TA Chapter 4 Speech
Bantu Continent, Dugavu State, Mazi city, Dugavu Memorial Plaza
13th Blue, 2043. 10:44AM.
Luthor Dugavu(POV)
A dull pain shot into my mind from my fingers. I was gripping the sides of the podium a little too hard I suppose. My heart was racing, and I was certain that sweat was being squeezed out of my pores in overdrive.
The reason for the butterflies fluttering in my stomach was simply because a crowd of people was before me, squeezed together in this morning sun, with their murmurs rippling through the air. Children, mothers, fathers... Basically every kind of human was allayed before me, their eyes fixed upon me, their ears primed to take in my words.
This wasn't the first time I had stood before a group of people and delivered a speech. But what made this different was the fact that these people weren't the same as the soldiers I had addressed before. Soldiers were a disciplined quiet group. This, was a mob with different expressions, thoughts, and most of all rowdy. The children were either shouting, or jumping around with inexhaustible energy. The adults were either patiently calming them down or gazing at me with glittering eyes as if I was a god descended upon the Planet.
The circular plaza was basically fully packed with such kinds of people, all the way to the semicircular building held up by white stone pillars in the distance.
Behind me, where my gaze couldn't reach unless I turned my head, were the other leaders of the Five States, seated comfortably, waiting for me to start my speech. Honestly, the pressure was immense. I was starting to regret having refused to have someone prepare a piece of paper with written words for my speech. I had been confident that the words would come to me. How naive I had been!
I cleared my throat, with the microphone transmitting my voice not just to the speakers in the plaza, but all the way to the station where the waves carried my voice to the radios in the homes that had tuned into this particular channel in the five states.
"Five years... Five whole years have passed since we have had to send our people onto the front lines to face the beasts. Even now, I still wonder whether I should slap myself awake..." that earned a few chuckles. But I could see them, the people whose eyes understood what I was speaking of.
"...but this is not a dream. We have finally managed to get rid of all the beasts on land. We used to be slaves, to be snacks that could be devoured at the whims of the most intelligent of beast kind, yet here we are! We have managed to topple them from their thrones and eradicated them from our lands! I believe that deserves a round of applause!"
The moment I paused, an avalanche of sound, composed of cheers and clapping slammed into me, igniting something inside. As I waited for the crowd to settle, I made certain to focus on some of the faces, taking in the smiles of joy plastered across their features.
A mother held her little girl to her chest, her eyes alight with hope as she gazed at me from below. Her daughter on the other hand was curiously gazing at their neighbor, her gaze entranced. A bearded man, one of his sleeves empty, a bottle of what I was certain to be alcohol hugged close to his breast, as a faint smile lit up his scarred features. Another man, tall and lanky, clad in a brown clearly tailored suit, was wrinkling his brows, yet his eyes too, were blazing with the light of hope. The three of them, were an example of the emotions stirred within the rest of the crowd at my words.
Was I a passionate speaker? No! I was most certainly not. But these people had all been there. They could picture those difficult times of yesteryear when the continent had been in turmoil. When even this city, Mazi, had been continuously at siege. Fear had been prevalent then. Every single day that it had survived had been a miracle all of its own!
I inhaled deeply, filling up my lungs before exhaling and once again gazing at the people. The past was behind us. The future lay before...
"Outside these walls, there is plenty of land. Land that is suitable for farming. Land that is suitable for raising a family. What we now need is to reclaim most of the land, and raise our population..."
The mother's hug tightened around her daughter. The veteran's bottle abruptly left his lips, and the man in the tailored suit had his brows furrow. A sigh almost left my lips but I swallowed it back.
Programs had been started to encourage the general population to settle beyond the cities, the capitals of the five States, yet fear and worry held them back. No matter how much we yapped about the safety outside, the people were still more inclined to stick within. A few had taken the offers, but we needed more. Large tracts of land still stood bare, untouched because we lacked the manpower.
"We have managed to discover a new permutation, a different expression of dark energy apart from the known few types like flame and light. We have dubbed it the Growth energy. It can speed up the maturation of any plant from a seed all the way to harvest in a matter of a few weeks." I revealed in order to change the topic. And it worked like a charm. The tense expressions of the crowd gave way to widened eyes, slack jaws, and murmurs that turned into full-blown noise pollution.
"Some of you may have come upon the rice field outside the city, the one whose space was entirely occupied by a green colored energy. That is a test field, one of many. And we don't plan to stop there. We plan to produce enough food to feed the entire five States with plenty to spare. But I ask you, people, when your stomach no longer has to worry about being filled, what will you be doing? I want all of you to be able to study, to work and to invent, all in a bid to better our continent. So far, we have only scratched the surface of what dark energy can achieve! I want more people to be working on this, to advance humanity to the point that we will no longer fear even the behemoths deep within the oceans!"
I stopped here, my throat perched. I felt a heat rise to my cheeks as the fervor wore off. I had just made an impassioned speech! Wow! The words had simply rolled off the tongue!
Since my mind had finally came back to reality, I could feel the wetness on my back. The shirt was most definitely drenched! An unnatural heat was coursing through my body, making the already tight shirt feel as if it was plastered upon my skin. A bottle of water was placed before me and I mumbled a thanks before opening the cap, tilting it above my mouth, and drinking the water. It was embarrassing doing this infront of such a large audience, but the coolness healing my throat was too welcome for me to stop.
After screwing the cap back on, I coughed before directing my eyes back towards the people.
"In these coming years, my fellow leaders and I are going to be focusing on advancing both the public and private sectors. For example, we are going to be shifting from mundane resources to Dark energy." I paused here to adjust my posture. I was starting to feel as if my legs were losing energy.
"Previously, it has been used by the military, but now we will be shifting our focus to you, the general public."
Someone scratched their cheek, clearly failing to understand what I was conveying.
'Maybe I should give them an example.'
"Imagine using flame energy for cooking instead of fuel, light energy as replacement for electricity. When you inhale deeply, what do you feel? Carbondioxide! It is circulating the air around us, suffocating and poisoning us. Dark energy is the answer to all these problems..."
"I am not the best spokesperson as you might have surmised in this brief speech of mine, but I have a dream, a dream to make the human race better than it was before. Maybe one day in the future, our descendants might capture Kisol. But the steps to that future started with our forefathers, and we must also do our part."
And with those words, I ended my speech, turned from the cheers and applause, and headed to my own seat. How I wish I could leave this place entirely! My cheeks were flaming, the tight shirt was pasting itself into my skin, and my legs were weak in the knees.
Was I on the verge of a panic attack? Or could it be that I was about to faint? I didn't know. All I knew was the fact that I was overwhelmed.
I passed by Ravena, the next person to address the crowd, and plopped down onto my seat, relief flooding me mere moments later.