Brennen Im Feuer Ch 11

It’s been two months since my “death” in District 1 and the start of my new life in District 7. Commander X has been very kind and wants me to play a big part in this new future he has in store. However, my father is still in District 1 and I want to give him this life. I know there are others that are deserving of being here as well. As much as I feel like home, I can’t be truly happy here until everyone who should be here makes it. James is here and that helps but I feel as though I am not whole. I spoke to Commander X about my concerns and how I wanted to rescue my family and friends but he was very unreceptive. Commander X said that unless they prove worthy they can not make there way over. “My family and I have done things this way for hundreds of years and everything has worked out just fine. If our home is to stay this way, we keep the status quo and wait for them to prove themselves. No one person -not even you- can jeopardize what this place stands for. If you risk exposing the reality of our city then we will have to remedy the situation permanently,” he said as serious as he could. “We need you but we have zero interest in risking our happiness and way of life for your selfish gains.”

The conversation made me realize that I would have to go in this alone. I asked James for help but I couldn’t get too far.

“I’m not willing to risk everything for this. I don’t want to lose you but there has to be another way to figure this out.”

“There isn’t, James. I can’t let this happen to others when I know I can help them.”

“How will you help them? Commander X hasn’t told anyone here the way to the underground tunnel to the crematorium. It’s the only way back to District 1.”

“I will find a way. And when I do, I want you to join me.”

James looked skeptical and uninterested. “We will discuss that when you come up with a way. Until then, I can’t ally myself with you on this.”

Someday, somehow, I will find a way to get back to District 1 and save everyone I feel is worthy. Until then, I will work alongside Commander X and gain his trust. He will slip up and I will find the answers to secrets I need to know. And when that day comes, I will be ready.

                                                                   The End

Brennen Im Feuer Ch 10

As I woke up, I looked around and was blinded by what seemed to be the brightest of lights. After getting my bearings I found myself not, in fact, dead, but very much alive. I remembered getting shot in the stomach and looked down to a small scratch but nothing more. It didn’t even hurt. I looked up and saw a shadow coming towards me. I panicked but before I could do much more I saw that the shadow was James.

“James?!? You’re here?!? But, but you’re dead! I saw you die right in front of me!”

“No,” James said, “You only saw what they wanted you to see. You believed what they wanted you to believe.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand any of this.”

James explained, “Okay. I’ll start from the beginning. District 1 is actually a kind of test. They put you through so much so they can find the people with true strength, true determination to become a better person and a leader of society. The people that are content to waste their lives and lack the ambition to accomplish their goals are destined to stay in District 1 until they die. Morrigan, you passed the test and now you are no longer in District 1.

I was taken aback. James had blown my mind. I had to ask, “Where am I then?”

“We are in District 7.”

“What? This place is even worse! I’ve got to get out of here!”

“District 7 is nothing like what we’re told in District 1. It is actually the exact opposite. This is quite literally a utopian society. We all work for each other and live in harmony. The reason why this District has to be a secret is because only a select few deserve to be here. If you are strong enough to believe in yourself and what is right then you earn your place. Commander X and his government created lies so that undesirable people do not find their way in and risk everything we’ve strived for.”

After taking a second to process everything I said, “There are many others that deserve this life instead of the one they’re living! We have to bring them here!”

I then saw a figure in the doorway. “Wait before you go down that road.” Commander X had just walked into the room. While I had seen him before on the screens in District 1, he was not as I expected. He was wearing a dark uniform and carried himself with a cool confidence that seemed more awe-inspiring than malevolent. “Let me explain what we’re doing here.”

Commander X went on to explain everything. He told me that he uses the big screens in the library and the district hall plaza to keep up on the goings on in District 1, not to crack down on slight infractions, but to figure out the people that may excel in the utopia that is District 7.

“Commander, tell me how you saved James and me. I saw James killed before my eyes and taken to the crematorium and I was shot painfully in the stomach. Explain how this can be real.”

“First I’ll tell you about James and you. What Officer Azrael did was hit James with a paralyzing anesthetic that releases a blood-like compound. That’s why he appeared dead. He was merely paralyzed and unconscious. That is what happened to you as well. And it’s real because, I mean, you’re definitely not dead, right?”

I shook my head. I knew I wasn’t dead and this was too crazy to be a dream or anything. “Okay, Commander. I’ll give you that. But how did we get here? The forest between the two districts is completely unsafe, how have we not been killed inside there?”

He smiled and said, “Have you noticed how the crematorium is next to the forest that links our districts? Well, inside the crematorium there is an underground tunnel that leads to the district. Anybody who is sent to the crematorium is actually escorted through the tunnel, brought to this building and eventually sent off to start their new life. There is nothing that can cremate anything in that building, I couldn’t even make toast if I wanted.”

“This is all surreal, Commander. What made you think I was ready for this new life?”

“You have been on our Watch List for a long time. The only reason we didn’t want you sooner was our fear that you may want to expose the real machinations of our city. We were hopeful that we could sway you to see things our way.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know if I ever can.”

“Give us some time and hopefully you will. We sense a great potential in you. You are destined for greatness and I hope we can help you reach your destiny.”

I thought about it for a minute. This was a huge weight brought on my shoulders. Eventually I had to give in. “Okay, you have one chance but I am certain that I won’t be able to see things your way.”

“One chance is all I ask for,” he said smiling. “Take a walk with me and I can assuage any fears you may have. I feel we can come up with a solution that benefits both of us.”

 

Brennen Im Feuer Ch 9

I wandered around after the meeting, The Coalition now dead, not knowing what to do except that revenge needed to be taken. I wasn’t sure how that was going to happen but I knew I couldn’t go on living under this stifling regime. I couldn’t take on the police on my own, the numbers of the force was in the hundreds, and I wouldn’t stand a chance at getting even a sniff of revenge. And then it hit me. I realized that I needed to at least make it even, I had to kill Azrael. “An eye for eye”. Killing Azrael for killing James. At least this way I could send the message and keep fighting. The “what” was now clear but the “how” was what I needed to figure out.

While I was figuring that out, I knew I had to go home and say goodbye to my father. I knew that regardless of what happened, I’d probably never see him again. As much as it pained me to do so, there was no way I could put him in that danger. Besides, the two possibilities that were the most likely would be either me dying or me being successful and ending up on the run. I decided to walk home through the back streets and avoid the police or any other people who could give me up to the Commander.

 

******************************

“It’s time.”

“She’s not ready, she’ll risk everything you’ve worked so hard for.”

“I have faith that will not happen, Azrael. She has passed every test. She’s walking home. That means you have time to make it there first. Go to her apartment and tell her that her time in District 1 has run out. This is our best chance.”

“Commander, this is a big mistake. If she stays in District 1, I promise the safety of your city will not be put at risk.”

“Your opinion has been noted. You shall do as I request or I’ll see to it that your successor does.”

“(Sighs) I’ll be waiting for her when she gets home.”

 

**************************

I finally finished making my way to my apartment. Tired and exasperated, I turned the light on to see somebody in sitting on my couch.

“Hello there.” Azrael grinned as he saw my utter shock.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“It’s time for you to go to a better place.”

Defenseless I said, “So you’re gonna kill me?”

As he pulled out his gun he said, “I was not sent here to kill you, but it could be arranged if you so desire.”

“I refuse to go down without a fight.”

“That’s exactly what I needed to hear.” Before I could grab anything he pulled the trigger and shot me through the stomach. As I lay on the ground I grunted, “The stomach? What the fuck? You’d rather I bleed out than do the merciful thing?”

He walked out the door and smiled at me, “Good luck, and may we never meet again.”

Brennen Im Feuer Ch 8

After Azrael killed James, I felt like my world had ended. I was frozen in time and space. I was grabbed by a member of The Coalition and was told to run. I refused, and even as the wave of policemen came down on us, I was prepared to hold my ground. However, somebody grabbed my arm with vice-like strength and pulled me away. I screamed to get back to James, but the force was too strong.

I saw myself and a huge group of Coalition members getting chased down the street by at least a dozen policemen. While in my heart I wanted to stay and fight through, my head instinctively made my body run away from the men chasing us. After running for what seemed to be forever, our group made it to an abandoned factory on the west side of the district. We huddled in there quietly for what also seemed like a lifetime until one the guys whispered, “I think we’re in the clear.”

I was sitting in the corner, out of breath and in shock. A couple of people came over to me and said, “Morrigan, what do we do now?”

I just looked at them, unable to talk, unable to move.

“Morrigan, we need your help. Please tell us what to do. We need to get out of here alive.”

I continued to stare blankly. I could see the worry in the eyes of everyone but I couldn’t speak, I still couldn’t muster up the energy to do anything. I was afraid that I’d be stuck like this forever until one person finally blurted out, “We need to put an end to the Coalition. I want change but I don’t want to die. I’d rather obey Commander X than be killed, or worse.”

Murmurs of agreement came from the group and they all seemed to be in agreement. This got my attention. I stood up and said, “Living under the rule of Azrael and Commander X is not a life! We can not truly even live without our freedom! If you can’t see that, then maybe that’s why this was a failure!”

I got up and stealthily made the long walk back to my house to think things through. I knew that this was going to be a turning point in my mission.

The next meeting was only attended by a few people. The failure of the protest led many people to leave The Coalition and go back to their oppressed lives. After a few minutes of silence one of the members said, “We are here because we have lost faith in The Coalition. We want to disband.”

I was shocked. I exclaimed, “What?! Why? We may have been beaten but the fight is far from over!”

“For you it may not be, but for us it is. We are not willing to die for this cause. We know YOU are, and if you choose to die, that’s fine. But we are deciding that our lives are more important. We are going to leave, and I hope you understand.”

And with that, I was left alone, dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe that The Coalition failed so miserably and so quickly. I felt as if my gut was being clenched. I realized that for the first time, I was alone.

Brennen Im Feuer Ch 7

The protest was to be held at the district hall plaza. We hoped that word got out to enough people to make sure that we could hold our own against the police. Since the plaza was always crowded on Sunday we decided we could catch the police by surprise. We would gather in the center of the plaza and try to overwhelm the government officials into backing down and giving in to some demands.

Commander X was speaking to the public on the big screen in the center of the plaza. “Just a reminder to you all that you MUST wear your ID badges at all times when you are outside of your home. To ensure this law is followed, the police will be randomly checking people every day and we will be asking for your IDs if they are not seen on your person. Failure to comply will result in a minimum of one week in prison.”

He went on for a few more minutes and I decided that I would give the signal to start, even though he seemed far from finished.

As we started everything went well. Onlookers throughout the plaza started joining in and were causing a ruckus with us. We were chanting things like, “We want our lives back!”, “Overthrow the commander!”, and my favorite, “Remember Paul Robson!” We thought the “surprise and overwhelm” tactic was working but then out of nowhere the police ganged up on us. We were somehow ambushed and we had no way out. We were surrounded with nowhere to go. Out of the crowd of policemen, Azrael stepped out and yelled, “You’re all coming with us, we’ve got you now!”

James, who seemed to relish the opportunity to face our foe, came up to Azrael and said, “I won’t stand for the way you treat us anymore! You will never take me alive!”

Azrael looked at James with a devilish grin. “If that’s your wish,” and struck James. On the ground in a pool of blood laid James.

“No!” I screamed and tried to run over to Azrael but I was held back. “You’ll pay for this!” I screamed.

“I,” the officer said “will not be paying for anything. You should be thanking me.”

“Go to hell! Go to fucking hell!” I screamed.

“I’m already there.” He smiled and with that the protest quickly dissolved. “Take the body to the crematorium! This party’s over!”

 

Brennen Im Feuer Ch 6

“Oh? What about,” I said, acting confused. “Is everything okay?”

“Well,” my father said, “I know what you’ve been up to lately. I know you’re part of The Coalition.”

Faking confusion I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would you say that?”

“Oh, come on. I know you’ve been spending more time out than usual. I hear things at work, I know the times you’ve been out of the house the last few weeks coincide with the meetings. I know you were at the protest today, too. I’ve been invited to join so I know all about it.”

I sighed, knowing the charade was over and said, “Okay you’ve got me. James and I started The Coalition the night Paul died.” I started to tell him everything- about my feelings about Paul’s death and how well we’ve done- and he took it surprisingly well.

“Well, there is something you need to know. While I disagree with how our government’s run, I’m worried about your safety. There’s no way you can end this without you or somebody else you care about getting hurt or even killed.”

“I know what I’m doing. We’ve done amazingly well so far, I mean-“

My father interrupted, “Yes, so far. But how long do you think this will last? I know that what happens in these situations. Anytime somebody leads a rebellion of some sort they do well at first and then they are savagely taken down. I can’t let that happen to you.”

I turned in disgust and walked away. I looked back and said, “I can’t stop. This is too important. I’m not fighting for me, I’m fighting for everyone.”

 

****************************

“Azrael, How did it go?”

“Not well for us Commander. Morrigan and her ‘Coalition’ made us look disorganized and idiotic.”

“Good.”

“Good, Commander? How is this good? We need to maintain power over these people if we want to keep our district running smoothly.”

“We will definitely be maintaining power. I know what I’m doing, Azrael. What have our moles in The Coalition told us?”

“They will have a protest in the district hall plaza right after you speak to the people on Sunday. I’ve heard that they will come with demands for a better government as well.”

“Great, choosing the district hall plaza will let many people see what is about to occur. Now Azrael, this is the time to show our strength. I can’t let the opportunity pass us by. We can get her if things go to plan.”

“’Get her’, Commander? You can’t tell me she’s ready. She has potential, but do not think the time is now. ”

“Well the time is not now. When we put down the rebellion and bring Morrigan to her lowest point, then we will prevail. By the way, let me talk to you about how we’ll stack all the chips in our favor.”

 

 

 

Brennen Im Feuer Ch 5

Over the last few weeks, James had gone from reluctant supporter to driven second-in-command in The Coalition. His excitement was contagious and he was helping us really drive our agenda forward. We did nothing too damaging, like vandalizing political statues and breaking windows of random buildings. However, the police seemed to be in shambles and were left confused every time we did anything. With the way things were going, I knew we had a pretty good chance of having our protest be successful.

The protest was going to be at the district library. I chose the location because it was one of two places that masses of people would gather for district meetings. James and I were waiting with a few people before the start of the protest when one guy turned to me and asked, “You realize that Commander X is able to watch us all from here. How do you think we can do this without him seeing the whole thing?”

Commander X was the leader of District 1. He would only show himself on a big screen that was located at both the district library and in the district hall plaza. Nobody we knew had ever seen him in person, police, government official, or citizen. Citizens were made to gather at both the library and the plaza if there was some sort of announcement that needed to be made. His position was hereditary; he was the son of the last commander and the family had been in charge for as long as anyone could remember, since the time that the former United States went from being a world power to the breakdown of all nationalist governments. He was the reason why people were sentenced to death all the time and why we were generally afraid to rebel in any way in our district.

I responded to my fellow protester, “I don’t really care if he watches. If we can make him realize how bad life is here maybe he will change his mind and go easier on us. Besides, if you were really that worried, you wouldn’t still be here waiting for the go ahead to start, would you?”

He nodded in agreement. Before long we received the signal to go ahead and start the protest. All of us came out from alleyways and other areas near the library and began. There was no real resistance from the police. They came quickly en force to stop us but were quiet unsuccessful. An officer came up to James and me and tried to stop us but James reared back and popped him in the nose. He fell back in pain and our fellow protestors came along and threw him away from us. I had never seen James act this way before but I was happy that he really seemed to care about our movement. Many others had similar situations pop up where an officer would try something and our members would easily hold them off. A few members of The Coalition were stopped and arrested but definitely not enough to hold us back for future protests.

The protest ended and I felt it went quite well. Commander X hadn’t shown up on his screen and the police had no clue how to stop us it seemed. Before I left I looked around to absorb everything. As I looked out into the sky, I looked to the east at District 7 and saw the beauty of the forest along the horizon. While the view was beautiful, I knew that the forest and its contents were far from it. It’s said that in the forest there are dangerous animals and people that kill anyone that venture inside. These animals are so vicious that death by the District 1 police seems like a holiday. It is said that nobody who has wandered inside has ever come out. I don’t really believe what the people say but I had zero interest in proving them wrong, in the off chance they were all correct. The forest though was nothing compared to District 7. District 7 is the district over from us and is separated by 5 miles of forest. According to everyone I know, the district makes ours look like a cake walk. Everyone faces poverty and lives in squalor. Commander X chose the greatest of political dissidents to go into the forest into District 7 as a punishment/death sentence. Nobody even dares venture near the area and the threat of being banished there is enough to make even the strongest squirm.

As I was walking home I went past the district’s crematorium. Right next to the forest, it was just as foreboding. I stopped for a moment to think about it. While most people were buried if they died in our cemetery, the ones who were put to death or killed during one of our political revolutions were brought to the crematorium, sometimes while they were still alive. It was difficult to even fathom what happened if someone woke up to see themselves being cremated alive.

I shook myself back to reality and walked home. I knew there was a lot to think about and plan for the next meeting. When I got home, my father was home and said to me, “We have a lot to talk about, Morrigan.”

Brennen im Feuer Ch 4

It was a valid question, but I definitely had an answer. To make it work I needed this group to recruit more people. A dozen people would have no chance against the government; we would need around one hundred to have even the slightest chance. I asked everybody to try to recruit as many people as possible to the cause in the hopes we could actually affect the district.

For the next few weeks we had meetings on Wednesdays and by the fourth meeting we had over one hundred people. During that time we had orchestrated a few disturbances and had started some buzz amongst the citizens of District 1 and the government. The police were trying hard to figure out where we were hiding and how to catch us but we were skilled at evading them.  Each week we had the meeting in a different location so it would be difficult for anybody to zero in on us.

On our fifth meeting, I got everyone together and informed them that we needed to have an official protest. We would start out peaceful but we knew full well violence was a probable outcome. The police rarely handled even slight provocations with civility. The day that Paul died, the old man who was being harassed in front of us was only missing his ID card. Their handling of that transgression was to assault him and then eventually kill my friend. The Coalition was causing some real problems; however the police had yet to find us a serious threat. The protest, I thought, would definitely cause them to see us as a threat. We scheduled the protest for the coming Sunday and I was excited to see the fruits of our labor.

 

*************************************

“Our mole inside The Coalition has told us there will be a major protest this Sunday,” Azrael said to a man dressed in such a way that anyone could tell he was the superior to everyone around him.

“Really? Well, that group is really coming along quickly.”

“What would you like us to do?”

“Let it happen. Morrigan has the potential to be more than just a thorn in our sides but I need to see how far she can go. Let the protest run its course and we’ll go from there.”

“Are you sure, Commander? I don’t think that’s the best course of action here.”

“I don’t need your insolent tone. I am the be-all, end-all and I will make the decisions. Your concerns are noted though.”