On The Wings of Hope : Prose

This war has finally been waged - despite all efforts of the Congress of Post-Nuclear Security. Despite appeals to both heart and reason, despite possible obvious consequences of war, maybe even more destructive than the Last War of Grief itself. What a strange voice did those politicians hear when they have finally made a decision to begin military operations? A voice of thirst of money and power? A voice of their lowest nature, which has not been overcome still?

Silence ... And once again - an air, being sliced with a gnash of tanks.

Whistle of a shell. A cloud of gray-green gas, which filled out a place of its falling and quickly began spreading around. Five hundred meters. Too close. The plague is spreading, thankfully, not too fast, so he still has a change to get out of here. If only by running. Yes, running.

A lethal weapon, which was put on his back. Mobilized possibilities of a tessa-suit, granting him the ability not to lose any superfluous drop of invaluable water and protecting from radiation waves in this field of sand and metal. Optical, infra-red and lots of other sensors, with which his current “survival suit” has been literally larded, have been turned on and are functioning - working to warn of the danger, created by the very same people.

A fast-fast running. A growing gray-green cloud behind the back ...

Poison. A dreadful plague, invented by scientific minds - ones, who have received loads of money while working on this project. Just several seconds of this gas’s inhalation - and man's genotype will be transformed beyond recognition. Actually, since the time one, who had true misfortune to be there, where this ordinary-looking pig with bones and a skull, engraved on it like flags of ancient pirates, has fallen, ceased to be a man any more. A live rotting, gradually leaving only a strong calcium skeleton, awakened instincts of beast, forcing a victim to transform to not even just an animal, but much worse - into a monster, feasting on corpses ... finishing off wounded men for the sake of own livelihood ...

Terrible fate. It's so much better to die from a bullet of some soldier, than to become a victim of this weapon - a weapon, invented by humans themselves.

An even better option is, well, not to die at present - no, not to continue this madness. Not to keep killing and to be, certainly, sometime be killed, but to work and live a peaceful life instead ... to even be that very plowman, or a teacher, a writer, a musician, or ... damn dreams! Is he allowed now to practice all these human gifts and possibilities? Or can his enemy do the very same? What else can they do except for to throw up on a shoulder this UPEPD - universal plasma-generator of expanded capabilities of destruction, able to burn to death crowds of enemies even in newest metta-survival suits - and time and again to go to fight.

Hopeless fight. Cruel battle. Terrible war of destruction and murder for nothing. A battle where no winners ever exist, only those who have lost - who have already lost, when the possibility of this fight became true. This ruthless war ...

This war will probably become even more terrible than that well-known War of Grief, memory of which still remained only on shabby pages of old books and has been living in human hearts - a war, which has taken away ninety nine percent of planet's population and turned a planet into a deserted landscape, only instead of sand - a burned products of nuclear synthesis. A war, after which few survivals needed three more thousand years to alter the planet and make it habitable once again, so that they can at last start living and stop surviving. And to be precise and state the truth, when mankind's history has been erased and started to be written from a new page, one, that even after three more thousands years couldn't be deleted and forgotten, having left a mournful and painful hem in a memory ... a page, on which several large, stamping and ruthless letters were imprinted - «Atomic war».

Atomic warfare ... a weapon of their ancestors, which have destroyed life on a planet ... a mad invention of human scientists. A horror, released into their world.

A nuclear bomb. He spoke this word and tried to feel its taste - dead cold inhuman one ... a terrible word. A word that frightened him in own childhood when parents had said so, one that made him shiver, being founded in ancient manuscripts of former men, still preserved by some sort of miracle after past events. How is that ever possible, that is has been created? Why? What for? What's the reason? And to be used as well ...