Terra

The parasites had finally killed their host.

Earth's last breath came as a wheeze of toxic wind across endless dunes where cities once stood. The oceans had turned to salt flats. The sky hung like a dirty shroud. Humanity didn’t build a future—they hollowed out a corpse and called it progress. And like any good parasite, when the body rots, you crawl to the next.

That next was Terra.

When the evacuation ships departed Earth's dying husk, only those with the correct genetic markers —those who’d sucked the marrow from Earth’s dying bones— earned passage. Top 10% of humanity's remnant. They arrived expecting to rebuild their hierarchies, to maintain the familiar pyramid of exploitation. Instead, they discovered a fundamental truth:  when everyone owns everything, no one owns anything.

So they opened the gates again. Not for mercy—for sport.

The solution was elegant. Carefully curated invitations were extended to the "resource pool" still choking on Earth's toxic atmosphere. Transport ships arrived monthly, their holds packed with the desperate and dying. The marketing materials called it "humanitarian relief". The cargo manifests listed them as "renewable biomass".

In Terra's pristine cities, the former elite discovered that absolute power requires absolute degradation to maintain its edge. Deathmatches in glass arenas. Children of the elite placing bets on which homeless family will starve first. Art installations built from real limbs and suffering. The elites called it culture. Evolution. A new age.

The planet markets itself as paradise. No guns—the elite prefer their violence intimate. No police—order comes from fear, not law. Even assisted suicide is legal, advertised as compassion. But whispers echo through the slums about the real reason: that the elite feast on more than power. That "consume the poor" isn't metaphor.

Here, the corporations are the gangs. The gangs are the aristocracy. Law is a leash held by the highest bidder. And if you’re not born into wealth, you’re only alive because someone upstairs enjoys the way you scream.

But even Terra won't last forever. The parasites are already eyeing new hosts, new worlds to drain. They sharpen their teeth on the bones of the desperate, preparing for their next feeding.

Unless something sharper finds them first.