There is a chamber in a world not so far from our own, and within this chamber there is a gathering of creatures. The faces that fill this room are grotesque, some creatures baring oblong tusks on either side of their head, coming downward and forward, curling upward only at the very end. Their heads are quite large, and the rest of their body is heavyset, with meaty trunks of legs.
The other creatures that make up the rest of the room have snouts twice as long as the entirety of their head, and ears that stick straight up at constant attention. Their feet are large and cloven, and they communicate in harsh brays, baring teeth as large and yellow as their eyes.
Ruling over these creatures is a creature who most resembles the latter creature, but with even larger ears, and fur darker than those of the others. He stands tall, but his body is lean, and when he speaks, his brays are drowned out by those of the creatures he reigns over.
Acirema was once a land known for its prosperity and unity. After many years, it became a crumbling land of corruption, inequality, and fear. The creatures who lived in the land, the ones that did not dwell in the chamber, the ones that worked the fields, mined the underground, worked countless hours in grey concrete jungles, they became pawns in the games that the creatures who sat comfortably atop the thrones in the chamber played. The chamber was once a symbol of the ideal government, lands far and wide looked upon Acirema in wonder.
But the unique unity of the chamber was short-lived.
As the creatures who ruled the chamber came in went in their reign, the chamber grew more and more convoluted as the hideous creatures that filled it grew older and older but would not vacate their thrones. The creatures adorned their ivory tusks with jewels and gold, filling their multiple dwellings outside the chamber with riches. The hooved creatures ordered only the softest, most exquisite and luscious materials to rest their aching cloven feet on, and they, too, filled their dwellings outside the chamber with even more riches.
Meanwhile, the creatures who worked in the land, who elected those creatures to govern the land, began to see less and less benefits for their work, but were forced to pay more and more to the chamber for the benefit of their country. The return of the benefits was little to none.
After many years of this issue becoming prevalent, the ruler of the chamber implemented a plan for the creatures of his land that he believed would be most suitable and correct some of the arising problems. But he was rash, he believed his plan was the absolute and only, he refused to listen to the ghastly cries of those in the chamber.
The tusked creatures began stomping their feet, the mighty echoes shaking the bones of Acirema, and the cloven creatures began braying hideously in response. The chorus was deafening as the tusked and cloven creatures clashed against one another in a heated battle. The cloven creatures meant to support the ruler, but the ruler subdued even their cries. The ruler went to the people and bypassed his chamber, and the battle between the two sides contorted and transfigured into something that appeared unfixable.
All around Acirema, businesses began preparing for the worst; families who never cut coupons began looking for any way to save what money they had. But no one could have prepared for the crippling effect of the tantrum building inside the chamber.
Total shutdown. The chamber went into blackout. The tusked and cloven creatures could bear no more of the other, and so like little children, they stomped their feet once more, let out a final bray, and fled the scene, leaving Acirema in disrepair.
Agencies of the government that were set up for the good of the citizens began shutting down; those who worked in them were laid-off without further payment or compensation. With the loss of many jobs came the loss of many sections of these agencies.
The Consumable Goods Administration was shut down because of a lack of workers. The CGA monitored the safety of the food and pharmaceutical goods that were imported, or produced in Acirema. Meats and produce were no longer being tested for quality, and mass amounts of these goods were circulated each day. The citizens became exposed to contamination in their food supply, and those who needed medication could no longer trust all that they were putting into their bodies.
The Center for Promoting Good Health was also shut down in various divisions due to a lack of employees. The CPGH was responsible for developing antibodies for agents of disease and illness, their research was invaluable for its aid in preventing large outbreaks of sickness.
The shutdown occurred only weeks before the acro shot was to be administered and distributed throughout Acirema. But because of the shutdown of the CPGH, the amount of acro vaccine manufactured was all there was available. No more was being produced, so citizens of the land rushed to get the vaccine before there was none left. The acroenza was a virus so contagious that many ages before, it wiped out the majority of many populations. When the vaccine was developed, it became a shot that was administered to all to prevent another outbreak.
Acirema ran out of the vaccine in all regions of the land in a single week. With the coldest winter predicted in a decade, panic slowly began to surface.
Meanwhile, the chamber had slowly refilled with the offensive faces of the government officials. Still uncooperative with one another, the bickering soon resumed, and the chamber grew thick with the roar of a continuous power struggle. When the ruler was seen on the screens of the televisions, he appeared weary and tired, his fur much grayer than ever before. Still, his plan remained in action, and the tusked creatures remained as belligerent as ever.
In the land, the supply of safe food was lessening with each passing day. Fights began to break out among the citizens for what was left of nonhazardous food.
Fights of a different kind continued raging within the chamber. Cantankerous and unreasonable, both sides fought for their own desires and beliefs, forgetting entirely the reasons the citizens had elected them. The ruler’s voice was hoarse with trying to be heard over the pandemonium in what was once the citizens’ chamber. Eventually, even the ruler rolled over, and his plan that was implemented, which had just begun to slowly help some million citizens, was revoked. The citizens who had enrolled in the program were left without any direction as to where they should go and what they should do.
And then there were the revolutionaries. Groups of young and middle-aged citizens rising together in separate groups for separate causes, all storming towards the capital with one common goal: remove the creatures who were no longer doing what they were elected to do; serve the citizens.
Regions of Acirema were wasted as the creatures in the chamber who controlled the military ordered the soldiers of the land to fight off the revolutionaries. Brothers fought against one another, families were torn apart, and the country had only changed in a physical aspect.
The winter snuck up on the land in the night, and before the citizens realized it, the air was filled with the great clouds of fog coughed out from citizens in the street who showed early signs of the acro. It started there in the streets, and it soon spread into homes. The chamber was vacated as the grotesque creatures fled to the safety of their ornate dwellings. For those who had radios, it was announced that the ruler and his family had caught the acro, and that medical treatment could not reach him because there was no one working to deliver it. This was the last nationally transmitted radio broadcast.
Eventually, water and power were lost. Fires burned inside the homes that could house one, and those citizens who had fires, melted snow in pots to suffice as water. Food stores ran low, but the citizens managed to survive the winter.

Spring blossomed one morning, the frost running down the stems of dark green blades of grass in delicious, precious droplets. The few stray pets that survived the winter began to wander about the streets, and packs of dogs were curiously sniffing the frozen bodies of those who died in the beginning clutches of winter and in the outbreak of the acro. The cries of emaciated children and babies could be heard resonating throughout the streets, and the faces of the parents were those of worry and misery.
Everywhere there was emptiness. Acirema was a hollowed land, stripped of all that had once made it glorious. Those who were left to tell the tale of what had gone terribly awry were devoid of all motivation to do so. Why tell of a past that was riddled with corruption and violence and destruction, when it was all one could see anywhere they looked? What good was it to tell a story of warning to those who were there to listen, when those who would listen were those who would not when it was most important?

In the halls of the chamber, where the wind filters through the empty halls, in between the tattered strips of the flag of Acirema, and where it stirs the dust that had gathered upon the upturned and broken thrones, some still claim that one can hear the past whispering in the wind of the grotesque faces of those of the chamber who would no longer serve the citizens of Acirema.