Editor’s note: The following story by Nikolas Katsimpras was the winner of the Art of Future Warfare project “Great War” war-art challenge that called for a front-page style dispatch from the outbreak of the next major global conflict.

CLICK! CLACK! DING! After more than 40 years, the vintage thumping sound of dusty Underwood, Olivetti and Remington typewriters filled, once again, the New York Gazette editorial room. Looking down the rows of desks, the gloomy floor is filled with the flickering light of hundreds of candles bouncing off the lifeless, pitch-black computer screens.

Today is the 24th day of continuous blackouts in New York, Washington DC, Moscow and hundreds more cities worldwide. It is considered to be only the beginning of a spiraling conflict. Who could have imagined though, that the greatest escalation of the 21st century might have started with a single cup of coffee?

Read the full story at the Art of Future Warfare site…