The first strike wasn’t the lightning. It was the silence after. Streets froze, hearts stalled, and every clock seemed to hold its breath at once. Then the sirens came—too loud, too late, too human. By the time anyone understood, the fog was already there, swallowing highways, cities, and hope. Some called it judgment. Others called it govern…

No one ever agreed on what it meant, and maybe that was the point. The experts argued over data sets and atmospheric anomalies, while ordinary people measured time by the sound of distant sirens and the taste of static in the air. Each new catastrophe felt less like an accident and more like a mirror, reflecting what everyone had tried so hard not to see: how thin their certainties were, how quickly routines could dissolve. The disasters did not ask permission; they simply rearranged everything people thought they could depend on.

In the hollowed-out quiet that followed, something quieter but stronger emerged. Strangers knocked on doors with blankets and batteries. Apartment hallways became soup kitchens. The sky, once a backdrop, turned into a shared question no one could answer alone. Without a clear cause or cure, the country discovered a rough, unpolished solidarity—not chosen, but forged, and impossible to unlearn.