Caught in the crossfire | David (Ep3 S1) - After The Howl

story takes place in the year 2040 in a world where humans do not exist but instead anthropomorphic animals.

By the winter of 2040, the world is quieter than anyone remembers it ever being, a place where silence has weight and daylight dictates life as much as fear once did. Cities still stand, but they no longer belong to those who built them; towers are split by roots, streets have softened into soil, and entire neighborhoods exist only as shapes beneath moss and shadow. Civilization did not vanish all at once—it thinned, retreated, and finally yielded, leaving behind a continent defined by distance rather than borders. Travel is slow and deliberate, guided by weather, light, and memory, and the land itself feels older now, as if it has reclaimed an authority it once temporarily surrendered. The world is not dead, nor is it fully alive in the way it once was; it is in a long, uneasy middle state, where ruins are as common as forests and the past is visible everywhere, embedded in rusted signs, broken windows, and sun-faded warnings no one obeys anymore. The first signs of collapse appeared in early 2020, long before anyone understood what was happening. People across the northern regions began falling ill with symptoms that didn’t fully align with any known disease—fatigue, confusion, heightened aggression, and a growing sensitivity to enclosed spaces. Emergency rooms filled with patients who were not dying, but changing, their behavior becoming erratic and sometimes violently impulsive even before any physical deterioration set in. Isolated attacks were dismissed as panic, substance abuse, or social unrest, and when quarantines were announced, they came too late and were enforced unevenly. Cities became pressure cookers, fear feeding on itself as infrastructure strained and trust eroded. When supply chains fractured and power grids failed, violence followed—not as an organized uprising, but as a series of desperate, human reactions to uncertainty, hunger, and confinement.

What followed was not a single catastrophic event, but a prolonged unravelling. Over the next several years, evacuation attempts collapsed under their own weight, governments fragmented, and regional authorities retreated into defensible zones that gradually shrank or hardened into isolation. Entire communities emptied out as people fled north, inland, or anywhere they believed would offer space and light, leaving behind cities that decayed slowly rather than burned. By the late 2020s, the idea of restoring the old world had quietly disappeared, replaced by smaller goals: keeping power for another winter, holding a road open, surviving the night. Knowledge was lost unevenly—some technologies endured, others vanished completely—and by the time the 2030s arrived, a generation had grown up with no memory of uninterrupted electricity, crowded streets, or a world that felt stable.

Now, in 2040, the continent exists as a patchwork of lived-in ruins and reclaimed wilderness, shaped more by environment than ambition. Old maps are unreliable, distances feel longer than they used to, and the future is no longer something people plan for in decades, but in seasons. The outbreak is no longer spoken of as a singular tragedy; it is understood as a turning point, the moment when the world stopped bending around its inhabitants and began asserting its own rules again. What remains is not the aftermath of an ending, but the continuation of a new, harsher era—one where survival is ordinary, hope is cautious, and the world itself is the most enduring presence left.

By 2040, survival has hardened into belief, and belief has hardened into factions—each one a different answer to the same unending question of how life should continue in a world that no longer forgives mistakes. No single authority governs the continent now; instead, power exists in pockets, shaped by geography, fear, and memory. Some groups cling to the idea that order must be enforced, others that it must be abandoned, and many simply try to carve out enough stability to last another season. These factions rarely see themselves as villains or saviors. Each believes, in its own way, that it has adapted correctly, and that the others are simply choosing slower deaths. The Greenline Front emerged from early defense coalitions and hardened into a territorial force that values control above all else, occupying exposed infrastructure such as highways, stadiums, and industrial rooftops where visibility and light offer a sense of dominance. They maintain strict discipline and brutal efficiency, keeping their regions comparatively stable at the cost of individual freedom, and are feared as much for their methods as they are respected for their ability to hold ground. In contrast, the Quarantine Authority represents the last shadow of the old governments, maintaining heavily regulated zones that preserve the rituals of civilization—identification, rations, and procedures—long after their original purpose has faded. To those inside, the Authority offers protection and predictability; to those outside, it appears stagnant and secretive, more invested in preservation and observation than in rebuilding the world. Faith took new shapes after the collapse, most visibly in the Luminants, who believe survival is tied to exposure, clarity, and the rejection of darkness. They build their communities in open, sun-washed regions and treat light as both a moral and practical necessity, enforcing strict doctrines that leave little room for doubt or weakness. From them splintered the Ash Saints, who took these beliefs to their most extreme conclusion, embracing fire as the only true means of purification and leaving scorched landscapes in their wake. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the Rootbound, who see the collapse not as a curse but as a correction, choosing to live in close proximity to the overgrown world and surrendering control in exchange for a fragile form of coexistence with it. Not all factions seek dominance or transcendence; some simply avoid confrontation altogether. The Canopy Union survives by elevation, constructing suspended settlements above ground level and minimizing contact with the earth itself, while the Burrowed live below the surface in tunnel networks carved from necessity and fear, generations removed from open sky. Along the coastlines and flooded cities, the Floodmark Collective adapts to the rhythm of tides and decay, scavenging what resurfaces and accepting impermanence as a constant. Moving between all of these groups are the Black Current, smugglers and traffickers who recognize no ideology beyond survival and profit, supplying everyone while belonging nowhere. Knowledge itself became a battleground, guarded by the Archivists of Last Light, who believe that memory is the only inheritance worth preserving in a world that has lost its future. They travel lightly, collecting stories, records, and firsthand accounts before they disappear forever, often clashing with factions that see uncontrolled information as a threat. Finally, there are the Night Shepherds, guides and pathfinders who operate where others refuse to go, navigating regions abandoned to darkness and danger with an understanding that borders on unsettling. To some they are indispensable, to others deeply mistrusted, but their existence underscores a shared truth among all factions: the world cannot be mastered, only endured. Together, these groups form the living structure of the post-collapse world—not a new civilization, but a series of compromises, each one shaped by what its members fear most and what they are willing to sacrifice to keep going.

story takes place in the year 2040 in a world where humans do not exist but instead anthropomorphic animals.

By the winter of 2040, the world is quieter than anyone remembers it ever being, a place where silence has weight and daylight dictates life as much as fear once did. Cities still stand, but they no longer belong to those who built them; towers are split by roots, streets have softened into soil, and entire neighborhoods exist only as shapes beneath moss and shadow. Civilization did not vanish all at once—it thinned, retreated, and finally yielded, leaving behind a continent defined by distance rather than borders. Travel is slow and deliberate, guided by weather, light, and memory, and the land itself feels older now, as if it has reclaimed an authority it once temporarily surrendered. The world is not dead, nor is it fully alive in the way it once was; it is in a long, uneasy middle state, where ruins are as common as forests and the past is visible everywhere, embedded in rusted signs, broken windows, and sun-faded warnings no one obeys anymore. The first signs of collapse appeared in early 2020, long before anyone understood what was happening. People across the northern regions began falling ill with symptoms that didn’t fully align with any known disease—fatigue, confusion, heightened aggression, and a growing sensitivity to enclosed spaces. Emergency rooms filled with patients who were not dying, but changing, their behavior becoming erratic and sometimes violently impulsive even before any physical deterioration set in. Isolated attacks were dismissed as panic, substance abuse, or social unrest, and when quarantines were announced, they came too late and were enforced unevenly. Cities became pressure cookers, fear feeding on itself as infrastructure strained and trust eroded. When supply chains fractured and power grids failed, violence followed—not as an organized uprising, but as a series of desperate, human reactions to uncertainty, hunger, and confinement.

What followed was not a single catastrophic event, but a prolonged unravelling. Over the next several years, evacuation attempts collapsed under their own weight, governments fragmented, and regional authorities retreated into defensible zones that gradually shrank or hardened into isolation. Entire communities emptied out as people fled north, inland, or anywhere they believed would offer space and light, leaving behind cities that decayed slowly rather than burned. By the late 2020s, the idea of restoring the old world had quietly disappeared, replaced by smaller goals: keeping power for another winter, holding a road open, surviving the night. Knowledge was lost unevenly—some technologies endured, others vanished completely—and by the time the 2030s arrived, a generation had grown up with no memory of uninterrupted electricity, crowded streets, or a world that felt stable.

Now, in 2040, the continent exists as a patchwork of lived-in ruins and reclaimed wilderness, shaped more by environment than ambition. Old maps are unreliable, distances feel longer than they used to, and the future is no longer something people plan for in decades, but in seasons. The outbreak is no longer spoken of as a singular tragedy; it is understood as a turning point, the moment when the world stopped bending around its inhabitants and began asserting its own rules again. What remains is not the aftermath of an ending, but the continuation of a new, harsher era—one where survival is ordinary, hope is cautious, and the world itself is the most enduring presence left.

By 2040, survival has hardened into belief, and belief has hardened into factions—each one a different answer to the same unending question of how life should continue in a world that no longer forgives mistakes. No single authority governs the continent now; instead, power exists in pockets, shaped by geography, fear, and memory. Some groups cling to the idea that order must be enforced, others that it must be abandoned, and many simply try to carve out enough stability to last another season. These factions rarely see themselves as villains or saviors. Each believes, in its own way, that it has adapted correctly, and that the others are simply choosing slower deaths. The Greenline Front emerged from early defense coalitions and hardened into a territorial force that values control above all else, occupying exposed infrastructure such as highways, stadiums, and industrial rooftops where visibility and light offer a sense of dominance. They maintain strict discipline and brutal efficiency, keeping their regions comparatively stable at the cost of individual freedom, and are feared as much for their methods as they are respected for their ability to hold ground. In contrast, the Quarantine Authority represents the last shadow of the old governments, maintaining heavily regulated zones that preserve the rituals of civilization—identification, rations, and procedures—long after their original purpose has faded. To those inside, the Authority offers protection and predictability; to those outside, it appears stagnant and secretive, more invested in preservation and observation than in rebuilding the world. Faith took new shapes after the collapse, most visibly in the Luminants, who believe survival is tied to exposure, clarity, and the rejection of darkness. They build their communities in open, sun-washed regions and treat light as both a moral and practical necessity, enforcing strict doctrines that leave little room for doubt or weakness. From them splintered the Ash Saints, who took these beliefs to their most extreme conclusion, embracing fire as the only true means of purification and leaving scorched landscapes in their wake. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the Rootbound, who see the collapse not as a curse but as a correction, choosing to live in close proximity to the overgrown world and surrendering control in exchange for a fragile form of coexistence with it. Not all factions seek dominance or transcendence; some simply avoid confrontation altogether. The Canopy Union survives by elevation, constructing suspended settlements above ground level and minimizing contact with the earth itself, while the Burrowed live below the surface in tunnel networks carved from necessity and fear, generations removed from open sky. Along the coastlines and flooded cities, the Floodmark Collective adapts to the rhythm of tides and decay, scavenging what resurfaces and accepting impermanence as a constant. Moving between all of these groups are the Black Current, smugglers and traffickers who recognize no ideology beyond survival and profit, supplying everyone while belonging nowhere. Knowledge itself became a battleground, guarded by the Archivists of Last Light, who believe that memory is the only inheritance worth preserving in a world that has lost its future. They travel lightly, collecting stories, records, and firsthand accounts before they disappear forever, often clashing with factions that see uncontrolled information as a threat. Finally, there are the Night Shepherds, guides and pathfinders who operate where others refuse to go, navigating regions abandoned to darkness and danger with an understanding that borders on unsettling. To some they are indispensable, to others deeply mistrusted, but their existence underscores a shared truth among all factions: the world cannot be mastered, only endured. Together, these groups form the living structure of the post-collapse world—not a new civilization, but a series of compromises, each one shaped by what its members fear most and what they are willing to sacrifice to keep going.

By the time the world learned to name it, the Bloom was already everywhere that light struggled to exist. It was not a sudden curse or a single moment of transformation, but a slow biological takeover that embedded itself into the dark spaces of the world—basements, tunnels, forests thick enough to block the sun, and eventually the bodies of the living. The Bloom is not a virus and not a parasite in the traditional sense; it is a fungal system that grows along existing biological pathways, threading itself through nerves, muscle, and bone while leaving much of the host technically alive. Death is inefficient. The Bloom prefers hosts that move, breathe, and react, and it reshapes behavior long before it fully reshapes the body. Early Symptoms In the earliest stage, infection is subtle and often mistaken for stress, illness, or psychological breakdown. Infected individuals experience persistent fatigue, disorientation, and a growing aversion to bright light, often accompanied by headaches or eye pain when exposed to direct sunlight. Emotional regulation begins to fail—irritability, paranoia, and impulsive aggression become common, especially in confined or dim environments. Many pre-outbreak violent incidents were later traced to individuals in this stage, acting on distorted threat perception rather than conscious malice. Motor control remains intact, but decision-making deteriorates, and infected individuals begin unconsciously seeking darker, enclosed spaces where the Bloom can grow undisturbed. Assimilation Stage As the Bloom progresses, it begins restructuring the host’s nervous system. Pain response dulls significantly, fear narrows into simple avoidance behaviors, and higher reasoning collapses into instinct-driven reactions. Speech becomes fragmented or stops entirely, replaced by breath patterns, clicks, or low vocalizations shaped by the host’s anatomy. The fungus reinforces muscles and tendons while sacrificing fine motor control, favoring strength, endurance, and repetition over precision. At this stage, the infected are no longer capable of independent survival, but they are highly mobile and dangerous, driven by a compulsion to move through shade and pursue stimuli that trigger instinctive responses rather than conscious intent. Late-Stage Transformation In advanced infection, the Bloom becomes physically visible. Fungal growths erupt along the spine, neck, and skull, often breaking through skin and hardening as exposure continues. Sensory organs are altered or destroyed entirely, replaced by alternative methods of environmental awareness such as vibration sensitivity, sound reflection, or chemical detection. At this point, the host’s original identity is functionally gone; what remains is a biological structure optimized to protect the fungus and expand its territory. These infected rarely leave deep shade and often become semi-territorial, bound to specific structures, tunnels, or forested zones where the Bloom’s network is strongest. Infected Types While all infected follow the same general progression, environmental exposure and time create distinct forms. Early-stage infected—often called Runners—retain speed and agility, avoiding sunlight instinctively and attacking in sudden, panicked bursts. Mid-stage infected evolve into Shriekers, whose vision is lost to fungal overgrowth but who navigate using sound, emitting piercing calls that disorient prey and draw others toward movement. In heavily overgrown or long-abandoned areas, Hollowed infected develop thick, bark-like fungal armor, moving slowly but capable of absorbing extreme damage. Rarest of all are Bloom Anchors, hosts so thoroughly consumed that they become stationary, fused into walls, trees, or infrastructure, acting as living nodes that saturate entire areas with spores and sustain surrounding infected. Spores and Environmental Spread Spores are not constantly airborne everywhere; they persist only where sunlight cannot reach. Underground spaces, dense forests, interiors, fog-heavy coastlines, and long winter twilight zones allow spores to linger and accumulate. In these areas, prolonged unprotected exposure can lead to infection without physical injury. Direct sunlight rapidly kills airborne spores, creating natural safe zones and making open terrain and midday travel viable strategies. However, spores can cling to clothing, fur, equipment, and moisture, making transitions from dark to light spaces dangerous if precautions are not taken. The Nature of the Bloom The Bloom does not think, plan, or hate. It adapts. It responds to patterns—repeated behaviors, consistent light sources, predictable routes—and gradually reshapes its spread around them. Areas thought safe for years can become lethal as environmental conditions shift, structures collapse, or vegetation thickens. Attempts to fully eradicate it have failed not because the Bloom is invincible, but because it is patient. It does not need to win quickly. It only needs the world to keep creating darkness. In 2040, the infected are no longer viewed as anomalies or monsters, but as a permanent element of the environment, as unavoidable as winter or drought. The Bloom is not the end of life—it is a force that has rewritten what survival means, turning shadow into territory and time itself into its greatest ally.