Interlude I

Terran history is basically made up of almost continuous wars with sparce periods of peace in between. Almost no other culture is so warlike, and none seem to hate themselves as much as the humans. After all, purposefully trying to make yours own race go extinct is pretty stupid. -extract from “Terran History; a look inside the history of humanity”

The sky was blue. Was the sky always blue? He could’ve sworn it had been green before. Or was it purple? He couldn’t tell. The colours just all blended together. How were you meant to tell which was which? After all, they would lie to you. Never trust a colour, his ma had said. He felt like it was sound advice.

He was happy. The shriekers had finally calmed down, and small-him came back. He liked small him. Small-him wouldn’t lie to him. The Hard Ones would though. They always lied, even to themselves. They had clouds of lies around them, whispering to them. Why didn’t they fight the lies? Lies were bad, after all. They snuck into your ears and told you untruths until you were consumed. He wouldn’t catch any lies. Small-him always scared away the lies whenever they tried to whisper to him.

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He sniffed at the air and looked out of the nest. The Sad One was there again. He smelt of pain and anguish, of cold and hard. The sorrows were still buzzing round his head, but there were less lies than last time. That was good. He was happy that the Angry One was not here. That one smelt of anger and hurt, of smoke and hot. He had too many angers around his head, but there were also fears and hurts.

A few of the Strange Ones came by. He didn’t like the strange ones; they confused him. He couldn’t smell anything from them, and there were strange little things buzzing around their heads that looked like lies but weren’t lies. The not-lies only whispered to others, not the Strange Ones. He had tried to talk to a not-lie, but it had ignored him.

He stiffened as a tray was slid under the door. There was some of the green water and some red balls. The green water had some happies swimming in it, so he drank it. One of the red balls was filled with lies, so he left that and ate the rest of the balls. He gave one ball to the Sad One, but the Sad One refused it. Still, some of the sorrows had gone away, and that was good. He didn’t like the sorrows either; they were heavy and bogged you down.

Suddenly, loud sounds started echoing throughout the tunnels. It sounded similar to the shriekers, but not the same. It was far louder and hurt his ears. The Sad One seemed scared, as fears started flocking to him. At that moment, another group strode down the tunnels. They were similar to the Strange Ones as he couldn’t smell anything from them, but they didn’t have any not-lies around them. In fact, they didn’t have anything around them. No lies, no sorrows or happies. The Sad One was even more scared, as the fears around his head were so dense his head couldn’t be seen. He cowered in a corner as the Strange Ones who weren’t Strange Ones came over to his nest.