In the moon­lit dark­ness of a des­o­late land­scape, a man, stained with blood and the rem­nants of bat­tle, rose from the slaugh­ter. Amidst the chaos, he noticed the dis­tant glow of fires and the sounds of a haunt­ing chant from where the sav­ages had retreat­ed. He moved cau­tious­ly through the remains of the bat­tle, where rem­nants of both ani­mals and men lay sprawled. Under the stars, he set off south­ward, nav­i­gat­ing the rough ter­rain.

As day­light broke, he reached rocky out­crop­pings, where he encoun­tered Sproule, anoth­er sur­vivor. Sproule was injured, his sleeve soaked with blood, and in their con­ver­sa­tion, they shared details of their escape from the hor­rors behind them. They iden­ti­fied the mys­te­ri­ous attack­ers as an unknown tribe and expressed con­cern over their vio­lent nature.

Seek­ing shel­ter from the sun, they found a place to rest before con­tin­u­ing along a war trail. As they jour­neyed, they stum­bled upon grue­some remnants—a vil­lage emp­tied of life, chil­dren hanged from mesquite trees, and dead ani­mals lit­ter­ing the streets. The atmos­phere was thick with death, and their des­per­a­tion grew as they explored the wreck­age of a vil­lage, find­ing only silence and decay where life once thrived.

Sproule’s con­di­tion wors­ened, bring­ing dis­cus­sions about head­ing back to Texas, even as their hopes fad­ed. They debat­ed the risks of return­ing or stay­ing put as Sproule coughed, reveal­ing the sever­i­ty of his ill­ness. The kid decid­ed to scout for essen­tials and ven­tured deep­er into the vil­lage, scav­eng­ing for food while Sproule remained behind, weary and dis­heart­ened.

The kid found sup­plies in a des­o­late home and returned to Sproule only to dis­cov­er his absence. After search­ing, he found Sproule in a church, where the hor­ri­fy­ing sight of dead bod­ies faced him—a stark tan­gi­ble reminder of their dire cir­cum­stances. They resolved to leave as dark­ness neared, only for the real­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion to sink deep­er: they were alone, thirst­ing for sur­vival amid a land­scape marred by vio­lence and despair.

As they trav­eled into the night, the haunt­ing images of their encoun­ters lin­gered on, their paths now inter­twined with the grim tale of those who came before them .

In “Anthem” Part Five, the nar­ra­tor expe­ri­ences a moment of extra­or­di­nary break­through and inven­tive­ness. Sole­ly through their indi­vid­ual effort, after count­less days and tri­als, they achieve a mon­u­men­tal cre­ation: a glass box akin to a device from the Unmen­tion­able Times, capa­ble of har­ness­ing the pow­er of the sky with unprece­dent­ed strength. The moment they close the cir­cuit, the wire inside the device glows red, cast­ing a cir­cle of light upon the ground, a man­i­fes­ta­tion of elec­tric pow­er that does­n’t rely on tra­di­tion­al meth­ods such as flint and fire, but rather emerges from the essence of the met­al itself.

Over­whelmed by the impli­ca­tions of their inven­tion, the nar­ra­tor extin­guish­es all sources of light, leav­ing them­selves sur­round­ed by dark­ness with only the faint glow of the wire vis­i­ble, sym­bol­iz­ing both the iso­la­tion inher­ent in their soci­ety and the stark con­trast between the old and the new, the sup­pressed and the pos­si­ble. The sig­nif­i­cance of this inven­tion is pro­found; not only does it have the poten­tial to illu­mi­nate their tun­nel, but it could also rev­o­lu­tion­ize the cities of the world by pro­vid­ing a new form of light, one that is clean­er and brighter than any known before. It real­izes the bound­less capa­bil­i­ties of har­ness­ing the sky’s pow­er, sug­gest­ing that it can ful­fill any human com­mand if prop­er­ly solicit­ed.

Con­vinced of the neces­si­ty to share this ground­break­ing dis­cov­ery with human­i­ty, the inven­tor faces a piv­otal deci­sion. Rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tance of their work over­comes the mun­dane task assigned to them, like sweep­ing the streets, they decide not to keep this dis­cov­ery a secret. The con­vic­tion that this inven­tion must be revealed for the ben­e­fit of all leads to the deter­mi­na­tion that they must ded­i­cate all their time to it, imply­ing a resolve to break free from the restric­tions placed upon them by their soci­ety. This marks a turn­ing point, high­light­ing the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of indi­vid­ual inno­va­tion and the inher­ent chal­lenge it pos­es to col­lec­tive con­for­mi­ty and the sup­pres­sion of knowl­edge.