30

August, 2178,
13 years after

Massacre after massacre, the chants faded, the blood dried on the streets, prisons became home for thousands every year. Yet despite the fear contaminating the air itself, the pavements spoke of the feet that once marched on it, the streets embraced the echoes of the calls for justice and spit on the bullets shot to silence them. Pallid’s main square remembered Kris's revenge, her pain when her old friend shot a protestor next to her, Mike’s challenging grin that dissipated the moment she advanced on him with the aluminium bat in her hand, hitting him several times on the back of his head, her rage taking the best of her.

The ground beneath her feet watched her look down over his cold body, sobbing, her shoulders shaking; her good heart couldn’t comprehend the murder she committed despite him being a murderer himself, a traitor who'd used her and betrayed her trust, it didn’t help when the crowd cheered and called her a hero either.

She’d killed Colonel Arthcroft’s son. Colonel Arthcroft, the head of The Separate States Of Apartheid, the dictator who spilt blood easier than his morning tea, the descendant of generation after generation of tyrants, the reason why she lost her parents, why Sarah lost her best friend and the father she'd reunited with after years of being apart, why Vaniza’s brother died helping them escape the prison they found their way back to a couple of years after and hadn’t left it ever since.

Except for Jack whose father’s influence kept him out of jail but in strict confinement of his old room in the house he’d run away from that one night he found out all about his father’s dirty secrets, a cell of a sort, fancier, but just as heavily guarded. He hadn’t seen Veronica or the rebels in eleven years and counting, nor had his feet touched the streets ever since.

He ached to see them, to check up on them; it killed him inside, how they’d spent the last decade on the cold concrete of their cells. Every year, every month and week, for the entirety of the regular visits his father paid him, he'd begged him to let them out or let him visit them at least, but it was all in vain, his father had always shaken his head and left him all alone for his own guilt to rip him off into shreds.

One way or another, the loneliness had convinced Jack he was responsible for the doom that had come over them, that he could’ve avoided it. He'd known what was at stake, yet encouraged them on with a helping hand. But now, even with his father being the second in command to Colonel Arthcroft himself, his hands were still tied. People were dying and so was the revolution, it made him wonder what a king would do with a land empty and bloodstained? A question he raised out loud to his father who had entered his room a moment ago, right on time for his Sunday evening visit.

A moment of silence passed between them, unusual enough for Jack to look away from the window and face his father; the old man had always had a solid aura around him but somehow, that day, he seemed a bit shaken, too frail, weighed down by a burden he couldn’t see.

"Listen, son,” he said, his tone that of defeat.

Son

He hadn’t heard it in so long he’d forgotten how it sounded.

"I’m not here to listen to your rants or your pleas in favour of your friends for two hours and then leave, I’ve been doing that for the past decade.”
Jack was perplexed, his father’s behaviour struck him as odd.

"Then what are you doing here if you won’t even listen?”

He folded his hands, turning his gaze to his own knuckles as he spoke again, “I’m here because I’ve made a decision and you deserve to know it, I owe you that much,” -a pause- “I’m arranging a coup, against this government. It's all set, the army has already sided with me, awaiting nothing but my final word.”

It hit him so hard he froze in his seat; it was so alien to his ears, so foreign. Had he heard it right or could it be a hallucination?
“Well?” his father urged.

Jack wanted to say something to him, a bulk load of things he wanted to yell out and scream, to let out all the cries of rage he’d suppressed all those years of loneliness and sharp piercing quiet, but he also wanted to sob into his father’s shirt until it was soaking wet.

However, one tends to lose words when there’s nothing to say or too much of it, the latter served our boy right in that moment, it paralysed him so much so he forgot to breathe.

The old man stood up and turned to leave, losing any hope he had in this conversation until Jack managed to take one word out.

“Why?”

A Question, simple as any, yet not quite.

His father stopped in his tracks, his hands still on the doorknob.

“I’m afraid we’re killing off the population to the point of extinction. The colonel is my friend, yes, but he’s gone too far this time; you said it yourself, what would a king do with an empty land?” the question hung in the air until he added, “that’s not the future I want for you, son, it never was.”

Monday, 7:53 AM

Lieutenant colonel Erwin Hill walked down the hallway with a heavy heart waiting to be lighter, his drooping shoulders hoping to be unburdened; but despite the weight, an odd feeling of relief flooded him, for a moment before he turned his back the last evening, he'd glimpsed the look on his son’s face, an expression he hadn’t seen in over 10 years; he was smiling.

He'd been thinking his decision over and over in his head for the past few months, drowning in a sea of uncertainty even as he gave orders, even as he spilt it out to his son, yet it was that split second of Jack's instinctive smile that cut off the infinite thread of his doubt.

It was the right thing to do, he was sure of it the moment he left that room and even more so as he nodded to the guard stationed at the Colonel's door, who, after notifying the Colonel of his arrival, came back out to tell him he was waiting for him.

“Sir,” he said once he entered, bowing slightly.

“Lieutenant Hill, please do sit down,” the Colonel instructed.

“I'd rather say it standing, Sir.”

His response caused a minute ripple of change in the colonel's expression.

“And what is it that you have to say, Hill?” he pushed, folding his hands on the desk.

“With all due respect, I’m here to tell you your reign is over-"

The Colonel rose up at once, slamming his fist as he cut him off, “Silence! How dare-"

“I will no longer be silenced, Arthcroft, you hold no power now, not over the army and not over the separate states. It’s an area of no discussion-"

“You audacious spiteful-"

“The army is on my side, the people are on my side, a man no matter how powerful cannot stand alone against the world, now can you, Arthcroft?” the colonel’s face went pale and his mouth trembled, but the Lieutenant proceeded nevertheless, “I would’ve chosen not to inform you beforehand and watch you get dragged down this headquarters in iron chains,”

He scoffed, “But what? you’re much too kind you decided to let me be mentally prepared for my own execution? You think I’m that pitiful?” he spat.

“No, I think you’re my friend, and I wouldn’t want you to be executed in the first place.” He paused to let it register in his head before adding, “24 hours, you either disappear into a rabbit hole or I’m dragging you into a public execution at the square myself.”

“24 hours?”

“It’s all you’ve got,” he said, “see you never, or so I hope.”

Tuesday, 9:15 AM

The distant echoes bounced off every surface in Apartheid’s HQ and main prison, fading into a weak vibration emanating from the cold concrete floor of the confined tiny cell congested with the rebels and about five more revolutionaries. Nobody seemed to know where it was coming from or what it indicated and nobody cared, not in this summer heat that heightened the smell of sweat, and blood from unattended wounds; Sarah found herself delirious from the heat and lack of even the decent space to lie down, it only made her insomnia get worse. Kris wasn’t doing better either, but she stuck by her side, standing up to allow her more space to sit and vice versa.
Veronica’s spot was at the opposite corner with the revolutionaries she got arrested with, where Vaniza, Cory, and Charlie were sandwiched between them. They’d been living like this for the past year, and the year before that, and the decade that preceded it, only getting out every morning to the restrooms, it was a miracle they hadn’t lost their minds yet; Sarah was beginning to think she’d already lost hers.

She was staring off into the distance when they heard the all too familiar sound of military boots on hard concrete, which was strange since they’d just come back from the restroom about an hour ago, but the keys still rattled and the expected click followed.

With their attention piqued, the air went still in anticipation of what came next. The guard stood between them and the long sunlit hallway wearing an expression Sarah thought she’d have to have lost her mind to see. Is that defeat? ...shock?, she thought, but his body language proved it all nevertheless.

The moment lasted less than a couple of seconds, even though Sarah would later swear it felt like time had stopped right there and then, but once he broke the silence, the rush of time was back on track.

"Out, each of you.” He ordered, moving aside to give them passage.

Yet they all stood still, uncertain. Out? Where?

The guard, growing impatient, broke off the tension once more, “We're releasing you, come on.”

Wide eyed, she met the identical shocked gaze of each and every one in that cramped tuna box they’d been trapped in. Kris seemed dissociate, nobody seemed to register what they heard.
Yet, slowly, one by one, they stepped out into the hallway, one by one, they carried their heavy shoulders and dragged their lead feet forward, following the guard’s steps. It seemed like a dream, it had to be a dream, perhaps her delirium progressing into a hallucination, maybe it’s the next day and they’re just heading to the restrooms and her mind had an awareness blackout. It had to be, because whatever her senses told her, this could never be real.

She kept convincing herself it couldn’t be true until the guard unlocked the exit gate, only then did it hit her all at once. The sun, the massive cheering crowd, their voices, the chant they kept repeating, but most of all, a couple of feet right before them stood an old friend grinning, his eyes glassy with tears.

Jack.

He came running at them, Veronica rushed to his embrace, a deep sob escaping her, and Sarah could’ve sworn she heard a bone crack from how tight they held each other. She looked at them with longing stabbing her chest, longing for the only person she’d wish she could hold that tight just one more time.

He let go of her to acknowledge the rest of their worn out group, but when he got to her, he held both of her hands and despite her instinctive flinch, he still held on and looked her in the eyes with the warmest of smiles.

"Look around you, Asli did this,” he said, and she did; the entire perimeter of the headquarters was filled to the brim with people so much so she couldn’t see beyond them, and in that moment she could decipher the chants for the first time, ‘We said down with the system, now the system is down’.
The system is down

It lingered in her head for a while, towering over her thoughts like a queen on her coronation day. She felt Kris's tight fist on her arm, saw the raw joy in her eyes, heard Vaniza cheer with the crowd along with Charlie, and Cory who released all his years worth of repressed energy in his voice; yet all of that dissolved into a massive racing blur of sounds and colours and light.

All these years she’d been sinking in her mind, with no safe place to settle, only then did her feet rest on solid ground, the stone was off her chest at last.

The war was over.