Lung Tree 
by 
David Reiver

The world did not end with fire. It unraveled. Systems failed first. Quietly. One by one, the structures that once held everything together began to falter. The people who depended on them did not understand what was happening, only that something essential had been lost. Time passed. Knowledge faded. What was once common became rare, then forgotten. Now the cities drift. Suspended between survival and collapse, they endure on the remnants of a past no one fully remembers. Machines still run. Air still moves. Light still burns. But the reasons why, and the means to repair them, are slipping further away with each generation. In this world, survival is not just a matter of endurance. It is a matter of rediscovery. And beneath it all, in the places no one looks anymore, something remains. Waiting.