DAY 4: THE FALL OF US

Trust dissolved into theft. Where people once traded favors they now kept doors bolted and eyes turned away. Lines for water became lines for violence. One shove. One broken wrist. Then a shout and a stampede.

Makeshift gangs formed around fuel and food. They moved like packs, quick and ruthless. Markets became ambushes. Convoys were ripped apart on the highway. Survivors learned to hide their lights and lie about what they had.

Hospitals emptied into the street. Those too weak to walk were left behind. Medics carried what they could and then fled when armed men forced them to hand over supplies. Pharmacy shelves went bare in hours. Bullet holes marked the entrances of churches and community centers.

Authority meant someone with a gun and the will to use it. Local strongmen declared zones and levied taxes. Those who resisted were shown the price. Public executions replaced courts. A rumor could kill a man faster than hunger.

Profiteers traded medicine for sex. Priests traded salvation for food. Families traded children for promises they would never keep. Old laws were burned with the books that recorded them.

Camps offered shelter and then demanded labor. Work meant a ration. Fail to work and the ration stopped. Slavery returned in new names.

Beneath it all, a quieter horror spread. Some learned that a body could be a resource. Conversations that were whispered in basements became facts in the daylight. Survival had a new currency.

By nightfall the city smelled of smoke and warm metal. Fires were no longer accidental. They were warnings. They were claims.

[End Transmission]