The Riddle, The Chaos, The Matrix -- PG-13

[Ziona]

Introduction

The beginning was dark and cold. Misery was the most common element on the horrible world. Misery was what wran the world, what fed the world. Many years had passed since the devastation but the same misery that had existed so many years ago still clung to every atom of humanity... current humanity. The human race was used... they were used and beaten down for years, only to rise up against a force many times more powerful than they. And humanity was crushed under the weight of the Machines, crushed and left to suffer a fate they had not chosen.

Fate, it seems, does not arrive without a sense of purpose, of irony, of cynicism. That is fate... purpose, irony, and cynicism. Humanity was born to be killed and to be used. Humanity is, was and will be the Machines' greatest tool. And the Machines know this. They sense it. They feel it. They live off it. They designed it, nurtured it, thrived on it only to kill it. And humanity stood for it. They accepted their hideous fate and seemed to revel in the fact that everything they worked for was an illusion, a program, a lie.

Woe be to the life of humanity. Existence is worthless. Rebellion is eminent. Love is obsurd. Hope is ignorant. Knowledge is weakness. Power is useless. Everything is nothing. Eternity... ah... eternity. Time knows not the fatal tickings of a clock, counting lives away. Time knows only this. Time starts to stop and stops to start again. And death is only an escape into an eternal state of nothing. Humanity knows not true time but only a fragment of this infinite irony. Humanity, in its infinite wisdom, asks time for the one thing that time cannot give. Freedom... the knowledge that they are free from any fate... any tickings of any clock. But it is the freedom that humanity seeks that sets them into the trap of time and slavery...

Welcome to the Riddle...
Welcome to the Chaos...
Welcome to the Matrix...

[Lord Borg]

WOW.... very, very good Ziona I look foward to more

[Ziona]

Journal 1: Era One of My Life

Fire rained down today from some unknown source, blanketing the city with a thick layer of dust and grime and soot, making people run for their homes, setting things on fire, sending out a red and orange haze over the city. They blame the Machines. They blame this War we are about to enter. They blame this madness called Artificial Intelligence.

I don't blame the Machines... I blame humanity for being so close-minded. For assuming that we are the most intelligent and resourceful beings in this universe. I blame humanity for their inability to stop and think and reason with what is being laid before us. We created the Machines, we created this Aritificial Intelligence. We played God! We tried to make something out of nothing, bring life to metal and steel, cause a creation story of our own. And now we're being punished for what we've done.

Machines sweep through at night, stealing those wandering about in the streets. No one finds those people again... they are lost. And the families of the lost go about their lives, as if nothing happened, as if pretending that no one was ever in that one empty chair at the dinner table. They go on pretending that everything is how it should be. That everything is perfect. Zion is a UTOPIA! Nothing goes wrong in Zion. It is the perfect land... it is the perfect city where everyone is happy and everything is wonderful.

I laugh at those who are foolish, for those who pretend to not see that eventually, in the next few decades, as children grow up and the elderly die, as my mother and father fade to nothing and I grow to power and prestige. I know, I feel it, I sense the impending doom of humanity. I smell the fear in the air, the fear and rebellion that will take place. I smell and feel the anguish of those who know that something is wrong but are afraid to say anything. I smell and feel and taste war.

And I hope it comes to this city.... this damned city behind its' white walls and still, solemn faces... it's egotistical and proud people.

Let the Machines kill every man, woman and child in this city. Let the Machines kill me. Let the Machines destroy humanity.

It is our fate, it is their fate, it is the fate of everything that exists and breathes and moves and wants and loves and hates and dies.

[Ziona]

Journal 2: Era One of My Life

The Machines took a little girl today but this time they left evidence. They found drops of blood on the pavement next to the small little sandal the girl had been wearing. Her mother cried, lying down in the middle of the street next to the little girls sandal, crying for her baby to come home. Her father didn't say a word. He stood in silence next to his wife, scuffing the blood away with his shoe as if he wished none of this was real. I passed by the couple on my way to the Council with my guards and the mother looked up to me with tears in her eyes.

"Please, Daughter of Zion, bring back my child. Bring back my baby!" She kneeled before me, her hands upturned to me in a gesture of hope and pleading, as if praying to me. But I simply watched her and spoke over my shoulder as I passed by.

"I am no prophet or messiah. Pray to someone else for your salvation."

I am no prophest or messiah, this is true. I am simply a symbol of everything that was before the Machines began to rebel against humanity. I was born to the man who founded Zion, in hopes of getting farther away from the Machine takeover. Back then the sky was a crystal clear blue. There were white clouds and beautiful sunsets with rainbows and trees and grass. Everything seemed to be beautiful then.

Now, the sky is red almost all day long, as if speaking of the bloodshed that happens at night. "Red sun at morning, sailors take warning." That is an old saying from the sailors who used to sail the great seas to our west and east. But I do believe it is true. For the sky is always red at sunrise now and every night we have to hide from our own personal demons and the Machines that sweep our city for those who dare to walk about late at night.

I am the only path and memory of those days when everything was beautiful. I am a symbol, not a messiah or prophet. I don't speak of the future, that is my mother. I don't lead the people to freedom and hope, that is my father. I am simply a symbol for my people to look to.

I passed through the gates to the Council chambers today and there were more people outside the gates praying that everything end, that this war against the Machines be over tomorrow. Gifts were thrown at my feet as I walked through the gate, precious gold chains and silken clothes. I don't ever dare to pick any of these items from the ground. If I accepted these gifts, I would bind myself to a promise to save some little girl or little boy or son or daughter or husband, cousin, nephew, niece, uncle, aunt... a number of relations and persons. I know I cannot deliver salvation to any of these persons so I refuse these gifts of granduer and luxury.

I am simply a slave to my status. I am simply a daughter to a monoarch. I am simply a symbol, not a prophet or messiah. One day, there will be a messiah and he will bring peace to our city, but until that time, I will remain who I am and I refuse to change or apologize to anyone.