her head. “At first, it was just people renting out spare rooms. Then investors swooped in, bought up whole neighborhoods, and suddenly no one could afford to live in their own cities.”
“Even Burning Man changed,” Jas said. “It started as a protest against consumerism, but by the end, it was a playground for tech billionaires who showed up in private jets and luxury RVs.”
Roman sighed. “Everything became extreme. Ads everywhere. Every device tracking people, brainwashing them from the moment they woke up.”
“They even had TV screens for pets,” Ivy Mae muttered. “Dogs and cats being monitored in their own homes.”
Jas set down the MP3 player, shaking their head. “And all of it… just distractions. Keeping people from seeing the cracks in the foundation.”
Roman’s voice was quiet but firm. “And when the foundation cracked, everything came tumbling down.”
Silence settled over them as they sat with the weight of that truth. The world hadn’t ended in a single explosion or a great war. It had collapsed under the weight of its own lies, its own greed, its own blindness.
And no one had stopped it.