Crime was increasing. Even the government progagandists couldn’t deny it anymore. More and more people were abandoning society and turning to personal greed. It had been practically unknown before the meteor, but more and more it seemed that times were returning to the old days, the old ways before the unification.
Mirena couldn’t bring herself to understand it. Not fully, anyway. Although she had known it was coming, could see the breakdown happening behind the masks of those she knew, of those she saw in the streets each day, although she could feel the instability growing more and more each day, she couldn’t connect the fear that she felt even in her own life with the violent actions that were taking place each day.
Each day, another robbery took place. Each afternoon, another murder. Each evening, another suicide. Each night, another person simply disappeared. Each morning, the grisly numbers were reported on the news. And day after day, night after night, the numbers kept rising. Society had reached its breaking point, and could only struggle to make it the last few meters, crawling beaten and bleeding to the goal line.
But what kind of goal was it? Possible salvation for a few. Certain death for the rest. Mirena could certainly understand the desperation. She could understand the fear. She could understand the overwhelming desire to take control of her fate, to get some sense of order, of control, of power over the impending doom.
What she couldn’t understand, though, was how a person could expect to get that power by taking from another. If she gained at the expense of her brother, had she really gained? If her sister had to suffer so that she might have luxury, was it really luxury? Yet every night somebody’s brother was gone. Or somebody’s sister, or father, or mother, or daughter. Or husband. Or son.
It was poison. They were guzzling down liquor only to find that it was poison. A poison that was fast acting, mercilessly deadly, and for which there was no antidote. And all around her, people were eagerly drinking it up.