dustopia

The explosion was so strong that the planet's balance, which had already been put to the test by its people for centuries, was drastically compromised: a devastating earthquake swarm shook the oceans and land masses, a geomagnetic reversal took place; the Earth's axial tilt was permanently altered.
This change in obliquity led to a severe weather pattern disturbance, culminating in the emergence of brand-new, enormous air masses, whose powerful winds started to blow all over the world in utterly unexpected ways and at speeds that had never before been experienced by man.

Huge sand hills, which had earlier been deserts, started to migrate across the planet's surface as a result of the strong wind gusts. Impossible to trace and predict their direction and occurrence, thick dunes gradually engulfed entire regions and countries, burying all traces of civilization and leaving behind newly exposed long-lost towns and structures.
The concept of time didn’t exist anymore. For days and nights, the dense dusty clouds of the moving deserts obscured the sky, creating an endless haze that rendered any attempt to track the passage of time pointless. Due to the axis' distorted tilt, large areas of the earth could not be illuminated by the sun's beams anymore. Seasons, weather characteristics, and the linear passing of time were erased by total darkness.

Communication was no longer possible since all satellite systems were now offline due to the electromagnetic armageddon.
Nobody had any way of knowing for sure who was still alive.
The few survivors lived alone in underground cities or bunkers, constantly working on new survival strategies to cope with the ever-changing environmental conditions. The diverse climatic regions of Earth forced them to create highly specialised intelligence that could sustain life in that particular meteorological setting. Gradually, this growing specialisation caused certain people to lose some fundamental abilities kept by subjects from other undisclosed places.