39. Season of War

The war had begun, and now it had spread to Earth itself. From Titan, Ganymede and the other outposts, Northerners had advanced to bring themselves to a very favourable position. It was a different position at Earth though, as the balance was maintained, and none of the alliances made any big advancement. The status at Moon and Mars were not clear though, as the situation kept changing – it was sure to be the biggest war ever fought in the history of mankind.

The newly formed command centre underground was not really a happy place to be, for the Northerners. The original command centre was hit by one missile which brought it down, as the interceptors of the Northerners were damaged in an unexpected intrusion by the combined forces of the enemies. The new centre used to be prisons for super-soldiers, but it is now used as the special area, as Zeus himself had moved there to make sure that there will no more attacks from the air threatening his own life.

“There have been significant territory changes on Earth, but the territory that we have conquered here remains the same as they have control over some of our territories too. The battles at Mars and the Moon have been complicated too; we have lost some of our best lands there even though we did capture some other territories. This is going to go on for very long” said the commander.

“We will unleash our friends from the other world. They are really in need on Earth. The enemies of the Northerns will run away like there is no other way. There will be no mercy, and there can be no escape for them though” declared Zeus.

“We have already unleashed those friends…or fiends. The whole battalion here is talking about the same” said the commander.

“Yes, but not on Earth; we couldn’t take them to Mars or the Moon either as the enemy space watch has been strong and these assets are just too valuable. They are needed here more than anywhere else; this is where the final results of this war will be declared. Earth has always been the key and the centre of everything – the rest are just outposts which depend on Earth for something or the other” said Zeus.

“So, you are saying that we should unleash the secret weapon right now without having a discussion about it?” asked the commander.

“Yes, they already know something about it, and so I don’t see why we should delay it – it is not really that much of a secret weapon. As most of the information from the other outposts couldn’t be linked to Earth, they haven’t been able to spread the news. Our friends are more than what they might have thought about, and so unleashing them will take our enemies back in surprise. We will take over their lands in no time” said Zeus.

“Do you think that they are ready for this full assault?” asked the commander.

“Yes, I don’t see why they wouldn’t be. They are well-trained, and they are brutal” Zeus was confident about it.

“They are brutal and a lot cruel, that much I know” added the commander.

“Brutality is a much needed trait in war. I am surprised that you don’t find it as the amazing thing that it is” Zeus was surely not happy.

“They have the kind of bruality which will make them uncontrollable, I fear. After all, they are not human; and they are not even animals or birds. They might not answer to us at all – unleashing might be the only thing which we will do and I am worried about the rest which will follow” said the worried commander.

“Control is just an illusion; you are never really there with it – we rarely had the same completely despite trying. But I am so close to it that they can make me a role-model. Don’t worry about these friends though. We have a pact with their leader, and they will have to honour it because they will require us to honour it on this side. I also have my backup plans” said a confident Zeus.

“So, you trust them enough, or just your own plans?” asked the commander.

“Well, trust is not the exact word there; I feel these things, and as I am born to be a leader, it comes naturally to me. You will know if you remember some of those quotes from my dear father – they have always been so popular, and they apply to me” Zeus declared with even more confidence.

“If you believe so, my lord. It is your will which shall be done, and it is your final decision that matters for us” said the commander.

“Well, take some time to think, and you will know that I am right. We are not doing badly at any front, and it gives you a few days to believe what I actually said. Maybe it won’t be needed at all with us winning more. So, keep thinking about it and let me know when you are ready” Zeus said while leaving the room.

Zeus remembered his revenge, but he had that in control. It came to him very often, but his thirst for power was above all at that moment. He just wanted to win by any means possible, because that was what he thought he was born for. His soldiers had their doubts, but above everything else, what they possessed was loyalty, something which was part of them ever since they first volunteered. Well, the Seventh World War had begun, and there was no chance of going back from there – a victory for one side and the defeat for the other seemed to be the ony option left; the end of the world was still possible though. He wanted to rule over the other rulers, like Zeus, the king of Gods, and he still believed that he was named for the one simple reason – to be the emperor of them all.

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…

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…

14. Tale of Pain

“The war has been declared. Every male member between the age of sixteen and sixty should enroll in the army and every female between the age of seventeen and fourty should enroll in the female division of the army, with those between fourty and sixty being part of the medical units. There will be no exceptions, as long as you can walk and hold a gun in your hands. There were a few people who tried to hide themselves in their houses, and you know what happened to those traitors. For the women who wished to keep away from battle due to fear of losing their beauty, your beauty shall be carved out of you publicly. For the men who are too lazy, there shall be life for you to be lazy any more. We make it clear – do not make the public shame come to you and your family which will pass over to generations. The new volunteers who has just reached the age of eighteen have to report to the medical evaluation camp. Nothing personal should be taken; come as you were born, and we shall provide you with clothing and food. You shall belong to the government and will wear only our uniform and will eat what we give you to eat. The children between the age of thirteen and sixteen are supposed to end their studies until further notice, and help with the arms and amunitions department and the related industries. The citizens are advised not to use televisions and keep the radios supplied by the government and keep the frequency to only one area. The slaves are to be sent to the basement of every factory in chains. Remember, we are the new age Sparta, and we need all your power and energy so that we can continue to provide you with all the luxuries that you deserve” said the announcement in the streets.

Zeus looked at the piece of iron which was shaped like a head with two horns which were bigger than the head. There was no face on the head with the exception of fangs which stretched further down the wooden table as if to fix the head on it. He could remember what was the story behind that head which has featured in the coat of arms as well as the flag of the Northern Bloc for such a long time. It was related to a demonic invasion or an alien takeover, which is referred to by many names.

As far as he could know from all that he had collected from different people, the most significant one from his father itself, it was story of a failed space expedition, or rather a successful weapon expedition. It was the ship Scavenger which had used a newly found technology of bending space and time in order to travel through a newly created black hole which could lead to instant teleportation. But there was one problem, and it was that the object sent will go missing for a few hours before it comes back visible at a space specified, no matter how much is the distance. This was a completely Northern invention.

After the first few tests were made on automobiles and later space ships without people, Scavenger was the first to feature crew in it. The test was successful and the crew had come back. The energy for using this to send people to all planets in all the solar system were being accumulated when something strange had happened with the crew who visited a prison. They came up against a prisoner who was being interrogated, and they had tortured him to death. They were remorselesss, and taken to a hospital; on thorough examination, alien lifeforms were found to exist on them. Measures were taken to quarantine them, and the alien lifeform was kept in the laboratory for further research.

It was a conspiracy to replicate the alien virus, and spread them among the citizens in a mild dose so that they could co-operate with the new policies of the government which needed the support of its citizens on taking some stern measures. It actually worked perfectly. The media later managed to leak a lot of information, but the people were content with whatever they had received. But when the remaining alien life-force combined to form a demon-like creature, it had to be quarantined, not before causing mass destruction and taking hundreds of lives. Now the citizens of the Northern Bloc needs regular injections to keep the demonic elements from spreading.

The space program based on bending space and time has been cancelled ever since. There has been rise in violent crimes and the number of torture victims in the past which points to people not getting the vaccines or them not using the same. The most popular explanation for the phenomenon has been that the ship had gone to another dimension, to a place similar to hell. The army of demons had attached themselves to the ship by the orders of Lucifer himself. But the scientists had denied the theory and has stuck to the alien theory. It lead to a large number of groups of believers in religion, chosen only from the most intellectual thinkers who didn’t reveal their identities and met only at night in places which were least observed.

Zeus never supported both of these theories. He believed that it was his destiny and it was imposed upon him, which he should fulfill. If he was the master of torment and a torture-dealer, it was not a gift, but in his blood. He despised the feeling of being under control. He had to decide everything by himself, and even someone affecting his thinking process was not entertained.

To be continued…

12. Alien Suffering

“What are they? Aliens from beyond the galaxy or demons from hell?” Christian wondered. He tried to take his arms out of the chains, but it was perfectly bound. “Listen to me, you have got the wrong person in chains” he tried to reason with them. But none of the creatures seemed to care even a bit.

Many hours passed. For Christian, even the seconds were as long as the hours, if they were not days which had passed. The humanoids were still busy and there was no sign of movement from the girl on the right side. Two of the creatures took off her chains and she fell down like a petal of a flower. Whatever clothes or rags which were left on her body had turned red with her own blood. They tried to lift her up and make her stand on her feet. All of a sudden, she jumped on one of the creatures, and almost bit its neck off. The humanoids gathered around her to pull her back, and they grabbed her hair and clothes but there was no use, as she held on to the creature with her teeth. The attacked creature finally threw her off itself to reveal that its blood is blue in colour. As she fell on her back, she seemed to be in pain as she dragged herself slowly towards nowhere in her blinded state. The creatures seemed unaffected by the attack as they pulled her away into the next room.

They then took her back to the same position, and after giving her an injection, she was hung upside down with blood dripping even faster from so many wounds on her body almost as if there is no area in her body that has not been tortured. He felt depressed and sad about the girl who made such a valiant attempt, something which he is unable to do. He guessed that the four people on his left side might have been skinned alive. Even wind seemed to be afraid to go towards that direction. One of the humanoids came to Christian with a syringe full of a layered liquid and injected him with it. He felt a horrible feeling of burning throughout his body and sensed blood coming up his eyes and mouth. He screamed in his full voice, but they made a wound on his each hand and looked at the drops of blood dripping from it. He had hallucinations of battles involving advanced weapons of mass destruction and chaos on Earth and the ultimate devastation of both Mars and Titan. He was slowly losing consciousness when he heard a sound of something huge breaking and a bigger noise of some big explosion with a powerful light which almost blinded him. There was something going on around him and this time it was not torture. He was able to see nothing more than a little bit of smoke, a few masked men with unfamiliar weapons and the girl moving a bit and falling into the arms of a woman with a gun before he lost consciousness.

“What is is that you seek? Is it death, life or the narrow bridge between them? Is it hell, paradise or the purgatory where you need to end? Or did you just cease to believe in all of them?” whispered the voice.
“What shall my death bring? Is it the better of the three?” asked Christian.

“Why do you think about what is brought when your opportunity to bring one of the three upon yourself has not come yet? Why do you think about your spirit life when you still exist in the material life with so much to do? Why do you bother when God’s providence which your rational world call luck and your cynics call fate has brought you to such a situation from which your knowledge of the real truth shall make you free from the burdens of science and technology which has forced all these questions on you? Doesn’t it bother you enough to take you out of this illusion of a reality with the mask of progress and development? Is this modern world that you come across really not an extention of the ancient world which has used a visage of extreme vanity to go back far beyond the darkest of ages when the Original Sin had forced a depressing choice out of divinity?”

“What shall I seek then? Am I powerful enough? I lived all my life among the people who never understood me and still live with myself who is that much ignorant about my being me as much as anybody else. How do you define reality? And how do you describe this modernity that has lived beyond the evil of the earliest worlds?”

“You don’t exist. It is your essence that exists. As a whole, humanity survives, even as the question remains – for how long and where? But they exist, but without their essence. They are just random creatures brainwashed with ideas of science as truth, when human life was never supposed to be a result of theories. It was to be dependent on the essence that exists, but what we see now is the existence that exists. But you are different. You have the essence still active, which is why you are able to feel this will to strive, this desire to seek and find, and not give in to those theories of absurdity. You will not give in to human control which is just an optical illusion caused by those random people who claim that they have the final say. Look at the wars, the bloodshed, the torment – they are all the result of this development of technology which has made a bigger cannibal out of man than ever. They have all lost their essence; the divine essence which has been replaced by the inherent evil”.

“It is such a shame” remarked Christian.

To be continued…

11. Fate of Zeus

Asgard, the capital of Northern Bloc. In the year of our Lord: 2110.

“Sir, the world is staring at the Seventh World War. We have been a strong force in the Third, Fourth, Fifth and the Sixth World Wars, or I would rather say that we started them. But then, we were ready, not this time. This would be a war of the equals, and considering the alliances which have sprung up, we are the comparatively weaker alliance. I suggest we keep out of it” begged the army commander.

“I have been named Zeus for one reason only – to rule over the other gods. I shall be the ruler of this extended world of Mount Olympus. The Northern Bloc has never retreated from any battle without gaining something. We are the new Sparta; and I am the great warrior king of this legendary phalanx”.

“But a warrior king would lead from the front. From what you are doing, it is pure massacre of your own people. You are making the same mistake as Dion made for the Southern Bloc which benefited us. The only difference is that they did it for others and you do it for yourself. You think you can continue in power for long if you order this invasion? Or do you feel that this is your last chance on glory? Whatever be the thoughts, this is one of the worst decisions the Northern Bloc might ever witness. You shall be recorded in history as the most incompetent and terrible leader who lost everything which has been built by your predecessors on the sweat and blood of millions of our citizens and captured slaves alike. It is not that we are historically against war, for it has been a part of our life for long. But this is suicide, and for certain, this is madness of the highest degree to which any leader of a nation can commit to”.

“Well, unfortunately for you, this is not going to work. I don’t think that you can ever realize this, that I am a God King, a legend in the making. I am the new Constantine, who shall defeat the forces of the enemy despite being outnumbered, and shall be given the title, the great”.

“Constantine had his visions and the symbol of Chi-Rho. What do you have? Are you considering going back to religion at this point of time? Can you defy the Northern policy of irreligion till death and make that Constantinean shift in religion?”

“Religion? Why should I follow a religion or a God? I am the divine power for I own the most advanced scientific inventions, and I am the Lord of this world. To be honest, there is no omnipotent force looking after this world punishing the evil and rewarding the good. I shall do that instead, but I shall punish the ones who fail to bow down to me, and reward the ones who make me happy. Look at the world map. See how much land I own, and how much worshippers I have. This is not really the Northern Bloc. It is the land of Zeus, and I shall rename it once we win this battle. I will keep most of our enemies alive, and make an example out of them. They shall live a life in chains from which they shall beg for a rescue which can only be death and that is one thing that I won’t give them. They shall be dishonoured, humiliated, and tormented to the extremes. They shall know who the greatest of all humans is, and once they realize that, I shall provide them with their ultimate reward, which is death by decapitation”.

“We shall follow the orders, sir. But the result of this aggression is completely upon you, and nobody else”.

“Let it fall on me, the master tactician and your king of wisdom. Trust me or not, do as you are ordered. Mobilize the troops not only from Earth, but also from our other colonies and be prepared for a night attack on our neighbours. Lets start with them and make an example out of them. A day attack might be too predictable, and it would not be easy to murder civilians and collect them as slaves when there is too much light”.

“As you wish, sir” the commander exited after a salute.

“I should have been Genghis Khan” he murmured. “Constantine was too much of a hero. I am the hero only to myself, and for others, I shall be the villain; there shall be mass destruction and chaos shall rain upon everyone outside Northern Bloc. We need no allies; I take them all for myself. I shall improve on what small achievement we had during the Third World War. The concept of super-soldiers are still with me. The key to all of these might be in Titan. I need to send an army of special forces there, and I shall find one lady and her daughter and bring them to Earth. They shall suffer for what dishonour that lady brought upon my father. I have waited for so long and I am now very close to achieving that. We shall win the war for sure, and in the mean time, this is a battle which I shall personally win for my family. Her daughter shall head our army of super-soldiers, not as a girl, but as the thing. As for her mother, I have bigger plans. In her broadcast to the other blocs, she had come up with a big speech about suffering. She talks about pain, agony, dishonour, humiliation all that like she is the walking encyclopedia of all of them. May be she has suffered, and may be like most of the other humans have not yet, but she has not yet suffered in my hands, and she has no idea what fate awaits her.

To be continued…

10. Final Sacrifice

Elysium, the largest city of Southern Bloc. In the year of our Lord: 2060.

“This is your last chance. Surrender or face the consequences. We have a copy of the treaty which has been approved by our council. Give up now and save what you love” thus repeated the loudspeaker from the battle tanks.
“This surrender is more of your need than hours. Kindly co-operate and stay alive with your loved ones” added the loudspeaker.

The buildings were collapsing, and chaos was everywhere. They had a last look at their child before they surrendered themselves to the invading Northern Bloc army. It was the only way to save the kid, as they had thought. But, how much that worked out is something that they would never know about. It will be another story, and whether it would have a good run is a question they would fail to answer. It would also save the city or whatever is left of it from further destruction. The whole Southern Bloc was nothing better than the wasteland that T.S. Eliot had talked about long ago. “APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain”. – explained the situation of the bloc perfectly.

Dion was the leader of the Southern Bloc when the Third World War started. The Southern Bloc had taken the wrong side in the war, with the smaller nations around the powerful Northern Bloc which cherished their independence. But the Northerns were not that kind of people who liked seeing little ants wandering around their legs and their obvious decision was the crush the little insects. The small city-states had asked help from Dion which he was ready to provide. He has always been the champion of the weak and the voiceless subaltern. It was clearly opposed by the ministers of his chamber, but he was not a man to back away. But at a time when there were only two power blocs, the Northern and the Southern, Dion was asking for a lot more than he could handle considering the collection of arms and manpower which the Notherns have been collecting for ages.

Elysium had fallen, and so had the last hope for freedom. Does the Third World War end there with the fall of the Southerns? No, it doesn’t, as the unholy alliances has kept forming even among the weakest nations, while the Northern Bloc has concentrating its full army, navy, airforce and the special forces on bringing destruction to the Southerns. What would become of Southern Bloc is a question that remains, as no building is left standing. As the Royal Palace has been taken over and Dion and his wife taken prisoners of war, the Northerns can now fix a puppet government there which they can control from a distance. The leader would be a Northern, who would marry from the Southern Bloc so as to maintain his neutrality on paper and so that the new appoinment would be justified in the pages of history. It is more of a temprary contract rather than anything else. To add to that, all the natural resources can be harvested from among the destruction. The rivers from the South shall now flow towards the North, and whatever flows towards the South shall have dams in their path. The annual tribute might be in millions and that amount will have to be paid by the last remaining citizens of the Southern Bloc who number in thousands.

The total loss of life of the Northerns is estimated to be twenty thousand five hundred troops and fifty five civilians while that of the Southerns is estimated to be ninety five thousand troops and ninety nine thousand civilians, with about hundred thousands of civilians captured alive as the prisoners of war, and Dion and his wife has become one of them. They were stripped off their richness and clothed in drags, and put in concentration camps – considering their high status and Dion’s role in the war, their chances of survival in such a hostile environment would be absolutely zero. The only best thing that they can wish for, is a comaratively painful death, as there would be agony and there should be suffering immersed in brutality. He had quoted Eliot before he surrendered: “I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones”. He was not that much of an admirer of The Wasteland, but the situations create different likes and dislikes. What he would have asked in the face of the Northern brutality would have been a few other lines from the same poem: “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?” He knew about the war crimes the Northerns had committed, and he knew he would become a victim, and the question about his survival was not a relevant one.

There would be the last question that can remain. It would be about their child. Barely an year old, the child has been identified and taken to the Northern Bloc’s capital city of Asgard. From what is known about the Northern brutality, all the Southerns who knew about the same could be sure about only two things. One is that the child will not die easily, and the second is that the child shall grow up and when it does, there is going to be the brutality of the highest order that awaits. Dion chose to make the sacrifice and not run away by making a deal that his child would survive. But what would this kind of survival mean for the child? Is it any better than the realms of Hades and the being caught by a hellhound at the gates of inferno?

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…