Everyone wonders what would happen to humanity if the world was damaged beyond repair. Well, I can tell you, we went underground. I know, you were expecting something like Wall-E where we went into space or something like ‘2012’ where we build massive arks. NOPE. We ran and hid.

You’re probably racking your brain trying to figure out what caused humanity, the beings at the top of the food chain, to resort to living underground. Simple. Nuclear fallout. Tensions rose so much between countries because of different ideologies, ways of handling things such as climate change, borders, territorial beliefs such as the Russian and Ukrainian war.

Ironically, the underground bunker that could save the majority of humanity was in Russia, the largest country in the world and one of the most volatile. It’s a bunker that stretches down into the earths crust deep enough the house multiple countries worth of people. However, like the social pyramid in this bunker is flipped. The poorest countries are at the top, closer to the radiation and whatever lives out there, and the richer and more powerful nations are far deeper within the bunker, far away from the radiation with far more resources.

Immigration is far more difficult in this underground human new hive, as there are far stricter regulations to get into the richer countries. Not to mention the armed guards at the gates of entry. I’m in the British level which is favourable for my survival, and it also allows me easier access to other levels, especially the poorer levels. However, each level has its own dangers. The richer levels take every precaution to make sure your worthy of entering, they check your credentials, paper work, family history, search your person. Inversely, the poorer levels don’t check much, they check your passport and if your from a richer level, they give you a purple dot of ink on the back of your hand, this is where things get tricky.

The majority of the poorer levels hold a great deal of resentment towards the richer levels due to their lack of resources and their increased proximity to the harmful radiation of the outside world, therefore if you’re seen with the purple dot on yourself, you’re liable to be stopped by people and asked for money or even robbed and beaten up.

This is why most people stick to their own levels unless it’s for work. Of course certain jobs require immediate access to different levels, such as the sentries who patrol the richer levels, constantly on the look out for any poor people who may have slipped through the gates and are hiding in the rich levels. Another job that gives an increased level of diplomatic clearance is the role of surveyor, who wear protective suits and venture up onto the earths surface and survey the damage and danger of the place we once called home.

We’ve been like this for centuries, constantly moving between levels, building some semblance of order and justice, wondering when and if the surface will ever be hospitable to humans again.

You thought 2020 was bad, try living in 2620. It’s on another level.