Prologue
I feel them first. Feel their cold, foreboding air that casts chilling shadows to forewarn their presence
Then, I hear them. The uniformed step of well-trained military, poised for attack.
It can’t be them. My thoughts ravage like wildfire, spreading despair and lost hope to the farthest corners of my mind. I thought I was safe. I thought they’d stopped chasing me.
I thought wrong.
The cluttered room around me, with its pale blue curtains and off-white peeling wallpaper that once symbolised naïve joy and innocence, seems to sway and pull closer, as if even the walls have turned against me in a fit of futile anger. They growl like terriers who lie obedient to their owner, but quickly turn on him at the beck of their true master.
The wooden dove, cold and fearful in my sweating palm, drops to the rough carpet worn by years of laughter and happiness, and splits cleanly into two pieces. Its peace shattered. Just as mine soon will be.
The dove. The symbol of the Resistance. The ideal of peace. The reason my children are alive. The reason I will soon be dead. The elegant creature with power and strength forgotten by the majority, its soft innocence cruelly hunted down and made extinct years ago. Will they forget me as I am hunted down and made extinct?
I stare at the shattered segments on the floor, as pale as a scream against the murky brown of the carpet, and fearfully await the three resounding knocks that will commence my fate.
There is nowhere to run anymore, no secret cavern or hole in the wall where they won’t find me.
Nothing.
Nothing but to wait.
First knock.
Bile rises in my throat, the sound ringing in my ears like a thousand snarling dogs.
Second knock.
I begin to shake, a gasp escaping through my tight chest as cold, clammy sweat clings to my forehead.
I sense rather than hear the third knock.
My breath steadies, my eyes close, and I swallow, pretending that the fear does not exist. That it is only a game. A figment of my imagination that will vanish when I wake up. When I escape this cruel nightmare.
Slowly, I rise to my trembling feet and edge towards the door. My steps clatter against the floor as if walking is an unnatural movement. And my feet drag, rebelling against the weak will of my mind to reach the door with my pride still intact.
My palm scrapes the wall as my steps slow, supporting me as hatred writhes like a snarling snake in the pit of my stomach. The hating snake of evil that is the part of Them still breathing inside of me, longing for Their destruction. The fraction of me that I will never call my own and instead try to suppress and ignore, as if that way it will simply fade into nothingness. As if, if They will not die, then perhaps the part of Them within me will.
As I stand behind the door, all that lies between me and Them is an ancient slab of worm eaten wood.
I smell their rich, strong, perfume through the pores of the timber, and gag. The thick black smoke they exhale travels from their midnight lungs through the humble cracks of the oak, tasting of death and destruction. My hand rests on the doorknob, hesitating for a split second before I force myself to turn it. The movement seems laboured, as if I were pushing a boulder, my muscles tense and my brow furrows in concentration as the door seems to swing back of its own accord. It usually creaks, but now it is silent, muted in fear of They who stand before it.
They stand in their default triangular position, dark cloaks forming a black wall decorated with guns loaded with lethal bullets. They stand tall and menacing; sour faces wearing mirrored expressions of anger, hatred, and disgust
All fifteen. Fifteen perfectly rehearsed snarls. Fifteen dull, lifeless eyes that have seen death more than they have seen life. Fifteen fighters honed around their prey. The fourteen infamous Destructors create the walls of my prison, blocking out the light on either side, as their leader, the First and most highly regarded of the Nobles that govern this Country, creates the razor-sharp point of the triangle. His shadow invades my soul, as I finally bring myself to stare into the deathly eyes of Rebato Antario.
“Hello son.” He grimaces at the word. “I’ve missed you.” The men either side of him step forward and pin my arms behind my back, as if I would even try to run. I know I’ve lost. I know I’ve failed. “Revicartus Antario.” His voice remains monotonous, neither high nor low but with a darkness that cannot emerge from a pit nor fall from the skies to gather a more extreme malice. “Or would you prefer Moss Dell?”
I thought I was safe. I thought I’d outrun them. But you are never safe. Not from them. For five years I’ve lived peacefully here, selling wooden carvings and keeping my family alive and safe. But no more. I think about those five years, the laughs and loving smiles I have shared with my children. A happiness that I was starved of as a child. A hope that made each sunrise glitter with excitement and each sunset glow with promise.
" How....how did you find ...?” my voice is barely a whisper as the confidence that was strong and defensive in my mind translates into something submissive and feeble.
“I have my sources.” He smiles, and in his glinting teeth I see a reflection of the pain exacted on his ‘sources’. The pain that made them betray me through no fault of their own. The pain that I’m afraid may soon make me betray others.
“It’s been a long time.” He speaks calmly, casual in his condemnation. “Five years since you decided to abandon your family and defy the ruling of this Country. We found your tunnel, dug with a bucket and spade by the child that you are. Such an imaginative way of escaping your duty as one of Us.”
The callous irony sails over my head. How can this be happening? My worst nightmare is becoming my reality. What will they do to me? I remember exploring the Emperor’s mansion when I was a child. Discovering the hidden staircase. Hearing the screams.
“Where are my two darling granddaughters?” He refocuses my attention and I freeze, my bones warp and twist into icicles that pierce my heart. “You’ll need some company in the dungeons.”
I hoped he’d forgotten them, but he never forgets. Why can’t he just take me and leave them alone?
“Willow and Maple, is it now? I must say, their Noble names were much more regal. Talemia and Amerina. They would have made fine leaders.”
Leaders? Of what? A Country so corrupt it would rather watch children die than waste its food.
“Talemia might have even married the Emperor’s heir. It’s a shame their father is so… rebellious.” He chooses his words carefully, scratching at the raw skin and biting into the wounds that only he knows exist.
“They’re not here” I grunt through my teeth. Rubato cracks his knuckles and three men storm pastme into a cottage that I will never enter again. A small wave of relief that I was telling the truth washes over me. I couldn’t bear it if they were ever to meet these men.
We stand in subdued silence; I avoid his gaze whilst he frowns at the dove shaped silver doorknob reflecting the June sunlight. The dove was the first ornament I crafted when the Resistance relocated me, every day it reminds me of why I keep on fighting, why I constantly put my life in danger for the sakes of others. The dove is defiance, it is rebellion, but most of all it is hope.
The three men emerge from the cottage shaking their heads and pushing me to one side as they conform to their default position. My father snarls like a wolf that has failed to catch his prey and turns to stare into my soul; his cold, unsympathetic eyes boring through me.
“Where are they?” He speaks softly but each word drips with threats. His voice is like a clay mask that is still wet with the paint of its intentions, and whose wearer still boasts of his vile personality through the mutated features. I watch him, silently showing nothing of the raging war going on inside of me. My face betrays only hatred as his nostrils flare and the muscles in his brow tense at my refusal to submit.
When I remain silent his temper fuses and the soft guise drips away, revealing a cruel, throat gargling shout that almost throws me backwards with its force.
“WHERE ARE THEY?” Sharp as razors, his words cut fear into my skin and every self-preserving bone in my body wants to tell him. Tell him that they’re at the baker’s in the village. Tell him that they’re buying bread for the children in the slums whom he kidnapped a week ago and is currently starving to death. Tell him everything, just so he’ll stop staring at me with those beady eyes that fire bullets into my heart and soul. But I don’t tell him, I can’t, and I mustn’t.
That’s when the first blow hits. It sends me sprawling on the ground and the corner of my face throbs, but I still won’t answer his question. No matter what he does to me, I will never give him my daughters. More punches follow, each one striking fresh and cold. The Destructors are bloodthirsty and soon have me writhing and screaming on the cobbles. Blood plasters my face and I can do nothing to defend myself, nothing that won’t cost me more blood.
Through my muted agony I battle to remember the cause. What I am fighting for. Why I long for a better future. However, my fear reminds me of what is to come. The chambers that scream and shake throughout the mansions, throughout the city that looms in pain. I remember the beatings I endured as a child. Even when I was one of Them my life was ruled by fear. Now? Now it will be much worse.
Black spots dance in the corners of my eyes and I shut them in fear that the hard wall behind them has cracked. Tears betray compassion. To them compassion is a weakness. For every weakness of mine, they have a strength. And every strength they can manipulate into a pain.
‘Whatever you do,’ I think to myself, a single thought shining small but strong in a foggy mental blur of unconsciousness ‘don’t cry’.
