Satire: Meeting of the Zilatran HiCom

Ah, Zilatran government meetings. Those dazzling spectacles of chaos where everything from internal politics to the existential crisis of a 101% bread tax raise is dissected daily. A circus of power plays, paperwork, and pettiness, all under the banner of democracy, or at least, its drunken cousin.

In the shadows sat ZSD Agent Sneky Maritas, a man so loyal to money that he'd probably sell his own mother for a slightly higher bribe. Friend to no one, Sneky lounged casually, eavesdropping on the juiciest scandals of the day while pretending to guard the room. His ears perked up just as Leaf, the current GenSec, stormed in like a caffeinated thunderstorm.

"Shall we begin?!" Leaf bellowed, slamming a stack of documents down, each one a bureaucrat's fever dream onto the Speaker's stand. The room groaned in unison at the bureaucratic nightmare those documents were, except fro Krakhov, who sat stoically, lost in thought, staring through the stained-glass window. His black gas mask hissed softly as a puff of white vapour escaped the speech module. "Yes," he signed longingly, as if agreeing to his own fate.

"And now, for item 1.1 on today's agenda," Leaf declared, ignoring the chaos already brewing in the back. There, Premier Poggeroo was busy lamenting her region's descent into what show called "the iron fist of democracy," which in truth was being wielded by starving bakers protesting the astronomical tax on bread crumbs.

"That is completely unreasonable!" screamed Cherilyn, who had no official purpose other than being the government's unofficial mascot. As the debate spiralled into an argument over whether to raise taxes from 100% to 110% while somehow lowering market prices, Cherilyn yelled, "SEVENTY DOLLARS FOR A STACK OF XP?! WE'RE GOING BANKRUPT!" Her shrill voice was nearly drowned out by the mechanical grind of bureaucracy and the existential groans of a room full of cynics. Meanwhile, Krakhov rolled his glowing red eyes and continued fantasising about the sweet, unattainable bliss of touching grass outside.

"Inkamn, what's your take?" Noteworthy asked as he stumbled into the room, his eye bags practically sweeping the floor. He looked like a caffeine-fuelled corpse, one whose soul had been slowly siphoned away by years of bureaucratic abuse.

Inkman, sitting next to me, didn't respond. He was too busy loudly snorting only the darkest and most potent ink, slowly trying to get his fix as a piddle of ink dripping from his nose and staining the floor. Hi attention was only taken over when Emerald, the unhinged government scientist, fired up a death laser mid-meeting from another room. The beam blasted clean through the wall and nearly decapitated Leaf, whose head now resembled a geopolitical fault line of east and west divide.

As the meeting staggered to its inevitable non-conclusion, Leaf leaned back in his leather chair, scratching his now almost bald head while regaling the room with tales of his "perfect" wife, a claim that would've been charming if anyone gave a single fuck.

Meanwhile, Zaaki began orchestrating a government coup with his fanatically loyal ZSD agents, and I quietly slipped out, pocketing $200k from the national reserve and leaving the government buildings as nothing more than gaping holes in the ground. Efficiency of an undiagnosed kleptomaniac at its finest.

Krakhov, still tuned out of everything, decided to make his move. With deliberate grace, he opened the window. The fresh air, or at least unpolluted air, was fresher than anything in the room; free of cigarette smoke and Inkman's toxic ink addiction. He inhaled deeply, savouring a moment of clarity as the air filled with the cancer-growing smog of the local weapons factory. "I've missed this," he murmured, before launching himself out the window in a flawless backflip, landing in the lush, green fields below.

"Oh, my Xeroise!" Leaf screamed as the room rushed to the window, staring in disbelief. Krakhov laid on the grass, exploding into an otherworldly light. he had ascended, transcending humanity itself and becoming something more than mortal, yet slightly less than divine.

"That in the actual hell is happening?!" Noteworthy yelled, his voice cracking under the weight of sheer absurdity.

Meanwhile, Poggeroo munched on a load of bread she'd "liberated" from her newly democratised town. "Damn, this bread is pretty good, guys we need to re-think this tax" she said, crumbs falling onto her lap.

"HEY, WAIT A MINUTE! WE'RE COMMUNISTS! SHARING IS CARING, YOU SELFISH WITCH!" Cherylin screamed, brandishing a frying pan. She smacked Krakhov on the back of his glowing head, instantly reverting him back to his mortal form and destroying any bright ideas he could have gotten with his omnipresence. His divine power dispersed across Zilatra's population, leaving every citizen with one universal truth: touching grass is basically better than sex.

And thus ended another unproductive meeting in Zilatra, a bureaucratic hells cape where nothing gets done, and yet somehow, everything changes.