It was all gone.
That was largely agreed upon.
No one quite remembered how, or when, but it was agreed that it was gone. Here among the crumbling ruins and decaying streets that had once seemed the pinnacle of human achievement, it was plain to see, even.
It wasn't the ruins or the streets that were gone, however. No, they had only begun to crumble and decay after it was lost. They were merely monuments to the tragedies that had followed.
In truth, none who now lived was quite sure what it was that had gone, only that it had.
Most folk had their theories of course. Among those who still had leisure to study things, study they did, combing through the ruins and the streets, to try to understand. The rest would at times find an idle moment around a campfire and sit wondering at their predicament, as they picked clean the bones of some carcass.
A particularly vicious few even held their theories as sacrosanct, and fought some pale shadow of war over those theories, against other vicious few. There were seldom enough folk left to muster up much fight, and there was little left to fight about, after all. Soon it peters out to private squabbles and machinations among those who even have the power left to care.
Instead, most go about their day just trying to survive on what is left to be scavenged. It may be gone, but the day turns, empty stomachs growl, and rent garments must be mended.
From time to time, some sense of the missing gnaws at the back of the mind, but it is hard to truly feel loss when one does not know what was lost.
What profit was there in mourning, anyhow? There are pains enough in the daily struggle, if that is your want.
So long as the cold bites, the body breathes.
Tomorrow is all there is.