00:00
00:00
GXFICH
In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.

Highgate Cemetery

Joined on 8/24/16

Level:
9
Exp Points:
805 / 900
Exp Rank:
80,966
Vote Power:
5.13 votes
Rank:
Scout
Global Rank:
34,809
Blams:
46
Saves:
224
B/P Bonus:
4%
Whistle:
Normal
Medals:
3

GXFICH's News

Posted by GXFICH - January 2nd, 2020


I gradually regained consciousness I was floating above the boggy ground at a great speed.

Suddenly I came to a halt.

I think I was above a fire the people were listening to music and I hated it but could not move it had paralysed me.

Eventually they went away and I could relax but soon they would come back I believe they were especially fond of the Pogues, Sally Maclenane was one I remember clearly.

For me it was torture.


Eventually I left that place and I remember coming back to life first I had a choice of what creature I was going to be the default was human but I had a look at what other animals were like and decided on human, then I had choose what gender I had initially resolved to come back as a female as they never had to fight wars and such but after some thought I abandoned that Idea.


Then I came down to earth fleetingly I met a an about 45.

"You dying too?"

"No being born"

"Can`t win in this life you know,

I`m done with it.

It`s all shit.

Oh well good luck mate"


and the next thing I knew I was a baby.



Posted by GXFICH - December 25th, 2019


The miner tapped the rock cautiously with his hammer, listened carefully and placed his last stick of gelignite carefully in between the crevice.


The being which up to then had been obliviously slumbering in said rock suddenly started awake.

It reached out it`s hand and ran its fingers over the stick of gelignite, a tiny spark caused by static electricity leapt from the beings fingers into the business end of the fuse.


A couple of seconds later the being was standing there bemusedly nothing but a three dimensional shadow blinking in the dim light of the mine surrounded by debris and the mortal remains of the unfortunate miner adorning the walls.


The dim light seemed to be coming from somewhere in the distance.

Slowly it grew nearer and nearer until the being could make out a man in overalls and a tin hat holding a Davy lamp.


As he reached the site of the explosion he stopped and surveyed the scene unabashed.


"What are you doing down here?" he asked.

"Nothing" was the reply.

"Why not?"

"Been buried until now"

"Well in case you didn`t know down here you need to work"

"Doing what?"

"Digging"

"I don`t have a spade"

"You need a shovel or a pick"

"I don`t have one of them either"

"So I see..."


About a minute passed both of them quite still the miner looking amusedly at the apparitions confusement.


The being took a step backwards about to submerge itself back into the cool, solid and predictable confines of the seam, when the miner said severely;

"Then you better come with me, can`t have you loitering round the mine without lending a hand"

"Can`t I stay in the rock?"

"We need to dig the rock and we need you out the way"

This seemed reasonable enough so the being followed the miner along the shaft so as not to be an inconvenience.


Soon they reached some other miners talking loudly.

"Where`s Fred?" asked one of them to the returning miner.

"Here" was the reply as he kicked a bit of charred flesh from his boots narrowly missing the enquirers face.

"Who`s this?" asked another pointing to the being.

"Said he was buried"

"What shall we do with him?" asked another.


"Here, you, push this cart" said a tall grey haired man.

The being obligingly pushed a the cart with all it`s strength but it did not move at all.


"Use your muscles!" someone shouted.

"I don`t have any" said the being.


"That`s a problem" said the old miner who found him, "we don`t have no work for those with no muscles".


The miners started muttering amongst themselves.


"Here" asked one "how did you come to be buried down here in the first place?"


"I was floating around underground and I heard a noise and came to investigate?"


"You can float through the ground?"


"Very slowly"


"Can you float to the surface and tell my wife I`m working late tonight and won`t be home for tea?"


"No, I can only float forwards sideways and down the ground is too heavy"


"So you`re stuck underground eh?" said the old man rubbing his chin thoughtfully.


"Could you take me above ground?" asked the being.


"No, there`s no way up, except for the metal we dig".


"So where do you live?"


"Down here".


"How did you get down here?"


"Born here".


"Tell you what" piped up another old miner "you could always get a job working on one of those new underground railways down London, don`t need muscles for that, locomotive does it all.

You could just float through the rock and get there"


"Isn`t it a bit far?" asked a young miner.


"Nonsense" was the hurried reply from a colleague, who then kicked him in the shins and whispered "shut up idiot we need rid of it " .


"Do they go up to the ground?" asked the being oblivious.


The miners all heartily answered in the affirmative.


"Where is it?"


"Ohhh, let me see... If that way`s North... That way must be East... So ... just head this direction " said the old miner pointing to the wall.


The being bid it`s farewells and disappeared into the wall.


There was silence for a while and then after the mess was cleared from the bottom of the eastern shaft work began again.


"Why did they act like that with ghost earlier on?" asked the young miner to another miner who was also present.


"All you need to know is that you should never speak or think of it ever again if you want to go on living".


"Ghouls and demons common down here then?" he said ignoring the sage advice.


His question was answered by the old man "You`d be surprised, what terrors we find down here, but that wasn`t one.."


"That was just a ponce".



Posted by GXFICH - November 14th, 2019


Try not to move, don`t react.


Leave the funny man alone.


If you react the funny man`ll notice you.

Stay still and stay calm, that`s the secret.

If he looks at you try to look as friendly and non-committal as possible don`t let him think you`re worried.

If he speaks to you try and be as polite and brief as possible, don`t say anything to offend him whatever you do.


Don`t run, he`ll notice you`re gone and you`ve nowhere to hide.

Don`t try to be funny or, he`ll always expect you to be funny and he`ll get terribly upset once you run out of jokes.

Don`t try to be clever or you`ll bore him.

Don`t try to fight him, he respects people who try and fight him more than anything else,

that`s why they suffer so.

Don`t try and reason with him or he`ll get all mixed up.

Don`t try and make casual conversation, he does hate small talk.

Don`t ask him questions or he`ll wonder why you`re asking and get suspicious.

Don`t tell him any anecdotes, well just don`t...

Don`t be comfortable or he`ll come for you when you`re not looking.

Don`t think about him or you`ll go mad.

Don`t think about anything else or he`ll get jealous.

Just stay here and keep quiet.


That my child is the way to stay alive.


Unless you want to end up like Tracey and all the others.

We don`t want to be a Tracey do we?


"But surely mummy there are enough of us to overcome the funny man and kill him?"


"Have I not told you murder is wrong?"


"But mummy, is it not the case that is permissible to kill one who has killed outside the law?"


"Yes my child but first they must be taken in hand by the police, courts and executioner"


"Is there not a police, courts and executioner to take the funny man in hand?"


"Yes my child, but alas all the police, courts and executioners in the land are all corrupt, idle and ignorant.

And would only take us in hand instead."


"But mummy is it not allowed to kill one who is threatening to do likewise to oneself?

Surely there are enough of us to take him unawares and render him insensible or if necessary dispatch him in the struggle?"


"The funny man is propelled without by a great force from within,

to kill or restrain the funny man you should have to be stronger than his despair, faster than he is to hate and more pure in heart than his is black."


"How strong is his despair, mummy?"


"Six times as strong as were Samson"


"How fast is his he to hate, mummy?"


"Faster than lightning"


"How black is his, mummy?"


"As black as coal"


"Shall he never be killed mummy?"


"He shall be when our saviour comes, child."


"When shall that be?"


"When everyone who is good is dead"


"Why is that, mummy?"


"For when the saviour comes evil men will be ready with weapons and torches and shall endeavour to destroy him.

He shall have to destroy every piece of the world so that they have nowhere to hide.

But he refrains from doing so while good hearted people still walk the earth because he does not want to destroy them as well"


"Why did God allow the funny man to exist, mummy?"


"God is generous, child"


"Why did God allow us to be put into this situation?"


"God cannot look after you child, you turned your back on him.

You were a vain, wilful, vengeful, proud, arrogant child who was expelled from the tribe of Judah for your sins."


"Shall I get married someday, mother?"


"Of course, child"


"When?"


"In the years to come"


"But shall I not be too old?"


"Nonsense"


"But mummy, I`m forty-seven"


"But you come from a very good family"


"Shall I have children someday?"


"Yes, child"


"What shall they be like?"


"They shall be as quiet and careful as you are and shall never be caught by the funny men either"


"Mummy, why is my skin turning grey?"


"Because you have been trying not to be noticed for so long you are becoming a grey person"


"What is a grey person"


"It is someone nobody hardly ever notices"


"I don`t think I can bear being a grey person"


"If you could then you wouldn`t be a grey person"


"Mummy?"


"Yes child"


"How do you know so very much?"


"Because I am the funny man"


"Have you caught me?"


"No child"


"Why are you pretending to be my mother?"


"I became your mother"


"How?"


"She became me"


"How?"


"Don`t ask foolish questions"


"Why have you not caught me?"


"I can`t find you"


" ..."


"Won`t you tell me where you are?"


"You told me not to talk to you"


"You should have listened..."


"..."


"Why?"


" Why, what?"


"Why did you tell me?"


"Because I didn`t want me to hurt you"


"Why don`t you just not kill me?"


"Because I`m not always your mother"


"I wish you were never my mother"


"I wish I was never the funny man"


"Why don`t you stop being funny?"


"I can`t"


"Why not"


"Because I want things"


"Things like what?"


"exactly what you want"


Posted by GXFICH - November 7th, 2019


Trump, Brexit, Corbyn, Sanders they all represented the beginning of the end of the cozy (for some) neo-liberal consensus of late twentieth and early twenty-first century.

Huge corporations dominate the world increasingly.

Developing countries are starting to out pace the west.

These developing countries do not always have such developed values as we do.

Different political factions are increasingly seeing the other sides as evil

There is very little privacy left

Automation and quantum computing promise to change the world radically

We live in a boom and bust global economy and sufficiently bad busts can cause all sorts of issues.

The climate is changing at an alarming speed

The natural world is dying off with every year

There are enough nukes to wipe out the entire planet

You already know all this but the fact that I wish to highlight is that it`s all got to come to a head.


As Britain was still in the throes of leaving the European Union the situation in Northern Ireland devolved once more into violence, This time the government was unable to contain the situation eventually the chaos to culminated in Northern Ireland leaving the United Kingdom with ever growing dissatisfaction from the Scottish.

Causing some to speculate that they to would break off, this might well have happened if it were not for the foolish forays of Europe into imperialism.

In retaliation a loose confederation of Asian countries marched into Europe and the French were the first to retaliate with nuclear force, this holocaust in central Asia was not the straw but the haystack that broke the camels back of the already violent and fraught region, The greater part of a billion soldiers the largest number being from India Poured into Europe lead by increasingly unpleasant leaders with ever more unpleasant ideologies fueled by the outrages perpetrated by the west Poured into Europe, their numbers, the demoralisation of Europe and the threat of more nuclear retaliation meant that it was not long before almost all of mainland Europe had fallen.

If that was not enough Britain at that time was fighting all but a full blown Civil war.

It was not long before the Asian forces fueled by anti-western hatred set their sights on Britain out numbered, out gunned and out witted seemingly nothing could be done,

The British put up a brave but fragmented fight but eventually all resistance in Scotland and Northern Ireland was crushed and vast swathes of the North of England were the fighting was hardest were almost anhilated with death tolls on an unprecedented scale.

But at length the English once again unified and launched a renewed resistance and the invaders found that at long last they had overstretched themselves and were driven out.

But at a terrible cost..


Posted by GXFICH - October 31st, 2019


The more I learn about bees and wasps, the more I come to admire them.


They are not unlike soldiers, they work together, they will bravely lay down their lives to protect their hive and their queen, they have uniforms, they are divided into ranks.


They are also much more intelligent than you might think, their brains may be small but they are far more compartmentalised and compact than that of a mammal.

They have quite sophisticated methods of communication, they build large elaborate nests, they have an incredible ability to navigate, they can learn to recognise simple patterns, faces, types of flower and other things and they are capable of counting, this makes them more intelligent than many mammals.


But in colonies where there are hundreds or thousands of them working together they form a complicated social intelligence that can learn incredibly quickly and as all the bees or wasps in one colony are essentially clones of each other each colony has it`s own distinct personality that like humans can be more or less good but can also be incredibly evil and malignant.


Bees are probably more intelligent than wasps, living a largely peaceable agricultural sort of life that requires a greater degree of sophistication than the wasps hunter gatherer lifestyle.

While honey bee colonies survive the winter huddled up together living off their supply of honey, for wasps the coming of winter in temperate environments means death to every wasp except fertilised queens who hibernate but frequently freeze to death.


Late autumn is a brutal time for wasps, there is less and less food and much of it is increasingly rotten, the cold starts to kill them off, they become more and more desperate and aggressive struggling ever harder to survive.


But over millions of years insects have picked up many tricks, ants for example have been known to build boats, keep slaves and cultivate fungus and aphids.

Bees can communicate and navigate in many ways more effectively than humans.

What can wasps do?, humans are not the first creatures to meddle with the supernatural.

No, wasps have had their own superstitions and their own strange form of religion since long before the first humans.


It started out as parasitism where wasps would incapacitate other invertebrates, lay its eggs inside it and bury it in its nest until after a while the egg would become a larvae that would eat its host from the inside.


When wasps started to become social animals this became unnecessary, but the practice was slow to die out, after some time they began to practice this on members of rival colonies and then on sick and dying members of their own hive.

The wasp nests at one end had a set of special enlarged sections for this purpose, but this negatively effected the structural integrity of the nest so separate nests were built underground.


Eventually this strategy proved ineffective and the queens started laying eggs in a normal fashion but some species in a strange evolutionary quirk continued to build separate underground nests, and continued to bury dead and dying wasps inside it and even provided them with food to feed the non-existent larvae.


This was in the wasps heyday, they were top of the food chain, filling out a brand new evolutionary niche they could afford to waste food and labour on building giant necropolis a new class of wasp emerged essentially filling the role of priest who protected these great catacombs and dug and maintained them.


Wasp nests then grew to much greater sizes than they do now so for the largest and most successful the tunnels which grew and grew with each generation became enormous, artificial structures not matched until the birth of civilisation.


How did this practice continue to such a great degree?

Wasps have souls, one soul will have very little effect on anything generally moving on to other things after a while.

But a nest of wasp souls is something else they stick together and look after each other like they did in life.

Back in those days strange and nameless terrors stalked the earth, sucking the life force from anything it encountered.

Not that anyone would notice but as soon as it encountered an animal that animal would be plagued by bad luck and ill health until it died.

Where these beings came from I don`t know but I know where they went.

The colonies of dead wasps could do little to effect the physical world but they could protect their former colonies against these strange beings, they could sting them eventually to death if need be then they would eat them feeding their queens who would lay more eggs that would lead to more wasp spirits.


This way any spiritual being who got to near one of these wasp nests would find themselves in trouble and as these wasps did not really die but reproduced, soon there were billions of them in one colony these were large enough to intervene in the physical world making the hives with the largest catacombs completely invulnerable from almost anything.


Though this was not to last natural disasters, climate change, war between rival colonies and species saw that the once great colonies became abandoned and the catacombs lost.

Natural selection quickly meant the races of wasp that carried out these burial practices soon lost those instincts.

But the great super-natural swarms still exist and wasps even to this day still retain some of their semi-religious practices.

Wasps in their own strange way still offer up wasp-like prayers to the super-natural swarms with different colonies venerating different swarms.

They believe some places to be sacred.

Some wasps are shamanistic they make contact with these swarms and conduct rituals in their own undecipherable way.


Of course over time these swarms have become less and less anchored to the physical world and wasps in general have become more and more irreligious or in some cases monotheistic.

But that does not mean there is no connection when dying wasps encounter one of these swarms they join them and every now and again a particularly spiritual wasp is guided into an opening in the ground and goes through a series of caves tunnels some so small that it can barely fit and it comes upon one of these ancient catacombs where it joins a huge colony of priest wasps who help keep the swarms anchored to this world.


This has been going on for millions of years but luckily the spiritual world is larger than the physical so there is enough room.

As insects are the oldest and most populous group of animals on the planet it is no surprise they dominate the spiritual world and wasps play and important part.


In life they serve a useful purpose by eating pests to the extent that without them entire ecosytems would be over run.


As in life they do this in death and as it happens one of the biggest pests in the spiritual world are humans, magicians, necromancers and sorcerers all face the risk of being stung to death by invisible wasps if they stray to far into the unknown.


Wasps are also keen on decaying fruit nothing else will touch, in this respect to wasps are the same in death for when someone old, weak or ill is dying more often than not death will come for them not in the form of a skeleton wearing a cloak but a hoard of wasps eager to feast on the remains.


1

Posted by GXFICH - October 24th, 2019


You will need:


  • 10 loaves of rye bread
  • Family size bag of white basmatti rice
  • about 30 stock cubes
  • Gravy granules
  • White wine
  • Malt vinegar
  • A room of your own preferably with a lock
  • A used hoover bag
  • A church
  • A bicycle (push bike, not motor cycle)
  • Twenty bags of frozen peas
  • A radio
  • Several jars of peanut butter
  • Alarm clock
  • denatured alcohol


Step one:


Empty your room so it contains nothing except these items:


  1. A bed
  2. A chair
  3. An empty desk or table
  4. A radio
  5. A dictionary plus three more books of your choice
  6. An alarm clock
  7. One bottle of denatured alcohol


Step two:


Urinate in one corner of your room then empty your hoover bag all over your room and kick the dust around so it covers everything.


Step three:


Cleanse yourself thoroughly but without soap.


Step four:


Get on your bike.


Step five:


Cycle 60 miles in any direction.


Step six:


Cycle back


Step seven:


Pour yourself a nice refreshing glass of water and tuck in to a meal of rye-bread, frozen peas, peanut butter and malt vinegar.


Step eight:


Return to your room.


Step nine:


For the next two months follow these rules:


  1. Do not wash
  2. Do not open a window
  3. Do not leave your room
  4. Only one toilet break every eight hours
  5. Only drink orange squash or malt vinegar
  6. Only eat at meal times
  7. No visitors
  8. Lights off at half past nine
  9. Lights on at half past five
  10. For breakfast and lunch only eat rye bread with or without peanut butter
  11. For dinner only eat boiled rice mixed with stock, gravy, peas, a few table spoons of white wine and a teaspoon full of denatured alcohol and make sure it is well cooked
  12. No leftovers eat everything you make
  13. You must eat three full meals a day
  14. Only drink denatured alcohol when bored
  15. No shaving
  16. No masturbating
  17. No pornography
  18. No smoking
  19. No drugs except mushrooms
  20. You must wear the same clothes
  21. On Saturdays you must either cycle ninety miles or walk thirty
  22. On Sundays you must go to church


If you break any of these rules then add one more day to your confinement.

You may find it helpful to get a friend or enemy to help you out with this.


Step ten:


Clean your damn room and reflect on the shadow of a person you have become.


Step eleven:


With any luck you should have had an utterly miserable time, wasted two months of your life, driven yourself insane and lost most of your friends.


You have now found yourself Congratulations!



Step twelve:


Write about your struggle on a dead online message board.


Step fourteen:


You are now part of the gang.




1

Posted by GXFICH - October 17th, 2019


I felt myself leaving my body and rising up into the air.

I can`t say being dead was a terrible disappointment, but then again I can`t say it was really a relief either.

I suppose it`s hard to feel anything having passed on.

Being dead feels surreal, everything seems somehow cartoonish.

I saw my body and to my surprise it looked just like a cartoon ghost.

I saw the battlefield below me for a spilt second then I went in to a cloud and everything went black.


I felt that time was passing at an incredible speed, like what felt like a second was really a thousand years.

One of the advantages of being dead is that you gain a far better perspective, I could see all sorts of things over millions of miles, the past, present and future, I saw the structure of the universe all in a strange simplified disordered cartoonish light and all at the same time.


I might have gone on seeing but then a terrible sensation came over me.

I felt a terrible pull and suddenly there I was back to Earth, floating above a huge camp fire.


A long haired, bearded middle aged man. dressed in rich colourful garments was waving an ancient shinbone in one hand and an even more ancient cracked and battered skull that I knew instinctively to be mine in the other.


Around the campfire was played out a terrible scene of rape, bloody murder and torture carried out by charcoal smeared men and women all wearing animal skulls across their face against their tightly bound prisoners.


I was filled with disgust and anger, I floated up to one of the prisoners and tried to free them but I could not even touch them.


The man with my skull let out a yell and into where my ear had been he whispered, "You are mine now".

Green fire danced around his hands


I tried to pull away but couldn`t.

I wasn`t having this, I tried harder.

The fire began to flicker, the man began to squint and visibly sagged.

I tried even harder.

The fire leapt wildly, the man turned pale.

The man struck my skull with the bone and a terrible ringing sound filled whatever part of my anatomy did the job of ears.

I put every scrap of strength I had into trying to get away, a terrible tension filled the air the fire dimmed then turned into a pile of embers.

All at once every bird in the vicinity began to call, sticks and logs from around the fire lifted themselves off the ground.

The mans stood frozen, his face a grotesque white mask, blood was pouring from his mouth, ears and nostrils, his eyes were bloodshot.

I felt myself run out of strength, then there was a great wind, the fire shot right up and in a ball of flames I went flying away as fast as I could.


As I flew through the countryside I started to feel cold and lost and tired, I tried to slow myself down but I couldn`t .

I tried to grab on to a tree but my hand just slipped off giving my hand a terrible burning sensation.

I was floating like this for miles through a dark and gloomy forest when all at once I felt myself come to a stop.


I cautiously turned myself around, then to my surprise I started moving again.


To my disgust I found myself going back the way I came.

I carried on floating around uncontrollably for the best part of a month.

Eventually I started to float slower and slower, I began to pick up the knack of controlling where I went.

Then all at once I finally came to a complete halt.

I very carefully floated a few inches forward, then a few inches backwards then I passed out.


When I awoke it was winter.


Posted by GXFICH - October 9th, 2019


I distinctly remember coming into existence, in the beginning there was nothing just blackness.


I remember thinking that`s all very well but how and why?


After a few more minutes, hours or perhaps even months I started to become aware of my surroundings.

I was in a dark spacious building made of wood and mud, furnished with animal furs, there were only a couple of tiny windows to high for me to reach.


There were a couple of shadowy individuals who came and went now and then, I suppose they must have been my parents.

For most of that time I remained more or less stationary occasionally moving aimlessly about inside the house, for how long I can only guess because I had yet to develop any real concept of time (or boredom).


Although I don`t think we had to eat, we still needed water.


One day I was sent out of the house with a bucket to fetch some water from the well.


This was a brand new experience for me, I had never been outside before.

The sky was sort of blue but the village seemed to have a faint white glow of its own.

I followed the other villagers to the well and someone filled my bucket up for me I heard him say that soon it would be time to for me to join the army.


This happened a couple more times until what I can only assume to be my mother told me that it was time for me to leave home and go to war.

She took me down to a recruiting office, there I was lined up with the other new recruits then we were marched into a big metal box that took off and landed at the barracks.


As the mere fact of being alive was new to me I took everything in my stride.


After some fitness training we were each given a sort of crossbow and were taken to the shooting range.

We took turns to shoot at various targets, I was teased mercilessly by both the recruits and the instructors because I was a terrible shot.


When we were not training we were left inside our dormitory, it consisted of an entrance hall with abstract wooden carvings on the walls for hanging our uniforms, sleeping quarters with quadruple decker bunk beds (rarely used as we had little need for sleep) and a locker room where we kept our crossbows and armour.

The door was not locked but if we ever left without permission we all knew we would most likely be shot or worse.


Some of the others used their uncanny aim to throw stones at me often from the very other side of the barracks.

When I tried throwing them back I would either miss and be mocked about how bad my aim was or I would hit someone or something else and then I would get beaten up, or worse I would actually hit the culprit who would get furiously angry and he and his friends would all set upon me at once and beat me to an inch of my life, then maybe I would get taken to the sick quarters for a few days and admonished for being stupid enough to get injured.

Fortunately though I did not feel pain back then.

Even when I tried not reacting at all I would get bullied even more for being a wimp.


We were constantly training, some times shooting, sometimes sword fighting sometimes boxing, sometimes running (I was no use at any of them) and we were always being told "Don`t think you are any better that anyone else because you are not, even if you were any better than anyone else (which you are not) then being proud about it instantly makes you worse" and if we seemed not proud at all "Don`t even be proud of being humble because that is the worst sort of pride, you might think you are not proud but deep down I know you are, you worm. "


But gradually I started to improve and was bullied less of the time and after a while we were told we were going to war...


We were put aboard another metal box which took us to a red cold dark desert our commander told us that we were going to meet another regiment who would take us to a secret camp.


The only problem was it turned out that the regiment had been ambushed and the camp had been captured.


We were told that there was only enough fuel to take a few people back so we would have to fend for ourselves until they returned with enough fuel to pick us all up.

I asked how long that would take.

After a while of the pilot talking on his radio I was told it would take fifty years.


We were all herded out into the desert, no sooner had I stepped out then an alarm went off, a craft similar to ours appeared on the horizon just this one was bigger, faster and generally angrier, the last of our troop were unceremoniously kicked out and the box took off, with the enemy one in pursuit.


My first thoughts were "we can`t hang around here for fifty years there must be some way out of this godforsaken place."


Unfortunately I never got the chance to find out because we were in the middle of enemy territory and the closer we got to civilisation the more enemy troops we would find.


At first there must have been about six hundred of us, then after a year there was three hundred then two hundred, then only one hundred after a decade, fifty after twenty years, twenty after thirty years.

fortunately after thirty years the enemy started to thin out and kept their distance more and the twenty of us that remained all somehow made it.


We all collapsed when at last we were picked up because we had not allowed ourselves any sleep because of the danger.


We were woken up when we landed and marched to our dormitories without having a chance to rest and told to put on our best uniforms because we were going to see the king.


There must have been thousands of us all lead through the dreary grey run down corridors corridors of the barracks into a huge magnificent courtroom made out of the strangest stone, timber and elaborately crafted gold work, all beset by jewels, sitting on high platforms we saw noblemen, sneering and scowling at as as if to say You are nothing you don`t belong in great places such as this, just who do you think you are?


We hardly noticed any of this because our attention was drawn to the king...


He was giant, bigger than anything we had ever seen.

He his body emitted pure blue light that dimmed everything else.

He sat on a golden throne, he was dressed in hundreds of different furs down to his feet, he wore fantastic gold and pearl necklaces and earrings, he wore bracelets and rings, he held an orb in his left hand and a great mace in his right.

He had a bushy ginger beard and long curly ginger hair but his face was covered by an evil looking rusted iron mask (with as far as I could see no holes for seeing or breathing) beset by an even more evil looking pointed Iron crown.


I can`t really remember what he said but the gist of it was that we were going to invade a place called The Earth...


We all marched out of the court and into our flying box things and left for Earth.


As soon as we landed we leaped out into the smoke and fire of the great battle that was raging.


The key was not to be seen, the people of earth had great rows of catapults and archers that were lethal if they had your location.


Because we were attacking at night they had some sort of flare that they would fire from their catapults and would light up a large area, if one of these landed near you the only thing to do was run.


Our troops job was to sneak around in the dark until we saw a good target all fire at once then run.


This went well for a while but then we collided with some others doing the same and in the confusion we were ambushed.

The last thing I knew was that someone jumped down from a tree behind me with an axe and cut my head off.


But this as it turned out was not anything like the end.


It must be admitted the fact my head was cut off these has perhaps dimmed and erased many of my memories and the countless years that have followed have done so even further means this is nothing like a complete account.