40. Our Souls to Take

“This should have a certain secret buried deep somewhere inside. It is kind of twisted and with the smell of adventure” exclaimed Jack.

“Lets go. We shouldn’t stay here just because of some curiosity which has the ability to kill us both” said Noah.

“You sure about not checking this out? At least a part of this one? Don’t you think that we can take something interesting from here” asked Jack.

“There is absolutely no chance; not even with the latest weapons of Acheron. It is too much of a risk, especially at this time. To add to it, you always had a special skill in falling into traps” said Noah.

“Okay then. Maybe on another day when things get at least a million kilometres close to being perfect. That should relieve the pressure up-to an extent and there can be simpler adventures” replied Jack.

But all of a sudden, a hand came out of the well and grabbed Jack. There was so much strength in those hands and it had blood dropping right out of the wounds of the palm. It held firmly, and with a lot of difficulty, they managed to get rid of it. Soon, the rest of the creature also came out of the well. It was a dark creature, with what seemed to be its own shadow hovering over it. Another creature followed it out of the well, and others also followed. A series of dark clouds emerged right on top of their heads. The eyes of the creatures turned red, and blood started coming right out. They began to make some scary noises which caused thunder in the clouds.

“The scavengers; the scavengers of the dark! Those things which were named after that spaceship! They are really here!” yelled Jack.

“Yes, I understand. But what are you doing? This is not the time to stare! Run!” screamed Noah.

“Yes! We are going to die! Run and run fast!” Jack continued yelling.

As they both started running, the creatures followed them. They were not that fast, but running through this type of ground was rather too difficult. They fell down and slided to a cave below, which lead to an unknown water-body.

The creatures stopped on the way and screamed. The greenery was splendid out there, and they climbed on to a rock. It was more like a huge cave with a lot of space inside, as if it was another world out there.

“Now, we are surely not where we should have been. We don’t even know how to get back” said Jack.

“At least that much is clear; well, only that much is there to be known. This place might have stayed a beautiful mystery for so long in a universe of chaos and destruction” said Noah.

“This is a strange place, isn’t it? Especially considering the fact that we are directly below the wastelands which stretch a lot further. This is the kind of place that comes in the dreams – yes, there were such places in mine, more than once.” wondered Jack.

“Yes, and that too underground, and still the air feels so fresh here. There is nothing negative about it” added Noah.

“I see a lot of insects around here, which is strange. They were all supposed to have been mutated and turned into something else. Scientists from our place would really love to explore here” said Jack.

“There seems to be another kind of existence here, different from ours. I am surprised that Acheron hasn’t discovered and claimed this area with all his technology and unlimited amount of resources. This should be like a top priority place for him. Just guess what all he could accomplish with a location like this” said Noah.

“There are limitations even for him; and that is the same reason why we are still alive. He just can’t be the all-powerful dictator that he keeps claiming to be – that should be really painful for someone like him. But he will be here sooner or later, that is for sure; that much is greed for resources which can’t be satisfied. This surely seems like the home which a lot of people had written in the books; the one from the long lost past” added Jack.

Surprisingly, there were singing birds and smaller animals which were supposed to be extinct. The place reminded them of something which existed long before the wars had started. It was the kind of green with peace all around, and there was no cause for fear. The situation of horror had left them. Four eyes stared at them from between a crack in the walls of the place, and as they started walking through the straight path which lead to nowhere, the eyes followed them with a certain amount of enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, at the top, scavengers had no idea where their preys had gone. They had started digging with the bones of their victims, and even as they had no clue, had reached a quarter of the way to the newly discovered world of Jack and Noah. Scavengers were the kind of creatures who desperately wanted more and more preys, but there were none for quite a long time. They were the ones who made a pact, and that too with their own kind and also to the darker versions of evil. They were the true predators of the wastelands, and they were the rulers of their lands. They wanted to remember how awesome it used to be, when they were hunting, and hoped for their days of terror to return in style. They kept digging with the bones of the dead, and soon, they had reached half way to the other world underground.

To be continued…

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31. For the War

At the top of the Lightning Twin Towers in the Southern Bloc, the representatives of the four power blocs joined to discuss the big terror which was above their head, as war was very close with Zeus declaring his objectives. The official declaration of war was rather quick and no incident directly followed it, as people actually wondered if there was actually anything going on. But the leaders and their representatives knew that the danger was there. There was the sale of weapons going on in the black market and the mercenaries were training by participating in the underworld fights. The scientists were getting special aid in developing weapons of destruction from some unknown forces. There were huge transfers of money going on between the blocs, and the business people were increasing the cost of their products. The atheist fundamentalists had started the propaganda that there is no God and death is coming in the form of humans while the religions had gone silent. The blocs had to make a stand as different groups and guilds had got a clue that the end is near with this World War.

“The North has declared the war officially. There are letters sent to every outpost” said the representative of the Southern Bloc.

“The battles had already started. The West and the Central Blocs are already on the battle with the Northerns on Titan and the atmosphere of Ganymede” added the Eastern representative.

“But the news about armed conflicts is not out yet. As of now, the Earth as well as the Moon are not part of the war. Neither are the colonies at Mars. None have joined the combat” said the Western representative.

“What do you have to say about it? You are better skilled to deal with the war related activities, right?” the Southern asked the Central Bloc representative who was present there as a hologram.

“Well, I have graduated in War Diplomacy and my elective was History of War. If you ask me, I don’t think that Zeus will go on a direct battle with all of us. It is too much of a risk. The result will be large scale destruction of his territories too. He should be planning an alliance” said the Central representative.

“What kind of alliance? We are the remaining three blocs here. The rest is just him and him only. He is going to create an alliance with himself?” asked the Western.

“There is this story, about the Northern Bloc contact with alien life-forms and their experiments related to super-soldiers. The earlier devastation and the economic problems is said to be a result of an experimentation related to a force unknown to mankind”.

“We would like to believe that it was just a story made to scare the others. If there was any alien life-form, we would have been in contact with them. We are not that far behind in development of technology. This should be part of that psychological warfare and nothing else” said the Southern.

“Is this a big risk that we are takng?” asked the Eastern.

“The only one taking the big risk is Zeus. He has gone mad, and is going at everyone other than that, declaring each and every known non-Northern as an enemy. It won’t do him any good anywhere and at any moment” said the Southern.

“We consider him mad, but even the sane dictators have created such big effect on the society that they are remembered forever. May be he wants something like that too. May be wants to destroy the world, and create that chaos which will be remembered by his name – he will be known as the man who changed the world, no matter for what” said the Eastern.

“Well, he is smart. So don’t think that he is underestimating any of us. He is a lot better than all the dictators, including his own father who could create more chaos than anyone else before him. He was the master of all evil, and everything that Zeus owns come from there. Yes, it was a long time ago. But the man was too much of an evil genius and has left enough for his son even with all the problems that he faced. You might think that he was defeated in the end, and his aim didn’t materialize. But that is a misconception. He did create the path to go there, and Zeus only has to follow that. It is us who are underestimating him. There is more to the Northern Bloc and Zeus than what meets the eye. Even his own people might think that he is mad, but I assure you that he is not” added the Central representative.

“Are you just just praising our enemy for no reason and making us concerned? Why would you do that?” asked the Southern.

“No, I am not praising anyone. I am just talking about the possibilities. The spies did inform that he is planning something big, like nobody has managed before, and that much is for sure. He didn’t just become the leader after his father died, for he did plan his way to the top. I will be very happy if it is nothing, but if it is something of gigantic terror, we have to be prepared. It is all I am talking about” added the Central rep.

“In that case, better be prepared than lose the war early” said the Southern.

“Let us be safe” said the Eastern.

“Lets take this to our respective blocs” agreed the Western.

Zeus was half-mad and still a better evil genius than anyone had imagined him to be. But there was still one thing which made him lose his focus, and it was his thirst for revenge. It was something unknown to the rest, which meant that he could continue to hope and strive for the revenge even during the war without giving others the idea of that weakness which he had. He had many heroes, and all of them had lost in their lives, and was all prepared to do better than them.

To be continued…

26. Speech of Death

C1RC221 and V221KA stood in the middle of the central line among fifty such lines. They were bound to each other and the end of the chains were held by guards who held automatic guns. There was special security arrangement which included an extra thousand elite guards with advanced weaponry and electric shields. The old emperor, Laga slowly moved to the podium to deliver his speech.

“I hate this cold. It is like being in a mortuary. Remember when we were trained under the ice floor?” asked C1RC221

“Still the dirty old man, isn’t he? Look at the pride on his face, like he owns everything and everyone” asked an uninterested V221KA.

“Yes, and still the bloody fox that he used to be” remarked C1RC221.

“I am waiting to see him rot in hell, and something tells me it is going to happen soon” said V221KA.

“I hope I can personally send him there. It will be awesome” said C1RC221.

“Silence, prisoners. The great emperor of the Northern Bloc and the destined ruler of all worlds known to man shall speak now. Listen and be glad about this opportunity to see him in person and hear his words” a prison guard announced.

“Greetings, my soldiers. I hope you are all doing well, and I don’t see a reason why you wouldn’t. You are my favourites. All you should be aware that we have a colony to take care of in Titan. For the same, we need volunteers to go there and make sure that the place can be used for human life. Due to the same reason, I am personally selecting nine hundred of you to go and make sure that life can exist there. The rest are rather incapable and we shall deal with them later. There is a chance that you nine hundred shall thrive, but there is more chance that you will die. Yes, most of you are going to die a painful death, but I have my hope that some you shall live by finding a way. After all, you are highly trained super soldiers”.

“No, we don’t want to leave Earth. No way” shouted a man who was instantly brought down by the guards.

“He won’t be in the list now. Think about it, my soldiers. It is near impossible to keep you here as the concentration camps are said to be already decommissioned, and finding you here will destroy my reputation. I am already considered too cruel. It is so much true, but it doesn’t do me any good when gaining allies. The only chance for me to keep my reputation is to send you to Titan where they won’t be able to find you that easily. After all, you are doing mankind and science a favour by doing the same. It is easier now, isn’t it? I am asking a few of you to die, and not to kill anyone – it is an easier job”.

“Please, can’t you just send us home then? There is no war, right?” asked a girl.

“Pleading? Seriously these people don’t understand anything even after so much of experience” murmured C1RC221.

“Send you home? You have developed some sense of humour for sure – I wonder from where you get that. There is no home other than where you are now. This is where you have been living since you had memory. The war is always on, and it is just that it is not clearly visible outside. We are always fighting for control, and another world war can always happen any time. It is in our blood and we cannot live without it. Setting you free is a big risk to me as people will know that you were my prisoners all this time and were experimented on. Free super-soldiers roaming around in the streets is not good. You don’t belong in my bloc, and when you reach your nation, they will have super-soldiers along with some news that will work against me. Am I dumb? I don’t think so. You cannot attribute that quality to me, which is why you have to be dealt with, in a way that is profitable and not affecting us in a negative manner”.

“Leave us alone; let us go; you have no right” two women and five men protested and tried to grab the weapons of the guards, but were immediately shot down.

“Such defiance doesn’t suit you, dear soldiers – especially after this many years of training. You were not trained to riot, but to obey the orders. So please try to co-operate. I have spend so much money in creating you, and won’t like to feel that I committed a mistake and wasted my cash. I have even arranged a special dinner for you in seven days, which you can consider your last supper. You will also have special food every day, and shall be given more freedom, but be careful not to misuse it. Happy last week, my dear soldiers”.

“It is the way of the world, dear” whispered V221KA.

“Meeting dispersed, prisoners” announced another prison guard.

The prisoners were lead back to their cells where the chains were removed. The casualities of the speech were soon disposed off, and Lago was quick to return to the world meet which was to discuss the new additions to the human rights which were to be implemented across the globe. He was to become the leader and in charge of the rights of human beings across the planet, especially the war prisoners. He was slowly becoming a world leader again in politics even if not in the control of territory.

To be continued…

22. Lost Shields

There was silence in the military camp, even as there was a huge presence of soldiers, more than ever in the last few years. But there was the need for the same to be broken, and after one of the ravens did the job from the window, there was a lot to follow as what came close enough to a discussion.

“This is a battle which we shall lose, and this the war which shall end us” said the commander.

“But there is nothing we can do” said one of his legionaries.

“Yes, when Zeus decides something, it has to happen” added another.

“His aim is to inflict pain rather than to win, so why would he bother?” asked the soldier in white.

“He is directly from hell, he is a minion of Lucifer or may be his real name is Mephistopheles, Leviathan or Beelzebub” said the more religious one.

“Keep those ideas with you, and you religious boy, watch your tongue; the only religion we allow here is the lack of it, and we shall do whatever we can to protect it – keep your heresy to yourself unless you wish to be far far away from humanity” warned the commander “we need all the soldiers that we can have, which might save you for now, but not for too long”.

“But can’t his advisers warn him against his war for pain and pain for war?” asked the man in white again.

“No, this is not about the nation, as there is more to this than it meets the eye. This is his personal war, and it has risen from his indoctrination against not only religion but also humanity by his parents. This is a bad medical condition if we look at it that way, but he is now the leader and there is no chance to deny him his thirst for blood right now”.

“So we go for war and most probably each and every soldier among us shall die?” they asked together.

“That is more than just a certainty. The other option is to come up with a military takeover for which we are currently not capable of, as most of our army are stationed outside Earth, and the lack of unity between our stations is huge. Even if Zeus had lead us to a certain victory, with this lack of co-operation, we might have still lost a lot of men and resources. We are a losing side, my soldiers, in each and every way. unless something of a miracle happens; but we don’t believe in miracles…such a shame”.

“Can I add something special to that talk about miracles?” the religious one raised his hands as much as he could.

“No you can’t. It is not miracles that we are looking for; we look for results, and there is actually no such thing as a miracle. We need some other intervention, not of divine nature which doesn’t exist”.

“Repentance and penance are still applicable, right?”

“Not at all. We do not believe in such things, as we are better and highly advanced people. The science has proved it, and we are coming up with more scientific evidences for the same. We have created a lot of the same in the past to support our holocausts. We don’t believe that God created us as equals, as we don’t believe in such an entity unless scientists decide to add Him to their discoveries. If we did, how could we have enjoyed all those torment of the others which we have been doing for such a long time? Just check those instances from history where irreligious people wearing the mask of people killed a lot of the fellow humans, and now we are doing it without any visage of such things, and we are more successful than all of them. You know how many threats we have neutralized? How much our empire had risen, even as we are having slight setbacks right now”.

“Every empire; every thriving civilization falls, like Assyria, Babylon, Sumeria, Persia, Greece, Rome, Ottoman…”

“Stop that, will you? The Northern Bloc is not comparable to any such little things. We are better than all of them together. They were plagued by religion, but we are not. We are self-sufficient without God. We are so superior that it troubles me; we might lose this battle, but with our superior intellect, we might still be able to come up with something to win the war or at least not lose it. I am doubtful about this war, bout not about the Northern Bloc as the powerful entity that it is, and we shall survive at any cost”.

“Ever heard about the Tower of Babel and what happened to that structure?”

“I shall know no towers other than the Northern skyscrapers which shall continue to rise above the clouds. We are the future. Why do you come up with a random story of the past about a failure which has never troubled us Northerns? We are not anybody else, for we are the superior ones”.

It was a common practice that the superiors never agreed to most of the things the lower class soldiers said. What Zeus had said was going to go out through his commander even if in a different tone. There was always blind obedience there for the taking, and the commander had passed over the baton to his fellow soldiers, or may be most of his fellow soldiers, as there was always going to be exceptions. The direction of wind was already changing in the Northern Bloc along with the shift in power which was going on throughout the world.

To be continued…

20. Fate’s Weapons

Seventeen years after the execution of Dion and his wife, the same Southern Bloc was no longer under the control of the Northern Bloc, but the military bases of the Northerns remained in the Southern lands, and the former concentration camps were now known as bases for military training for which the Northerns paid a specific amount of money every year.

Among the military bases, there was one, which went very far down the ground like never before, with its world coiled around like a snake and would have been the biggest sky scraper if it was built straight up above the ground. In the middle of those coils, there were a group of rooms, and in this section, there were twenty five and on the left side of the section, the writings on the door read as C1RC221 and on its right, it read as V221KA.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, may God bless you” said the voice.

“Thank you my dear” said the shorter girl to the other.

“It is your eighteenth birthday dear, say something”.

“Are you sure about that? I mean, how can we be sure with our brains so much tampered with”?

“I am telling you, so believe it and say something, make a small speech”.

“I feel that these people will have something to say when they come to know that we have tampered with the camera wires and even managed to steal items from the kitchen to make a cake. Was this necessary? I couldn’t do the same for you on the day of your birthday. I feel ashamed of being not good enough”.

“No dear. It was because you got caught when you tried. This time, it was accomplished by us together. I don’t think that anybody in this prison has suffered like you did when you tried to get me that cake on that day. Such defiance was always going to get you brutally tortured. They had broadcasted that tape to silence the other prisoners, but let me tell you that it did not. They have successfully created a lot of perfect robocops without emotions, never questioning their instructions, but people like us are growing in number. Well, you earned an year of solitary abuse and humiliation just for me. Today, we will earn the same, may be for an year and a quarter, but this time together sharing the pain of each other”.

“I heard that all the concentration camps by the Northern Bloc has been decommissioned officially. May be we will survive, and you can go for that world journey which you always wanted, and I can get married to someone like that guy whose head was cut off for eternal defiance in the men’s prisons. May be we will be people, and not creatures”.

“Yes, concentration camps have been decommissioned, but we are not in one of them any more. We are in a military camp and we are soldiers. We might be walking experiments, but we are also super-soldiers on paper. I wouldn’t deny that though, from the way you almost brought that cake to me and suffered all that torture which no normal human being could have. We are stronger than these prison wardens are, but we are less in number and without weapons, even deprived of our nails and our tooth locked in this smooth covering. Meanwhile, we are highly vulnerable to these special weapons which they hold. We are to be unleashed one day, may be as part of a war or as part of a dangerous expedition to another planet or even another dimension. Until then, we will be grown to become vegetables, submissive to these people”.

A violent burst sent the door to the ground. Five wardens entered the room.

“Prepare Subject V221KA for the extended shock purgation. Put subject C1RC221 in the Ice Age Aquarium for now. Her skin can take a lot, and we shall soon decide to what is to happen to that repeat offender. Until then, a frozen brain and body shall do a lot of good to her. She is becoming my favourite. I should actually kill her, but I am forbidden from doing so. But if she gets killed during one of these torture sessions, I am pretty sure I won’t be held responsible” said the voice through the loudspeaker.

“You are spending too much time together. May be you will love to spend time together while tortured? It would be so cruel of me to separate you, because you are my favourite fake twins. You will like that, won’t you?” asked the warden with the skull mask.

“There are a few other things that we will like. This is only until we get out of here and make each of you suffer. One day, it will be you hoping that you were not born. We have better plans to torture each of you. This skull mask which you are wearing will be your face. And for these things which are your fingers, you can find another name to call them. The Northern Bloc will rot in hell, and this inferno shall be created by our kind whom you have tortured. Yes, I have more plans for you, skullface, and we are still working on it, and so I am not going to tell you more”.

“Fine, do what you want when you go out of here alive, drama queens, but for now, just suffer and learn to follow orders. Don’t part with your emotions though, as you will need it in the torture chamber”.

At the time of torture, they were not alone. Another guy was there, being stuck between two walls of spears and another girl who was stretched. Two dead guys were also there, one eaten by vultures and the other mutated beyond recognition by radiation. There was red light in the room and a fast, dreadful music was there for listening, as if it extended the torture.

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…

7. Of that Faith

“Is this death?” asked the man full of burns.

There was a failure in the main generator which had caused an explosion which lead to eleven casualities and twenty four injured. The man was one of them. It was seemingly hell out there, and in the absence of the chief medical officer, it was only worse. The destruction of the main generator had resulted in the reduction of power by fourty five percent in a world where there was only the power for basic needs. The communications were destroyed by the explosion and even the medical equipment rarely work in the way it is supposed to be, due to the lack of sufficient power.

“I will die, won’t I? The only question is about what is taking death so long. I have thought about it throughout my life. I would have committed suicide if it was not a crime. There was never a point in life, for mine was full of pain. Forget the mental stress, but the physical side! I had abscess all over my body and each and every attempt to heal them has resulted in another problem. Science has failed me. The doctors have said that it doesn’t matter how many surgeries I undergo, it shall come back again. I have understood that it gets only worse with every surgery and time has acted as a catalyst to my pain, my life lost cause and now this. Death has been my expected saviour for a long time” he continued.

“No, this is not death” replied Christian. “Believe in God, for our Lord will save you. There is no death other than not able to reach paradise. There is no loss other than failing to become a saint. Please pray and believe. There is still chance”.

“Do you have any idea how much pain I am in right now? There was always the pain of the abscess, and it has taken from me my confidence and everything positive. It made me pessimistic. I kept myself away from everything, and I never had fun for the last fifteen years. I had to switch off my phone and run away to a world which had no human being around; sometimes it was my room and at other times, it was just a randomly chosen place where nobody could reach or an abode not that easy to find. My life is a collection of missed opportunities about which I lament every second of my life. It has burned me throughout, and now this burn which is slowly taking the life out of me. I have died in life throughout, and this is the eventual hell for me”.

“Do you really need to think about that now? Everybody has the highs and lows in their lives, and sometimes it is the latter that has the upper hand for a very long time”.

“It was the new fast food culture. There were negative health effects, and in my case, it was worse. There was no liquor, drugs or smoke, but this one was more than enough. Fast food chains might have had more money from me than anybody else. From the 2060s, the neo-augmentation process by those giants might have increased the quantity available for the same price, and has surely attracted so many more regular customers. But for me, it was more because of the fact that the options were less, and I was no risk taker. I went with the flow, but I lost myself in that powerful flow as I was weak, and was buried in everything bad. There was still no risk for obesity, and there was no cholestrol or diabetes. They could have stopped me. Why did they evade me? I wish there was a return to what I used to be, about eight or ten years ago. There are things I need to change, and there are things which I have to make right”.

“Forget all of them, and turn to God; you have this chance which not many had. Just turn your soul in the right direction and miracles shall happen, in this world or the other”.

“I had a dream, a few hours before this happened. I can’t say that I saw the dream, because I rather felt it. There were spiders, cockroaches and scorpions on my bed. There was a huge number of these insects and I fell from the bed. The spiders seemed to eat the rest and they got bigger. I felt that it was real, and even after regaining my senses, I could see those creatures. I waited for a long time for them to disappear; I washed my face and even tried pinching and hitting myself. But they wouldn’t go. Finally, due to the weariness, I decided to fall asleep on the chair. I still could not stop feeling the presence of the insects. When I finally woke up in the morning, there were none. Was this a sign? I could feel that I was sick in the morning. Or may be I am mentally unwell too”.
“Why do you bother? They are of no significance. Put your trust in God and close your eyes”.

He closed his eyes. He reminded Christian more of Count Ladislaus de Almásy from Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. He even has Herodotus’ Histories with him. He wished that the similarities ended there. But what had actually hit him was nothing other than the dream of the spider, the eight legged long thing which was the symbol of the Northern Bloc’s corporate group. He always gelt that it had made perfect sense for them to use that logo, as they also weave webs and catch their prey. Those were surely powerful and wide-spread webs, as not many are known to escape from the same.

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…