Wasteland
Wasteland. It's what we call it. The world that is. Where brittle yellowgrass juts out of the hard shell of the ground like so many tiny spears, fighting with briars, clustered together in tight stands as if sharing some great secret that nobody knows. Here and there a stunted tree struggles skyward, failing to realize the world has moved beyond the time of trees. And covering it all, the drydust. The thin, light dust of Wasteland is everywhere. In everything.
Occasionally bones of the old world rise from the broken earth. Skeletal remnants of buildings, now no more than empty shells, their roofs caved in and their structures filled with drydust. We know their names, these echoes of yesteryear, given to us on rusting, green signs with white lettering and words like words like, "Saginaw," or "Flint," or "Detroit." Places of grandeur for sure.
And between these empty shrines to what was, The Roads. Black and gray with lines of white and yellow. Some pitted and ruined as to be nearly impassable. All littered with the clutter of the old world and the additions from Wasteland. And of course, everything covered with drydust.
Wasteland is a hard world. A world where People Will Do Anything For Resources. Men sell their wives for a gallon of gasoline and a mothers hawk their children for a gulp of water. The strong take what they want. And everyone wants the same things: gasoline, water, food, and sex.
Sleeping Bear
But hope lives still.
There are whispers of a place, at the end of a long Road. On the shores of the great western Dustbowl, beyond a green sign with faded white letters that read, "Tr v e C y." Here, say the whispers, Civilization Is Blossoming.
It is a place called Sleeping Bear.