No one alive truly remembered the world before the black clouds came. Some still spoke of it in whispers, their voices careful, as if the darkness itself might hear and punish them for daring to speak of it. They told stories of a time when warmth came from the sky, when water fell freely, when the air itself had movement. But to the generations born beneath the unmoving shroud, these were little more than myths.
The clouds had swallowed the sky long ago, bringing an end to the forces that had once sustained life. Without the sun, the world grew cold. Without rain, the rivers dried. Without wind, the air sat heavy and stagnant, pressing down on the land like a weight that could never be lifted. At first, the people tried to survive as they always had, but the earth no longer gave back. The forests withered, the fields turned to dust, and the animals that once roamed freely disappeared.
Survival became a matter of control. With no natural warmth, fire was rationed, its fuel too precious to waste. Deep wells and underground reservoirs became the only sources of water, guarded fiercely, their reserves dwindling by the year. What little food remained had to be carefully managed. Hunting was unreliable; the few creatures that had adapted to the barren world were elusive, and each year there were fewer.
In some settlements, there was one fragile hope—a greenhouse. These were not like the greenhouses of the old world, where plants flourished in abundance. These were sealed, self-contained structures, built to preserve what little life remained. They used carefully maintained systems to recycle every drop of moisture, trapping condensation from the air, filtering wastewater, and reusing soil again and again. The food they produced—bitter greens, stunted vegetables, small, pale roots—was barely enough to supplement the meager diet of the villagers. Yet, in places where a greenhouse still stood, it was a treasure beyond measure.
But not every settlement had one. Some had been lost to time—collapsed from disrepair, looted in desperate times, or simply never built at all. Those without a greenhouse relied solely on hunting, scavenging, and the occasional trade with those who had managed to maintain theirs. Yet even in the villages lucky enough to have one, the food grown inside was never enough to sustain everyone. Hunger was a fact of life, and the weakest were always the first to suffer.
The settlements were built for survival, not comfort. Low, insulated buildings trapped what little warmth could be found. Everything was repurposed, nothing was wasted. Children grew up learning the rules of conservation—never take more than you need, never waste water, never let the fires burn too long. It was a hard life, but it was the only one they knew.
Yet, even in this bleak world, there were whispers of something more. The elders spoke of a time before the sky was stolen, when food was plentiful, when the land gave freely. Some even believed that the sun, the wind, and the rain could return—that the world could be restored. But no one knew how.
No one dared to believe too much.
Hope was a dangerous thing in a world where survival depended on accepting reality.
But one day, everything would change.