Ashes and Reels
2025.6.27
They still call it Los Angeles, but no angels remain.
By 2041, the sprawling metropolis that once captured the world’s dreams had become a scarred husk of itself—a monument to climate collapse, unchecked inequality, and systems stretched past the breaking point.
It didn’t happen all at once. The downfall came in waves, each one washing away a little more of the city’s soul.
The Slow Burn
The first real blow came in 2028, during the Great Western Blackout. A cyberattack on the vulnerable California power grid caused massive outages during the hottest week in state history. Hospitals failed. Fires raged uncontrolled. Whole neighborhoods evacuated and never returned.
By 2030, rolling wildfires were a seasonal certainty, not a threat. And insurance companies had quietly stopped covering anything south of Santa Barbara. The rich bought drones and private fire crews. Everyone else bought bus tickets or prayed for rain.
But the rain didn’t come.
The aquifers ran dry. Water restrictions tightened. Fights broke out at ration stations. Eventually, the trucks stopped showing up.
The Rise of the "Zone"
Law enforcement fractured. Budget cuts, mass resignations, and public distrust left entire districts of the city effectively unpoliced. Gangs morphed into full-blown syndicates. Security firms pulled out. The National Guard tried to reassert control—but after the South Gate Massacre of 2032, they left and never came back.
Locals called the city’s core
“The Zone.”
The Zone had no rules. Looters lived in Beverly Hills mansions with graffiti on the marble walls. Street racers turned the cracked 405 into a death track. Abandoned high-rises became fiefdoms for digital pirates and darknet traffickers. AI drones buzzed constantly overhead, but no one claimed ownership.
A crumbling sign near Mulholland Drive reads:
HOLLYWOOD — but half the letters have fallen off, and someone painted “DEAD” over the rest.
The Fall of the Film Industry
Hollywood had tried to hang on.
Studios built climate bunkers in Burbank. Filmmakers switched to virtual sets and remote crews. But actors fled, unions collapsed, and the infrastructure rotted from neglect. In 2035, Warner Discovery filed for bankruptcy after its main studio caught fire and burned for three days.
Then came the tipping point: The Oscars Riot of 2036.
When protestors stormed the Dolby Theatre over growing inequality and industry corruption, the Academy canceled future ceremonies "indefinitely." Production dried up. Set designers became VR developers. Writers fled to gaming. Agents became obsolete. Film school buildings were turned into squatter zones.
And with that, Hollywood was finished.
Enter: Florida
It was an unlikely successor, but in a fragmented America, strange things flourish.
Orlando, already a media hub, was quick to pivot. With lax regulations, tax shelters, and new flood-resistant infrastructure, it welcomed exiled actors, directors, and entire production crews. Miami followed suit with its bilingual crews, international flavor, and massive solar-powered soundstages.
SunGlint Studios opened in 2037 outside Tampa—a megaplex of floating, storm-proof production pods capable of hosting a dozen blockbusters simultaneously. Everything from post-apocalyptic dramas to musical biopics now bore the stamp: Made in the Free Coast.
The Academy, now digital and rebranded as The Reels, broadcasts from a rotating location—Orlando, then Miami, sometimes even Atlanta. But never again from California.
Life Among the Ashes
Back in the ruins of L.A., only a few remain.
Scavenger gangs, rogue technomancers, illegal AI synth dealers. Occasionally, a rogue documentarian braves the wasteland to film a gritty noir, hoping to sell it to some thrill-seeking distributor in Cascadia or Texas.
There are rumors of an underground film scene—cinema guerrilla collectives living in the sewers beneath what used to be Paramount, projecting films onto walls for rats and ghosts.
No one knows if it’s true.
But late at night, if you’re near the outskirts of the Zone, you might see light flicker through the smoke. Shadows moving on crumbling walls. And the whisper of a reel spinning—echoing through the city of ash.
Los Angeles isn’t dead.
It’s just a ghost that never stopped acting.