Vidit Mahajan

Children Stories Tragedy Fantasy

4.3  

Vidit Mahajan

Children Stories Tragedy Fantasy

Destroyer of Worlds (Prompt 2)

Destroyer of Worlds (Prompt 2)

7 mins
297


On a night like any other, with the stars shining in the cloudless dark sky, Rimpo was grooving on the buzz from his favourite ale, sitting on the edge of a sand mound, with his hind and mid legs hanging in the air. He had already had two mugs and his head was swirling in merriment. At first, when he first saw a light blaring down the sky like a spotlight, he thought it wanted him to get up and dance on his tiny hind legs. With a considerable effort he cleared his head off the intoxication. His ears woke up from their drunken slumber and stood erect, pointing outwards. He followed the light up to its source and saw a round shaped object. His green skin sparkled on the sight of the light emanating, an indication of his nervousness. He tried to contact his darling wife Ramona, using his antenna which originated from the top of his head, but there was no answer. She would have slept. He let out an area wide broadcast, hoping someone would catch on his signals. No one answered. The strange round object stood still for a long time. So did Rimpo, staring with his large yellow eyes, waiting for a movement, some development. 


   After a long time had passed, Rimpo saw strange creatures descending from the flying thing. They were white in colour and had round transparent heads. All of them were round and chubby. On closer observation, he noticed that inside their transparent heads, they all wore different skins. Some were light brown, some were dark and some were almost black. Even their lengths differed. Some stood taller than others. Some were wider. Definitely bizarre. He gulped the last remaining ale and encouraged by liquid potion, crawled his way to the visitors. He did not have to use his forelegs, but for the purposes of remaining unseen, he decided to make haste.


As he approached nearer, he marvelled at their size. They were at least five times bigger than he was. That too, when he stood on his hind legs. Some of these foreigners turned around and pointed towards him excitedly. They had made him. Rimpo heard loud noises coming from the group. They were conversing animatedly amongst themselves. How strange! Rimpo couldn’t comprehend the weird language. He tried communicating through his antenna but was not successful. A man came forward and suddenly everyone went quiet. Rimpo noticed the man’s eyes. They were long instead of wide like him and those blue circles were staring at him with curiosity. The man adjusted a knob next to his transparent head and then waved at Rimpo. Rimpo waved back. The man made a gesture with his hands which Rimpo did not understand.


‘Are you stupid? Can you not understand me?’ Rimpo blurted out in frustration, through his antenna towards the man.


He saw the man bring his eyebrows closer. He chuckled. He adjusted another knob on the other side of his head and bluttered something. A moment later, Rimpo sensed the man’s thoughts. ‘I apologise. We are not used to conversing telepathically. I am Bran and these are my friends. We have come from far away.’ The man pointed skywards. ‘We are astronauts, exploring other planets.’


Having not understood a lot of his words, Rimpo replied, ‘You talk strangely. What are you looking for? What do you want?’


‘Can you take us to your leader? Someone who can help us understand this world and its characteristics.’


Rimpo did not recognise the word ‘leader’, but there was only one person he could think of who could make sense of these abnormal circumstances. Rimpo nodded. ‘I am Rimpo.’ he said to the man and then sent out a message to Holm, informing him of his oncoming arrival accompanied by a group of outlanders.

Holm was the oldest amongst them. Rimpo was a little taken aback when Holm was as surprised on seeing the visitors. Somehow he had expected Holm to know of them. They spoke. Holm and the blue eyed man. The outlanders were called humans. They discussed this world and their own and the countless other worlds the humans had seen. Both Holm and Rimpo listened with fascination. They said their purpose was to exchange knowledge with different worlds for the betterment of all. They showed them a few things which they had at hand. They called them machines. They uttered a number of words of which Rimpo didn’t know the meaning. Still he listened. Holm called a few other inhabitants and suddenly the discussion became a conference and later on a party. The humans were friendly. They were polite in spite of their size. Over the next few days, many agreements were reached. They called Rimpo’s world Utopia, a word which meant a place of perfection, and its inhabitants Utopian. 


Decades passed. More humans came to Utopia. They settled there. They coexisted with the Utopians. The humans built colonies consisting of sky high towers made of glass and metal. The humans introduced the concept of money. Now everything in Utopia had value. The Utopians upgraded from their sand houses to concrete palaces. Due to his proximity to the humans, Rimpo was the preferred medium between the Utopians and the humans. At least at first, till the other humans had the technology of their own to converse with the Utopians. Still, Rimpo became rich. Richer than any other Utopian and almost as rich as the richest human in Utopia. He was a regular attendee of social gatherings and was hailed by the Utopians as a hero who had brought them these wonderful experiences. When Rimpo died, he was mourned by the entire planet and soon became a legend to the Utopians and humans alike.


Centuries passed and then millennia. No one remembered when the humans had arrived. Weren’t they always here? Human colonies sprouted on every inch of land, covering the planet. The once green planet, filled with rich foliage was now a house full of glass and concrete. The utopians lived amongst these colonies having abandoned their own long back. The natural resources of Utopia started depleting and all of a sudden there was not enough for everyone. Tensions escalated and concerns spread across the populace. That is when the war started.


None knew who attacked first but soon the humans and the utopians were assaulting each other. When these clashes spread across the planet, the respective leaders stepped in. This led to a higher form of war with weapons and technology. Soon enough the communities which had existed for thousands of years were dispersed and ceased to exist. The utopians numbering a trillion clustered together on one end of the planet and the humans on the other. The humans attacked the utopians by spraying poisonous gases on their lands. This killed millions. The utopians retaliated by spreading spine chilling diseases amongst the humans. Thousands perished. This to and fro went on for a hundred years with no side ready to yield.


Weapons of mass destruction damaged the planet permanently. Finally, Utopia surrendered. The land could not nurture its children and it died. The waters dried up. The vegetation disappeared. The fauna succumbed. The once green planet was now covered with desert. The atmosphere transformed. The same air that once supported the living, now killed them. The humans went back into their bubble suits. The human leaders met to discuss and deliberate on their options. With lack of resources and technology and having forgotten the know-how, they were stuck on this planet. The utopians, the true inhabitants, the children of the land, decided, mournfully, to forsake this planet and explore the vastness of the sky above them.


Unbeknownst to anyone else on the planet, Holm had secretly commissioned a small group of utopians to learn the making and working of a spaceship, similar to the one that the humans had arrived in. This group befriended the human scientists and learnt from them. Over millennia, while the humans got comfortable on Utopia and gave up on any ideas for further exploration, the utopians, driven by their hunger for knowledge and adventure, readied millions of ships. The utopians started to leave. Realising the utopians had a way out, the humans pleaded with them, to help them. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. The human media, or whatever remained of it covered this massive exodus, chiding their leaders of their short sightedness.


In one such picture released to the world, a human child, wrapped up in his bubble suit, is seen waving to a departing utopian abandoning the deserted lands in his mini craft. The utopian is waving back. The caption read, ‘Save us from annihilation. Take our children.’


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