Introduction
I would like to start out by saying that this is an entirely fictional story, and is not at all based on actual events, unless you count the kind of lesson you find in fairy tales as an actual event. As I did virtually no research, much of it likely doesn't even make sense.
Now, I'll tell you a true story.
My name is Jonathon Slider, and I'm here to tell you an (hopefully) ancient story. I can confirm the story by simply saying that I was there. I am planning on putting this story in a time capsule, which is to be opened in no less than 1,000 years.
I had many people on my side. But none of them had any advantages besides their very own skills. But somehow, we won the biggest battle of them all. We had nothing. Their forts were made of pure diamond. They were armed with over a billion people, the majority of whom were stationed around several thousands of forts in case we had the idea to use diamond blades to break down the forts. The fact was that the evil side had triumphed. Apparently, there was only one thing that could defeat them, and we may never know what that one thing was.
And yet, they didn't triumph. This is my story. While I cannot explain how they could have been defeated, I can certainly explain what happened.
Well, I guess I should start at the very beginning. The year was 1670 CE.
1670
The only thing that happened this year that was related to the outcome was that I gathered friends. I just did it naturally; I am a natural extrovert, as opposed to a closet introvert, who pretends because of peer pressure. Somehow I got even more friends than usual that year. Perhaps god had always been on our side, and he presented some kind of message to me that I followed despite the fact that I didn't understand it at first.
By the end of the year, I had far more than a thousand friends. That would be an average of about 3 people a day, though it was more like 10 people one day, none the next.
1671
I set up a party for all of my friends. I had gotten a huge room ready. And then we were all there. Over a thousand people were having the time of their life, celebrating the New Year, when several people, including me, got whiff of a certain smell.
I went outside to investigate. The sight that met my eyes affected my life forever.
Heaped before me were a ton of dead people. I could see blood oozing out of their noses, heads, hands, and even eyeballs. A lot of them were still alive, but the breath that escaped them every 5 seconds was very raspy. Some weren't bleeding, but had clearly been shot because there was a small black ball dug into their forehead.
But the worst of it was what the people around these dead people, the ones that had done the shooting, were using the strangest talk. They weren't acting all vicious at all; they were talking in a matter-of-fact tone about matter-of-myth 'facts.'
"This is the only way. I have no idea why it's considered evil, but it appears to be the only way of life."
I stared at them. "No," I said in a bossy-like voice. "It's the only wrong way of life."
The murderers looked up at me in surprise. "Have you ever done this?" they asked.
I looked down at the bodies. No, I had never done such a thing, but I regretted saying that, because it might mean admitting that I knew nothing about this way of life. I was sure it was wrong, but maybe it was me that was wrong…
Finally, I said, "no."
"No? Then how could you say it's wrong?"
Just as I had expected!
Over the remainder of the year, I decided that my most important mission was to get more people sided with me, more friends. And then, the rest of the world made its message.
1672
When I had 2,542 friends in opposition to the rest of the world, they created over a thousand huge forts. Over a million people were stationed across the top. It was a dreadful sight, seeing the pure diamond forts with so many people standing side-by-side at the top. Their huge size made it look impossible. But it was clearly possible, for it had happened. Despite our safe distance, we always quickly looked over at the forts to make sure we weren't about to be ambushed or anything. The chances were really quite slim. Almost the entire race had been used up on top of the forts.
Now the group of 2 and a half thousand people was quietly trooping around, though pointlessly. As long as we were safely far away from the forts, we could have just stayed where we were. A thousand forts across the world really aren't that many (though no matter where we went, we were always in sight of one).
At one point, I gave a speech to the people, warning them not to go looking for trouble. "We want to keep as many people as we can. If we do so and continue to gather even more people, we may one day be powerful enough to override the rest of the world. If we don't, well, goodbye, good world. The only hope I can see at that point is that we have god on our side."
Despite my warnings, I lost over 100 friends to futile attempts to break into forts. Now there were only 2,420 people left to keep our spirit up.
1673
This year I decided we could only defeat them by testing their powers. Therefore, we would have to make sacrifices. I made a speech to my people.
"I'm sorry to admit that in order to act smart in the end, as I hope most of you want to do, we must pretend to be dumb right now, for we can only learn of their abilities by doing so. If we can just find one simple weakness, we will overcome. What we need are volunteers. I do not wish for the children to come forward, as they may be useful in the future. So, are there any volunteers?"
Many people raised their hands.
"Excellent! That's so many people that we may not even end up using all of you. We'll just be sniffing our way through, looking for a hole in their apparently smooth shield."
So we did several tests. One was to sneak in. But the evil people had cleverly put their forts away from any trees or anything else in which they could hide.
The last test we did was to see whether god was there to help. The incredibly brave volunteer, Bloke Johan, was to make it entirely obvious that he was alone and heading to the fort.
He returned saying very thickly, "Dey eben hab gawd on deir side." And then he collapsed.
1674
"I'm sorry, guys, but the fact is that we're going to die."
I'm glad this didn't come true, but at the time, I was convinced of it. If they even had god on their side, we had no advantage, zilch.
"We have 2,187 people left. They have 2,100 forts. We have no forts. We have no chance of survival (though there was barely a chance all along, but we'll ignore that fact). If we attempt to attack, we'll have only one person per fort, with incredibly rare exceptions. We also have the children. Almost 20% of our population is children, and we don't want to lose the preservers of our generation. Maybe we will multiply before we die. Besides, it would be suicide, which I'm sure few of you will agree to.
"But we haven't officially decided not to attack right now. It all depends on what happens that gives us the tiniest advantage. Perhaps there is something deep down that we all have-"
But by now, my voice had been drowned by boos. Everyone was saying that such a possibility wasn't possible and such things like that.
But we were finally freed at the end of that year. It was November the 1st, and we were still debating whether we should make it official or not (of course, we had no government, but that didn't stop us from creating our own; what else had we been doing those last 4 years?), when suddenly, we heard a rumble. For a few seconds everyone was silenced, stunned at whatever it was that had just happened.
And then-
"Look! There's the nearest fort! It's actually breaking apart!" shouted a crazy man in shorts and a short-sleeve short despite the weather.
And so it was. We could even see the panicked people on top.
"How the heck could that happen?"
And throughout the rest of the year (two months), all of the other forts collapsed, though we only saw a handful of them, as they were so well scattered across the globe.
1980
And after much confusion among the survivors who were trying to figure out what was going on after that crash, I finally decided to write my story about it. I have dated the capsule for 2680.
On further notice, the survivors never returned to the dark side. Also, it is a complete mystery how the forts collapsed.
Afterward:
1781
Nothing in the law said that a capsule had to be returned to the ground if it was taken out ahead of time. And a few people who lived on the road, and had absolutely no education, dug it up in 1780. The law did protect the opening of capsules ahead of time, but it also protected arresting uneducated people.
1974
Up until this time, few people were very interested in this mystery. First of all, Jonathon suggested that there had been survivors. "The survivors never returned to the dark side," is what he specifically said. But according to most sources, far more people lived at the time than such a dramatic collapse suggests. If they didn't fall from above, they would have been smashed down below, an even worse kill. There are a few hints as to the actual size of the forts. A total of three hints, to be exact, can be found in this story. "Huge" was one of them. There were also over a million people stationed on top. And also, though there were 2,100 forts well scattered across the earth (a very small number, considering the earth's size), they were always in sight of one. All of these hints suggest an incredibly large size, and therefore, very few people would survive the fall or being flattened.
Also, the majority of evil people today are descended from people Jonathon considered to be good people. Also, many of the people that landed in his category were famous but evil people. How would they agree to such things?
The usual conclusion from these two problems was that the story was entirely untrue, and it wouldn't ever happen in the future, as it was entirely impossible. The collapsing in itself was pure nonsense. Did god do it, or did it not even happen?
But at this point, scientists were able to prove that diamond will eventually collapse under its own weight. But Jonathon's three descriptions weren't enough to describe the precise size. He couldn't have made measurements even if he had tried; this book wouldn't have been written, as he'd have died. But according to their calculations, the size should be *** ******** ******* *** **.
After the Afterward
2136
A petition was made for returning the book to the ground until the time that it should have been taken out, and it was successful.
2680
The book was released almost untouched, except for a tiny smudge just above your eyes. Unfortunately, it was right on the very jackpot of the whole story. We may never know what it said.