37. Rain and the Woods

As the guards were going through their duties and the trucks from the city had covered more than half kilometres towards the area, they walked through the forests. The rain continued to come down strong. The cleared path to the coast went through the middle and it was used by the vehicles which always kept inside the fences and prevented any creature or random nomads from the forest from entering inside. The security department of the city was really concerned about someone who is not part of their plans entering what they called the perfect world. Noah and Jack made sure that no scout vehicle could find them as they kept going further away from the road. There was thick vegetation all around and it made things difficult, but it was always going to be tough, and it was better than giving any chance of being captured.

“There is water everywhere on the ground. There is only this muddy water with some leaves and branches and nothing else” said Noah.

“This area is known for floods. We have read in the newspapers about the floods which have happened here in the last few years, which brought the water up-to a height of a four-storeyed building. They say that it is partially responsible for the death of most of the wildlife here, and the remaining animals travel to the wastelands which is at a higher location” said Jack.

“How can we believe all which were written in those newspapers? You know the media better than I do, and you have even been an indirect part of one such firm. They are just part of the government propaganda and I believe that we already agreed to the same long ago, didn’t we?” asked Noah.

“Well, we did. But in this case, if they were involved in anything happening around here, they could just write it down without trouble. They have already made it clear that all their activities in the forests were for capturing the rebels who were trying to destroy the city and their righteous way of life. So, they never really needed the floods as a reason. They could always use the excuse of the rebels as no common civilian from the city will be coming here, and we can be sure about that” said Jack.

“There can always be partial truth, because it is not easy to keep something hidden forever. Everything comes to light, one way or the other. You can’t hide everything from everyone forever, because in the end, we are humans with the ability to think and a certain amount of curiosity, no matter how much of brainwashing happens. We actually have many examples for this throughout the history” Noah came up with his opinion.

“As of now, it seems clear that there will be some flood, even if it is not that much heavy. We will need to find the high grounds at the end of the forest. We can’t be sure how early it will happen if the rain keeps falling down like this” said Jack as he started walking faster, ahead of Noah.

“This water level is coming up too fast. I didn’t even know that this was the rainy season, and this might be the first time that it rained so hard during this time of the year. Well, after all those destruction which we had given nature, asking for seasons has been a bad idea from a long time ago” remarked Noah as both of them started running through the forest.

They could feel the trucks passing through the path on the side of the forests, as these trucks used the most powerful engines available; the hovercraft mode was on because of the flooding which sent water through the paths – it meant that the trucks were now moving slower. The dual technology was limited to the trucks going outside the city because the pumps made sure that the world inside the walls was never flooded, and the elite class never really requred these vehicles. So they could be slower and of lower level technology. This technical side also meant that the trucks could go at their full speed only when they were fully trucks. The paths were actually located at a lower level than the forests, because it was made on the same elevation as the deserts and the wastelands which were lower areas. The hovercraft technology was needed, but an advanced one was yet not provided to the departments working outside the walls of the city unless they were part of a military wing. The guards will have to wait more with the flood worsening every minute. Jack and Noah felt confident that they could actually be aroung the walls of city by the time the trucks returned after loading the people and the goods.

The situation was not going to get any better. The thunder and lightning made sure that there was a certain amount of fear in the air along with the lowering of temperature which had happened. There were no animals on their way, even though some birds were seen flying around, but they had also gone now. The two stopped to see that a rock stood before them and what was on the other side of the forest. They said in their minds that it was the wasteland which came after the forest, and they started climbing the slippery rocks from a side which was not that steep. The rain came down stronger and the water level behind them had risen to almost their own heights. The cadaver of an animal was floating on water towards them. The water behind them turned into red as waves of blood hit the rocks. Jack looked behind to see eyes under water at a spot where blood made way for something else. He called for Noah as the bright eyes came out of water.

To be continued…

9. Lone Wanderer

The world he knew was in chaos and it was time for him to take charge. The confusion was only getting worse. The hope was diminishing, and the faith was already gone. It was only in a little shade of belief that the whole thing was going forward. Hell might have had many names, but there was the need to make the world better than the infernal environment.

“It is time I make the difference” Christian told himself.

It was a wonderful evening if he was a photographer despite of the human sufferings. He walked and walked until he reached a cave. The machine had pointed towards the South as the right path which had more probability of survival. He believed in the machines and the signs. But the question remained how far the science had lead the humanity, and what other than chaos and destruction did it bring. The signs had become the better guide for him. It gave him hope which technology had taken away from him. He rested there for a day.

The new dawn had arrived and there was a strange music in the wind. He reached the side of what seems to be a frozen river, which was filled with a strange liquid in its frozen state. There was absolutely no contact with any life form yet. The light was high over the horizon. He decided to sleep near a tree-like structure. The silence had defeated the music and it didn’t take him much time to fall asleep.

The next day arrived and there was a lot of dust flying around for reasons unknown. He walked towards what seemed like a naturally created building. There was some movement around it, and he couldn’t figure out what it was. He felt that he could have a look and find out by himself. There was nothing else to be done.

Inside the structure, he found a path which lead downwards, and he was no longer guided by the machines, but by faith alone. He chose to go down rather than move straight towards nothingness which he encountered again and again. He went down the stairs which seemed never-ending. He could heard voices from inside the walls, but that didn’t stop him. Getting help was his only aim.

It took him about five hours to reach the bottom. There were a number of round mounds which seemed like houses of sand. There was an entrance to each one of them. None of them seemed to have life forms in them, but each of them had some pot-like things on the floor and seat-like projections extending from the walls. There were also some strange inscriptions on the walls which extended even to the tiny ventilations on the top. The whole thing seemed like a total mess.

He exited to pitch black darkness outside. There was nothing to be seen. But there were sounds of movements and there was something moving around for sure. The sounds had become incredibly creepy and as a sharp object touched his shoulders, he decided to run. His legs stopped only when his legs felt no ground, and he started falling a long way down until his body felt surrounded by water. There was something about the water that he couldn’t move at all. He was slowly losing consciousness.

He woke up the very next day, with chains on hands and legs, and he ended up staring at a humanoid with big green eyes and a small mouth from which fangs dropped out, and they were entirely without nose and the ears. It was wearing a black robe which covered its whole body which didn’t looked any less human except for the fact that they seemed to have just three fingers and the nails looked as sharp as the claws of a wild animal. It didn’t take its eyes off Christian. It was surrounded by many more similar creatures which were wearing almost the same type of dress and looking the same, the only difference being in the height. They were busy working on some kind of keypads which manipulated some strange signs on a huge black screen. There were also some creepy sounds around, none of them which were already heard on Earth or even on the surface of this moon.

When Christian looked on the right, he saw a beautiful girl who looked entirely human, also in chains, destitute of clothing except for the area around the waist and the chest. Her clothing was purely silver, and the eyes were tied up with a thin layer of white clothing. There was blood dripping from inside the white layer. Her skin was more brownish than anything else and her abdomen, lower back and tighs had the same writing as what was seen in the mounds earlier. The lower abdomen had a small cross-like symbol. The blood was flowing through these small carvings on her body until they reached a small bowl of blood which was almost full. She seemed to have no life left in her. He was shocked to find a bowl with just a single drop of blood just in front of him, which was slightly bigger in size.

On the left side, there were three male figures and a female figure who were completely bloody, and except for their heads, their bodies were completely covered in a white cloth which was almost red with the blood. There were holes instead of their eyes. The blood bowl in front of them was full and closed with a lid. Christian could feel the smell of death all around, and he could sense the strong presence of grimm reaper very close to him.

“Hell exists and so does the eternal torture and damnation, that is for sure. But what would I call this?” He asked himself.

To be continued…

8. Madness in Two

“Do these advertisements ever end? Do they serve as elements of eternal torture?” asked Jack.

“Acheron Industries serve your every need. We make sure that you exist in this small utopian world” said the robot in the advertisement which featured on the television every fourty five minutes or so.

“Existence. They have it. What do they know of our existence? How can they call this an existence compared to the Acheron family’s godly existence? These people are not even creative enough to make a real good advertisement. Tell me more about this Bella Edward Jacob Acheron or whatever name she has taken in the last few years” asked Noah.

“She is currently stuffing people on her walls. She chooses from the people imprisoned in her father’s private prison. She divides them into two groups, Edwardians and Jacobeans, and looks inside them for clues to being a vampire and werewolves, and finally hangs their corpses on her walls according to which creature they look closest to. No wonder the prison manages to perform more death sentences than any other prison in the city” said Jack.

“Can she make a Hannibal? Does she eat them too?”

“No, as she is too intellectually inferior to read The Silence of the Lambs, I think that should save most of the people from losing their body parts. But she still thinks that they are vampires or werewolves, and therefore is kept to that private prison where people of certain characteristics are bought from the state prison rather than taken directly there. She is their lovely waking horror”.

“Does she still read the book?”

“No, I think she is aware that there will be more of similar books, as even during this age, the people of her age wants books that makes no sense, but are still too easy to understand. They can’t trouble their intellect, and they want to be that hopeless teenager who wants to do nothing other than whining and crying over a love which doesn’t exist, but there are still two men of different species infatuated with her. I guess they believe that they can gift their babies to the guy who didn’t get the girl too.”

“What is with these bloody love stories which sell at a higher rate than every resource?”

“Well, they are the means for these people to keep something which doesn’t exist alive. In that case, when they banned religion, they should have banned this overrated piece of nonsense instead. Love which leads to carnal desires is that cancer which has killed the world and led to these. Don’t you know that these Antony-Cleopatra kind of relations which were boosted by these books lead to the final war which made all these dystopian thing happen in the mask of an utopia”?

“You mean they thought there was something like true love? Were they that stupid?”

“Yes, they were. They believed all those lies which were spread through the romantic nonsense which lead to the most evil period in the history of Earth. The carnage that followed had its root in these fake love stories which proclaimed that these people were anything less than sex maniacs. There was actually no point. Even they believed so, but still continued to pretend to believe in these lies. It should be an excuse for them to get immoral, as they don’t have religion to guide them now, and the only thing they can think is evil”.

“What does this girl thing about that side of Twilight?”

“She doesn’t seem to realize that side too, without the elements of blood and gore. She needs that half vampire, half werewolf hybrid though. She has asked many doctors if they could do a Frankenstein and create one lovely monster for her whom she can marry. The only requirement was that both of them should have some awesome teeth which could transform her into a vampire or a werewolf whenever she wanted. I believe that she could get something done sooner or later, as her father is starting a new research facility in an attempt to create immortal supermen and name them Achers”.

“So, is it like everyone will cease to die some day?”

“No, just the rich ones, at the cost of others. There are lots of people paying a good amount of money to live forever, but there is only about fourty five percent chance of success, and it is a big risk. From what we know about, there will be no refunds from Acheron and a failure will clear about twenty five square kilometres of area as a result of mass destruction. As he has denied the existence of God and declared himself the son of a monkey and an ape, and has started looking for the origins of life which he wishes to create out of nowhere, these twenty five square kilometres would be enough for him to create that facility, and thus there is the backup plan for that land which he took from the common man for such a low price”.

“So, he is that much of a mad genius as her daughter is a mad fool. They both have madness as their weapon, shield and weakness despite of the power they possess working better than their madness. Can we use that this state of madness to our advantage”?

“Yes, which is why I mentioned her earlier. This madness can be used. There can a superb plan associated with this one”.

“I think I already know what to do as long as a plan is concerned”.

“This can just add to it, and this one can even stand alone if needed. Just wait till I finish the thing and make it a working plan”.

“The plans are many, but success gets further unreal”.

“So says my favourite cynic, the gamer of tactical warfare”.

To be continued…

6. To the North

It was dark, but the darkness had not spread well enough to hide the beauty of the land which seemed to sparkle in that little dim light which seemed to exist to show the magnificience of its motherland’s terrain to those people who never knew the beauty or awesomeness of the terrain of their own planet. The light kept its opponent right outside the door for a long time, and this period was part of that time when light struggled just like the power source of the Settlement 47.

Helios, the chief military officer rushed into the room with something that looked like a long paper. He looked worried as well as tired.

“Is the pathfinder available. I think we might need to go on a trip”.

“The first thing is that the pathfinder is not designed to take people in it. The orders say that the pathfinder is to be left alone to its job. The second thing is that we are not here for a trip and there is nothing interesting out there for us to go on a holiday. There is nothing near us, and the pathfinder has confirmed it”.

“These are direct orders which asks us to go to the Settlement 44, the closest Northern settlement and get what we need to save us from a possible blackout which would also mean the end of our storage of fresh air”.

“We have started accepting help from them? In other words, they have started developing so much love for us that they are going to help us. As far as we know, they are the kind of people who would take wood from our coffin just to make sure that their total amount of resources exceeds ours”.

“Actually, there was a deal between the Northern and the Imperial Blocs. They actually won the auction for the control of air and water on Earth. They have come up with a common economic policy, and their share of resources would be 12-8 out of 20 in favour of the Northern Bloc. Seventy percent of the air and ten percent of the water is all our bloc shall get, and the rest goes to the Northern Bloc. There has also been the talks about sharing more resources especially outside Earth, which is why we have been notified and ordered to work with the nearest Northern Settlement, which is the Settlement 44, even if it is kind of far away. The pathfinder does have turbo mode, doesn’t it? So it will take only a few days, I guess”.

“So they have finally privatized air and water? I thought the fight between these six blocs would keep it undecided for a long time. Now we have to pay for every drop of water? Do they also provide fresh air in bottles too?”

“You are being a cynic again. This privatization has always done us good. It will make sure that the water and air we get are fresh enough. There will be more factories established to make sure that maximum cleaniness is maintained. The price is not going to be that high, as we have such good technology. The only disadvantage is that we had to agree to the Northern Bloc’s demand to establish one airbase, one naval base and three weapon manufacturing plants on our land. In my opinion, that is just a fair demand. After all, they are stronger and are investing more”.

“What Northern Bloc did was much expected. But still, the privatization of the basic needs? These factories do pollute air and water, don’t they? It doesn’t matter how much they try to hide it, the facts are still facts. Haven’t you heard about the Cochabamba protests? That was about eighty years ago, but the story of humanity still remains the same and you don’t need to see the Andes mountain range to know that part of history. Do you think that the price can be kept at an international standard considering the unavailability of water at some areas? If it is kept standard at an international level, do you think that the purchasing power can be kept the same in every bloc or in each and every nation which make the bloc?”

“Well, just wait till you get home. You will know how much our world has changed for good. There will be perfection and pure awesomeness in the working of both our water and air supply system. I wish they had privatized the Earth and the sky too, if such a thing was possible. You are free to like it or hate it, but what matters the most is that now we are on the side of the Northern Bloc, the most powerful of them all. There is no military collaboration yet, but that should follow, as they have established base on our lands”.

“Well, this is the last time I will be trusting the Northerns. We will obey the order for now, and after we reach Earth, I will decide if I have to trust anybody. For now, I shall not be accompanying you on your journey to meet your future best friends. You can take Zachary and let his assistant do his job here. I need to here, as I am the only qualified mechanic around here. It can only hold two people maximum, anyway”.

Helios stormed out without saying another word. Zachary came into the room and Christian dispatched him with instructions on how to drive the pathfinder. He could hear the pathfinder engine starting and the machine trying hard to move around with the extra one hundred and fifty kilograms which it was forced to drag around. Still, the machine should be good enough to reach the destination, as it is brand new, and can create energy from moondust, even though it would take them months if that source is to be used. The existing power can just get them here if driven in an economic manner. It was all in Christian’s report, but as it was a high priority job to reach the Settlement 44, that risk was to be taken. In simple words, there was no other option.

To be continued…

3. Back to Future

Noah stopped in front of one of those huge televisions which were placed at every junction which had good traffic during the day time. There was some discussion going on in it, and as it is the only television channel which is available for free and regularly uses most of the frequencies, the people will have no option, but to stare at it quite often, even if they are not interested in watching them.

“He should be annihilated with his ideas. I would suggest a slow and painful procedure which can be telecasted in all television channels, thus making the people know that they should stick to the right way of thinking. But any means that will make sure that he stays dead, will have my support”.

That was the opinion of one of the celebrities who was asked to comment about the death sentence of Soren. He sat on that sofa as if he knew everything, and pronounced another judgement, something which will murder the same man and his ideas once again on the minds of his fans. Such an opinion was clearly expected, and the media has done very well in asking the right person whoc could give them the answer they wanted.

“The perfect dystopian environment. Is it what we wished for?” Noah asked himself. “The only visible success of our new perfect world seems to be related to maintaining a constant state of fear. A world which always expects war, the absence of free will supported by government surveillance and filling each brain with what they want us to think. The world doesn’t get any better”.

“Talking to yourself as usual?” Jack entered the walking area with in his usual style. He was a common person in the streets during that time. He had that infatuation towards darkness which none of the others shared. Some of the kids even interpreted it as a sign of vampirism, and he belonged to the vampire hive on the abandoned island outside the Imperial Firmament, but there was no proof of it. He was checked multiple times for an infection, but had come out clear on each occasion.

“Acheron and his government. I wonder how the people could elect such a living sample of selfishness and then suffer his dictatorship with unbelievable happiness even when they know that he has re-written every possible law, and has also made himself the emperor of emperors in a city-state which is limited to one small island”.

“You think so loud. Do you know what happens to the people who make words out of their thoughts? They are tortured and killed so slowly that there will be so much time to know the pain of thinking. Leave it, for you have hidden your thoughts well enough to survive this long. There is no need to go for something you can’t achieve, considering the heavy risks. The world has changed for the worse, and we know that. But there is nothing we can do about it. If you still think and talk about it, and you get in trouble”.

“You shall dare not to dare and continue to keep quiet till the end of your life?” asked a disheartened Noah.

“I have dared so far. I have hidden my vampiric qualities from them so far. It has never been easy, and some of them have known the difference and reported it. But I have kept my instincts under check. Actually vampire is not the correct word for it. I am just infected by a disease which makes me more zombie than a vampire. They call that place a vampire hive as they want to keep the people away from there. A group of dying people on a deserted island with not much food – that calls for media attention and a lot of change in ideology, something which is not recommended”.

“Who are they?” asked a surprised Noah.

“They are the people from the mainland who tried to cross over right after the war. But the policies of the Imperial Firmament resist immigration, and their ship was destroyed, causing them to live in that island which is a dumping yard of nuclear waste underneath. The infection is just an indirect result of the radiation. A few of us have caught the infection while going there on an unsanctioned humanitarian mission, but have successfully kept it a secret so far. We shall join them in a few months, when the symptoms get much worse, and die there unnoticed”.

“It is the information that might change the world, right?”

“It is that information which will never come out, and even if it does, shall never be believed by the common man whose beliefs are no more decided by himself”.

“You have chosen to give up?”

“I have choosen to accept the truth”.

“And what is is this truth?”

“Don’t you see it already?”

“You have chosen your own truth then, but is that the actual truth as true as the real meaning of the word itself? Just come with me then. Take a walk with me on my way home. Lets have some tea and talk. There is more to what you have said than it meets my ears”.

They walked through the shadows. Jack was not comfortable with walking under the lights. The Phainomenon had ended and it was difficult to find the darker areas. But they continued walking.

To be continued…