Societies rarely fall peacefully. Even the smallest tend to end with some sort of strife. Friendships break down, new enemies are born, and people grow apart. When the smallest of organizations crack, only the members themselves tend to notice. Clubs and groups fall apart all the time, and they never leave a lasting impression when they do so. All that is left behind are memories, faint and fading as the days and months pass.

As these groups grow larger, the imprints they leave in their collapse grow in size as well. While your local book club may only get an article in the smallest newspaper around when its members begin to fragment, any injury to yourself, in fact to any of the members, is fleeting. A few of the more malicious participants may lash out against those that they feel betrayed by, insults and jabs that would be healed in time. The injuries while they can be painful, do not match up to those wrought when a much larger group begins to collapse.

Money is lost in unimaginable ways, sums and numbers most would only dream of attaining are dragged screaming from ancient treasurer’s palms. Lawyers and contracts are enacted, dragging everyone involved into court case after court case, determining who and what caused the fault in their organisation. Blame is tossed about, lives are lost to jail cells, and society at large moves on. These wounds are more severe, and have much longer and far reaching effects.

Nothing lasts forever, every group collapses eventually. The largest last much longer on average, with the one that encompasses continuing on for much more than any could really perceive or even contemplate. For while chess clubs may poof into existence and disappear, humanity seems to have crept onto the scene without a start date, and with no exact end date either.

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But end it did. Not in a clean way, that some may have wished for, but in a way we couldn’t imagine. Before the end occurred even in our more horrific nightmares, we could only catch glimpses of what would transpire. The frightened whispers of prophets and authors spoke of the endless reasons we could wipe ourselves off of the planet. Diseases. Weapons. Invaders. Stupidity. Everything on our planet, or even outside of its reaches, has been thought of a potential reason for our extinction.

It should have survived what occurred. Humanity shouldn’t have faltered like it did. Unfortunately the cracks had been forming since the first time a human broke another’s skull open, the first time a falsehood left a set of lips, the first time a knife slipped silently in the dark. These cracks spread far and wide, ruining all that they touched, but humanity held on. Strangely it only seemed to grow stronger, to flourish and grow despite the foundation that crumbled below it. Every crack bandaged, every slash mortared. Until the wedges began to appear.

For a time humanity held on, for that was all it could do. It fought against the dying of its light, screamed and thrashed, tearing at its own and sacrificing everything to continue. For a short segment of time heroes were born daily. Lives were saved, millions were cured, disasters always averted in the last gasping moments. But every wedge was driven deeper, every crack grew, and humanity crumbled with every passing moment.

Humanity didn’t die silently, crumbling into dust without leaving a trace. It died in nuclear fire. It died in pestilence. It died because of the Others. The end came suddenly, brutally, and without a trace of remorse.

Humanity fell, scattered and broke. The last jagged shards of a once great species spread across the earth. Each piece broke in turn, each tried to rebuild the glory it was once a part of, but they could never return. Each generation had to deal with the wounds they had been dealt, each had to deal with the disasters of their own time.