Banners dance in the wind.
Mottos and anthems sing.
Humans whisper into the roaring seas.
“Let us free! Let us be free!”
But closer and closer, the others sang.
A song of their own that just began.
A tragedy of life; a comedy of might.
Let us bring together those who came to fight.
And as they sang, the drums roared.
Batons and rifles were loaded in ord.
An order of prestige must be wrapped in cord.
For that, prestige must be held in form.
“We shall form a new order!” they desperately yelled.
Yet bullets hurled, and through their mouths each one flocked to the outside.
A strolling couple’s teeth were embedded deep into each other’s tongues.
“Long live the righteous who have won!”
They knew what had to be done.
As the streams of water washed away the blood into the sewers,
You violently awake from the cold grips of the patchy concrete surface to a sea of warm lights blooming through the window of a nearby brick building, painting the puddles a pristine orange. Fog consumes the horizon, yet the clouds break through in sprawling, unrecognizable, stringy veins like cobwebs all across the skybox. A small, square building stands on your right as white noise chimes in the distance, muffled through the brick exterior; on the left, a massive, empty cart corral extends on for miles, only interrupted by stop signs written in an unintelligible tongue, leaving the corrals to resume their infinite expansion in a disorganized grid.
Within the grocery store lie signs of human activity—the small things: a cash register that's seen better days; the button where the “9” key should be, roughed up beyond belief and its sticker nearly peeled; A knocked-over mop beside a bucket of water with a reddish hue, and the TV on the counter, stuck on constant static. The shelves are filled with products that repeat that same unintelligible tongue, all imbued with basic branding lacking soul, all repetitiously serving the same spider “meat.” At the back of the store hangs proudly a bruised flag of red and white stripes, surrounded by myriads of repeating stars.
Through the window you see larger buildings in the distance, all of which ascend into the sky, letting satellite dishes fuse into their surfaces like a cancerous tumor until the very top looks completely unrecognizable, a meshed pot of metal that all pray to the sky yet never receive an answer.
The world feels like tiramisu in a suitcase.
The mall nearby is desolate and in ruin; the fountains and escalators don't work; many of the stores that might've been here at some point are either glorified garbage disposals of rubble and collapsed ceiling exposing sparkling electrical wire—or tiny, cramped rooms of pillars and wires hanging up television screens by the neck like it's a theater play. The intercoms keep preaching soulless, emotionless music, lacking any sort of interesting instrumentation or composition; despite genres being distinguishable to some extent, all of them blend together perfectly like an ambient backing track reverberating softly through the mall's expanse. As you get frittered away in the higher floors, the more cramped and closed-in the mall becomes, accentuated by the diminishing cohesion of each new track. In between the mindless hits of piano are period announcements—you think—only for each to be met with pungent silence and subsequently broken by your echoing footsteps barely being captured by a microphone.
The world feels like biting into a tortilla wrapped in rusted nails.
The nearby city is organized in a perfect, square grid with buildings sharing the same conformity. Each window is covered up by that same striped banner flown from top to bottom in eldritch proportions, as glowing billboards of static—one infused into the walls like a tumor—illuminate and shine through the thin cloth. Windowless, license plate-less cars, with steel where glass should be, populate the streets, leaving some untouched while others; broken and derelict.
The city center does not conform with the rest; buildings, ascending into the fog-covered sky, are placed sporadically in nonsensical orders and angles; the roads feel haphazardly pasted into the city, as if there was never meant to be a center here at all; towers of stacked, concrete slabs jut out of every small, slight patch of grass, imbuing the soundscape with an emotional orchestra sung in oddly beautiful, dissonant rhythms.
The massive park in the very middle of the city is laid with pristine, precisely cut, natural grass—you can feel each slight blade caress your shoes. Rocky formations, slight elevations, dead trees, and patches of asphalt slabs stand atop the grass—the fog feels more intense than ever. The closer you get, the slower you walk in laiden, yet wastefull, fear; you can feel something from within tap and scratch the inside of your skull with long, sharp nails, creating despondent chimes that carefully, and subtly, pound your ears. A statue arises from the fog, mourning and depressed over a loss you would never care about; despite it being of marble, you can hear her cries infest your mind until you remind yourself that this is not a real person. Her losses are not valuable. Her losses are trivial. Her losses are wasteless.
She's pettily crying over the death of her son; but he was mentally unfit for this world, and chose to oppose everyone else for a gluttonous sake. He chose to actively participate in the destruction of your own morals, and yet here his mother is, mourning his disrespectful, weak death as if it wasn't necessary and inevitable. People like him are the reason why you, as a person, are ethically bankrupt, and people like her are the reason why this place is so broken. But you know who can reclaim your own self.
Grab a hammer, and tear it down. We will not let the icons of our fall be praised and indoctrinate the next generations in sinful lust.
As the pieces of marble broke apart and crashed into the surface,
It was proclaimed your test to destiny.
The highway is intertwining. Lights paint the streets in blinding white. The sun is coming up ever so slightly, yet the dense fog is encasing, not letting the sun's beautiful light give color to the gray roads. But soon the fog shall detract; it will go away, and when it does, you will keep walking. The sun will brighten your life as long as you don't stare into it and never ask what it wants from you—it's a redundant question that hurts it and makes it feel undervalued for what it provides, because unlike you, it never sleeps and works tirelessly around the clock to give light to the rest of the world, and even when it doesn't peer its head into your life, it will eventually, and it will always. It's a matter of belief and a matter of knowing what you are: not a peasant, but someone who can only dream of being the hardworking light to the torch used to light the path of everyone else in your wake, from an early age to adulthood and beyond. Never ask why your eyes are itching. Never ask why it feels like your eyelids are getting heavier than a hydraulic press, forcing your left eye shut.
You finally reached the suburbs, and the clouds left with respect alongside your arrival. It feels like you can see again; the warm, pastel sky parades the horizon with the coming of morning, and its majestic self fills you with comfort. The sky has given you a warm, congratulatory hug.
The right is lined with beautifully constructed, white houses adorned with red, brick roofs that repeat and peer into the horizon, while your left is gated with tall hedges that engulf dysfunctional lampposts and cover the view of the elevated houses on the other side like a barrier—the small, samey pots with cute little plants breathe life within the town. Every window is solid and opaque.
You deserve a rest.
You walk into one of the homes to rest, place your shoes on the rack, and let the carmine-colored carpet welcome you into your new home. The air’s smell has a hint of paint, as if the beige coloring on the walls was a recent addition; curtains span the fully opaque masquerades of glass; the only light comes from the TV screen, displaying static once again. The carpet covers every crevice of the household—from the kitchen to the hallways to the living room—letting the utilitarian furniture softly stand atop it.
A portrait is hanging on the wall beside the TV set—a portrait of the sun atop a disquieting, pitch-black night sky.
You feel hungry. As you trek to the kitchen, your mind wanders to the random chair randomly placed between the sink and counter, on which sits yet another TV switched to static. Your disillusioned mind feels like it sees an eye carved into the static, looking at your every move. You are free to do whatever you want.
You open the fridge and see it stock-full of foodstuffs, products similar to what you saw in the grocery store. You grab the only package and chuck it in the microwave, setting it to what you think is 1 minute and 30 seconds.
The TV in the living room finally catches a signal, and as the lively orchestra you heard in the city plays through its speakers, you begin to hear fireworks blast as a clock ticks. You begin to hear what sounds like footsteps outside in tandem with roaring flames and potent screeches.
“Compassion means love.”
“Compassion means love.” You repeat in your head.
“You will be saved.”
“I will be saved.”
The microwave begins beeping, and as you take your food and rest on the couch, the flames outside grow stronger, yet the house only gets colder and colder. The countdown ticks and ticks and ticks, and as the fireworks blast in blinding colors and stars and stripes, and as the orchestras get more and more disorganized, louder, and unclear, gunshots ring with apathy and purpose, and the instruments fall to the ground, each one breaking apart into pieces, deafened by screams for help.
The countdown ends.
An empty stadium imbued with banners is aired on your screen. Thousands upon thousands line up as the wind strengthens and the sun arises with haste, glowing through the darkness. You hear people cheer, and as they all quiet down, you hear the sun speak.
Your left eye has vanished, and you can feel something violently bite from behind your eyelids. You can feel your eye socket stretch, trying to desperately accommodate whatever thing has infested it, yet you keep listening as you should.
“This is your salvation.”
“This is my salvation.” You say out loud in pride.
“You will not let them find you alive.”
“I will not let them find me alive.”
You hear the violent knocks on your door. Your mind is imbued with the sounds of dissonant, aggressive violins being played in mindless motion. Your every motion is dictated by the sun. You go to the kitchen—the knocking grows louder, and you can hear them fire bullets into the door. You flip the chair back—the light from the outside escapes through holes made into the door. You stand atop it—you can hear them yell. You know what had to be done.
As they entered the house and looked into the kitchen, they saw your body motionless, swinging on the ceiling. With no more strength to keep your eye shut, it opens, and the spider within begins forcing its way out; it stretches your skin and rips it apart; its children begin fleeing in droves and droves, using your body as a ladder to drop down onto the floor.
It was proclaimed a cleansing.
A human is born with two eyes, but the second you're born with one and refuse to work on restoring the other is the second you lose what makes humans human.
A human born with one eye, regardless of intention, will continue to act in malice, and inevitably strengthen the cycle.
God save us all.
2k words i tried doin something lets hope is good. Also this is actually my alt history showing what would happen if richard nixon became eternal president
Nuke rewrite by: Liminal
Original by (i was given permissions for this dw about it): Transgendar homosexual fox woman
Original article can be read here: Original Level 594
what are the exit and entrances?
sssssshhhhhhhh
also no this nuke rewrite does not conflict with Level 594.1 there is still an area 51