The Pluviophiles

        Our world is on the brink of death, now is the time to claim your right to life.

The government told us that the earth brought down this poison, that it was some punishment from a god, an unavoidable natural disaster cast upon us as a judgment for our sins. We are here to tell you, that is not the case. Humanity did this, the destruction is ours to bear. Let us tell you of the past, the true past.

As you know, the Water Wars started nearly a century ago. After decades of corporate mismanagement, rampant pollution, and wasteful use habits the situation turned dire. Humanity has poisoned the planet, and we are the left to survive in the wake of our own destruction. The last clean rainfall officially fell in 2022 when the inundation of forever chemicals became irreversible. Continued pollution brought back acid rain that destroyed tropical ecosystems, moving north to ravage the earth.  The last safe groundwater was poisoned in 2025 by industries whose name has been lost with time, though the damage they did brought humanity to the brink of extinction. It only got worse from there…

This was not divine intervention, this was us. It is said the ancients had every opportunity to prevent the downfall of society and the poisoning of the earth, but they were blinded by their greed, corrupted with a sense of sense of self-importance. It was as though they believed the world could heal itself, that it wasn’t their responsibility.  

That all changed when the wasting sickness came, when their crops and livestock became a poison that ravaged the human body, when the rains burned their flesh… By then it was too late though.  

 It didn’t take long for panic to breakout as people fled the forests and plains for drier, safer lands. The governments that laid claim to the deserts set to work building sanitization plants to provide water for the fleeing populace, but there were too many people and too little resources to go around. So, they did what governments have historically been known to do. They turned to war.

As the wars waged on, the rains stopped falling. Drought began to spread across the world opening more expanses of semi-habitable land, but it is useless without the sanitization plants to support.

Today, the only safe places are in the desert whose desolation stretches over roughly one-third of the earths land mass. At least, that is what we’ve been led to believe. These drought-ridden lands provide safety from the poisons, supplemented by the many government-run sanitization plants which today are controlled primarily by the military. The powers-at-be regulate all water use; their cronies doling out only enough clean water to keep the working populace alive and produce the bare minimum of water required for agricultural use. The only way to get access to a steady supply of clean water is to join the military, where soldiers fight to gain control of more sanitization plants or destroy other nation’s ability to purify their waters. The cycle of death continues even now.

Over the last few decades, entire nations have succumbed to poison after the failure or destruction of their sanitization plants. Today, only two great nations remain. Our homeland is the strongest, maintaining control of over 700 plants across the American desert.

In the capitol, it is said, they have enough water to bathe daily, that there are free-running streams throughout the city that feed into wells that flow endlessly, that the very streets are washed clean with the sweet, life sustaining resource wielded as a threat against the populace. It is a place a luxury unlike anything one could ever imagine. For the people, never having had more than enough water to drink and cook with, this wastefulness is sickening.  

You see, I am from a border town. This is my story, one familiar to many displaced by the government. My small town was supplemented by an old sanitization plant primarily used by the military to sustain their border forts. It was a desolate place where only dreams of joining the military and breaking free from the thirst sustained us.

Unfortunately, most of us were too malnourished or sickly to qualify for duty, that’s why our rations were incrementally cut. It was so little; we didn’t realize it at first. Until the days when the crops started dying and our drinking wells dried. Our town had been selected for a culling.

This practice, though never officially recognized, has been done periodically to unproductive cities, their supplies cut until the drought or poison consumes them to ensure the clean water is only used for productive means or to sustain the lavish lives of our senior leaders.

Our lack of productivity was a ruse, the illness feigned. We have not died; the drought never claimed our lands.  

Rumors of the impending downfall of the other nation has drawn our military away from the capital, and the people thirst. We are here to help.

We are gathering now, in the forests to the north hidden in the lands the government fears. What they don’t realize is that nature provides, as it always has. Many people, particularly those in power, fear the green, clinging to the deserts and the sense of security it brings. They watch the rains over the green from a distance filled with trepidation and horror. They are naïve. We will soon teach them the way of things.

Mother Nature has cleansed the poisons, and, in the green, we have been gathering. The drought’s expansions have stalled, the rains will return one day soon, clean and invigorating, but before then we have work to do.

We are the Pluviophiles. The governments will fall, and we will rise, the sanitization plants will be returned to the people. In the future, when the waters run clean and fresh, the world will rejoice. For now, though, it is up to us, to free the waters and to save the people before it’s too late. We ask you to run, flee the drought to the forest's embrace. Come, we will provide, nature will provide. Together, we will free this world. This is our mission; we are the future. Join us.