The Omniscrolls

It’s heartbreaking to see how news covering genocide and tyranny is drowned in the background while lies are brought to the forefront. Even uttering the word gets you shut down, locked behind unseen walls. Justice is always silenced by the powerful and the cruel. Even before our current invaders arrived, my homeland was ravaged at the hands of a former global superpower that started with one of their own neighbours, starving them and driving them apart until they became two nations. ‘Divide and Conquer’ has always been key to many conquests of the colonisers of this world. Once they had colonized the lands of the neighbours who were of similar race and religion, they set out to suffocate people of other races and religions under their feet, forcing their own ideals and laws upon them while robbing them of their cultures and identities. And so, generations of multiple nations were brainwashed into believing they were lesser than their enslavers—a misconception that was hidden behind the...

Can you imagine losing everyone you love in just a split second? One moment, you’re enjoying dinner with your family, you and your mom laughing at your dad sighing at another one of your brother’s bad jokes, and the next, fire rains from the skies, reducing everything around you to ash. You escape, gasping and crawling—barely clinging to what’s left of your life as your vision fades to black under a coat of blood. When you wake up, it’s not at a hospital, but at the ruins of a school that people have no other choice but to use at the time, all while still fearing that same merciless fire that seeks to erase us. You know full well it’s only a matter of time. You then learn from the mother of your now-deceased classmate that you’re the sole survivor of your household, a place that you may never see again. It hurts. The pain is more excruciating than the fractured stump that was once an arm, more than the swirling burns that were once a face. The shred of vision you have left leaves you s...

When does the cycle of colonisation end? My people have experienced it for over a century, with one party handing over the torch to another to burn our homes to the ground. The hypocrisy of the second party far overshadowed that of even their predecessor, for it was their people who came to us seeking refuge in times of war and persecution—when an international alliance sought to reign over other nations, deeming them as inferior races. However, what was even worse than the refugees’ hypocrisy was their treachery, not just towards us, but to many of their own people. A great number of them cooperated with the previous colonisers while they were living among us as equals, seeking to form a nation of their own by driving us out. As a result, they sent many of their own people to that supremacist alliance as nothing but lambs to the slaughter. Those blood sacrifices became the cornerstones upon which they began to build their empire, and soon, it would be them who would remove the masks t...

A great many call it “war”, but those with a clear lens know exactly what it is—genocide. Ever since the current invaders took over the lands stolen from us by their predecessors, we have faced endless firestorms that have claimed countless lives. The descending barrages took everything from us: our families, friends, homes, schools, fields… Each attack reduced our livelihoods to ash and displaced us further and further away from our homes, ensuring that we could never return. That is how the invaders secured more of our lands, with methods so indiscriminate and cruel. Decades into the slow evisceration of our people, the invaders, emboldened by the support of the “great” powers of the world, now seek to finish what they’ve started: they aim to wipe out the few of us who are left starving and homeless. Many of them have begun to claim the ruins of the towns and cities we once called home, renaming them as they see fit to make settlements for themselves. I wonder if they have any feelin...

The genocide began long before I was born, and hiding here in the ruins of my hometown, I’m left wondering whether it will ever end. The invaders that have been gradually eliminating us for decades have now expedited their goals to take away everything from us; in the past three months alone, I’ve lost more than I could count. My family, my friends, my neighbours… Many of them were lost within the billowing black smoke that stained the skies, or under the shattered ruins of our homes that surrounded the few of us that barely survived. It is difficult to believe that the very people whom my homeland welcomed decades ago are the same ones seeking to erase our identity and culture when they, too, faced the same threat all those years ago at the hands of an equally terrifying force. If there was one thing history was drenched in more than blood, it was irony. The harsh reality of some victims turning into terrorists themselves is a frightening phenomenon—one that I will never comprehend. Y...

Once upon a time, in a kingdom in the sky, lived a king, a queen, and a little princess called Anastasia. The princess would look down at the earth and wonder if there were kids like her there. Meanwhile, a lonely little prince would look up at the sky and ask the same question. One day, while the princess was playing in the clouds, she noticed the prince looking up and waved at him. However, the prince didn’t wave back; he just continued to stare at the sky. The confused princess went to her mother and said, “Mama, that prince down there is rude. He didn’t even wave back!” The queen smiled and cradled Anastasia in her arms. “No, honey, he just doesn’t see you.” “But he looked right at me.” “I assure you, he can’t see us even though we can see him. Our kingdom is enchanted.” “Can I go down sometime to play?” Anastasia asked. “Maybe when you’re a little older, honey.” The queen smiled and hugged the princess. Anastasia, however, was impatient. That night, while in bed, she wished to be ...

Once upon a time, there lived a king, a queen, and their beautiful baby boy, Prince Heath. They were very happy until, one day, the queen died of pneumonia. The saddened king soon took his grief out on the people around him. He imprisoned the royal physician for not being able to save the queen and was ruthless to his guards and servants. Anyone who made the slightest mistake was punished. The little prince, like most children, imitated his father, and a servant boy called John, who was his friend, bore the brunt of it. Prince Heath would make fun of the way the boy dressed, calling him a beggar while beating him. The king’s magician noticed this and decided to take action. “I can’t do anything about the king himself, but perhaps I could make the prince a better person,” he thought. And so, the magician switched the two boys’ bodies. Not knowing what had happened, the prince continued to bully John. The king, who was passing by at the time, slapped the boy who he thought was the servan...