2167.
At last count, there were fewer than one million people left in Thailand.
No one said it aloud anymore. The government still issued reports—automated, formulaic—but the ministries were hollow now. Most of the offices had closed. Data collection was done by a handful of civil clerks and machines that hadn't been serviced in years.
The virus, when it came, didn’t last long. It burned fast through the Living Zones in 2159, mostly affecting the elderly and the already weak. It wasn't weaponized. Just unlucky. But it took a few hundred thousand with it, tipping the country below critical mass. After that, systems began to fail in earnest.
Electricity was rationed by region. Food was grown locally, distributed through fragmented networks of self-organized communities. Public transport was gone. State schooling was gone. Surveillance drones still flew—sometimes—but they no longer reported to anyone who mattered.
Anong sat on a concrete bench in what used to be a transport hub. Victory Monument was cracked and overgrown. The rails had rusted. The tower buildings nearby were all dark now.
She was forty-six. Still strong. Still alert. But childless.
That fact defined her now, in a strange way—not because she was shamed, but because people no longer knew what to make of her. In a society built around reverence for parents, especially mothers, she was an echo of another timeline. One that never came true.
There had been partners. Once. Brief, flickering connections. She'd passed her viability screening, years ago. But it had never felt right. Not with the clinics, the waiting lists, the approvals. Not with the quiet dread of raising a child in a world folding in on itself.
She didn’t regret it. But she did feel the silence.
She passed a housing block that had been turned into a communal nursery. A dozen children played in the courtyard, watched by neighbors, elders, tired but smiling. The children were loud, full of sound and dust and movement. They didn’t know they were rare. They didn’t know they were symbols.
Anong stopped and watched for a long time.
A woman nearby noticed her. Anong nodded politely. The woman smiled.
"You have any?" the woman asked.
Anong shook her head. “No.”
The woman didn’t look disappointed. Just curious. “Ever thought about joining a care circle? They’re always looking for help.”
Anong considered it. She might say yes, eventually. Not today.
She walked on, through streets that felt wider now. Not physically. Spiritually. There was space everywhere—space that used to be filled with people, noise, chaos, laughter, arguments, scent, breath.
Now there was wind. And birds. And stillness.
She passed a mural—weatherworn but still visible. It showed a mother holding a child against a sunlit field. The slogan beneath it was almost unreadable.
"Our Future, Our Duty."
She stared at it for a long time. The paint flaked under her fingers.
That future never arrived.
But somehow, she had.
Anong turned toward home—what was left of it. A low-rise complex still connected to the local grid. Her apartment was small, efficient, functional. No one monitored her anymore. No ranks. No categories. No directives. Just quiet days and long thoughts.
She made tea. Listened to the city hum—faint, distant, half-awake.
And for the first time in years, she allowed herself to imagine something new—not recovery, not hope exactly, but continuance.
She still had time in her bones.
And so did the world, maybe.
For now.