::About Oceania Azure::
A new Smoke Twines tale that follows Tyeko, a charrie from the original Smoke Twines and others.
|
|
Imagine a world with constant war. Imagine a world where madmen control vast empires. Imagine a world where a mere vapor can kill. This is the world of Oceania Azure.
|
|
|
Smoke Twines: Oceania Azure
|
Monday, July 07, 2003
"What...what do I do?!"
The boy gazed out across the forsaken battlefield, bled of all reality by the mere presence of itself, the other children quickly organizing beyond the visible horizon, as both teams seemed to settle in for a stalemate.
The battles had been incessant.
In the past 3 days, every possible fragment of military data had been impounded into the children's skulls, Tyeko's own mind almost incapable of holding the information, this discounting the material he felt was obselete and useless to his cause. Indeed, he struggled to maintain a natural sense of every weapondry that had been supplied, ever minor stratedgic lesson, not so much those that the commanders claimed held success, but those which had maintained failure, as Tyeko desired above all else to not repeat previous commander's mistakes.
With the conclusion of the classroom's expierence...they had been enveloped in the swirling damnation known merely as war. It held not the mortality, though the pain and suffering remained almost replicated; However, it was the mere continousness that drove the children to their limitations. Every day, every hour, every second, the battle ensued, each tantalizing conclusion no more than a catalyst product of the next war. With each conclusion, another isntantly ensued, new ranking and positions being established, new weapons assigned, the terrain of the "Field" Melding in upon itself as new territory was forged as if by god's own wrath. Two weeks so far of endless warfare, endless thought, endless terror of losing, only aware that this was a situation no other childrne had faced, and yet this was the trial of their education...
And each battle rested on the shoulders of Tyeko.
From the very first, Tyeko realized that the other children, while many biased strongly to the combat and martial arts, some holding a keenness towards mechanical objects, some even possessing the abstract thought manipulations capable of strategic creation...none maintained a sense of leadership. None could cleary, it seemed, view the reasonable course to victory, and guide others to such a position. THose possessing of imagination, of skill in plot, seemed to have had their minds poisoned, diseased by the "Teachers" Before this natural one, teachers which had condemend their natural thoughts as ruthless and inhuman, and forced them into a state of mind where every "Natural" thought merely projected a liberal, unfounded "compasionate" drive to the enemy, attepmting to spare troops, to remain within the "rules" of battle, to not risk lives even for a imperitive juncture...
No. These children had not been taught by "Truth", they had not been melded by the hammer of expierence...each faced the true situation of this war, this graphic representation of life between men, and found themselves devoid of all rational thought, as the true failing of their teaching dawned on them. And yet...Tyeko would not fail. Tyeko woudl not lose do merely to teh ineptness of others...he coudls till make use of them. He was limited by the martial law of the school to usurp a position...and hence did not brutually massacre the failures as they deserved, raise a rebellion with the start of every new session... no. Tyeko merely proceeded with the simplest path beyond that. He offered himself as an advisor. As a rational mind in the cloud of terror, as the brillant light of oppurtunity at the end of the children's horrific tunnel...
"TYEKO! WHAT DO WE DO!?" The boy screamed, his clawed fingers engraving into the flesh of Tyeko's shoulder. Tyeko's own eyes narrowed, his eyebrows lowering into jagged lines above his own sockets, casting a darkened shadow in the twilight of the setting sun.
Tyeko's eyes flickered towards the opposite trench, quickly established, and quietly confided within his own. A trench war was ensuing, the most brutal of the stalemates...and he was steadily under the influence that the other team had maintained more soldiers. This latest battle seemed to follow the progression of all others: His "comrades", his fellow soldiers on his team, had become steadily worse. There was a balanced number amongst the entire "Class" of the Institute; Those capable of defining the insuperable, the very peak of the class...and those whom barely managed to entreat acess in the fist place. Steadily, and in a pattern that Tyeko was begginning to assume could not be the result of mere random selection, the latter had begun to steadily replace each member of his team. Initially, the teams had been balanced...he had been capable of fluctuating the inept with the capable, his advisory maintaining an impervious grip over the defense and offense...but now...steadily, oh so quietly, each member which he held respect for was switched. With each new battle, there were less capable...at this point, in this battle, the realization dawned upon him as the shadows rippled across his paling skin, he held none. And a trench war...how does one defeat a trench war...it was seemingly impossible, the perfect stalemate; the other team was bound by the gloriously uncorrupt "fate" of the chosen teams, as his own men were bound to make the smallest mistakes, the minorest errors, which would result in carnage beyond their minor imaginations.
"Plee---please, Tyeko, tell me!" The commander snivveled, tears welling in his eyes, his blackened hair hanging limply across his forehead, his reaining hand collapsed limply onto Tyeko's shoulder, as if attempting to leech his own confidence from him, "You haven't lost yet, TYeko, you avne't lost yet, and we can't lose now, please...please tell us...YOU HAVE TO TELL ME! TEEEEEEL ME!!! TELL ME N-"
Tyeko casually shot the boy in the leg.
He screamed, the pain instantly translating throught he censors, as his leg was hurled backwards, isntantly freezing, and he slumped to his remaining knee.
"You're...you're a monster..." The boy's voice cracked, his hands prying dully at his paralyzed leg.
"I am your last hope."
"That doesn't make you good!" The boy screamed, as the final bouts of light sunk beyond the horizon, the air echoing nearly consuming his scream with the sound of the enemy's bullets erupting into their bloodless, mindless murder.
Tyeko rested the pistol against the boy's skull, nestling it's omnipotent eye against the darkened creases of his trembling forehead. The child's eyes rose quietly to meet Tyeko's own, pleading, mouth quietly twitching prayer and begging, tears drooling down his cheeks.
"I have no intention of being "Good". I will agree that the greatest men of our hitsory are those capable of gaining respect, control, and power, while remaing decent and respected, and "pure". However, I am not one of them. I am concerned with one thing, and one thing alone: My own survival. And the most effective way to achieve this is through the gaining of power. Power is all that matters in this world."
The boy's mouth twitched as his lungs attempted to exhale their final follied response, but Tyeko quietly compressed the trigger. The boy's entire body collapsed backwards, head snapping back brutally against the body's own resistance. The body rolled silently through the trench's muddy interior, before quilety lolling to a stop, back facing the darkened sky, face gazing limply towards Tyeko, half consumed in the water mud constituting his grave, a single aspect defining his counteance: Realization.
"There is one difference," His voice exploded from his throat, his own presence silencing the very punctuating eruptions of the enemy rifles, all backround environment seeming to slowly dissolve in his presence, as the other children, terrified, grim, or haughty, all signs of the inept, rose their broken eyes to him, "Between our trench war and the wars involving such in the past. And that is the stupidity with which our enemy has positioned himself from our own. He is within 5 yards of our area. THough this does create a very differnet situation, perhaps planned upon, in which weapons of extreme accuracy may be used...however, we will compensate. We will never emmerge from the confines of this trench, nor will we ever stand to allow such an event...there is only one way in which to win a trench war, and if our enemy were not fools, it would be impossible. However," His split quietly into a grin as his mind dissolved beneath the silent, infective security of his insanity, his trusted insanity, which if he merely left to to his bidding woudl always suceed... "They are. My friends, this will work only once, and may very well be turned upon us at a later date. We will never stand, we will never emmerge...we will dig."
"TWELVE FEET!?" One boy screamed, his own eyes no longer focused on Tyeko but upon himself, "We're tired, we're weak, we can't dig a twelve feet tunnel!"
The pistol hummed lightly after the discharge, almost blanketing the quiet thud of the boy's body.
"It's good to see at least one of you understood," Tyeko smiled blandly, his eyes flickering, pupils dialated and yet blinded white, bleached by lunancy, "We will dig straight to the enemy trench, under our preverbial no-man's land. We will emmerge inside of their tunnel, taking them completley by surprise, and open fire on them like animals in a cage. Many casualties will result, many of you will die. But we will win. I assure you. Oh, and it will not be just one tunnel; each of you dig your own. Start as low to our Trench floor as possible...there is a mere 6 feet of earth between you and the surface. You're tunnel must be dug with percision and accuracy. We do not have much time..." Tyeko's mind blindly calcuated the likely hood of the other team becoming aware, accounting for the likely intelligence permeating their ranks, "Begin now."
What was the point...what was the point of the ignorant soldiers delivered to him? And was it to him? Did the Instituition realize that in each battle he became, by providence of fear, the reigining leader...? The stupidity, however...short as it may be, what did they expect for him to lead into war in his real carreer...civillians!?
Silently, Tyeko's gaze rolled towards the darkened sillhouette of the Instituition, standing like a lord enjoying their sport, or an impenetrable wall...
"They are the enemy..." He whispered, and felt the shame well within him in propotion with the tears in his eyes. They were steadily transforming him...he had had such noble plans, to maintain dignity, respect, his mocked purity which he had stated...and yet, did they give him the appropriate people? People whom's respect could be gained by merit? No...he recieved the foolish...he understood merely one thing...power. And fear. They were transforming him into a dictator, and, he quietly realized, he had not even comprehended it until this exact moment. But what choice did he have...what choice did he have...
They were the enemy.
|
|
