The reason I crossed was curiosity. Don't think yourselves too interesting, I simply wanted to see what was that, that had caught the interest of so many. In the past decade or so, I had heard ridiculous numbers talking about crossing over into the Human world, speaking of valuables waiting to be stolen, about your stupidity and how easy to trick you were, of the natural beauty of your world. I must admit, I was curious – I had to see it for myself. Unfortunately for me, the portal was a one-way ticket, so to speak.
Once here, I found that I could not return. I spent the first week desperately searching for a portal that would send me back, but I could not pass. However, during this week, I had come to know your world – and let me tell you, you must be insane! You are worse than fools, because you do not want to admit you act foolishly. Your ignorance is quite possibly your most revolting trait.
On the first day, I was somewhere between two or more cities. It was a strike of luck that I somehow landed in one of the few forest patches left. It was mostly quiet – at certain hours, I could still hear the distant buzzing of your cities. In my world, the sky was bloody most of the time. There was so much demonic energy, it altered the structure of the atmosphere… or that was the explanation I wanted to believe. There were many, but they didn't seem to make sense to me.
It seems I had to come here to see something I could never see back home. From dawn to dusk, the sky was a constant show of color, the clouds changing shapes and structures. At night, I sat still and watched the stars I had never seen before. It was breath-taking… Foreign stars and galaxies, spinning planets, rays of light appearing out of nowhere and disappearing just as fast. I spent my first day and night watching the sky, convinced it was what everybody did. Perhaps not all night long, but at least for a while.
As soon as I reached your "civilization", I saw just how wrong I was. I arrived a little after dawn. At first, I thought the scene looked like Gandara, one of the three kingdoms in my world. Tall buildings with sharp edges, artificial and hideous monsters of glass and metal. As soon as I reached it, I was proven wrong. It was much more hideous. I still wonder how you can breathe that air filled with dust and repulsing odors with your frail lungs. It remains a mystery to me even now how you can survive there. You each have a metal vehicle on wheels and you brag about them, as if they are of any real worth. Then, you fill the streets with them and use loud, sudden screams of these vehicles to announce others you have one. It is plain to see you are not going to advance any faster if you use that deafening signal, but you do anyway.
I followed a few of you during the day. I saw how you stress yourselves in little chambers inside those tall monsters of glass and metal. Technology that seemed to work only with paper and non-existent paper was your main tool. It was also the cause of your unnecessary stress. Technology that was supposed to ensure communication in lack of telepathy was used so you could yell at each other. A few tried to bring nature inside with little plants in pots, but you never looked at them. If you looked towards your plants, you certainly needed something placed near – pens, papers, the clock, the moving metal box taking you from one level to the other of the same building…
In my world, hierarchy is given by power. I would rather avoid another if I knew I had no chances of winning and finishing a possible fight. With you, it took me a few days to understand that the possession of differently written papers the size of your palm made a difference. I stole some of your coins and looked at them carefully. Even those that looked golden or silvery were not precious in any way. It seemed the number on these cheap coins gave them value – I still can't imagine how you came up with this ridiculous idea. In my later days, I began attending classes. I wanted to see what happened in your so-called educational system. Why on earth did you change real golden coins with these pieces of trash with numbers on them, I will probably never understand.
Around midday, I saw most of you took a break to eat. I was curious of your food, so after watching you for a while, I stole something for myself. I wanted to try. I unwrapped the paper from it, but I could barely tell what that yellowish-brown fluffy thing was. It didn't smell like bread, it didn't look like bread, yet you called it bread. There was a white sauce that didn't look very appealing either, along with slices of vegetables so thin I could see through them. A single leaf of some local greenery… and what you called meat. I tore it in half. Once again, it didn't smell like meat and it barely resembled cooked chicken. I decided to give it a try, since hundreds of you were buying and eating that. It wasn't necessarily disgusting, but I could not tell apart the ingredients in it, so I decided it would be best to throw it away. My guess was confirmed when ants passed it by. It could not be real food and your insects knew that.
In the same bag I found what you called 'fries'. My question would be what was that fried thing? On the box, there were pictures of potatoes, but what I found didn't smell like potatoes at all. It resembled what you claimed it was, so again I decided to try it. In restaurants, I saw many of you taking a larger pack and sharing – it seemed cheaper than buying two small packages. It was strangely mushy inside and very salty on the outside. How do you even eat this thing?! Needless to say, it ended in the trash.
Actually, the only thing that looked like what it claimed to be was a salad, but when I saw you pouring sauces on it… I decided I'd pass. You can eat your trash, I'd rather starve. It was disgusting to see you devouring that kind of 'food' with so much enthusiasm. I wonder how many of you know the taste and smell of real food. Besides, your 'lunch' had left me so thirsty, I went searching for something to drink. The safest option seemed plain water, but how many types of water do you need to drink? There were at least six different types offered for sale. And you actually took the time to choose… What was there to choose? From experience, you had two really different types of water – normal, plain water and water with little bubbles of air inside.
I also saw some of you with brightly colored bags with little dry things inside. You claimed it was also food, but I think I'll pass. Your children were the main costumers in this case, so I'll simply blame the lack of brain development instead. Let me note that your bubbly drinks were too sugary even for me. Besides, such drinks did nothing to alleviate thirst – they only made it worse.
In the following days, I saw the same routine. After your lunch break, you were back at stressing yourselves over insignificant papers with faces and numbers. Your children had to repeat like monkeys, set phrases, texts and words. They were trained like machinery. That was not training of the mind, but of stupidity. Any spark of intelligence or independent thinking was interpreted as rebellious behavior, punished and given as a bad example to others. Pathetic. It was what shocked me most and quite possibly the cause of your artificial state. You are all the same, there are very few differences between you and only if we take two from far away categories. Trying to open the mind of young adults after they had been taught to follow orders since the alphabet was almost a laughable attempt. No wonder your youths can't elaborate a ten-pages paper without copying it from other sources, phrase by phrase. Those are not works of their own, but collages from the works of others before them. There is nothing new and authentic, no idea of their own that could save you from yourselves.
Yet, they stress out about it as if their life depended on that. They stress out as if the work is truly their own and it being rejected could affect them in any way. You stress about it too, but mostly in the younger years of your offspring. You are the ones teaching your children it is important that they are accepted by your synthetic system, when in fact it is only you who needs to accept them. You make yourselves weak and powerless in front of a small group of men. It's disgusting.
You see the problems of the world, but instead of doing something, you just complain. And you complain, and complain, until there is no more time to change anything. Then, you look for a victim, one person responsible of it all – you don't even consider yourself to blame. You despise your economy and the effects your industry has on nature. You are aware you are destroying your world, but you would rather import bags of air from the other side of the world than do anything about it.
You know your forests are so scarce, yet you do nothing about it. You plant a few trees and take pictures to brag about it, while you cut down a few acres only a few meters away. That's not going to solve anything.
Three weeks passed by this way. I saw your pathetic selves belittling yourselves, destroying yourselves, valuing invaluable things and distracting yourselves with daily stress. I watched you poisoning yourselves, repressing any spark of free thinking and giving up on good ideas before you even thought about how they could be put into practice. You are a disgrace. Not the few men you chose to rule over you, but all of you! The everyday man, the common lower class human, the monkey trained to fit into this artificial system of enslavement. You do not deserve this colorful paradise… And I shall take care of that!
During my stay, I had met two others. One was a small criminal that somehow avoided Koenma's fools for a few years, while the other was a legendary thief. The latter was to be our leader during the critical phase of my plan. Besides, he was going to be a very important ally in the near future. The other one had brute force and could serve as a weapon or distraction, should it be necessary. At dawn, I called both to meet in a clearing in the forest. The world was going to return to its natural state soon!
Author's Notes:
Writing challenge by Blob80, proofread by the beta eha1234. Let me know what you think or if you want any other one-shots from Hiei's perspective or from some other character's.