Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 19:06:21 +1300 From: Arthur Subject: Elios Prologue ELIOS PROLOGUE BY ARTHUR This story is a work of pure fiction and includes scenes of sexual activities among boys and men, also scenes of bloodshed and gore, do not expect any scenes of true love and devotion as this world is not capable of it anymore, if this offends you then you should not be here in the first place, the copywrite belongs solely to the author and may not be reproduced without his written permission. To make comments please email to Artcart65@vodafone.co.nz The year was 125ah (After the Horror) None of the survivors of this planet knew what a horror was apart from the fact that there had once been a race of ancients that had ruled over everything and everyone on Earth but now there were only small isolated groups living and surviving in what had once been mighty cities, open farm lands and fruitful lakes and rivers. It had all started in the year 2012 of the old calendar, oil shortages were only the beginning of the wars that were to follow, at first it was small skirmishes in the Middle East, governments overthrown by the people that had had enough of the self serving beaurocracy and politicians. Next came larger groups of insurgents from all over the Islamic world that infiltrated the people's governments and then began the raising of fuel prices. The so called, Christian countries could not tolerate this situation once the price of fuel had reached a staggering $150.00 per barrel, their sense of Christian might and right was put to the test and so the invasions of the oil rich nations began. The UAE, Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, all were subjected to invasion, friends became enemies overnight, the need for the wealthy western nations to control all the fuel supplies became an all out war. In Asia, the Chinese Republic could see what was going to happen once the middle east had been subjugated, they and their allies would be next and so, with their usual patience and attention to detail, they set about strengthening their position in southeast Asia, while this was taking place Asia Minor and the Indian continent were trying to stay in the middle and attempt to benefit from both sides, while they had almost unlimited populations, they did not have the required technology and so worked to make profit instead of war. For India, this lasted only until its surrounding Islamic neighbours saw what it was trying to do and then India was under attack from three sides as well as internal religious upheaval between the Hindu and Sikh followers, India began its descent into almost oblivion. America and the European Community combined to save their way of life and to take full control of all oil supplies around the world by proclaiming that they were the worlds police force and they would protect all the countries that sided with them against terrorism, the UN backed the plan after the usual agreements had been met and bank accounts had been topped up, the buying power and technological advantages of the west almost guaranteed success. Not wishing to be left out in the cold, Russia joined Europe, England and America making a very powerful core that could overrun any opposition but, they had over looked one detail and it was not until they moved in on their friends in South East Asia and its oil fields that they remembered about the sleeping Dragon but by then it was too late. It started with China supplying North Korea with nuclear weapons and arranging to back them with more men and arms after they invaded South Korea, this of course brought the alliances of Japan and America into the fray and it was not long before Seoul was hit with the first of three nuclear missiles, this escalated into a retaliatory attack by it's allies on Pyongyang which totally destroyed North Koreas infrastructure and forced China to take sides with the North. The weaponry did not stop at nuclear devices though, the West seeing its advantage disappear at the invasion by the might of China, began to use forbidden biological weapons. In the Middle East, Iran also took up the challenge and started to use its own nuclear missiles against Israel this lead to all out war in the Middle East. Ancient cities disappeared off the face of the earth as the rain of missiles turned to rubble what had taken man kind centuries to build. Chinese submarines off the coast of America then began to lay siege to the United States and its ally Canada, in six short months, there was little left of the world as they had known it, mighty cities were now piles of rubble, ports and roads were now just mangled heaps of detritus, farmlands, the life blood of the people, were either irradiated or poisoned. In those six months, four and a half billion people died, in the following eighteen months another one billion died from starvation and disease until five years after the horror, there were only a little over four hundred million people left on earth. On the African continent the war was more personal, tribal members tried to eradicate each other and genocide reined with a viciousness that had never been seen before, the cities of the early settlers were destroyed and left in ruin as the tribes rampaged back and forth over the continent until finally the winds from the North carried the radiation and biological residue of the Northern war down to the Southerly regions and again millions died, Africa, although not part of the oil wars, still suffered the same fate as those further to the North. Of those left to inhabit the planet, radiation and biological disease altered there bodies and DNA in many subtle ways, it was then that mother nature decided she had had enough, the planet tilted 2 degrees on its axis and for the next twenty years the planet was racked with storms and blizzards which altered the continents and the people left living on them, next followed long years of drought which caused the ice caps to melt and most of the coastal areas were inundated with the sea until only counties with land above 200 feet of the old sea level, were habitable. Once fertile food producing farmland now lay under salt water, pure fresh water lakes and rivers became polluted with salt and many edible species died out, domestic animals stood very little chance to survive but were soon replaced by their feral cousins but man was long past being able to tame them and he also fell into despair as his food source disappeared, infighting and gangs began to rule and the collection of the one commodity that meant survival began and that commodity was women. The weapons used in the past Horror had changed the DNA structure to such an extent that now, out of every ten babies born, nine of them were male, this lead to the forming of breeding cells which were run by older men that could fight and hold their small realms, when a female was born, as soon as she was weaned, she was taken away from the general population and kept in special quarters until she was of breeding age, she then joined those females that were already held. The male children were kept and fed until they showed the first signs of hair on their scrotums and then they were sent out of the breeding caves to find their own way in the world or perish trying, which ever happened. Time scales had changed as well as the language; schooling was unheard of and most spoke the language phonetically. Time was not an issue, everyone worked according to the sun rise and sun set, only very brave people moved about at night, a dei (day) was from sun rise to the following sun rise, a mune (month) was 28 dei's, a yarn (year) was 10 mune's. Meals were taken at sunrise and the next at sunset, no midday meals were taken as this would interfere with hunting or trading. The young boys, once old enough to move and run around with confidence, were set the tasks of hunting for food for the community as well as keeping an eye open for any of the ancients artifacts that could be used to better the position of the leader and his four or five minions. While food was always a concern, it was not that hard for the young boys to kill rats and the odd dog that strayed into their area, the most valuable of items though were things that could no longer be made, items that the ancients had once had much of, like wud(wood), gles (Glass), and any form of weapon, although these were very difficult to find as most had been destroyed in the Horror, there was an abundance of metal but they knew very little about working with it and would only take metal that had already been made for a specific use such as knives. The females lot was not an easy one, they were continually kept breeding from their puberty age of 13 yarn, until they had sometimes produced 15 or 16 children for the caves, at the age of about 30 yarn they were worn out and barren, they were then sent down to the lower caves to take care of the growing children until they died, most at the ripe old age of 35 or 36 yarn, the men were more hardy and lived until they were sometimes as old as 50 yarn although that was a very old man indeed and was accorded a special place in the teaching of the youngsters coming of age. The breeding caves were reputed to have been built by the ancients although this like many other stories of the ancients, was probably a myth or legend as the caves were of solid stone and stood in mighty cliffs so high that you could see for many long distances from the top most of them, they were strange caves in that they were very square and the light holes were covered in some cases by the ancients gles plates that let the light of the sun come through but not the wet of rains or the cold of night. Each level was marked by an ancient symbol and these were ruled by the Pap and his four or five helpers, it was their job to keep the females with child and also make sure the boys supplied the food and artefacts that gave them their wealth when trading with other levels. Not all the openings had gles some were covered with a strange film that the ancients had made in long rolls and was soft and flexible so it was easy to fit it over the openings of the caves, it was not as warm as the gles but it did keep out the rain and wind and still gave enough light inside. Once a child was weaned from his mother, he never saw her again, the only other adults they knew were the men and their Pap, the boys were never allowed to go into the female children's caves, these were always guarded by one of the helpers and locked when not guarded but the boys didn't worry about that, they had each other and that was enough for them. They ran naked until they came of age and then received their first clothing as a parting gift from their level. When a boy reached his age of hair, this was at about 13 yarn, he was given his first clothes, a small breach clout of tanned animal skin, a pair of ankle length moccasins, a small bled (blade) and wud spia (wooden spear) also a small quantity of food, he was then sent out into the world to make his own way, Pap and his helpers did not want any competition when the boys grew old enough to challenge them for leadership of the breeding caves. All the boys were kept in the group they were born with, each named by the symbol of their level, eg: Elios was named because he came from level E, his two friends, Elam and Elvan were also from his level so they stayed together both in play, searching, sleeping or playing boy games at night. For those boys that wanted to make breeding caves, they had to search for new cave systems, if found they would then have to start to find females or make a raid on another cave system to steal some, this was not easy as the men that ruled the caves were older, bigger and more fearsome than the young boys roaming around the wilds and there were other dangers to the young ones, the Renegs, these were wild men who raped and killed any who they came across unless they wanted to increase their numbers and then the captured boy would be enslaved until he had proven himself to the leaders. Next were the Landers, these men were more at peace and found plots of land to make food from the soil which they traded to the cave systems for useful artifacts that would make their life easier, next were the Salors, these were special men who had kept the traditions of the ancients and had stayed on the water of the huge Oshuns, (oceans) and leks, (Lakes) but when it came to fighting they were almost as evil as the Renegs, lastly there were the Rovers, these were single boys or small groups of boys that had banded together for safety, they roamed over the land looking for food or a place to start a breeding cave as well as searching for any of the ancients old cave systems that still held artifacts that could be traded to improve their existence. This was the world that Elios and his friends had been born into, it was a hard and uncompromising world of the strongest and fittest, of the fastest and smartest, it was a world of sun bleached bones and legends of better times, arid deserts and deep salty lakes, of pest infested swamps and small solitary oasis tucked away in miniature valleys mostly unseen by others, this was the world of Elios, a boy just showing the first hair and dripping the first small clear drops of manhood, and this is the story of his search for a place to call his own. Chapter 1 will follow shortly.