Peaking out from a hidden slum surrounded by nothing but darkness, Ethan looked out upon the baron landscape he called home. In the distance a xenon beacon, connecting the earth with the sky. It had been 15 guilty years since Ethan had strolled anxiously though the sign filled streets. Since he had witnessed the endless dissipating designs. He preferred life on the outside, just him and nature though the thought of leaving his kin behind him haunted him every minute of the day. They didn’t see what he saw, didn’t believe him, what other choice did he have. The “right thing” was executed and the public thought they’d all saved the human race from extinction. But what Ethan witnessed was worse than global warming, in what seemed to be the only dark-room in the city he saw a creation that would be impossible to stop, a definite end to the human race.

He remembers the piercing feeling of thousands of neon signs shooting rays into his hollow core. Looking up through the overcrowded streets to only see people gazing downwards at vibrant glass planes somehow never colliding like a swarm of rats. He remembers a time before he had a being to be concerned for when everyone drove cars. Before the melting of the earth’s poles in 2023 and even when people smoked freely before the andromeda outbreak of “34. Before the great purge of “25 in which half the worlds population perished in order to save the better half. Life then seemed like a slow journey through hell an endless walk towards death, when people seemed to not care about the future of their offspring and would keep giving handouts to societies burdens forever applying no inch of resistance toward evolution’s fate.

Like dog’s, the people would do anything for a glimpse into the high life they all collectively desired. The government acted like a Supplier hierarchy training their people. The age-old dream of freedom and restoring a prosperous nation to its former glory with some commercials spliced in. The group known by most as C.O.F. were a party which most would arrogantly follow. Ethan believed the role of the group was to perfect the mix between commercialisation and freedom. C.O.F. to the public stood for connoisseurs of freedom. But a select few could distinctively tell that it was just one big marketing campaign. Once elected freedom came in the form of advanced virtual reality machines that were about the size of an old telephone box. The commercialisation got to a stage where comatosed people were getting sent commercials on their death beds via their C.O.F. implants. It got to a state in society, where the zombified majority suscepted to the campaign like moths to a lamp, they seemed like a separate species to Ethan’s colony who only spoke of them using three letters. The outcasts practiced the old forgotten curriculum and spent their time isolated, improving their levels of intelligence. Ethan over time felt disconnected from the cult he’d followed astray of evolution and demise. He felt as is he had left part of him in that city fifteen years ago. Ethan had tried for years with every withered cell of his body to contact his kin, without any sign of dire success. He would have to go back to the city he stubbornly deemed unsavable.

The cult agreed with his choice “non cecidit ne usque ad evolutionis pars.” Ethan’s roommate Caecilius, a 5″ by 5″ Romanian man with vanta black constables facial hair accompanied by the largest stomach overhang Ethan had ever seen. But this wouldn’t deter Caecilius from following him through hell and high water.

Planning:

over commercialisation and consumption dictates the world

civilians get rewarded monetarily for watching ads

cof stands for “commercialisation over freedom”

civilians who choose not to watch ads are disowned and abandoned by society forced to then live out the rest of their days of the grid.

story is of a man who chose due to the state of consumption to leave knowing he could never come back and tried to resist the government sent to live off the grid for fifteen years he now tries to again move against the govt to see his wife and daughter.

self-sufficient ads have been created in order to prevent further decay of resources.