By the 2060s, there existed a global beauty influencer—though openly, he was also a symbol of politics and sex. He claimed that oil and natural gas buried beneath the ocean could be used without restraint, and that rising temperatures, land subsidence, and similar phenomena had nothing to do with resource extraction or所谓 climate crisis conspiracies. How his actions were meant to prove any of this was as unclear then as it is now. By that point, there was already more than enough to guarantee his success: his dressing rooms, his garages, his real estate holdings, the wide array of professions held by those who served him. And yet, he was never satisfied. It was as though he had taken some seedless drug—something missing at its core—and was now doomed to die unless he received regular injections. He was clearly intoxicated by something that was not alcohol, ravenous and restless. Otherwise, how could one explain his purchase of dozens of oil tankers, filling them to the brim with oil and gas, and lining them up toward the American continent?
The starting point was offshore Florida, where extraterritorial law applied. A private island owned entirely in his name. He announced that, as an entertaining spectacle and as proof of everything he had claimed, he would set fire to the first tanker anchored there. It was a show without precedent at the time—and, by all likelihood, one that would never be repeated—so every supporter who had long idolized his immaculate hair and sculpted body was invited. Tall, elegant parasols woven from rattan stood in rows, and decorations matching the Caribbean sunset filled the space without restraint. To resell the attention gathered in that extravagant moment, broadcasters bought up the rights and prepared to air the ignition live. Each network plastered the broadcast with advertisements, but when the pre-event spectacle finally ended and the moment of ignition arrived, they jointly transmitted the footage, complete with a countdown on screen.
“5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Boom!
We are experiencing a temporary loss of signal. Please stand by.”
A century earlier—long ago now—during the Gulf War, Iraqi forces had destroyed their own oil facilities in retreat, ensuring that if they could not use them, neither could the United States. For months afterward, pillars of fire burned across the dry land of Kuwait. Roughly seventy years later, the scene was reenacted—this time at sea. It was said that one could not tell where the crimson sunset ended and the flames began. Unluckily, the fire columns rode the endless tidal waves and winds that had grown frequent by then, gladly consuming and scorching the vast expanses of dry land that had been waiting, like kindling.
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The fire traveled north through the Gulf of Mexico along scattered oil slicks, climbed the Mississippi River, and devoured the soybeans and corn of the Great Plains. From there, it crossed the Aleutian Islands in an instant and merged with the volcanoes of Kamchatka. After catching its breath, it spread endlessly westward through Vladivostok, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing. Some rivers, clogged with carelessly discarded waste and flammable materials, did not block the flames but instead urged them on. The refuse expelled by major cities and their outskirts needs no mention. The larger the city, the closer one drew to it, the more ferocious the flames became. The westerlies of the densely populated northern latitudes failed to stop the fire; instead, they helped it pause and feed on the remnants of metropolitan life. In the end, it swept across nearly all continents, sparing only the islands of the great oceans and parts of Oceania.
It is often said that disasters strike the poorest first, but this time they had no fuel to burn. Cities, swollen with possessions, suffered far greater damage. It was a fire that mocked and crossed great rivers and mountain ranges—boundaries that had once divided cultures and militaries, boundaries so vast they had shaped the formation of human civilization itself.
The reckless consumption of energy and resources had slowly raised the planet’s temperature, and people believed only predictable misfortunes would follow: hotter summers, shorter springs and autumns. But once the threshold was crossed, only unpredictable weather phenomena were observed. People lived in constant tension, shrinking inward, terrified of what would come next. And then the Earth burned—through the most direct method imaginable: arson. The first to burn alive were, of course, the influencer himself, broadcasting executives, minor YouTubers who had slipped onto the island to stream the event live, and the supporters present on site. Yet their blind faith drew in even those who had never believed in them. What began as a grotesque spectacle was enough, at the time, to evoke the end of days. People called that fire karmic flame.
There were attempts at a collective human response. They were insufficient. Only after months of karmic fire, when clouds unable to endure the rate of evaporation unleashed unprecedented rains—as if the Earth itself were vomiting blood—did the inferno finally subside. Even then, countless trees—several times the number found in the Amazon rainforest at its peak—stood dead. Underground, subterranean fires continued to smolder. Lakes and reservoirs had been sucked dry by the blaze, and dead trees could no longer retain water. Freshwater grew scarce while floods intensified. Over decades, cities had absorbed rural areas, urban centers had consumed suburbs, and developed nations had drained developing ones. Humanity had crowded relentlessly into megacities—and in a single stroke, billions suffocated or burned to death. It was an achievement no massacre or genocide had ever accomplished. There was no space left even for reflexive responses like mourning or remembrance. A few survived, but even for them, water was scarce.
