Chapter Eleven - Collapse and Covid

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Collapse and Covid

EVEN THE MOST sealed-off country on Earth couldn’t keep it out forever.

2020. The world froze. Flights grounded. Streets emptied. Borders slammed shut. COVID-19 swept across the globe like wildfire. Governments panicked. Economies crumbled. Hospitals overflowed.

And North Korea?

Declared zero cases.

The regime insisted it was untouched. Immune. A miracle of leadership. State media praised Kim Jong Un’s “quick and heroic action,” crediting him for saving the people before danger could enter.

But behind the myth, cracks were spreading.

North Korea’s survival has always depended on control, not just of information, but of movement over its own people and over the flow of goods. When the borders closed, the entire system choked.

Trade with China, the country’s last lifeline, collapsed.

Smuggling dried up. Markets shut down. Medicine vanished. Factories stalled. Food shortages worsened. Famine loomed.

And then… Kim vanished.

April 2020. The leader disappeared from public view. No ribbon cuttings. No tours. No factory visits. Nothing. For three weeks, there wasn’t a single image of him. Not a single appearance. Not a single statement.

The world noticed.

Was he dead? Sick? In hiding? Was there a coup?
Rumors spread like wildfire. Even inside North Korea, where whisper networks carry more truth than television.

And then, suddenly, he reappeared.

Alive. Smiling. Touring a fertilizer plant. Looking thinner, slightly pale, but still standing. The state ran the footage like it was divine proof. The message was clear:

He never left. You just weren’t looking hard enough.

Still, something had shifted.

From that moment on, Kim’s appearances became even more erratic. He lost weight dramatically. His face sharpened. His posture changed. He vanished for longer stretches, sometimes weeks. And the longer he was gone, the louder the same question became:

Who runs North Korea if Kim dies?

There’s no designated successor. No clear plan. No second-in-command.

Only a sister. Rising fast in prominence, often standing just behind her brother, speaking for him, and threatening South Korea in his name. Cold. Sharp. Loyal. But not guaranteed.

And behind them all: a collapsing system.

COVID didn’t just bring illness. It brought silence. Empty shelves. Tightened surveillance. Broken supply chains. Hunger. Fear. And worst of all, for a regime built on spectacle, it brought stillness.

The myth couldn’t march.
The missiles paused.
The music stopped.

And the man who once held the world in suspense with a single tweet… was now quietly walking the edge of a dying economy, a starved population, and a crumbling throne.

Still in power.
Still feared.
But for the first time… maybe not forever.