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.”
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