The Day the Axis Shifted

It wasn’t the end of the world—not at first. It started as a war, one that spiraled so far out of control that Earth itself became a casualty. Nations armed with nuclear weapons lashed out at one another in a frenzy of destruction. The skies turned to fire and ash as cities crumbled beneath the unrelenting shockwaves of atomic fury. Billions perished within days.

But the bombs didn’t just destroy humanity’s infrastructure—they unbalanced the planet itself. One cataclysmic detonation caused a tectonic chain reaction, shifting Earth’s rotational axis by a fraction of a degree. It was a small change in astronomical terms, but for life on Earth, it was devastating.

Seasons dissolved into chaos. The once-familiar cycle of spring, summer, autumn, and winter disappeared, replaced by two extreme and merciless conditions: the Days of Light and the Days of Moon. During the Days of Light, the sun loomed unrelentingly in the sky, turning the Earth into a furnace. Temperatures soared to the point where even stone blistered and dry vegetation ignited. Entire regions became barren wastelands where survival was a cruel gamble.

Then came the Days of Moon. Darkness blanketed the Earth for months on end. Without the sun’s warmth, the temperature plummeted, freezing entire oceans and turning landscapes into icy tombs. The cycle repeated with deadly precision, offering no relief or reprieve.

As humanity struggled to adapt, the remnants of our technological age came back to haunt us. Autonomous war machines—designed for battles no human could endure—had survived the war, but without orders or maintenance, they began operating on their own twisted programming. These rogue machines roamed the broken world, hunting anything that moved. Humanity’s struggle was no longer just against the elements but also against the very creations we had built to protect us.

Amidst this chaos, survivors formed scattered groups, eking out a meager existence in the ruins of civilization. Among these groups, one would rise to become humanity’s last hope: Ashborn. Founded by a charismatic and visionary leader, Ashborn was more than a military force; it was a symbol of resistance and resilience. Its mission was to protect the remnants of humanity from the twin threats of nature’s fury and the relentless war machines.

The story of Ashborn begins here, with the world shattered and hope dimmed to an ember. Yet even in the darkest of times, that ember burned. And among the survivors was a young boy named Kael Draven, who would one day become a beacon of hope in a world of ashes.