The Iterra

Part 1: I had an Askstroke!

For the past two and a half decades, I have been living in the Iterra, and it never forgets to give me pleasant surprises each day. For example, last week I came to know that we have become VeriOik, which means we have become fully immune to any disease in the Iterra and probably nothing in our lunar system would be able to scratch us, much like Superman but on a mass scale. To test my newly gotten power, I tried to break one of the sticks I use for picking teeth; and it broke in half! I was mesmerized!

That memory still gave me shivers along the spine! What a day it was! Let’s come back to reality. After getting up late in the morning, I came to know that I got selected for the Fish prize! I cannot explain how happy I was! Since then, I kept wondering how I was able to achieve such a feat, and my mind traveled back over and over again. I could remember the first time I got selected for the Fish prize like it was yesterday.

It was probably two, or three years ago, we were not VeriOik then and had to suffer from diseases quite frequently. One such day, the situation got a bit challenging, my father and my mother both fall ill, along with some other people from my neighborhood due to the spread of the ASK disease. One of my neighbors, i.e., Chi-ha, his condition was so bad that he had an Askstroke! Just like the other patients who had an Askstroke, he began to ASK. His condition was so bad that I could not recognize him. His nostrils were enlarged, eyes red, and the veins of his neck could be seen, he even was dripping saliva. We all knew that he is a lost cause, that he cannot be saved; but the disease is highly contagious and it should be stopped. As Chi-ha was a strong boy, no one dared to go near him, so I have decided to help him out of friendship and my duty as a citizen. Two other men were approaching him from behind, and he was facing them, so I quickly found a stone and stroke hard in his head, and continued to do so until he was completely lifeless. To prove our suspicion that he was seriously ill, his head was dripping a sickly greyish thing, brain. All the seriously ill people I have seen so far somehow filled their heads with this sickly profane thing. I wondered if my parents’ head was still intact or was filled with it! Luckily, the next morning, all the people suffering from ASK disease were cured, except the mother of Chi-ha. I was going to help her by crack opening her head and dripping all the sickly substance they call the Brain, but I was busy celebrating for being awarded the Fish prize. I, my friends and neighbors roared, danced, and feasted from Chi-ha’s corpse until the sunset and till I had consciousness. The very next day, I found myself with the half-eaten corpses of Chi-ha’s brother and sister, although I could not remember how they were Quarantined. Soon, we became searching for Chi-ha’s mother and found that she had thrown herself off the cliff. What strange things people do due to this ASK disease!

For Quarantining two more Askstroke patients, I was awarded another Fish prize in the following years. However, I have not Quarantined anyone in the last six months, simply because we have not encountered any Ask disease outbreak recently. Probably because we, I mean, his excellence De Martor has invented a treatment for the patients, and the treatment is working wonders. The treatment is so easy yet so efficient! Let me tell you the treatment, maybe, it will help you to encounter the bloody Ask disease in your world as well. The Ask patients should be gathered together and will be told to choose the best of them, and then they should be fed the brain of that person two times a day, until they are cured. The success rate of this treatment is very high, but sadly, if this treatment fails, then the patient must be quarantined. So far, only once is the treatment failed which helped me get the second Fish prize.

Upon realizing the importance of such power, I feel like celebrating till I ran out of breath, and to my surprise, I could hear people roaring aloud outside of my cave. They thought the same! Even after living my entire life here, still, the mental connection we share with each other surprises me. We roared and crawled to the most sacred place of our world, Das Toolswage, which hosts the supreme beings by us, for us and of us to guide us to the ultimate honor and status of Wardice. I and all my fellow beings have long cherished and aspired to attain this high status, but there is fierce competition for this honor and only the best of the best can be awarded such gifts.