In 2040, after a number of harvests losses due to weather catastrophes, a great famine befell the Earth and hundreds of thousands took to the streets to plead their governments for help. But the help never came and governments were helpless. It was not long, until man turned upon one another once again, preying upon scraps of food and clean water. But the governments of the world had long since decided on what had to be done. In secret, each nation had built colony ships that were to take to the stars, carrying the finest (to be read as ‘wealthy and powerful’) into a brighter future, upon a new world, whose natural resources had not been harvested to the point of oblivion. And while blood ran through the streets of man, ‘Project Ark’ was enacted. Many saw the giant rockets take to the sky without ever learning what they were, where they came from and what purpose they served. However it was not long until they realized that they had been forsaken by those they had chosen to lead them into the future. In direct response, they stormed the capitols, with those frantically trying to uphold the old order being unable to stop the raging mob clamoring for answers. Within this power vacuum, it was not long until a number of new regimes rose, each wary of the other and all of them demanding the dwindling resources of Earth to be rightfully ‘theirs’. On the 20^th October 2053, the first bombs fell, the others following swiftly after, reducing all major cities of the world to rubble and dust, along with their denizens. Many had seen it coming, but only few were actually prepared. The land scorched by the flames of the nuclear hellfire, those who escaped the immediate destruction fled as far as they could. Shortly after, the bombers came in, laying waste to power plants and agricultural complexes, further worsening the state of the world with multiple megaton explosions, as the nuclear power plants spewed what was once meant to supply the world with clean energy into the heavens. Millions died in the years after. Many of those who escaped the destruction from the bombs targeted at the city centers and the strikes against the power plants fell victim to the ever worsening famine and the fighting over whatever little was left. Then the plague came, further decimating the population of mankind and with no usable medical infrastructure left, there was little mankind could do to oppose it. Revolting against the constant mistreatment by human hands, the weather worsened even more over the years that followed, until mankind once again bonded together in a last ditch desperate effort to save their homes. They built hundreds of large machines that were supposed to tame the weather and undo the damage the radiation still leaking from the destroyed nuclear power plants. But it was not meant to be. In one final cataclysmic chain reaction, the surface of the world was ripped open as countless volcanoes long since thought dormant sprung to life, shooting ash and dust high into the stratosphere, largely blocking out the sunlight for years to come. Powerful tsunamis triggered by the sudden and simultaneous release drowned out any but the most mountainous regions.

At the end of it all, as the dust slowly settled, the once blue and green planet had become barren and empty, the land scorched by both nature and continued warfare and frequent thunderstorms telling of a terrifying fate for all those who still walked the Earth.

About a hundred years later, the skies laden with ash cracked open and the Asmodei descended upon the world, promising deliverance from the God forsaken world. Hundreds of thousands from all corner flocked to the shuttles upon receiving the word that there was a way to escape for them. They were ushered into the large landing shuttles and taken to gargantuan ships easily visible with the naked eye.

But quite a number of people never knew of this salvation from above. When things started going south, they fled to large and self-sufficient bunker complexes, where they meant to wait out the destruction of the surface world, which they would reconquer, once the world has recovered.

200 years have passed since and nature has begun to reclaim what was rightfully hers to begin with. The still prevalent radiation had caused multiple leaps in evolution and once benign plants and animals had evolved into dangerous predators, built to survive on a hostile world. As the people slowly left their bunkers, their hand forced by slowly failing machines and no means to maintain them, they found a strangely distorted world, that was nothing like the world their ancestors had known. They took to the cities, armed with little more than a Geiger counter and a rifle to search for resources, tools and materials of the old world to effectively combat the dangers of a changed world, but over the years, all the once bountiful stashes of weapons and tools had been pilfered or fallen out of repair. Mankind was on the decline and everyone who looked up to the ominous red clouds rolling over knew that ‘the next generation’ could well be the last.

“Marcus, get back here!”, the chief of the settlement yelled, as Marcus, a 15 year old boy ran out of the tent of his father, gripping the maps he had stolen tightly under his arm. A few heads turned, but none bothered to try. Everyone knew there was no stopping Marcus once he had his mind set to something. When the chief came out of his tent, his head bright red from anger, quite a few stifled a laugh, as Marcus disappeared around the next corner and disappeared into the bunkers running beneath the ground of the settlement, where his ancestors had once hidden themselves from the horrors of a devastated surface and before anyone could tell just where he went, he had disappeared into his personal little hideout, deep within the bowels of the compound.

“Trouble with your son, chief? What is it this time?” a nearby man asked.
“...he took the old maps again. I swear, that boy is going to be the death of me,” the chief replied, huffing and puffing heavily, the vein on his forehead only slowly retreating below the skin.
“The maps of the old world? What, is he trying to launch an expedition or something?”

“...no clue. But I’ll just bet it’s got something to do with that blasted paper room, down in the bunkers.”
“...that large room we discovered a few years back?”
“Yes, that one. Apparently, or so he claims, it ‘holds the knowledge of the old world’ and he’s spending the nights trying to figure out what the signs on the paper means ever since. Recently he mumbled something about a breakthrough and showed me this book full of pictures of animals that once supposedly had lived here. Spouted something about ‘the lion taking a bath’ or something, whatever that was supposed to mean.”
“Then why don’t you just seal the room again, chief?”
A big sigh escaped the chief’s lips as he said, “And take away the one thing that’s actually keeping him here? No, I cannot do that.”
“Then why don’t you talk with him?”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried that?! But all he keeps prattling on and on about is, how amazing that room is and how he can’t wait to...I think he calls it ‘read’ it all.”
“Still doesn’t explain what he took the maps of our ancestors for though.”
“...no, it doesn’t. And, quite honestly...it worries me.”
“Should I ask the guards at the perimeter to keep an eye out for him?”
“Yes...yes, please do that.”

In the meantime, in the bowels of the bunker, Marcus had long since made his own plans. A good while back, he had found a book which spoke of a ‘Garden of Eden’, a place, where everything was better and where his people could finally live without having to rely on machines that were held together by prayers and duct tape. If he could find this place, he thought, his father would finally be proud of him. Unfortunately the book held very little in terms of actual directions, so Marcus spent many a day with cross-referencing every bit of material he could find on the matter, trying to discern where this wondrous place, that might have been spared the fate of the surface world might be and whether he could reach it.

Now, with the maps of the ancients at his disposal and with far too little sleep in his system, he was now convinced he knew where he needed to go. Checking against the maps, he made out the location of what some of his books referred to as ‘ley line vortex’, supposedly a gate to another world. He eventually found a rather large one, just a few kilometers away from the ancient town of ‘Amesbury’, which was also on his own maps. The town itself had, of course, been searched thoroughly already, but out there in the countryside, people only rarely tread.

Marcus took a deep breath, went through his preparations once more and then crisscrossed through the underground pathways, sometimes pushing himself through air ducts just barely big enough for him to bypass otherwise impassable sections and eventually arriving at the air duct he was heading for, which lead him to the outside. Once again checking his belongings, consisting of a mask against the toxic dust within the city centers and a rifle to fend against the animals roaming the land, he looked back one last time into the gaping hole he had just emerged from.

He put on the mask like he had been taught to and then stepped out into the dim afternoon light, saying more to himself, “Just you wait...I will find the Garden of Eden. And then you will be sorry for ridiculing me.”