SciFi and Fantasy Stories: The Prophecy

Once upon A Time, there was a place. This place had no Name, nor did it have a Location. It was simply a place. Now this place was in The Place. The Place did have a Name ("The Place") and it did have a Location ("The Place"), and it was inside this Place that a place was situated. But the Place in which a place resided was no ordinary Place. Nor, indeed, was it an ordinary place. It was, in fact, a rather extraordinary Place, not to mention an extraOrdinary place. What made it so extraOrdinary was that it was outside of Ordinary. Ordinary was another place, but unlike a place it was not inside The Place. Indeed, as stated above, The Place was outside Ordinary, and so Ordinary was outside The Place. What made it (The Place) so extraordinary (aside from the fact that it was not ordinary) was that it was the centre of A Time. A Time was not another place. If it were this story would be too confusing for me to write. But as it happens A Time is not a place, and so this story is writable and readable and understandable. No, A Time was the generally accepted name for everything. Actually it was also the Generally accepted name for Everything, but that's a whole different story.

Anyway, now that you have been introduced to all the places, it is time to start introducing the characters. After all, the story would be quite strange without any characters. So here goes.

There were three kinds of people living in The Place. There were the Yesses, the Noses, and the Neithers (also called the Nethereyes). No one quite knew why they were called such, save that it had something to do with an obscure reference to a long-dead forefather who had done something that had made him famous. These three races had lived in peace with everyone and everything for as long as any of them could remember (which, by Earth standards, was about two weeks). And that's it for the characters, at least for now.

The story begins in a place (see above for details of the place and other locations, if you have forgotten any). Well actually it begins at the beginning, but I'll have to fast-forward it to a place to save time, both yours and mine.

No Yes, no No, and no, no Neither either had ever been in a place before. It was, you may say, hidden. And it was hidden for good reason. Inside it's (hidden) depths, there lay a deep and dark and diabolical secret that, if found and released, could jeopardize the existence of all that existed in A Time.

This horrible secret was now in danger of becoming an existence-jeopardizing non-secret: a Yes had entered a place. He did not know what he had stumbled upon. He had simply been out on a walk. Now he was in danger of destroying the universe.

The ingenuity of the concealment of a place lay in its exposure. It is hidden, as it were, by not being hidden. And so it was that this Yes, who was called D'Baksweacry, who was out for a walk, stumbled on a rock, and stumbled into a place without knowing it, because not only was a place hidden, it was also not hidden, so that no one knew it was hidden.

D'Baksweacry, of course, did not know what he had done, or was about to do. He was therefore quite surprised when there appeared suddenly in front of him a Thing. This Thing was indeed strange. It glowed, yet without glowing. When light reflected off this Thing entered D'Baksweacry's eye, it revealed the Thing to be dull, monotonous, unworthy of description. But when that light was translated into electrical signals and sent to the brain of D'Baksweacry, his brain interpreted those signals to mean that the Thing was glowing, and glowing so brightly that it should have hurt his eyes to look at it, and indeed should have blinded him, but did not, since it was not actually glowing at all. "Blinded" by the luminance emanating from the Thing, D'Baksweacry covered his eyes. When he opened them, he was no longer D'Baksweacry.

Once upon Another Time, there was a planet called Thear. On this planet lived the Amn. The Amn were a strange race. They were constantly preparing for a war, which had been prophesied since Amncient times by the Amncient Amnphets. This war, according to them, was going to be a Greatly Expensive Biological war. No one knew exactly when it would occur, which was why everyone was constantly preparing for it. The entire Amn society and culture was centred around this war, although not all Amns were.

Amnot was one of these Amns. He did not believe in what he believed was a totally crackpot theory. There had been no war for amnturies, and, he was certain, there would be no war for amnturies to come. Being an Amn, he of course had to participate in all the preparatory activities, but that did not mean that he had to participate willingly.

Amnot was, at this moment, in bed, sleeping, blissfully unaware of anything worth being aware about. He was blissfully unaware that the door to his room was slowly inching open. It seemed that if he continued to be blissfully unaware, he would not be blissful very much longer (although he would probably be aware).

The door continued to inch open centimetre by centimetre, creaking slightly. Amnot turned over in a blissfully unaware manner. The door was by now opened wide enough to admit the being that had been inching it open. (Doors do not inch themselves open, even on Thear). The creature opened its mouth wide. It spoke. For your convenience, what it said, and what everyone else in this story says, from now on, will be translated into English wherever possible. For my convenience, I shall assume that you speak English.

"Wake up, Amnot!" his mother said, entering and shaking him vigorously out of blissful unawareness. "You're going to be late for Drill". Amnot turned over again, this time just sleepily.
"Mmm... five amnutes..." he mumbled.
"Now, Amnot," his mother sighed, shaking him again. Amnot sat up groggily, and blearily prepared for school.

After wolfing down a hasty breakfast of Fixslo breakfast cereals, Amnot rushed to the transport zone to catch a transport to Drill. At the zone was a small lightvid screen, which was at the time showing a news program. As Amnot arrived, the Amnchor was finishing a report on the increasing level of pollution. "For those of you who have just tuned in, a report has recently come in that the war for which we have been preparing for so many amnerations has finally been declared."

Chapter 2: The Declaration of War

The Colonels, Corporals, Commanders, Commanders-in-chief, and Generals of Amn were gathered for a meeting regarding the war. Chief General Misconduct was conducting the briefing. He told the other officers who were gathered around that a being who called itself "The Great And Powerful and Most High Alpowerful and Algreat Galactically Evil Being, Ruler of All His Many Minions, Crusher of Free Will, Enemy of All…", or GEB for short, had declared war on them. Apparently the declaration had come in the form of a hypertext message, 99.9 percent of which was comprised of GEB's self-imposed title. The rest of it was this: "I Hereby Declare War on You".

General Misconduct paused for effect, then added, "We are gathered here today, gentlemen-". He stopped. Someone had coughed. Misconduct's eyes roved around the room searching for the source of the disturbance, settling finally on Colonel Crispystripes, who promptly coughed again.

"And ladies," the General amended, "to settle this matter of The War. We must decide now what we are going to do: whether we should take this seriously or simply ignore it. Unfortunately the prophecies are rather unclear on this point." He stopped again. When it was clear that he had finished, Corporal Punishment laughed. "Take it seriously?" he snorted. "Are you serious? This guy's a nutcase. He'll probably strangle himself on his own name!" He laughed again, and all the officers in the room joined him.

By the end of the meeting (which, and this is merely an interesting historical note, was the shortest meeting in history of Amn leaders, lasting all of eleven amnutes), all the officers were in agreement that this war was indeed the one for which they had been preparing for so long. They were also in agreement, however, that, by virtue of their marvellously prolonged preparations, they had nothing to fear from GEB. As was the usual case with such overconfident overlords, they were magnificently mistaken.

The being that had once been D'Baksweacry surveyed the vast expanse before him. He breathed deeply of the power that now surrounded him, filling his lungs with crackles of energy. He raised his hands, and clenched them.

Immediately a bright beam of brilliance lanced into the sky. The dark clouds swirled and shifted, forming dark, hideous shapes. The shapes took form, and fell like dark lightning from the now cloudless, yet still dark, sky. Soon the whole of The Place was filled with an unimaginably huge army of gruesome grey Cloud-beasts.

"Yesss…" GEB whispered. The time had come. Raising his voice to a booming, thunderous roar audible throughout The Place, GEB said, "Go, my little ones! Destroy Thear, and fulfil the prophecy!"

Amnot entered the Drill Hall just as Drill was beginning. His teacher, Amncher (whom everyone called Armchair behind his back), frowned slightly at his tardiness, but offered no comment, as he was not technically late.

"All right everyone," he said. Today we will revise the combat lessons from last week. Places!" Amnot took his place along with the rest of the class, and began Drill.

By the time Drill ended, Amnot was bone weary. Each and every one of his bones was bone weary, or so it seemed. He could barely muster the strength necessary to get up. Drill had become rather prosaic over the years, he thought. Combat lessons and training, day after day, day in, day out, a daily monotony. The increasing obstreperousness of the class made it no easier. Poor Armchair had been forced to repeatedly berate his students' ignominious behaviour.

hobbled over to the nearby Amnastery, where he worked part-time for a few hours after Drill. He was a helper to one of the Amncient Amnphets at the Amnastery, Sagacious. Sagacious was a strange old man. Only his eyes distinguished him from the tens of other Amnphets at the Amnastery. They were as young and bright as the rest of him was decrepit and dull.

These thoughts carried him as far as the gate of the Amnastery, an old, crumbling building of medium size. A farrago of strange symbols adorned every inch of its outer walls, supposedly proclaiming some amncient secret from the Amnastery's past. There was no fence around the Amnastery, and so it seemed to be rather open and unprotected, but for some reason everyone who entered came in through the gate. Amnot was no exception.

He opened the gate and walked into the Amnastery. Doing so always caused him to feel disoriented, because although from outside the gate the path leading to the Amnastery looked quite long, every time he opened the gate he seemed to walk straight into the Amnastery. He did not remember ever walking the path, despite his coming to the Amnastery almost every day. Indeed, even the Amncient Amnphets living in the Amnastery, if asked, would confess the same fact.

Shrugging off the vague feeling that the world had suddenly become a spinning top, Amnot walked towards Sagacious' cell. It never ceased to amaze him that once inside the Amnastery, the sense of age and decrepitude vanished completely. The interior of the Amnastery was immaculately state-of-the-art, even futuristic. The walls were a constantly shifting collage of soothing colours, the floor and ceiling polished so cleanly that the only differentiation between them was in terms of gravity. It was almost like walking inside a two-way mirror. Amnot followed the twists and turns of the now familiar maze and stopped outside Sagacious' cell. He knocked quietly on the door.

The door shimmered and faded, revealing a cell that looked more like the command centre of a high-tech spaceship. Display screens lined one of the walls, a large computer the opposite wall, and the third wall enclosed a window overlooking the ocean. An illusion of course, but nonetheless an extremely convincing one. The only normal thing about the cell was the bed, in the centre. Sagacious looked up from his place in front of the computer. He was standing: there was no need for chairs in the cell, and as Amnot entered he felt the reason for this. The gravity in the cell was considerably lighter than outside, just enough to keep his feet barely touching the ground. He felt like he was floating, a feeling he never tired of no matter how many times he experienced it. It was one of the great perks of the job.

"Ah, there you are, Amnot," said Sagacious in his deep, mellifluous voice. "Just on time. I need to sort out this mess". Sagacious pointed at the computer. "I'm afraid my files are in rather an inchoate state". Amnot smiled and nodded. "No problem," he said. He began his work.

When he had finished restoring some semblance of order to Sagacious' computer files, Amnot felt a little better, thanks to the "uplifting" environment. Sagacious had left earlier; Amnot was unsure as to the reason for his departure, as his concentration had been focused on the computer. Now that he was finished, he looked for something else to occupy his attention.

He was trying to decipher the displays on the opposite wall when something on top of the computer caught his eye. It was a cerise coloured box, decorated with a gold-leaf arabesque design. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. It felt quite smooth, despite the indentations and ridges caused by the etched-on pattern. Amnot eased open the lid and peered inside. There were what appeared to be dice in the box. He upended the box, allowing the dice to escape to the floor. They were 7 sided dice; a rather strange shape and quite hard to read, but he appeared to have rolled a 7,7,7.

he was figuring the math in his head, Sagacious re-entered the room. Immediately he noticed the dice, and a ghastly pale pallor stole his expression. He glanced at Amnot, and asked in a quavering voice, "Did you just roll that?"

ot, who was at this point understandably confused, replied in the befuddled affirmative: "y...yes..."

Sagacious' legs gave way, and he sat down suddenly. Unfortunately, there was no chair to sit down on, so he ended up floating down to the floor, looking rather silly. The impact seemed to shake him from his reverie: he shook his head vigorously in the manner of a wet dog, and got up.