was vicious. Bloody. Quick. The leader had acquaintences fighting on his side, so it was not a route. He had double agents of his own, infiltrating Flint's camp. The mutiny was no surprise. All leaders expected mutiny most of the time, especially at the climax of the entire purpose of the 15. Many of the 14 and their followers were slain, but in the end numbers were not in favour of the leader. He was taken, and shortly after his followers surrendered.
For a brief moment there was peace, and the mutineers rallied a cry of joy. The remaining members of the 15 gathered around the sacred chest of the scrolls. Flint’s hands hovered over the chest. He looked around at his followers. He paused for a moment, fearing that his suspicions would be confirmed upon cracking open the ancient carrying case. At the last second, he panicked.
"You have fought well for us comrades," shouted out Flint. "But this is a moment that only the original members can partake in. Fear not, we will pass the information on to you. And the scrolls shall be made public knowledge. But we must first review them in council. We have studied this subject for our entire lives, we will know what is best to be done with them."
The discontent was evident from the remaining soldiers. This is exactly the kind of secrecy they had been told they were fighting against. Flint ordered seven men to pick up the gigantic, worn chest and carry it to an enclosure for isolated examination. The orders were never carried out. In a dizzying display of sheer humanity, the remaining soldiers organized themselves under various hastily thrown together pockets of leadership. In total, eleven different sub-groups emerged almost immediately, all with minor contradictions as to how they would better deal with the opening of the chest and the sharing of the contents.
Alliances were formed and broken. Leaders were killed and replaced. Heroic warriors emerged, and cowardice was exposed. But the end result was undeniable. Everybody was killed. Everyone.
Flint was the last to die. He was mortally wounded, but still clung to life longer than the rest. He burbled blood out of his mouth, and applied pressure to the wound in his thigh. But he knew he was only killing time, putting off the inevitable. In a last fit of strength, he flung open the lid of the chest and snatched the pile of scrolls, twelve in total. One by one, Flint unraveled the scrolls. After seven empty, blank scrolls had been opened Flint died with the 8th in his hand, unwrapped, but unread.
Bright lights exploded into the atmosphere from above. A fleet of hundreds of silver space craft descended with a roar of purple and orange and fiery pink. A tremendous blast of wind sent the pages of the scrolls flying up into the air as one of the smaller crafts landed nearby.
Two aliens casually sauntered out of the hatch door and took a look around.
"Looks like they killed each other again." said the first. "They usually do."
"Oh well, did a good job at least," said the second. "Not a bad little pile. Let's load it up."
"What do you think the rest of them will do now that all the gold is gone?"
"Why do you always ask those dumb questions? Who cares?"
"I don't know, I guess I just feel sorry for them."
"They're gold collectors, that's what they do. That's what we made them for."
"I know, I know... but we never come back and see what happens to them after this part."
"You care about the weirdest shit."
The aliens went back into their ship and the rest of the fleet commenced in sucking up the massive hoard of gold. It took all of fourteen minutes, and then they were gone, leaving behind a species with no purpose, and a bloody massacre.
A single page of scroll fell on the ground with writing on it. It said this:
"Congratulations! You are the leader. The leader has a very important role to play and the leader must remember first and always, that there have been many leaders before and there will be many after. This should tell the leader all the secrets needed to understand the role of the leader. All that needed to be done to control the human population was done a long long time ago. If you are the lucky leader in charge of collecting the gold when the signal is given, you will be given a reward. Hold onto your post as the leader and you will be rewarded, but understand that you are not the leader. The gold is the leader. And we are coming back for the gold. Have it ready. Have it collected. Or we'll replace you with a new 15. We've done it before. We'll do it again. We are the leader. Tell your followers that you talk to us regularly. Keep the rituals ongoing. But we have no need to talk to you. All our instructions were made very clear from the beginning. You know the same as the rest of the 15. Plus you know one more thing. Guard it. It is the only real power you have. The only reason for them to respect you. The power of knowing, you have no power."
-"The Gods From The Heavens"
With no gold to collect, the humans had played their part, they had done what they were to do. But they had no idea how to do anything else. Now that the gold was gone, and the 15 were gone, and "the gods" were gone, the people were not entirely sure of their purpose. Not that they ever had been. And so, humanity continued to print money with no real value, they continued to believe things with slightly different codes of behavior and they continued to kill each other because of it. In the end, humans will be humans, gold or no gold.
Then one day, a space craft hovered down.
The Four Sunned, Forty-Eight Planet Kragollian Solar System in the Grimwalt Galaxy was short on silver
Gold Rush - By Danny Mendlow Page 2