AND "FRACTURES" WAS BORN.
This story starts in the year 2114. And it begins with a little girl, Amana.
At this time, she is only twelve years old; dirt in her hair, nails cracked and worn, lips chapped from the cold winds. She has seen too many things, hard things. Sitting quietly on a rock, the December breeze blowing her bright red hair, she gazes at her lifeless city.
She remembers playing by this rock, running around it, laughing with other kids. What used to be a place of joy is now long gone. Today too, she sits here alone.
Stern Mount, a city once full of merchants, tourists, chatter, and life, is now quiet, and empty. Amana gently pulls a worn photo from her pocket. She stares at the ones she has lost. A boisterous mother, ready with a laugh, who taught her to stand up for herself. A loving father who bargained with the vendors, a true dealmaker. Two brothers who bickered, made up, and bickered again. Always at each other’s throats. Her family is no more, vanished. She holds on to the pale memories, wondering if she’ll forget their faces if the photo fades anymore.
The thought brings tears, blurring the grey of the city ahead. Is her end nearing too? She has wondered all morning.
Stern Mount is not alone in this desolation. Everywhere around the world, cities have started to fall apart.
Governments are crumbling into nothing. The streets are deserted, houses abandoned, whole towns turned to dust. There is little sign of a future life left; just silence lingering everywhere.
Day after day, the world grows heavier; every minute a reminder of what is gone. Hope is not a word that is thrown around anymore. It has lost its meaning for many. Humanity is down to a whisper, 1.6 billion.
Change does not come in a rush. It is slow, painful, like the world is grinding its gears trying to find a new way to turn.
There are fights, words thrown like punches; those who remain try to make sense of the senseless. Big minds clash, ideas rise and quickly fall like empires.
Out of this madness, out of this brokenness, comes something new - "Fractures."
An outlandish way to move forward. At first, it does not seem like a solution, not really, but could this be it? Many ask. A point in this darkness to head towards light? Some believe.
It is a bold vision, one to divide humanity into 23 pieces. That is what is to happen, each fracture with its own set of rules, its own way of doing things. Each with its own norm, its own culture. It is a map that’s never been drawn before; a new world order saying this is how we will live now. People are not to come back together by need, but by choice, by belief.
It is a big idea, one that brings fear and worry, but it stands audacious as anything, no small feat.
Every single person, rich or poor, given the chance to pick their own Fracture. Soon after, people move in a mass exodus and population reshuffle never witnessed in the history of time; societies adapt, and the earth has to recalibrate.
By 2132, the world looks different with a map that has truly been redrawn. People, now aliens in their own new world, feel armed with a renewed purpose. While left to adapt, evolve, and rebuild amidst their chosen fractures, they feel a sense of hope. This word that had gone obsolete is now back. Gradually the dust settles in the new people, and quietly the once fluid boundaries harden.
Each fracture becomes isolated and distinct; pretty soon communication just stops and borders become an impenetrable barrier.
Each fracture is left to fend for itself, to survive or disappear within its own confines. And so begins the true era of the Fractures, a new moment for humanity.
Time passes and the world changes into its fractured state. Some Fractures prosper by reaching out for the stars and beyond. They mine moon rocks for Helium-3, extract water from comet ice, and collect precious metals from asteroids. This wealth dwarfs the treasures of the Old World.
Others turn to nature, healing the land. They look down, not forward. As the soil heals, new plants and animals grow. Life on these Fractures sings a renewed song as nature signals its return.
Some develop state-of-the-art technologies; technologies that clean the polluted air, machines that revive water, innovations that regenerate barren land. These Fractures wield technology as their shield-sword in a war against the Old World’s wrongs.
But not all are lucky.
Isolation leads many Fractures to a new level of despair as their people face insurmountable challenges. They meet deep darkness and new hardships. Poverty bites deep and intensifies. Unknown diseases and sicknesses take hold of people. These Fractures become sad reminders; sad reminders of communities that do not get a future.
One disappears completely. Once alive, now silent and abandoned. The stillness suggests a world without people.
In all the Fractures, silence is the bond. For years, no words cross between them, save for rare whispers. Just like that, the world permanently breaks into twenty-three parts, each alone, each with its own story.
Amana with her fiery red hair is now long gone and the world she once feared is nearing its last breath has transformed. In 2296, we stand in a globe reshaped, reborn from its fractures. People have adapted and found new ways to exist. In all Fractures, thriving or not, heroes have risen, rebels have challenged, and artists have created. Evil still exists, but so does hope.
I n t h i s w o r l d f r a g m e n t e d b y f a t e , e v e r y f r a c t u r e t e l l s a s t o r y .
Together we explore this fractured world. I'll tell you of its people, its art, and its extraordinary. Every word, every line, every art piece takes us deeper into the unvoiced and the unheard of “Fractures.”