Victim of Progress (187 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Anthony Locascio (View user info) at 2006-11-21 09:23:07 EST
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
"We can't let them destroy it,"
He said the words without turning his head. He didn't need to. He and hundreds of his comrades had been here for what seemed like forever, working, toiling, lifting heavy boulder after boulder. He'd been working alongside the same fellow since they'd begun. There had been little conversation, but there had been the mutual respect shared between fellow workers, especially when one lent a hand to the other to help lift a particularly heavy rock. He was somewhat smaller than those that labored around him.
"Don't trouble yourself about it. Enjoy this moment, the moment of our triumph," the larger worker said.
The two looked up at the soaring arches of stone that created the entryway to the great hall. The construction was truly flawless to his eyes. Each stone had been carefully fitted amongst the others, a single counterbalancing force among what was a mountain of rock. He felt himself swelling with pride.
"Look at it. Just look at it. It's.....it's just....."
"Amazing, I know," the larger worker said. "I have built structures like this before, but even I never get tired of seeing one brought to completion."
"Will...will she be pleased?" There was hope and a bit of anxiety in his question.
"She is always pleased by progress and hard work," the large one replied. "This is no different. Someone has already told her, no doubt. She is aware of our achievement."
They stood silently for some moments more, admiring the workmanship in silence.
"We can't let them destroy it," the smaller one said again.
"What them do you speak of?" the larger replied.
"The Blackening. We have to stop it."
"You have no idea what you're saying."
"Then tell me, my friend, what this terrible plague that crushes our homes, destroys our kin, threatens our monarch is?"
"What have you heard?"
"I have heard only whispers, whispers of the great darkness that comes and destroys what we build. No matter how strong or well-protected, I have heard that when the Blackening comes, nothing can stand before it."
"You have heard right, young one," the larger worker said. "It is true, that is the Blackening, the great darkness. I have survived two of them myself, as has our queen."
"You have? You must tell me, then, what it was like! Perhaps we can stop it." His small voice nearly squeaked in anxiety.
"If you were old enough to have lived through the Blackening, you would know young one that nothing can stop it. It is....." His voice trailed off, and his eyes drifted as memories came up from somewhere deep within the rearmost reaches of his mind, like water drawn from the bottom of a dark well.
"Yes?"
"It is death, death that comes on black wings. We have had invasions before, fighters, soldiers like ours. We fought them back, killed them, and they died. We could defend against them. There was no way to defend against this."
"Tell me, tell me then, what it was!" he urged. "Please!"
"It was bright out, very bright. The ground began to shake slightly, then more and more. Suddenly there was a crystalline fire, shot out of the sky like a horror. I saw others die that day. They burst into flames all around me. I was more afraid than I had ever been in that moment. Then the light above blotted out and the air around me seemed to close in. Everything we had built fell apart in an instant, crushing anyone in the way. Relatively few were lost. Most sought shelter and survived, but our work was destroyed. This time will be the same as the last. We will simply rebuild."
"But look at it!" He gestured grandly towards the newly finished construct. "Look what we've done! Rebuild? How can we allow it to be destroyed like this? We've done so much work!"
"You miss the point, young one. The point is that we rebuild. We rebuild, and we go on. The Blackening is frightful, yes. It destroys what we build, but it cannot destroy our work. It can kill some of us, but not all of us. We rebuild, and we go on. That is our way, that is our progress."
"No!" the smaller worker snapped. "No, it cannot be! We've labored so long! And the queen! What will she think when she finds that we gave up? She expects us to defend our work!"
"She will expect us to be here to rebuild. She will not expect us to sacrifice ourselves blindly and for no reason. I told you - the Blackening is the coming of death. To see it is to watch death coming for you."
"You survived!"
"Not by any conscious action. Whatever drives the Blackening is as merciless as it is unthinking. If it had decreed that I was to die, I would have died, and it would have proceeded regardless."
"If you won't help me, then I'll do it myself! There has to be someone with the courage to stand up and defend what we built."
The larger worker shrugged. "As you wish." He pointed to the sky overhead. "When the sun is overhead, the Blackening most likely will come. You have until then."
He ran to some of the other workers, begging and pleading with them to help, to stand with him when the Blackening came. Most laughed, others stuttered in fear and ran when they heard what it was they wanted him to do. None were willing to remain beside him if the Blackening came.
He ran to the barracks. The soldiers were huge and strong - surely they would stand with him in defense of what they had built. Instead, they simply shook their heads. One, older than the rest, came to the front of the others.
"The Blackening is not an evil thing, young one," he said quietly. "You can rebuild what is destroyed, better than before."
"Cowards! All of you!" he screamed in reply, rushing away in shame. As he raced back to the entry way, he looked up at the great hall above, reaching high above his head. They had built this, too, before the great entryway that had just been completed. Destroyed? All of it? By some nameless force that came and went as it pleased? Never, he told himself.
He emerged outside again into the light. It was quiet now. Only the silent echoes off of the stone around him and the light footfalls of the few remaining workers accompanied him. He looked up into the sky and saw the sun was nearly directly overhead.
"Perhaps, the Blackening will pass us by," he thought. "Perhaps today, it will forget, or spare us. Or perhaps we've finally built something that can stand against it." That thought comforted him the most. Progress, they'd called it, to rebuild, but why? The grand entry hall was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. It was perfect - flawless, in fact. Surely it could not fall to the Blackening - it was too strong!
While this last thought went through the worker's mind, the ground trembled.
He stood up to his full height, throwing out his arms in futility. The ground shook again, more this time, and suddenly he realized that the Blackening was not a THING, it was an IT, something so incredibly massive that it towered into the sky in perpetuity.
"YOU SHALL NOT!" he screamed, not knowing what else to say. Suddenly the fire lanced out of the sky, a spear of brightness that sent wisps of steam off the rocks near by. One of the other workers scrambling for cover crisped and turned black in an instant as the searing beam passed over him. "YOU SHALL NOT!" he screamed again. He held his arms out even wider, as though his frail body was adequate defense for the stone and rock. "YOU SHALL NOT! I DEFY YOU!"
The sky blotted out, turning black as pitch. In that moment, the worker remembered the words of his older compatriot: "It is death that comes on black wings," and indeed, it seemed that way. Then the ground around him seemed to explode, and the Blackening ensued.
----------------------------------
"Biiiiiiiiillllleeeeeeee!"
The boy looked up from his 'work' to his mother with an annoyed look.
"Whaaaaaaat?" he whined.
"It's lunch time. Come on in side, I made you a baloney sandwich."
"Awwww Mom, I hate baloney!"
"Billy, right now, this instant."
Whining to himself, the boy picked his foot up. Below him, the ants scurried about in a frenzy of activity, their nest broken open yet again. He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. It had been fun the first few days, but now it had gotten boring. Tomorrow, he thought, he'd go back to building his soap box racer. Tucking his magnifying glass back in his pocket, he turned and walked stubbornly back to the house, grumbling about the contents of his sandwich.
In the yard, amongst the sand that looked for all the world like tiny boulders, progress began again.
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Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-06-05 12:17:20 EDT (#)
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