The Denial, Upheaval, and New Beginnings
The denial was evident. It took a firm grip and manifested in street clashes. Yet, the ones clashing were not the individuals carrying numerous coffins with black masks, nor the initially applauded, but later unrewarded, nurses and doctors. The ministers and their advisers, who found themselves ensnared in the chaos of governance they had created, didn’t dare to separate.
The day of reckoning that followed the last vaccination in 2023 was unprecedented. Bonfires were built with billions of discarded face masks. Everywhere, regression surged like a high tide, and political groups couldn’t find common ground on any issue. Streets were dominated by chaos, and the rats, unaffected by the vaccine, roamed the sewers unafraid of the law enforcers who once targeted them.
The need for regulation seemed more urgent than ever. However, discarding old rules inevitably meant creating new ones. The architects of these new rules were forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned. Their captors were those once heralded as champions of freedom, creators of the one-and-a-half-meter social distancing guideline, which they themselves often ignored.
What emerged was a society in name only. The initial phases saw a resurgence in family bonding and a significant decline in divorce rates. There was also a considerable movement of professionals relocating with their families to rural areas, fleeing the urban environments they once sought. The society didn’t evolve into every man for himself, but rather, it was everyone against themselves. Subsequent waves of chaos and disorder ensued, giving rise to a new generation quarantined from birth. For them, a single vaccine was a death sentence.
The rise of zealous autocrats was inevitable. They spiraled into cycles of violence, each trying to outdo the other. The very corruption they once vowed to combat filled their coffers, giving them unparalleled control over resources. Their reign of terror was executed by their new armies, and they shut their borders to anyone who deviated from their defined norm.
It was only during the fifth wave that introspection began. State resources were so depleted that poverty became widespread. In 2035, the escape of post-coronians from their perpetual quarantines caused massive social unrest. It was as if extraterrestrial beings had landed. This new generation, after years of observation and introspection, chose not to partake in the dystopia that had emerged.
Their quest for a utopia was perilous, especially in a world devoid of any rules. Yet, the virtual world, through ethical hacking of global data centers and AI-constructed code, offered them a haven. A new world was thus born.
