The world has gone through tough times in the last 100
years. The earth has shifted its orbit, and is now 2 km further from the sun.
This has had a dramatic effect on the earth and almost all of the people are
dead. Few places are warm enough to be inhabitable.
Islamabad is one of those places due to its proximity to the
tropic of cancer. at a temperature of -20c, humans are thriving there.
Resplendent in their black fur coats (to absorb more heat) they live
comparatively simple lives. They also keep gas masks with them at all times. In
case of red mists you see. Red mists are winds that come from the west
containing radiation.
The west had always been stupid. They had caused this
cold through nuclear war. They had doomed the world. And now, all that they had
left to the earth was a destructive red mist. Most people called it the “mist
of death”. The overly superstitious people thought that the Americans had been
devils, who had cast a curse on the world.
Islamabad had once been a busy, thriving metropolis. It was now
fairly reminiscent of Siberia a hundred years
ago, cold damp and practically bursting with radiation. Life was very different
from the optimistic predictions of a hundred years ago. Rather than flying
around in hover cars people would walk everywhere. They couldn’t risk a high
carbon emission. That would probably make even Islamabad uninhabitable. Of course the need
for transportation vehicles has also lessened. With less than 10 percent of the
old earth still inhabitable faster transport wasn’t required. The main
remaining inhabitable places are Islamabad, the
center of India, parts of
china and southern Japan.
Another issue was that due to the red mist the frost
in the air had been radiated too and thus dangerous for human survival. To
tackle deaths at the hands of the snow, the citizens of Islamabad built tall structures which were
interlinked with roads. Islamabad
was also referred to as “the city of the sky”. It had the current greatest
population of 2500 people. The humans had once reproduced like rats but the
radiation had altered the human DNA. Only a few had the gift of new life. Even
then it wasn’t easy as with every new life there was the problem of satisfying
hunger and other necessities of life.
The city in the skies is enclosed in artificial ozone
with special radiation repelling properties.Sometimes people brave the
radiation outside in an attempt to explore, to re-discover. All of them have he
map from seen the maps of the old age but none of them believe that the world
is still like its former self, what with all the earthquakes, volcano
eruptions, meteorite attacks and tsunamis.
All in all, the entire world is in a dismal state.
With so much radiation, 80 percent of living organisms have died out. And all
of this because of the human need, the need for progress.
So it was that the five rivers blended
In to a mix of frenzied distortion
It became known as the Mighty Indus
King of the mountains, the Asian Emperor
Carrier of the joy of the poor folk
The silt that grows the joy of the farmer
(( This will be revised to make the character more solid and to change the ending a bit))
Awakening
“It’s the crabs!-“
Thus were the
first thoughts that I can remember thinking. I didn’t know why, they just were
so. After thinking them, there is a great gap in my memory, up to the point
where I woke up on a strange island. The sun was high in the sky so I could see
the area around me very well. It was a barren place with crackly red soil,
rather how I had always imagined the planet Mars.
I was at first content to just sit there and
do nothing, but eventually I felt hungry and began to search for food around
me. I found some strange sort of packed meal underneath a hillock a few miles
in the east and opened it to find food. The thought “rations” passed through my
mind. The food was somehow familiar to me, and so was, come to think of it, the
whole area around me. Oddly familiar.
I sat down and
taxed my memory to its utmost extent, and a glimmer of recognition came in
reach. Excitedly, I tried to put all my focus on figuring out what I know about
the place. I might have guessed given enough time, but sadly, this was not to
be.
A troop of
strange crab-like creatures was approaching from the east, and they, too,
seemed familiar. Could they be the creatures that my first memories were about?
Intrigued by the
creatures, I began to study them thoroughly. They had the bodies and legs of
crabs, and were practically crabs, except for some minor differences. They were
about as large as me, they moved as though they were swimming, and they had
their eyes dangling in front of them on antennae-like structures.
The creatures
closed in, and formed a circle around me. Then one of them stared directly into
my eyes. I felt jolted, as though there was some sort of electric contact
between us. I felt like I had been reduced to a baby again, and I wanted to run
up and hug those eyes, those adorable plastic looking eyes. They looked just
like the eyes of little stuffed toys. I
rushed towards them, intending to hug them, when I tripped on a rock, and
everything went black.
It was
frightening for me beyond all imagination. I was alone and in the dark.
Something was wrong. WRONG! Flashes of white began to penetrate the sheet of
black. Along with them, snatches of a conversation came to me.
“Looks like they got him bad, poor chap.
I hear that they have some sort of new way of looking around them by propping
their eyes up on some dangly sticks.”
Were they
talking about me? I tried to move, but the moment I did, the black went away
and I found myself in a strange new place. I was on top of a completely frozen
ocean. The scene would have been natural, had there not been blood splattered
all over the ice. I saw a body nearby, and moved over to look at it. It was
mine, and it seemed to be only just alive. Frightened by the other me, I ran
the other way.
I found a hole
in the ice, with a fishing rod next to it. I felt hungry, so I attempted to
fish with it, although there was no bait. Regardless of that fact, however, a
big pile of fish steadily rose up behind me. I lowered the rod into the pool to
fish again, and felt something bite. I pulled it up to take the fish. Another
one of the crab monsters from before had bitten on the rod and had leaped at
me!
I was in the
dark once more. Again came the flashes of light, I wished they would stop, it
hurt my eyes. It was very inconsiderate
of whoever was doing it. Then I heard more conversation.
“They just leapt at him out of the water and
ripped at his face, must’ve been horrible. Hey, look, he’s moving!”
Again I awoke in
unfamiliar surroundings. This time the area was all red. There was no ground,
no ceiling, and no walls. It was just infinite red. I had a sword in my hand,
and there were strange constructs made of flesh around me. Enemies. I charged
at them and started lopping off their heads, in a sort of ecstatic frenzy. I
charged them all down, but this time I was prepared, in case another crab
monster appeared. And my preparation was not for naught, as after I chopped off
the seventh man’s head, another crab emerged from his neck and lunged at me.
However, I didn’t let it get very far. I slashed it in half before it reached
me, but even so, I was once more enveloped by the darkness.
The white and
the speech returned, clearer than ever before.
“Hold him steady, I think he might just
wake up!”
I felt a sharp
pain and opened my eyes, although strangely, I didn’t remember shutting them. I
was in the white place from the dark. A hospital.
Two weeks later,
I learned that I was in a mental hospital, and had been there ever since the
terrorists had attacked with their new crab monsters, a result of genetic
engineering. I had been on Antarctica at the time, when one of them had
attacked me from a hold in the ice. This had all happened five years ago. For
five years, I had fought for possession of the thing dearest to me, my mind.
Thank you for taking the time out to look at this blog. We will be posting some poems and short stories here every now and then. It's our first blog, so please don't mind if the blog looks a bit ugly.
