A few months ago, I posted an article about my first English class in high school. Because this blog is centered around my writings, I thought it would be good to show some of my academic projects here too. This story, called “The End”, is based off another writing project I made back in 7th grade… I had too much time back in those days, and it’s already reached- what, 1,850 pages? It’s a super elaborate and complicated story, and at our current pace it probably won’t be finished for at least two more years (High school is busy, so I don’t have the time or the energy to keep up my old 10 page-a-day schedule, but I will occasionally speedrun through a whole chapter from time to time.) I might consider posting some of these to the web someday, but because it’s 1,850 pages and made two years ago, a lot of it is BSed and the text quality for many chapters is… ugh, disgusting. There may be a time in the future where I post it, but today will not be that day. Enjoy a little preview of this crazy universe we have- it’s a superdeveloped universe. Oh, spoiler alert: It’s not a good ending.
The End
The Pax Greenia was the past. The domination that the Greenian Empire had wielded in the universe of Magicae was collapsing. The old territories of the once glorious empire were replaced by smaller kingdoms, each one ruled by their local race and ethnicity. This left a great deal of power anyone could grab and possibly abuse. The diversity, too, had potential to flare into clashes of prejudice. Endless permutations of potential clashes stood within this diversified realm, and casus belli were present in every corner.
But none of the new kingdoms grabbed or abused this new vacuum. In contrast to Solaris, a foreign universe with flora and fauna of their own, a mentality of focusing solely on one’s interests, the governments of Magicae all worked together to pursue everyone’s interests. Mediation was chosen over the exploitation of casus belli, and it was alien to walk the path of the sword. Disputes rarely became a conflict, and no one sought to claim the power vacuum left by Greenia’s decline. Greed was always overcome by generosity, and for centuries, integrity persisted. Peace was at the top. There was no problem.
In Greenia’s capital city, the next monarch was inaugurated. The new leader was a man of about thirty, young and friendly. He had the start of a goatee on his chin, and his eyes were filled with joy. None who knew of his personality or appearance would imply a dark past, and indeed, they were correct. The man had proven himself worthy and like all the previous monarchs, seemed to be immune to corruption. His leadership was impeccable, and he already had mediated in several disputes. There was no reason to believe that his rule would be any different from that of the previous rulers.
As Greenian tradition tells, he would be referred to as the Chief of Greenia by all citizens. He was to have a great deal of power within Greenia, and still some considerable influence outside, and he pledged never to misuse it.
The inauguration party was still alive late at night. Greenia’s many citizens and visitors from other nations across Magicae frolicked throughout the night. All experienced joy…except one messenger whose name history has forgotten, but with an impact which could shake every man’s life to its core.
Demons, as powerful and cruel as they were, had little to boast on the grand scale. They had little numbers, and they had posed no threat to Greenia since the ancient days of the empire, millennia ago. They were underground and irrelevant beacuse few detected difference in its potential to modify the status quo. But as it became known that the demons had begun to unify, many became aware of the ascending steps of a newly created Demon Imperium. Previously, their most significant impact was the occasional raid or band that might form. But they usually held little significance. For the first time in a long time, the demons were major players on the world stage, a concept which would have been unfamiliar to the previous several dozen generations. No one had mentored the procedure of action if demons came back, because imaginations for this were merely baseless conjectures.
“We are not yet aware of the momentum of this new Imperium.” The messenger said to the chief. “But if left unchecked, our sovereignty itself could be at stake.” A crowd began to gather around them to hear the conversation. Journalists moved to cover the scope of the century. This alone made the Chief’s reign different.
“The territories of which you refer to are a safe distance from us.” The Chief replied. There was a clear attempt to keep an optimistic tone in his voice. “And the demon population is a mere slice of us and our allies. I daresay that the army of our coalition outnumbers the demons, at pessimistic standards, seven to one!”
And so the party continued, all without another mention of this new Imperium. It would take decades, if not centuries, the Chief believed, for the demons to grow to a size that could threaten them and without aid from Greenia and its allies, they would starve and collapse out of their own accord. Motives for action died out, and life continued as normal.
And then the demons struck.
Not at Greenia, of course. The Chief was right. They stood no chance head to head against Greenia, even if Greenia was not the powerhouse of the past. They struck at the unclaimed lands across Magicae. If a place wasn’t claimed by another state, the demons took over. “Spreading themselves even thinner?” The Chief snorted when his messenger informed him of the situation. “Smart decision.”
But these territories were to become the domains of darkness across Magicae. Like a foggy cloud descending into a city, despair began to consume these lands. Only the most adventurous of the free world had the courage to enter these domains, and less came back in one piece. And of those that came back, none would be the same. Their senses were forever impaired by the experience, and the weakest of the adventurous would lack the strength to perform even the slightest shift in their body. The very few survivors that could still speak after entering the domains claimed to see indescribable sights of extremity. One man claims to have spoken to the dead in a traumatizing conversation, another said he got lost in a mansion and almost starved to death, and one even claims to have been taken into the Capital of the Imperium itself, said to be filled with a mysterious red mist which could irreversibly turn one insane if exposed for more than several minutes.
These domains were perfect breeding grounds for more demons. And two decades passed, through that period their numbers grew and grew in record time. The Greenians still did not take action, first out of complacency but then out of cowardice as the aura of these strange domains became more intense and the power of their new adversaries seemed to be nearly unstoppable.
It was about the thirtieth year of the Chief’s reign when the messengers gave another report to the Chief: the Chief was nearly sixty by this point- his dark brown hair had now turned into a more grayish hue, but because he had not experienced the devastation of the domains, he had no wrinkles and looked almost young. One who saw him might mistake his age to be as much as a score less of what it really was. His messenger told him, “Another domain has been created, in a lake less than a hundred miles from our Capital. It is very nearly within our borders.”
“Hmmm,” The Chief stroked his beard, deep in thought. He had tried to deny the problem for a score, but if this policy remained, the demons would likely be strong enough for them. Based on quantitative trends, they had just a few months left before the demons would be strong enough to face them. “Maybe we should prepare for war. Send a message to our allies scattered across Magicae that we must arm our borders. Produce the war material needed. We cannot have a Pax Imperium without resistance.”
And so they did. The majority of factories had produced tourist goods before this conversation. In days, they had been remodeled to produce arrows, spears, and other magical items needed in combat. They began to call up soldiers across the remainder of their Empire to be put on standby, and their allies did the exact same. Everyone worked around the clock to get ready, and they hoped that once they were ready, everything would be on their side.
The Greenians and their allies worked around the clock for ten months, and in those three hundred days they had an impressive system. Inside the city, they created an advanced and wide system of portals that could transfer troops from one side to another, or from another region of Magicae. Outposts were placed in the most remote points of the country. The Greenians sunk an unfathomable amount of banknotes into the defenses of their allies and helped the less fortunate kingdoms. They spent more on their allies than themselves, and given the action taken internally, this whole defense was destined to work. But the demons had grown stronger in the same time period. Could they penetrate this new fortress?
It was the fourth month of the war when the long anticipated question would finally get its answer. So far the Greenians held them back. It should be noted that the Greenians did not defend themselves alone, as kingdoms from across the Magicae had come to their aid. The Greenians, out of gratitude, sent whatever resources they could afford to repay their friends, despite the crumpling economy.
Some even came from Solaris to help, and the Greenians rewarded tons of goodies to them for having come from another universe to help them. This group was the Big 13, known widely across both Magicae and Solaris alike. Even the most prestigious nobles in the Imperium were troubled by them. Having traveled across and fought the demons alongside the Greenians’ allies, they knew the horrors they were confronting. Even with their small size, they played a big role, and in the opening hours of the war, the Big 13 took the rigorous task of journeying across Magicae to bring the first batch of allies to Greenia. After this victory, the Big 13 briefly retired to defend their own homes.
Without the Big 13, morale went into a nosedive. The Big 13 seemed to be the only ones in the world who truly knew what they were doing. There had even been times where they fought the nobles of the Imperium themselves and won. Without them, how would their Chief, who had not seen the slightest image of violence in his lifetime, hold out? An ally of the Imperium from a place called “Las Vegas”, Shane Weiber, soon intensified the freefall by flooding Greenian streets with newspapers on the war. In those newspapers, they detailed the recent events; but the secret formula was the explanation of the implications of recent events, in other words, how it spelled doom for the Greenians. Weiber was a skilled propagandist, and many were convinced to slow down the effort against the Imperium they could not win against. He talked about the kingdoms across Magicae which had changed sides in the fighting. He even talked about an army of robots created by some of the nobles that had many successful trials on the frontline.
In short, they were hanging by a thin thread. Another messenger entered the Chief’s room in the late summer evening. The cries of the people could be heard outside, and the booms of the crystal bombs sounded close. “Our last line has received its breakthrough. There are no more significant barriers between the Greenians and the center of our Capital.”
The Chief went white. His body seemingly immobilized as he processed the news. Could this be the end of their centuries old dynasty? He stared at the ground, and then muttered, “Is there anything else?”
“The Miners are pulling out of the conflict and going back to their portals. The last redcoats and bluecoats in our sector have surrendered. The shapeshifters just voted to withdraw. We have no more allies officially at war on this front. The red mist is spilling into the outskirts of the village. We have no doubt that they are about to turn this land into a domain of darkness.”
Those were the last of the Greenian allies present on this front. Once they pulled out, the Greenians would be on their own. “How likely is it that we can resist for a little while longer?” The Chief buried his face in his hands, listening to a particularly loud explosion from the frontline.
“Without allies? No chance.” The messenger replied sadly.
The Chief thought and thought. Surely there was one more organization, one more group they could call on. He thought of every single faction that had helped them in the past. Just about everyone had tried to help and withdrawn sooner or later. They’d recruited nearly every entity who wasn’t part of the Demon Imperium. Even ghosts had joined the conflict to aid them, although they left early on. The Chief realized there was no one in Magicae they could call on. No one in Magicae… but perhaps someone in Solaris. And then the king had his “Eureka” moment. The Big 13 might be willing to help. Just like Greenia, they were selfless, willing to lend a hand, and powerful. If they got into the mix, the direction could turn a hundred and eighty degrees. And so, the Greenians sent a message. They knew movement needed to be swift. Time was running out fast.
“Hello, can you hear me?” The Chief said through the communication lines. “We need your help. Everyone’s pulling out, and we’re going to collapse. See if you can make it over here. I’ll send a few of my guys over to escort you by dragon. And be very, very careful. The skies are very dangerous. Please help us, one last time.” As the Chief said these words, the demons had already advanced into the center itself. They were crowding around the communication building where the Chief was, and the guards were not enough to hold them back.
The Chief attempted to continue speaking quickly to finish the message, but when the first of the demons entered the building, he stopped and pulled out a sword. If this truly was the end of the Greenian Empire, it would not be the end without a fight. He could only hope that on the other side, the Big 13 had gotten the message…
The Big 13 had in fact seen the message. As soon as they saw it, they were up and getting whatever they needed to bring. It was looking up. The Big 13 were about to head towards Greenia and save them again.
But the Big 13 was currently at Camp Cave, nearly a hundred miles from Greenia. A hundred miles was not an easy stretch. Even worse, part of the route to Greenia’s capital itself was under demon control. What if they got into a fight or were captured? The Big 13, despite not getting the full message, understood they had to hurry. At midnight, the escorts arrived and they started to head towards Greenia.
Simultaneously at the communications building, the Chief had fought well against the demons, but his guards were still falling one by one around him. Was this going to be the end? Were two thousand years of history about to go down the drain? Life was leaving the eyes of his comrades fast. Where was the Big 13? He scanned the outside of the building wildly, trying to find some last hope they could cling onto. If there was no miracle, he could be looking into his country for the last time.
There was a last ditch effort made by the Chief and the few surviving guards to escape. They jumped out a window, darted through the street, and tried to find surviving resistance nearby. But all was lost, as there were too many in the streets to fight. Arrows filled the red and misty sky and the Chief crumpled, thinking of the deep regret that none of this would have happened had he dealt with the problem a few decades ago. Now, his mistake would bring despair to masses of individuals across Greenia. The people watched in agony from afar and began to feel the legendary sensations only told in stories. Finally, the majority experienced the inexplicable fear from a domain of darkness.
The Big 13 arrived just outside the Capital the next morning, accompanied by escorts and riding on dragons. They stood in horror at what they saw. Red mist engulfed the once green buildings. Most of the symbols of Greenian tradition and culture were burned and replaced with symbols and things that represented the Imperium. The Chief’s denial of the demon problem spelled doom for all the people. And the last chapter of the nearly infinite history of Greenia came to an end.