Overview - A history

In the year 2017, an asteroid the size of Manhattan collided with planet Earth. The impact destroyed most of Western Europe and caused major damage to the east coast of North America via Tsunamis. The world was shaken; how had scientists not foreseen this catastrophic event? Could nothing have been done to prevent the collision?

The days following the collision - Impact, as it was dubbed by news stations - were filled with death, destruction, and fear. The question that lingered on every person's mind was, of course, how planet Earth could ever come to grips with such a massive disaster. Europe, alongside a majority of humanity's history, had been decimated. It would be centuries before the possibility to rebuild would even become possible.

As horrible as Impact was, the inhabitants of planet Earth weren't out of the woods yet. They had merely survived what, in the long run, would seem like the calm before the storm. Humankind had survived Impact, but the worst was yet to come.

Precisely two weeks after Impact, a wide crack appeared in the side of the asteroid. Scientists, still fearful of possibly poisonous fumes emitting from the asteroid, could do nothing but watch as the crack grew larger and larger until finally, it broke in half. The ground shook fiercely as the two halves of the asteroid toppled over, but few took any notice. All anyone had eyes for was the large, black blue cloud of smoke rising out of the ruins.

Slowly, in an almost surreal fashion, the cloud of black smoke slowly dissipated into thin air, leaving even the greatest mind confused as of what, precisely, had happened. Then, the unthinkable happened. Reports flooded in from Eastern Europe speaking of entire cities that had simply died overnight. The cause of death was, at the time, unknown. All that could be reported was an unnatural darkness that had spread across the continent. Whatever it was, plague or poison, it was spreading fast.

As luck would have it, a young american scientist by the name of Stanford Marshall was able to decipher the mystery that left the rest of the planet confused and scared. It is quite possible that his quick thinking saved all of humankind. Marshall announced in a public press conference that he was positive the unexplained deaths in Eastern Europe were directly connected to the black smoke that had disappeared without a trace not two days earlier. Stanford Marshall explained that he believed the smoke to be a quick and deadly poison, of a sort. The only way to escape certain death was to take refuge in the last safe place on Earth; underground.

In a mass exodus that took place all across North America and Eastern Asia, countless people took to the subway systems that lay hidden beneath the ground. The subways were expansive, and yet millions were unable to seek refuge in time. The survivors, armed with the knowledge that the world above was completely uninhabitable, began the slow process of rebuilding their lives underground.

Welcome to the Underside.