13. Not the End

Dion and his wife were to be publicly judged and most probably executed, as they could know from their prisonmates. The concentration camps were for the lesser creatures who posed no threat to the government. It was a necessity if the Northerns were to keep their control over the Southern Bloc at least for enough time to earn money and resources for another war. A scene of public shame was to be created in order to make the king and the queen subject to humiliation in front of millions of their own citizens before their execution so that the last memory of the most powerful figures of the nation would be that of misery and complete helplessness.

It was time. Both of them were taken from their respective cells, stripped and hung from the top, stretched to the full. They were to have the signs of shame on every part of their bodies and those were to be their clothing during their public humiliation. As this was done using the latest laser technologies, they were to stay on the bodies forever, until it decomposes. It was a painful procedure, and it is that pain with which death had to be called upon.

They were then strapped to the front and the back of a car which slowly moved through the streets so that everyone could see. The bare bodies exposed to a light which burned the writings caused excruciating pain. The judgement panel was ready and the two were taken to the stage, gagged, stretched and bound to an “X” sign which stood for eX-terminate, and were turned towards the crowd for their full view. The chief judge removed his helmet, and it was the leader of the Northern Bloc, Laga.

“For the people of the Northern Bloc and the Southern Bloc, I start this totally fair and unprejudiced procedure of ultimate justice. The two people you see on the stage, wearing nothing, but the signs of deserving public shame, are those who are responsible for all the destruction and the loss of life which has happened to us. One of them is referred to as ‘the protector of the weak’ while all the time, he has protected and served nobody, but himself and his family, and now he has surrendered his people and has put them to slavery just so that his daughter would have a life of luxury. He has had his own time of luxury – see how much weight he has gained during the last few months when he sat in his office and ordered deaths. He has sold you all to us, but we will make sure that he pays for it, and you all shall get your due. On his side, she is the first lady to wear these symbols of shame, and it is a shame that all such beauty had to be torn with these letters. It is not about who she is, as her crime is the big lie that is more of a fact. Their child is not their own, and due to your new Act of Legacy, her illegitimate daughter was to inherit this man and rule you all for the next five years. She has not only cheated her husband, but also your supreme leader and the nation as a whole. She is also the reason for his misbehavior, as Lady Macbeth did for her husband, and she has to bear double the shame, but it is obvious that she cannot take it any more”.

As the whip came down on her, she hardly made a move. She was separated from the “X” sign and as she fell down, a rope was tied to her neck and she was slowly lifted as her legs searched for land to ensure her survival, which was not there. The first execution was complete. Dion couldn’t look as he was turned to the other side.

“We both know that the first thing I said is not true. But the second thing is actually truth of partial nature. The child you have is not your daughter. To be frank, your wife was never pregnant, and all the time she spent to have that child was more of the time which was needed for her to help her sister give birth to an illegitimate child. She took the baby back with her after her sister’s death and you took her as your own. How do I know all these? I know the father of the child, and I might have let that little one live a great life, but as the people are already given an impression that she is your wife’s illegitimate daughter which I can easily prove, it shall bring more dishonour to you and your family if she lives a life of shame. Your type should end there, and nobody should jump in the way of the Northern Bloc in the name of saving the innocents, protecting weaker nations, safeguarding the human rights and all the similar stuff which makes me sick. It is your time to follow your wife, but in a different way”.

There was a countdown going on. When it reached zero, Dion was without his head which had flown towards the body of his wife after a scythe had moved through his neck. There was blood all over, and there was silence among the crowd. They had removed the plackards supporting Dion, and even as they were shocked by the public humiliation and the bloody execution, they were certain that Dion had sold them to the Northern Bloc, and the defeat was more of a created result rather than fought. They wanted their revenge, and as Dion and his wife had met the end, they needed to show their anger on someone, and the only candidate for that was the illegitimate daughter of Dion’s wife who had the blood of the partner in crime, and for that they had to wait, but they were ready. Laga had his own proof which were mostly fabricated, but rooted in the truth that the child was not Dion’s, and the treaty that he had signed, which had more additions to it than he had read. The child was the new enemy of the Southern Bloc, and Laga was its new protector, who could bring in anyone as his man to rule his new territory.

To be continued…

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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…