Prologue
The clock in our yellow-painted kitchen read 9:19 PM the night my parents were taken.
Our century-old house sat near the wall, tucked into one of the neighborhoods that often flooded and had extra cameras on every corner. I had only been alive for 6 years, and I knew nothing better, but what I did know was that this was wrong.
My parents were forced outside during the storm. I looked out of our small living room window, the one I would peer through to see the overgrown weeds sway in the wind while the various kinds of bugs gathered around our softly lit lantern. The window where I could safely watch thunderstorms roll in, waiting for the colorful rainbows to appear. This night was different; my home no longer felt safe. I watched my parents as they were forced to their knees and restrained. Between the booming of thunder and claps of lightning, I could hear my mother wailing my name. Every rumble of thunder made the house feel like it was ready to cave in.
I am thankful I did not see what happened to my parents. A guard pulled me away from the window, but I still heard it. Their screams, followed by the guards’ cheering, swallowed the room whole. An unidentifiable force flowed through me when the cheers rang in my ears. I had never felt anything stronger.
Fear. Anger. Grief. Power.
The guard’s grasp on my arm never let up, but I saw the gleam in his eyes once the cheers roared. Nobody told me in that moment, but I knew my parents were gone.
Memories started to flood my brain. My mom and I picking flowers in the field. My dad reading bedtime stories every night next to the dimly lit lantern in my bedroom. The nights we would stay up too late laughing at Goddess knows what. I knew, even then, I would never have those moments again. I did not understand why this was happening to us. To me, they had done everything right.
Not long after the cheers, I was taken away. The guard with the calloused fingers dug into my arm as he dragged me through the town. As rain steadily fell, the cobblestone ground shifted under each step. My gaze never left the ground, but every boom of thunder could be felt in my chest.
The streetlights were dim on this side of the kingdom. Our neighbors watched the scene unfold. Some cried. I could hear wailing from people I passed by, but everything inside me felt numb. Finally lifting my head, the posters half-falling from the sides of buildings, reading
‘SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING,’
were blowing in the wind. The buildings on this side of town were hardly taken care of, vines trailing up the walls, overgrown shrubs on every side of the path, and half of the streetlights were out or flickering, but the cameras on every corner were always in pristine condition.
Finally coming to a halt at the overly large white building, with windows spanning the whole wall, my gaze drifted to the sign above the entrance
The Crown’s House of Mercy
There was a garden full of various bright, colorful flowers of different shades. In the middle was a plaque under a tree donated by the king, reading:
‘By crown, By law, By mercy, We are Remade.’
The man dragging me by the arm directed me inside. A woman dressed in an all-white uniform assigned me to a room with a roommate named Taliyah. She seemed nice enough, I suppose, but I refused to speak to anyone. The woman informed me that they would finish processing me in the morning before telling me to get some sleep. Her voice sounded like she had been practicing how to be polite.
I did not sleep.
From that point on, I was shaped into the perfect citizen.
The Mercy House was not your ordinary orphanage. It was a home that the king funded to “rescue” children of the war on peace. We were referred to as “children of the war of peace” as if peace was a person my parents tried to murder.
Day in and day out, I was taught that my parents’ sins were not my own. I was taught the king’s word was law, and all he wanted was peace and equality for the whole kingdom. The war on peace was fought by the rebels who refused to cooperate with the king’s rulings to protect every citizen’s right to “peace.” Rebels who supposedly wanted power for themselves. The Mercy House taught me that my parents were rebels, and I was in a better place.
The pledge of allegiance to the crown, history lessons, civilian conduct classes, and, if I were obedient enough, training classes filled my days. The Mercy House was a saving grace to the kingdom. The king refused to let us suffer because of our parents’ unfortunate decisions. We were the lucky ones, they said.
The first lesson Mercy House taught us was gratitude. The second was silence.
