Beyond The Wasteland : Sci-Fi/Rock Opera Story (Deleted Stories)

- Prologue -

I once compared her to a summer’s day
for, once, she used to smell of sweet perfumes
but now she is more like the motorway
for, now, she only stinks of petrol fumes.

She used to be the rolling fields and hills,
bejewelled with blooms and, in green velvet, draped
but now she’s grinding factories and mills;
a cubist nude, a concrete cityscape.

She used to hold my hand under the stars
but now she’s far away exploring mars.
She used to be my pure, radiant flower
but now she’s mushroom clouds; atomic power.

Part 1
There was a land beyond. A land of hope for them; She and her Claria. Nanya was sure of it. A land of blue skies and green fields stretching off into the distance; of singing birds like the mechanical ones she’d seen in the museum of their dark, miserable smog choked city. If only she could find help for them before that thing, the Necroid caught up with them.
The things name was ProgR655 but, to most Mechans, she was the ‘Huntress of Souls’. Whenever one of the virgins managed to escape from the metal plated, multi-storey, temple of Mecha, the priestesses that had resurrected her from the stitched together remains of their executed prisoners sent her out after them and ProgR655 could not be stopped, that’s what everyone said.
The Necroid’s Song

1st Verse:

Born from a cauldron, in a factory;
made by black magic; dark technology.
I’m partly human; mostly mechanoid
born to bring doom; devastate and destroy.

2nd Verse:

Mother of fire and father of steel;
no pity, mercy or love do I feel.
No reason to live, except to bring death.
I’ll hunt you to my last undying breath.

Chorus:

But sometimes I wonder
if that’s all I am.
Just the sound of the thunder;
the scourge of the damned.

Just a cold hearted; steel plated
killing machine
or is there more to my life
than I have ever seen.

But then, I put it out of my head.

3rd Verse:

Those who designed me; surely they must know
they say there’s a place called Heaven I’ll go
if I kill; spill enough blood for their god;
they’re the rulers and I’m their iron rod.

4th Verse:

And who am I to deny what they say;
I’m programmed to kill and I must obey
but what are these strange feelings inside me?
Merely a glitch or my humanity?

Chorus:

And sometimes I wonder
if this is all I am.
Just the sound of the thunder;
the scourge of the damned.

Just a cold hearted; steel plated
killing machine
or is there more to my life
than I have ever seen.

But then, I put it out of my head.

Her sister Claria had been chosen to be sacrificed in their bloody temple; her beloved Claria; chosen by the sacred state lottery to be sacrificed to their one eyed goddess of industry, an idol of iron and steel with nostrils that hissed out thick clouds of steam and a fiery furnace for a mouth full of tearing cog like teeth , to be ground down; sucked dry; burned up and spat out but she couldn’t bear the thought of it; someone else maybe, but not her little sister who she’d looked after and cared for all her life.

The night before the priestesses came with their flaming torches and pounding drums to take Claria to the temple, she and her sister had made off in only their grey polyester chitons and plastic sandals across the black polluted river which flowed past the old mill at the edge of the city. There were other people living beyond the scorched desert and the forest of thorns; wild painted tribes of men and women that returning Mechan missionaries had spoken of and she was sure they would help them.

If only they could reach those tribes before the Necroid reached them but the monster’s pale grey mare was a Necroid too, faster than any automated vehicle with powerful, steel legs and a mouth and nostrils that breathed out blue and yellow flames of propane and eyes that glowed like search-lights in the dark and sharp, metal fangs like a vampire’s teeth that sucked up the biofuel of blood.

Nanya was afraid, but one good thing she had learned about fear is that, mixed with love, it can
ignite the flame of the will to survive; that primal driving force that she’d seen in all the animals on their journey; the power that drives the doe from the vixen and the vixen from the huntress.

She’d felt that will to survive within her in the scorching desert; helping them to keep going forward with only that little canteen of water between them and, now that they were entering the dark forest of thorns, she felt it again.

The forest looked so frightening and formidable to her; full of wild, salivating, hungry animals and other dangers, it seemed, atleast in her imagination. She could hear leaves rustling and talking birds and monkey’s chattering from up in the forest canopy and other things she couldn’t identify; strange noises of living creatures prowling and crawling and slithering all around her, echoing in the deep darkness as they pushed their way through a thick, prickly undergrowth and thorny branches of tall, twisted grey trees covered in clinging lianas, vines and creepers, their sandals crunching and crackling against a carpet of dry dead leaves and fallen twigs, but she feared the Necroid even more than she feared the forest for the Necroid was certain death for her beloved Claria.
They were both unarmed, for one thing, but the Huntress had guns; two of them that she carried, one in either hand; a gun with bullets of platinum for Claria that, blessed in the temple, could send the soul of a virgin sacrifice instantly to Heaven while the cursed brimstone bullets in her other gun sent less fortunate souls, so it was believed, to the eternal furnaces of Mechan hell.

“Not far now”, she told her sister, her hand squeezing Claria’s more tightly as they pushed their way through ferns and branches, “There’s an Eden waiting beyond. I’m sure there is. I can see it vividly in my head”.
And, remembering their childhood days as inmates of the city orphanage, she recited one of the
Poems they had been forced to learn, “The Armoured Knight of Progress” and though it had never
meant anything before, suddenly it seemed to have great meaning.

The Armoured Knight Of Progress

1st Verse:

Onward rides the knight ,
towards bright hope beyond;
through thorns that claw and bite;
thick veil of fern and frond.

Through misty marsh and mire
although the ground’s too soft;
onward he rides, and higher,
holding his blade aloft.

Chorus:

Through wastes and wildernesses,
of rock and sand and snow,
he stubbornly progresses.
Ever onward he goes.

Through fury, storm and fire,
without fear, grief or dread;
drawn by hope and desire;
always looking ahead.

2nd Verse:

Through eery realms of phantoms
and dark lands where monsters dwell,
his heart singing brave anthems;
to ward off fears foul spell.

For justice, love and for right
His noble oath like a bond
Onwards rides that brave knight,
towards bright hope beyond.

Chorus:
Through wastes and wildernesses,
of rock and sand and snow,
he stubbornly progresses.
Ever onward he goes.

Through fury, storm and fire,
without fear, grief or dread;
drawn by hope and desire;
always looking ahead.

But though her voice was full of hope, her heart was still filled with uncertainty and fear.

And then, above the pounding of their own weary hearts, they heard that thunderous drumming of galloping metal hooves echoing through the forest and the anguished cry of scattering birds flushed from branches; then the sound of the undead creature’s voice, amplified by the loud speaker in her throat.

“Run, run as fast as you can but I am like the future”, she said, laughing; her eery, unnatural voice drifting through the gloom and getting louder as it got closer, “You can’t run from the future. It will always catch up with you in the end”.

Then she heard a loud, high-pitched, angry whirring that set her teeth on edge; a chainsaw, one of the undead cyborg creatures many interchangeable arm attachments, and the creaking and
screeching of amputated trees crashing to the ground and, glancing over her shoulder now, Nanya saw the red demon like eyes of the necroid mare as it galloped after them.

Part 2 -

“We won’t make it together. You’re strong and I’m weak”, said Claria, pleading with her sister and panting with exhaustion, “But it’s my soul that the thing is after. Let her take me. Please. It’ll slow her down and at least one of us will see your promised land”.

But Nanya wouldn’t listen. She just kept looking ahead and pulling her sister forward. Her teeth gritted. She would not let her sister die, ever.

“Your life is the meaning of my life”, she replied , “Without you, there isn’t any point in me going forward”.

An ear splitting gunshot rang out, causing a pair of brightly coloured lovebirds to scatter and squawk in panic and a brimstone bullet cut through the narrow branch of a thorny acacia, just missing the older sister’s left ear by metres then, turning, they both saw the Necroid; her face, a horrifying collision of glittering grey metal and blue, corpse like flesh; her head covered in a long wild, matted mane of tubes and electrical wiring, her right eye, a bright red, glowing optical sensor while her left eye, her human eye, blazed with an inhuman anger and hate.
Raising her gun again and squeezing the trigger, the Necroid let loose another round which whizzed towards Nanya’s head.

Fortunately, she saw this one coming and she and Claria took cover, ducking down behind the swollen trunk of a baobab but, then, their spirits lifting, they both heard an amplified scream of agony and, peering out from between large green palmate leaves, they saw the Necroid wrestling frenziedly with an octopus tree, a giant carnivorous plant that had seized her, unexpectedly, around the throat with one of its strange tentacle like vines as thick as a hangman’s noose and covered in sharp, twisted thorns that slashed and tore. It was dragging her upwards out of her saddle and using her own weight to slowly garotte her.

Nanya could see a look of horror in her baby sister’s eyes as she watched a mouth like hollow in its tree trunk open up and snap at the undead cyborgs human limbs, devouring them greedily and she put her hand behind her sisters head and pulled her close to her and kissed the side of her head, saying, “We must keep going, Claria. Don’t cry. We’re almost there now”.

The light on the other side of the dark forest was blinding at first but, when their eyes had adjusted to it, they saw all the things that Nanya had dreamed they would; the clear, cerulean blue sky and large, white clouds without a single patch of smog upon them and broad, rolling green fields of tall grass and flowers too, real flowers, of blue and yellow and red and birds; hundreds of birds, singing the brightest songs.

“Didn’t I tell you, Claria?”, said Nanya, raising her arms up to the sky and spinning round, “Didn’t I say It would be Eden?”

Oh, Claria!

1st Verse:

Didn’t I tell you;
didn’t I say
the Garden of Eden;
we’d see it some day.

2nd Verse:

A place far away from
their smoke and machines
where the sky is so blue;
the water so clean.

Chorus:

Oh, Claria
the birds sound like they’re singing
just for me and you.

Oh , Claria;
they’re singing ‘cause they feel the
same way that we do.

Happy to be free
to fly in the sky above.

Happy just to be
alive in the world they love.

3rd Verse:

Didn’t I promise
a promised land
and now you can reach out;
touch it with both hands.

4th Verse:

They told us our future
was made out of steel
but my dreams were brighter
and, just look, they’re real.

Chorus:

Oh, Claria
the birds sound like they’re singing
just for me and you.

Oh , Claria;
they’re singing ‘cause they feel the
same way that we do.

Happy to be free
to fly in the sky above.

Happy just to be
alive in the world they love.

But then, startling them both, they heard a horrifying sound behind them like the rasping, angry howl of some demon of the night and, turning their heads, saw their pursuer’s riderless Necroid steed emerge from the forest; open its hypodermic needle filled jaws wide and let out an unearthly, terrifying roar and as it roared its throat poured out a long jet of blue flame and its eyes blazed a brighter,bloodier red.

Nanya panicked, picking up a dead branch; waving it around wildly. What could she do? She and Claria were not soldiers; they were just workers in a parthenogenesis plant.

And then, suddenly, it was as if the entire landscape began to move and come to life; human bodies somehow camouflaged against the forest started to appear behind the horse, casting a large electrified wire net over it and showering it with steel arrows from metal bows that both pierced its undead flesh and released some corrosive poison that ate away at its steel, cybernetic limbs.

Its legs giving way beneath it, the monster mare, its eyes wide and bulging, emitted a horrible, blood churning shriek before collapsing onto its side; another sudden volley of iron arrows falling on it to silence it forever.

Then one of the strange invisible tribe reached out and shook Nanya's hand firmly with his and an-other, wearing a primitive head dress made of rusting scrap metal, a chief, welcomed them, smiling and saying, “The land is our mother. The city dwellers defile her and all who are their enemies are our friends”.

Nature’s Armies (Lyrics)

1st Verse:
Shimmering emerald green;
Mother Nature is our queen.
Forest fortress for our friend
we’ll defend her till the end.

2nd Verse:

Birds and beasts we live beside;
by Nature’s laws we abide;
never take unless we give;
loving everything that lives.

Chorus:

Living, growing, spreading, flowing,
flowers bursting free from seeds.
Striving, pushing, thriving, breeding,
Natures armies will succeed.

Living, growing, spreading, flowing,
flowers bursting free from seeds.
Striving, pushing, thriving, breeding,
Natures armies will succeed.

3rd Verse:

Setting sun is sacrosanct;
for each sunrise, we give thanks
and nights bright cathedral dome
high above our sacred home.

4th Verse:

Happy people laugh and sing;
part of Springtime’s happening;
a joy that’s hard to describe
and yet it unites our tribe

Chorus:

Living, growing, spreading, flowing,
flowers bursting free from seeds.
Striving, pushing, thriving, breeding,
Natures armies will succeed.

Living, growing, spreading, flowing,
flowers bursting free from seeds.
Striving, pushing, thriving, breeding,
Natures armies will succeed.

“Is that truly how great grandmother and her sister Nanya came out of the Old City and to our village?”, asked the young boy when his father had finished telling his story, looking up at him with excitement and wonderment in his eyes.

“Yes”, replied his father proudly, stroking the young boys long, braided hair and cherishing his smile, “And, what’s more, the Necroid was wrong about the future pursuing them; in fact their whole future lay in front of them and it was bright”.