The Assembly Hall of the World Council lay in half-light, its circular chamber stripped of ceremony. Holographic masks flickered over empty seats, each ghostly face representing a nation that had ceased to answer. The air itself seemed afraid to move.
A delegate broke the silence.
"Eleven months," he whispered. "At this pace, there'll be nothing left to govern."
Across the chamber, scientists argued in desperate tones. No cure, no vaccine. The Hunger Plague erased appetite and defied every law of biology. People starved in kitchens filled with food.
A pen snapped in someone's trembling hand. Hunger was no longer natural—it had been turned into a weapon.
Screens lit the walls: maps bleeding red, numbers beyond grief. Seventy-seven million gone. Whole bloodlines extinguished.
"Even if they eat," a biologist murmured, "their bodies reject it."
Every human instinct had been reversed, rewritten.
"Should we negotiate with him?" someone asked. "With the Emperor Elito… or his Knights?"
"My wife and child are dead," another replied flatly. "Negotiation brings nothing."
The Chancellor struck the table. "He appears in ten seconds. Anyone unready, leave."
No one moved. The world held its breath.
A thunder of static filled the chamber. The main screen flared to life.
Elito appeared—seated upon a throne of living metal, six armored figures flanking him like statues carved from night. Gasps echoed through the hall. His eyes burned with cold fire.
"I hold the antidote," he said, lifting a vial that glowed like captured dawn. "Fail to obey, and die like stray dogs. This sickness is older than your science. Pharaohs worshiped it. Babylon tried to cage it. I have mastered it."
No one answered. Fear had become the common language.
"Two choices," Elito continued. "Unite beneath my empire—or kneel and starve. I am the first and final sovereign of the New Age."
One by one, hands rose. Some in tears, some in silence. Pride broke beneath the weight of survival.
Far away, inside a crumbling tower, the Unity Front watched the transmission. Their headquarters echoed with disbelief. Fists clenched. "We are powerless," whispered their leader.
The Emperor's message spread across every continent. Holograms hovered over starving crowds. Soldiers lowered weapons. Families stared upward as the image of Elito's throne eclipsed the sun. Children reached for him, too weak to cry.
Order dissolved. Governments fell. Cities became graveyards of neon and ash.
Elito filled every broadcast, every device. Images of famine, death, surrender looped endlessly until even resistance forgot how to breathe. His domination was psychological, absolute.
Across the planet, delegates of the surviving councils lifted their hands in the same gesture they had seen on the screen. "We have no choice," murmured one leader to another. The gesture spread like infection—hand after hand, trembling, raised in submission.
The world became a monument to despair. Elito's voice returned, soft and merciless. "I hold salvation… but only for obedience."
The vial shimmered in his grasp. Children's cries echoed faintly through the background feed. Life itself had become a leash.
In the ruins of the Unity Front, members stared at the screens, their hope collapsing inward. "It's over," someone said. Outside, the last rebels fell silent as starving citizens knelt, chanting the emperor's name.
Flags lowered. Cities stilled. The emperor's shadow stretched from one horizon to the next.
Then came the final blow: the Knights projected visions of the devastation—corpses, empty streets, oceans of famine—until even soldiers sobbed and threw down their rifles. Hope flickered out.
At last, only one image remained: Elito on his throne, the six Knights encircling him, the world itself glowing faintly beneath his feet. Every government, every army, every frightened survivor bowed to the same vision.
And the narration of a dying world whispered its verdict:
> The Age of Submission had begun,
and humanity's soul was no longer its own.