Hello everybody; ModernDayBard here! I'm working on my next full-length fan fic, in the Percy Jackson/Kane Chronicles world, but I thought I'd give you a shorter piece as a sort of interlude between them, hence this piece. So, here's some quick background info on the story so that it makes sense:
I was on props crew for my university's version of Macbeth, which the director had set in a post-apocalyptic 2114, after a virus has wiped out most of humanity and sent the pitiful remnants of society back to dark-ages feudalism. Also, in this production, Donalbain, one of the king's sons, was played by a girl as a girl, so that Duncan had a son and a daughter, instead of two sons. I started trying to imagine the brother/sister relationship, and this story began to grow in my mind.
As for plot inspiration, an intellectual exercise for me is to imagine how a story could have been different had something else been different, in this case: how might the witches' prophecy to Macbeth and Banquo have been fulfilled without the extremely high body count and subsequent crumbling of sanity.
That's it for background, as for the disclaimer: I don't own Macbeth, and anything in bold and italics are words that are either Shakespeare's or part of the prologue of Regent University's production of this show.
2023:
"When it appeared, the virus had a mortality rate twice that of the bubonic plague. Famine, desolation, and war followed. The pitiable remnants of humanity abandon the religion of science and—aware of their roles in civilization's demise—reject technology and cannibalistic democracy..."
2114:
"Seeking inspiration from its past, humanity struggles forward; society is organized by a region and embraces a new feudalism...Survival of the fittest leads to the ascendancy of a warrior class...The 'enlightened ones'—safely cloaked in technological shadow—promote chaos and anarchy. Feeding on fear and hatred, they pit tribe against tribe, clan against clan, rebel against king..."