The Last Vote

The sky was the color of dead television static, a thick, pulsing gray that had loomed over the city for as long as anyone could remember. Clouds hung low, swollen with the weight of unfallen rain, suffocating the skyline that once stretched toward the heavens. Now, those glass monoliths lay shattered, their skeletal remains clawing at the sky like the fingers of the forgotten. Wind funneled through the empty avenues, whispering over debris-strewn asphalt, carrying the scent of rust, smoke, and something darker—something rotting.

Darian trudged through the ruins of downtown, his boots crunching over brittle newspapers that had long since yellowed, their headlines frozen in time: A Vote for Freedom is a Vote for No One. The ink had run from years of exposure, the once-bold words now smudged, yet their message still haunted the streets. He pulled his coat tighter against the gnawing cold. No one had expected the weather to feel colder without government, but somehow, it did. Perhaps it was the silence, the emptiness, the lack of the artificial warmth that civilization once provided. Perhaps it was something deeper, something inside him.

The last referendum had been a landslide. No government. No masters. The people had torn down the structures of power with their own hands, brick by brick, law by law, until nothing remained but freedom in its purest form. No taxes, no enforcers, no bureaucrats dictating their fates. At first, it had felt like stepping into an untouched Eden—limitless, intoxicating. But Eden, too, had its serpent.

The first winter had culled the dreamers. Without supply chains, food rotted in abandoned warehouses while the desperate starved in the streets. Medicine became myth. The hospitals shut their doors, their halls echoing with the death rattles of those who could have been saved. And without police, justice became a whispered joke, something that only existed in fairy tales. The strongest took from the weak. The cruelest ruled

Darian had believed. He had stood in the square and burned his identification papers with the others, had screamed himself hoarse for liberty. But when his wife was taken—dragged into the darkness by men who owed allegiance to nothing but their own appetites—he learned what freedom truly meant. It meant no one was coming. No help. No law. No justice. Only the void.

His grip tightened on the pistol at his hip as he approached the remains of City Hall. The grand entrance had been defaced, its columns charred from fire, its glass doors shattered. Graffiti covered the crumbling walls: We Did This, No Chains, No Masters, No Hope. The inside smelled of sweat, blood, and burning refuse. Fires crackled in rusted barrels, throwing flickering shadows over the gaunt faces of survivors huddled together. Their eyes, sunken and hollow, followed him as he moved through the space where order had once reigned.

In the center of the rotunda, beneath the domed ceiling now fractured and exposed to the elements, stood him.

Marek.

The self-proclaimed ruler of the ruins. Not elected, not chosen—only survived. His militia had become the new law, enforcing rules that changed with his whims. He sat upon a throne of scavenged metal, his fingers adorned with rings stripped from the dead. His smile was the kind that animals give before they bite.

Darian stepped forward, his pulse pounding in his ears. He had spent years fighting for a world without rulers, only to see a king rise from the ashes. The irony tasted bitter on his tongue.

Marek leaned forward, eyes glinting like wet steel. “Come to kneel?”

Darian let his fingers drift over the grip of his pistol. His mouth was dry, his thoughts like tangled wires sparking in the dark. He looked at the others—the broken, the starving, the lost. They had fought for this. They had voted for this.

And now, they had nothing left to lose.

He took a slow breath, steadying himself, then said, “No.”

A shift. A ripple in the shadows. The air thickened with unspoken intent. A dozen hands moved. A dozen knives gleamed. Marek’s smirk flickered, his certainty wavering for the first time.

Then the weight of the people pressed upon him, crushing, clawing, tearing.

The last vote had been cast.

And it was unanimous.