24 hours later

"Since last night's shocking and unprecedented incident, the public have been struck by a heated wave of outrage, especially at the measures their ever trusted police officers took to stop a young girl from 'merely speaking her mind' as per stated by one of the youth we interviewed a few moments ago, we'll be right back with further coverage in an hour, stay tuned."

48 hours later

"More people are gathering at the main square and the surrounding streets demanding an explanation for the horrid murder of the Wheatlander, Asli Yildrem, who was shot on the top of Pallid's Glory Tower leading to her plummeting down over 50 storeys to her unfortunate death. With the government choosing silence and the public's voice loud and clear, we're afraid the chaos might get out of control sooner than expected."

11 days later

Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.
Acceptance.

The five stages of grief as proposed by the American-Swiss psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kübler - Ross, in her book On Death And Dying first released in 1969, about a couple of centuries ago. It was accepted for as long as ever, despite critics stating that it was how grief manifested itself for some and yet not for others.

Sarah had always thought it a privilege, this ordered approach to accepting the loss of a loved one, the certainty it provided as to what comes next, a privilege indeed, and one she'd never had. Grief represented itself in a far more vicious way, not as a set of feelings, and not as a being, not as an old friend either, or a knife she could grasp and bleed, but rather a haze, a mist as heavy as lead, a blinding fog, choking air that keeps growing into monstrous wind, crashing everything standing in its way.

She'd be in the midst of it all, standing there and yet not quite in the scene, still and moving, overwhelmed and calm, observing and tumbling down within herself with nothing to hold on to, to stop the fall. Falling without flicking an eyelash, odd, isn't it? Odd is the word, the only way to almost define it, this crowded hollowness in her chest.

It's been more than a decade since her mother died, and despite how one would think she'd have made her peace with such vigorous loss after all that time, she never emerged out of that haze, and the fog never lifted.

And with Asli's loss, it intensified, her emotions, ever so intricate she'd failed to identify them, burst into flames all around her, enclosing her in a circle of smoke and ash, and only then did she realise that the fog doesn't lift after all, it blackens out into smoke, smoke that she's been imprisoned in for two weeks.

Two weeks with her mind in a cell filthier than the one she lay on its floor.

Two weeks of what the rebels called a state of shock and gave her the time to absorb it all.

Two weeks of hearing news.

Two weeks of not saying a word.

Two weeks of anger.

Two weeks.

But today was the day they'd all been waiting for since Ali's death, as they all sat in their spots in that shared cold cell, the plan ran through their minds like a train with an indefinite route. Sarah was still holding the ceiling with her blank stare when Richard showed up on the other side of the bars. She sat up straight at once as did the rest, and to their alarmed movement, he quickly raised a finger to his lips. They froze in their place, wary of making further noise.

The silence was lethal, the air was tense, they watched the lock turning, cringing from that faint squeak echoing in the empty halls, their heartbeats accelerated, until at last he was in.
An audible exhale sounded, and they all quietly rose up and crossed the distance to where he stood.

"Is it time?" Kris whispered.

He nodded, "3 past midnight, the night shift guards have left. We got 20 minutes before the morning shifters take place; we should get going now. The main gate is open, you know what you have to do."

It was Kris's turn to nod.

"Good," he said, "Go on then, I'll keep watch."

"What do you mean you'll keep watch?" Vienna hissed at him.

"Vienna, please, we went over this b-,"

"No!" she cut him off, "you're not staying here, you're coming with us, and that's the end of it."

"Someone has to stay and make sure you make it out safe and sound, that is the end of it, now come on, time's running out."

Sarah turned to her and let her eyes do the talking. Vienna, having received the communicated understanding her friend gave her, was about to agree to her brother's choice yet stopped midway.

"What is it?" Kris urged.

"If he stays to keep watch, he'll still be here when we're gone." Her chest visibly rose and fell as her heartbeats accelerated, "The cell will be empty on his watch, he'll be held responsible, they'll hang him!"

She was panicking now, and Richard was by her side before the girls or any of the boys could move a muscle.

Cupping her face in his hands, he looked her in the eye and held the stare. "Listen to me, Ven, listen to me. This plan, this escape, or whatever it is, is your freedom and I'm damn ready to sacrifice anything for the sake of it, you hear me?"

Silence.

"You hear me?" he repeated, his tone soft and gentle.

Her face scrunched up and her tears quietly ran over it, yet she managed to nod.

"Good," he said, embracing her in a tight hug, "good."

Sarah couldn't help envying them, for if god forbid something does happen to him, at least she had the chance to say goodbye, to hold him tight and remember his scent, nevertheless she shrugged off the thought and with Kris's gesture, she followed her out, Vienna and the rest of the rebels on her trail.

The plan was simple; seize the 15-20 minutes of guard absence, leave through the main gate that Richard would lock on their backs, and find refuge in the woods until they join the protestors in the main square, but no matter how easy it sounded at the time they lay it out, there was no denying the indefinite number of things that could go wrong. As a first, they might not make it out soon enough, and get thrown back into prison with Richard as their new cell mate.

Sarah tried to shake those negative thoughts off as her quiet yet quick steps covered the distance hallway after hallway, Kris only a couple of steps ahead.

"Hey," she whispered to her.

"Yes?" Kris whispered back without turning around or slowing a bit.

"How close are we?"

"Quite."

"And how much time do we have?"

"10 minutes maximum."

Silence hovered over them once again, the faint sound of their feet the only vibration in the 45,000 square metres of the building.

Until a sudden click rang from behind.

They froze, their breath caught.

A gun was cocked.

"Don't." A foreign voice warned, "Don't move, or I'll shoot your heads off."

She swallowed the lump in her throat.

Oh God Oh God Oh God

"Now, Richard, would you care to elaborate this fun activity you're engaging in with filthy outlaws?"

"I was just showing them to their new cell, Sir."

A pause.

"New cell, you say?"

"Yes, Sir." Came Richard's affirmation.

Another pause, more seconds of silent panic.

A thud sounded, then a grunt.

"Do you think I'm a bloody idiot!" the voice yelled, rendering her body tense.

"I- no, Sir, I didn-" Richard struggled to get the words out, the man must be choking him, she thought.

"THEN WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" he fumed once again.

"Sir, pl-ease, if you mi-ght-" an exhale at last, "Thank you, Sir, please let me explain."

"Proceed."

"RUN!" Richard screamed out to them and the edged silence burst into chaos at once. Despite their surprise at his uncalculated order, they wasted no time on running as fast as their weak muscles could hold it.

Gunshots rang out behind them in deafening roars yet they held on, ran on, their hearts slamming against their cages, until that roar was interrupted by an agonizing scream that stopped them in their tracks two feet away from the gate, their freedom.

Vienna.

Sarah spun around and paled out in an instant.
She was on her knees shaking uncontrollably, jittering and murmuring incoherent phrases in between the mad loud sobs. But that was not what had caused her blood to run cold, it was the body Vienna hovered over, blood pooling out of his head like a broken faucet.

What happened next took only a couple of minutes, perhaps seconds - Cory and Charlie pulling Vienna up despite her protests and running, Kris pulling her out the gate by the wrist, the officer's pounding feet behind them, the cold slap of fresh air, the gate being pushed shut by the boys followed by the guttering scream of their enemy as his arm got caught in between - yet it had felt like a lifetime of its own.

_______________________________________

"DOWN WITH APARTHEID!
DOWN WITH APARTHEID!
DOWN WITH APARTHEID!"

The chants grew louder and louder by the minute as did the number of protestors in the main square, from about 50 earlier that morning to more than 600 hundred in less than twelve hours. News reporters were everywhere, spreading panic as much as news, with all of their persistent requests to call off the protests at once and bring back the initial national peace in Pallid, but despite their attempts to manipulate the minds of their supporters, the size of the crowd kept multiplying.

Veronica was on Jack's shoulders leading the chants, fuelling them with all the anger in her being, the resentment, the sorrow, she packed her emotions into a bullet, "SHOOT US IF YOU LIKE, OUR VOICES WILL STILL STRIKE," and fired it into the air.