2 The Evacuation Ship
Passage of the preaching, taken from Revelations of the End chapter 19, verse 274
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Empty, the hearts of men were. Senseless, purposeless, they were hollow wanderers that scorched the Earth for that which would fill the cavity within. They worshipped different deities, followed diverse ideologies and principles, but more than ever they searched for love.
Ah, but love is fleeting. The desire to be whole cannot be fulfilled, and it irritated and enraged men. They defended their beliefs and principles in the face of opposing view, not listening to varying opinions, not realising that the Devil has laid traps in all the things they wanted most.
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In the distant horizon, an orange glow peeked from the veil of mist, barely illuminating its surrounding. The proletariats were drawn towards the light like flies, they picked up speed and so did we. It was as if a fire was lit in a dense forest, and wild creatures swarmed towards it seeking warmth, not realising the dangerous elements that hid within the crimson flower.
As we approached the horizon, clarity increased. The light wasn't coming from one source, but formed from the superimposition of multiple neon luminaries. A parade of hues, azure blue, emerald green, and mellow canary yellow. From far, they formed the facade of a developed city, the multitudes resembling fluorescence from skyscrapers. I could almost make out the billboards and the office workers, settling in for the night. But that would not be possible, for we were in the southern of Eurasia, the region stricken with poverty and biting cold. That's why it was the perfect spot for evacuation.
We continued walking till the end of the world...
What appeared to be static rose to a deafening buzz as we approached our destination. It was a sight to behold. Thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of foul and dirt-smeared refugees gathered en masses around a giant hovercraft, black and blurry in frost fog.
The Mustaferret, the evacuation ship, hover impassively a few feet off the ground in the center of the crowd. It was a military craft before, and in its voluminous belly numerous shells and projectiles were once carried for bombardment. Eventually the colossal killing-machine were disarmed for civilian usage, dismantled and refurbished; reborn like a baptised child. How ludicrous the irony was, that a large chunk of metal created simply for the sake of destruction was transmuted to rescue mankind.
Still the ship was intimidating. It had the shape of a whale, though at least twenty, thirty times the size; calling it large alone would be an understatement. It was a fortress on its own, magnificent and standing the height of a mountain, but battered and worn out from the war. The green-grey and black camouflage on its exterior had faded; some of its metal surface plates were missing, leaving the wires and gears of the engines exposed. Hot mist was steaming out of these uncovered parts, surrounding and hiding the main body of the spacecraft in the dark. The only liable guide to the exact location of the entrances would be the green neon lights of the signs on the top of the oval-shaped gates. Those lights penetrated the translucent white vapor; Mama Joe and I heightened our senses in the commotion and followed them.
The neon lights flickered like dying stars.
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Interview with Professor Franz Koof, Midnight Show with Paul Elon
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Koof: Records of the war were mostly fabricated for the sake of propaganda, if there were even any to be savaged upon. Most were lost during the reformation, in which libraries and museums were stormed, and archives of information were piled into heaps and burnt. (a pause) The public didn't have access to current state-of-affairs, they simply weren't recognised as intellectually capable of handling political information calmly and collectively.
And there will always be an enemy, an enemy of state seeking world domination of some sort, and war will carry on as usual.
Elon: Ignorance is a bliss, certainly, isn't it so?
Koof: That would seem to be the case. In fact, as testimony from many survivors would have suggested, minutes before The Maiden were dropped on the streets of Munik, people were still carrying out daily lives as usual. Children playing soccer on the streets, housewives working on the field, the mailmen delivering rations from buildings to buildings…
Elon: The Maiden, was it not the most powerful bomb during that time?
Koof: No, now if you excuse me I do not like to be interrupted. But since you inquire the destructiveness of nuclear weapons, I would talk about it for a bit. Hopefully it would educate and enlighten you, as well as the audiences in front of the tele-screen.
Elon: Sorry… Please go ahead.
Franz: It was a common misconception that The Maiden was the most powerful bomb to ever exist then, however understandable. It did produce a blast of 300 megatons, incinerating everything within a radius of 10km, and the mushroom cloud did rise to twenty times the height of Himalayas, clearly visible from space. 20 million people were blown away almost instantaneously, and the bomb was declared as the most powerful bomb ever detonated on Earth in the history of mankind.
Elon: But that was an exaggeration fabricated by the media?
