When the first wave of Erebis finally ended, the world did not feel victorious. It felt exhausted. The silence that followed was not peaceful—it was heavy, pressing down on the lungs the way grief does when it lingers too long. Half of humanity remained alive, but survival came with scars carved deep into both body and spirit. People walked slower now, as if the ground itself resisted their steps, as if the earth remembered who it had swallowed and refused to forget.
The streets were empty in a way that felt wrong. Not calm. Not quiet. Empty like something had been ripped out and never replaced. Buildings stood intact, yet lifeless, their windows staring blankly at a world that no longer spoke back. The air carried fear the way it once carried noise. Survivors moved through these spaces cautiously, glancing over shoulders, flinching at sounds, counting breaths without realizing they were doing it.
"I don't know what we're rebuilding anymore," someone whispered once, standing beside a collapsed market square.
"A home," another replied weakly.
"Or a tomb," the first voice answered.
No one argued. Because no one truly knew the difference anymore. The line between living forward and burying the past had blurred until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
People clung to each other like fragments of broken glass, sharp edges pressing together out of necessity rather than comfort. Families slept in shared rooms, hands within reach, not for warmth but for reassurance that no one had stopped breathing in the night. Trust was fragile, yet loneliness was unbearable. So they held on, even when it hurt, even when fear whispered that closeness itself had once been deadly.
The world was trying to move again, but it staggered like a wounded animal. Every attempt at rebuilding carried uncertainty, as if humanity was afraid to hope too loudly. Beneath every act of survival lingered the same question, unspoken but shared by all: Are we repairing life… or just learning how to die more slowly?
Governments did not fall in flames or riots. They simply… stopped functioning. Offices remained, buildings stood, flags still hung in the wind, but authority drained away quietly, like blood from an unattended wound. Laws lost meaning when no one could enforce them. Promises became echoes from press conferences no one watched anymore. People waited for direction that never came, until waiting itself became pointless.
Borders that once inspired nationalism and war turned irrelevant overnight. What good was a boundary when the enemy had no face, no uniform, no allegiance? Airports became graveyards of grounded planes. Checkpoints stood unmanned. The world, once obsessed with control, had been humbled into stillness. And in that vacuum of power, something else began to move.
Councils emerged quietly, without elections, without consent. Bankers who had preserved wealth while others lost everything. Industrialists whose factories never truly closed. Ministers who spoke with rehearsed sorrow. Generals whose authority survived even when nations collapsed.
"This isn't a takeover," one broadcast assured.
"It's a necessity," another voice added.
People listened, not because they trusted them—but because they were tired of chaos.
"These people know how systems work," neighbors whispered to one another.
"They have resources."
"They won't let everything collapse."
Hope shifted away from governments and toward power itself. Exhaustion dulled skepticism. When survival is uncertain, obedience begins to feel like safety.
The councils spoke of order, of structure, of rebuilding civilization "properly this time." What they did not say aloud—but what settled heavily in the air—was that control was easier than compassion. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, humanity accepted that its future would no longer be decided by the many, but designed by the few.
The idea did not arrive fully formed. It crept into discussions slowly, disguised as practicality. The councils spoke first of zones, then of sectors, then of "specialized living environments." Words softened what the idea truly was. Separation, they argued, was not cruelty—it was efficiency. Humanity, they claimed, could not be saved as one mass. It had to be organized.
"We can't treat everyone the same anymore," one official stated during a broadcast, his tone measured, reasonable.
"Resources are limited."
"Different people have different… contributions."
No one used the word class, but everyone heard it anyway. The implication settled into the collective consciousness like sediment sinking to the bottom of water.
At first, people resisted. Questions surfaced in whispered conversations.
"Who decides where we belong?"
"What happens if we refuse?"
But resistance requires energy, and energy was something most people no longer had. Hunger weakens arguments. Fear dulls defiance. The councils did not need force—not yet.
The vision was presented as salvation. New cities would rise from the ruins, each designed to meet the "needs" of its population. Infrastructure would be optimized. Risk would be minimized. Survival rates would improve. Screens showed clean diagrams, calm voices explaining why this was the only logical path forward.
Few noticed how quickly choice disappeared from the language. Assignments replaced options. Directives replaced dialogue. And while humanity debated the promise of safety, the foundation of something far colder was being laid. The Four Cities were no longer an idea. They were a plan.
The first city was designated for the poor—the ones who had lost everything early, the ones who had no savings to cushion the fall, no influence to bend rules, no names that opened doors. It was built over the skeletons of old industrial towns, places already forgotten long before Erebis arrived. Factories that once roared now stood silent, their rusted frames looming like reminders that labor had always been disposable.
The houses here were not really houses. They were shelters stitched together from iron sheets, plastic, and mud bricks, pressed so close that privacy became a luxury no one could afford. When it rained, water seeped through cracks and pooled on floors. When the sun burned, the metal roofs turned rooms into ovens. Yet people stayed, because staying alive—even like this—was still staying alive.
Water arrived only at fixed hours, guarded by armed patrols. People lined up before dawn, empty containers in hand, eyes sharp with calculation.
"Don't push," someone would mutter.
"If you spill it, you won't get more," another warned.
Every drop mattered. Every mistake cost something.
Food distribution was just enough to keep bodies breathing. Never enough to restore strength. Children learned early to chew slowly, to make meals last. Medical care existed only as rumor—something available in other cities, something the poor were told to pray for instead.
"You're lucky," officials said during inspections.
"Others didn't survive."
The words tasted like mockery.
The council claimed the first city was about endurance. And it was. But endurance bred resentment, quiet and dangerous. The people here did not riot. They did not scream. They learned to wait. And waiting, over time, sharpened anger into something patient.
The second city was meant for those who had once believed themselves secure—the middle class. People who had owned modest homes, held stable jobs, planned futures before Erebis dismantled certainty piece by piece. This city was presented as balance, a middle ground between despair and indulgence. Concrete buildings replaced shacks. Streets were paved. Electricity was mostly reliable.
Schools reopened, though teachers were few and resources thin. Hospitals stood tall, white and clean from the outside, but inside shelves were half-empty and machines often silent. Still, people told themselves it was enough.
"At least we're not starving," someone said quietly in a queue.
"At least the kids are learning something," another replied.
Gratitude became a survival tactic.
Life here carried the illusion of normalcy. Families cooked together again, though portions were smaller. Children played, though parents watched constantly. Curfews were enforced gently at first, explained as protection. Cameras appeared at intersections. Fuel was rationed. Medicines arrived late. Technology lagged behind what people remembered.
"We can't complain," neighbors whispered.
"There are worse places."
And that comparison kept dissent muted. Joy existed, but cautiously. Festivals returned, but quieter. Music played, but softer. Dreams survived only if they were small enough not to attract attention. Anything too ambitious was labeled irresponsible. Hope lived here—but it had learned to whisper.
The third city rose behind glass and guarded gates, where luxury cautiously reintroduced itself to the world. Fountains flowed again, their water clear and abundant. Restaurants served warm food, rich with flavor. Streets were cleaned daily, shining beneath artificial lights. Art returned—paintings, performances, sculptures celebrating resilience and rebirth.
"We made it," people said over wine and carefully prepared meals.
"We endured."
"We were prepared."
The word money was never spoken aloud, though it lingered in every conversation.
Hospitals here gleamed with advanced machines. Schools overflowed with books, screens, and opportunities. Towers rose higher each year, glowing like stars against the darkness beyond the walls. And just beyond those walls, in places unseen and unacknowledged, children drank contaminated water and learned hunger as routine.
Some tried not to think about it.
"We can't save everyone," they told themselves.
"It's tragic, but inevitable."
Comfort made denial easy. And conscience was far less convenient than peace.
The fourth city was unlike anything the world had known before. It was not merely wealthy—it was untouchable. Reserved for politicians, scientists, generals, magnates. Those who shaped policy, technology, and narrative. Built from the scavenged remains of fallen empires, it glowed with stolen knowledge and preserved power.
Flying transports crossed its skies silently. Energy towers burned like artificial suns. Surveillance drones watched constantly, unseen but ever-present. Not a single drop of water was scarce. Not a single meal was plain. Not a single citizen unguarded.
Children of the elite studied in laboratories filled with wonders—genetic models, artificial intelligence, simulations of worlds long gone. Their parents attended masquerade balls in halls of marble and glass, sipping from crystal while discussing "human progress" and "necessary hierarchy."
"We're ensuring survival," they said.
"Someone has to lead."
"We earned this."
They believed themselves chosen, immune to fate. They forgot that Erebis had spared no one in its first strike.
Watching this world take shape, it became clear that humanity had not healed—it had reorganized its cruelty. Four cities stood where unity might have risen. Four reflections of inequality carved into the land. The poor built the walls. The middle class kept systems running. The rich enjoyed comfort. The elites ruled.
And everyone was told this was balance.
Division seeped deeper than concrete. People of the first city were branded untouchable. Trespass was punished. The middle class carried humiliation quietly, reminded they were useful but replaceable. The rich were fed superiority. The elites were fed arrogance. Walls grew taller—not just around cities, but inside minds.
At night, all four cities glowed beneath the same sky. One wounded. One scarred. One masked. One crowned. Half of humanity had survived, yet half of what made them human had already died. Survival was no longer life—it was hierarchy disguised as hope.
And while councils argued over power and walls, while cities glittered or starved, something smaller began to fracture unnoticed. Not nations. Not systems. Homes. Families strained under the weight of survival, breaking quietly behind closed doors, long before the world understood where the real collapse had begun.
Morning after morning passed beneath the same divided sky, and with each passing day the separation between people grew sharper, more ingrained, until it no longer felt imposed but natural, as if humanity had always been meant to live this way. Children born after the first wave learned the names of the cities before they learned the names of distant countries. They learned limits early—where they could go, what they could dream, how far their lives were allowed to stretch before invisible walls pushed back.
In the first city, children learned hunger as a language. They could read it in their parents' eyes, hear it in the silence between meals. Small hands dug through discarded crates behind distribution centers, hoping for bruised fruit or stale scraps.
"Don't eat that," an older child warned once.
"It's rotten."
"I know," came the quiet reply, "but it's still food."
Laughter did not live here. It survived only as memory.
Parents in the first city spoke softly at night, when they thought their children were asleep.
"If only we could get to the second city," someone whispered.
"They won't let us," another answered.
"We weren't chosen."
That word—chosen—hung heavily in the darkness, bitter and final.
In the second city, families learned restraint instead of starvation. Food existed, but it was counted. Comfort existed, but it was conditional. Children attended school wearing uniforms patched at the seams, reciting lessons that spoke of rebuilding and order.
"Work hard," teachers said.
"Be useful."
No one spoke of freedom. That word felt outdated, dangerous.
Parents argued quietly over ration cards and energy limits.
"We can't waste fuel," one said.
"What kind of life is this?" another snapped back.
"It's better than nothing."
And that sentence ended most conversations. Better than nothing became the anthem of the second city.
In the third city, children grew up believing the world had healed. They ran through clean streets, splashed water from fountains, attended schools filled with light and screens.
"Why are there walls?" one child asked once, pointing toward the distance.
"For safety," a parent replied smoothly.
"From what?"
"From chaos."
The child accepted the answer, because it was easier than questioning comfort.
Adults here learned to speak in justifications.
"We donate," they said.
"We pay taxes."
"We can't fix everything."
At night, some of them stared at the ceiling longer than necessary, haunted by thoughts they refused to name during the day.
In the fourth city, children grew up surrounded by wonders and watched by machines. Their education spoke of leadership, innovation, destiny.
"You are the future," instructors told them.
"You will guide humanity."
Power was introduced not as responsibility, but as birthright.
Their parents discussed the other cities with detached curiosity, as one might discuss distant weather.
"The first city is unstable," someone remarked over a drink.
"They always are," another replied.
"We'll need stronger measures eventually."
The words were calm. Calculated. Devoid of empathy.
Across all four cities, something subtle but deadly took root. People stopped seeing each other as human first, and class second. Now they saw class before humanity. Labels replaced names. Statistics replaced faces. Suffering became abstract—something that happened elsewhere, to others.
I watched this division settle like poison into the veins of the world. The earth had given humanity a chance to start again, stripped bare of old arrogance. And instead of rebuilding together, we had sharpened inequality into law, carved it into streets and skylines, taught it to our children as truth.
Fifty percent of humanity remained alive, yet so many of them were already hollow. The poor carried anger. The middle class carried fear. The rich carried denial. The elites carried pride. And none of them understood that these were not separate weaknesses—they were fractures of the same broken soul.
Under one sky, four cities glowed every night, each believing itself necessary, justified, inevitable. And beneath that glow, behind walls and doors and unspoken rules, families bent under pressure they could no longer name. Survival continued. Life did not.
And somewhere in the quiet spaces between hunger and luxury, between obedience and power, the consequences of these divisions began to gather, unseen and patient, waiting for the moment when even the highest walls would no longer be enough.
The truth was that the four cities did not merely divide land—they divided perception. People began to believe the conditions they lived in were natural, even deserved. In the first city, suffering became routine, so constant that it lost the power to shock. Hunger was no longer an emergency; it was a schedule. Parents stopped promising their children better futures because promises hurt more when they broke.
In the second city, people learned to measure life carefully. How much electricity could be spared. How much food could be saved. How much ambition was safe to express. They spoke of rebuilding while unconsciously shrinking themselves, compressing dreams into shapes that would not attract punishment or envy. Stability was valued more than happiness, because happiness felt reckless.
In the third city, comfort softened memory. People remembered the plague as something they had "overcome," a trial that proved their resilience. They displayed art about loss without living near it, spoke of unity without practicing it. Charity became a performance, carefully documented and publicly praised, while the deeper injustice remained untouched.
In the fourth city, power rewrote reality. Data replaced empathy. Models replaced people. Decisions were made with clean hands and distant consequences. Those at the top no longer saw themselves as part of humanity's struggle, but as its managers. Survival, to them, was a resource to be allocated.
Across all four cities, children grew into the shapes their environments demanded. The poor learned endurance. The middle class learned compliance. The rich learned entitlement. The elites learned command. No one taught them how to see each other as equals anymore. That lesson had been quietly removed.
And yet, beneath all the walls and systems, the same human fears persisted. Parents worried about their children. Couples argued over dwindling hope. Individuals lay awake at night, haunted by the sense that something essential had been lost and could not be rebuilt with concrete or law. The world had survived, yes—but it had survived incorrectly.
I watched this new civilization take shape and understood the cruelty of it. Humanity had been offered a chance to begin again, stripped of illusion, humbled by near extinction. Instead of healing, it had fossilized inequality, turning fear into architecture and hierarchy into destiny.
The poor city became an open wound, constantly bleeding but never treated. The middle city became a scar, tight and limiting, a reminder of past damage. The rich city became a mask, hiding decay beneath beauty. The elite city became a crown—brilliant, heavy, and poisoned at its core.
People told themselves the plague was over. That Erebis had been defeated. That the worst was behind them. But disease does not always return in the same form. Sometimes it learns. Sometimes it adapts. Sometimes it waits.
The plague had not ended. It had only changed shape, slipping into walls, into hunger, into power, into the quiet collapse of homes and hearts. And when the day came that these cities could no longer hold what they had created, the walls meant to protect humanity would not save it—they would bury it.