It's nighttime. An hour until I have to go to bed. My work for the day is over. Weapons training practice is done. I've had dinner. And now I'm not hanging out in the tents with the others. I'm lying on the ground under a tree. It's cold. Autumn has just begun to set in, summer flickering out. The hustle and bustle of the camp is silenced but still people flow from one place to another, oblivious to me as I lay under the tree thinking. That's good. I'm not in the mood for conversation. I hope people will leave me alone.

I think about my mother. I want to make her proud. I want to make her feel joy at the young woman I have become. But I don't know if I can. I know, I know she loves me no matter what. She's the kind of woman with an open, kind heart that loves unapologetically and unconditionally. But I need to make her happy. I need to make her proud. She put her life on the line for me. She escaped her master's house despite how dangerous that was. She trekked through miles of hostile territory with a six-year-old, a two-year-old, and me. I was only a year old when my mother took me and my siblings and she fled. She didn't want us to live the kind of life she had lived. She wanted better for us. She wanted hope.

The war had just broken out. Slaves all over the Empire were revolting. People couldn't take it anymore. They told themselves that anything was better than to continue living in slavery, than to raise the new generations in slavery. And they were right. I'd rather die than live as a slave.

Because as hard as it is to live here, like this, I am considered a person. I am considered as a person, not a thing or an asset to be used. Not a piece of machinery meant to do work. I value that, above everything. The right to be thought of as a person.

But that doesn't mean I'm happy. The war has stretched on for twelve years and there is no end in sight. We're losing people - people who would rather die standing up to the Empire than be under its heel, but people nonetheless. It has gone on for most of my life. And as much as I know I should hold onto hope, I can't.

After everything my mother has done for me, I think, after everything she has done for my freedom, I am not doing enough to help the war effort. Sure I work hard to make sure the soldiers and other people are fed. Sure I work hard to prepare the medicine Issenne shows me how to prepare. I train for the day I will myself join the ranks of the freedom army. Yes I've even seen battle during the few times when there was a real crunch to get numbers up. I've bled and screamed and hurt for the war. I've exhausted myself working. I've been hungry and thirsty and cold. And I wanted to do all of it. Because bleeding and hungering and working and hurting for a better future is so much better than bleeding and hungering and working and hurting to increase the wealth of already rich people. And that's what slavery is. I'd rather die than be a slave. And I'm lucky that I can fight for my freedom. Our freedom.

But still it adds up to nothing, So much constant work and yet it all feels like nothing against the sheer force of the Empire rolling out over all of us. The Empire is stronger than steel and sharper than razors and the Empire is overwhelming. It's everywhere. And I am but a fly against it. I can't take on the force of the Empire. It's so huge, so all-consuming, so omnipotent and omnipresent.

I want to help. I just really, desperately want to help. But there's so much to do everywhere. There's so fucking goddamn much. And I'm weak and small and so so entirely insufficient. I don't know, I don't know. And I'm just ... I'm such a failure. People are dying on the battlefield. And I'm here lying on the ground. I can't do it. I can't stand up to the Empire. I can't save my people.

Issenne is walking up to me. I can tell that they're walking up to me and not just walking up. In the dark night their black birch-brown eyes look like pools of shadow. They move like a raven, as they always do. They are kind. They are good. I love them. But they're not the kind of person it's always easy to get along with. They're stubborn. They're brave. They came of age when Emperor Trudemius was on the throne and you could tell. There's always an anxiety about them. A fear behind the dark pools of their eyes. There's always a sense of protectiveness that's so strong it's almost unbearable. The younger people call them overbearing. Though by all means they're young themself. It's hard to remember that they're twenty-one though. Not when they never act like it. It makes sense though. They've lived through so much war. So much slavery and oppression and exploitation before that. So much loss. It made them who they are.

And who they are shines with pure divinity like the sun. Too bright, too hot, yet warming and nurturing at the same time.

It's hard to remember that I'm thirteen, too. This last year was the year where I really exited the safety of childhood - well, the meagre safety of childhood that can be found amidst war. It's been both exhilarating and terrifying to look at my new responsibilities and try to navigate them. But what if ... what if I can't?

"Charlotte?"

"Yeah?"

"What is it?"

"What?"

"You're not okay. Why?"

"I don't know. I'm tired."

"Physically or mentally?"

"In my ... in my soul."

"What are you thinking?"

"That I don't think ... I don't think I can do it."

"Who made you think that?" They puts their thumb on my wrist, feeling my pulse beat through them.

"No-one. Well, Anthem did. But to be fair she was only talking about her own fears and then I kind of internalized them."

"Oh. Yeah she's very unsure of herself. She's sweet. Full of dreams. But she's young. She doesn't recognize her power."

She is all that, and more. She's a little shadow of a teenaged girl. She moves through the world as if she's a part of the air itself. You can't notice her unless you try. We always have to make sure to try. She left her master's house eight years ago, all alone, six years old, and full of more rage and pain and overwhelming agony than she could possibly comprehend. She gave everything she could to the cause. Fought in battle after battle and bathed herself in the blood of the Empire, and in her own blood as well, as soon as she was old enough that people couldn't hold her back anymore. She is really a lightening bolt of action, with the eyes of a wolf and the snarl of a cougar. But underneath all that she's a broken girl who was raised by cruel masters rather than loving parents. She can't comprehend how she could possibly be good and beautiful and deserving of love. She can't comprehend how she could have something to give the world.

But at the end of the day she does have a point. Her and I are both young. Too young to properly know our place in the cause. And we're both lost children. And we're both just two children standing up against the might of an Empire that controls the entire world.

"Look at us though," I say. "We don't have power, do we? Not money nor power nor time nor anything. How can we change things?"

"We have spirit. We have each other. We have cleverness. Kindness.

Ingenuity. Cooperation. We have a will that they cannot break. And we have a fighting spirit that they cannot subdue. One that always finds a way. Even against the most insurmountable of odds it's always finds a way." Their voice is soft in the moonlight. Contemplative. Understanding.

"How?" I ask. "Just look around. Everything's a fucking mess. I can't even picture what the new world would look like."

"Let me tell you a story. A real one this time. I've got to warn you though it's fucked up."

"Okay?"

"This was back when Emperor Trudemius was on the throne. I was twelve at the time. You know how I was living in a plantation near the Imperial palace, right? And how the war had just started, and most of the people were still in chains, and there was barely a spark of hope for victory but we kindled that spark anyways, right?" They speak slowly, imbuing each word with meaning. The moon shines softly on their face.

"Yeah." I look at them with wide eyes.

"Right so I was still part of the war effort despite not being part of the war. I helped make medicine to be snuggled to the troops, right? Well, one day I received a strange request.

"I won't tell you what her name was. I don't even know. She was beautiful though. She was unfortunately a slave at the Emperor's palace. It was horrible. One of her jobs, among others, was to buy food for the Emperor's intricate feasts. She could never sneak anything in or out of the castle though, since they checked her very thoroughly once she got back."

Oh. Oh. Oh shit.

"And then what?" My voice betrays my tiredness. But it is also full of curiosity. I want to hear more.

"She came to me in secret. We hid up in the roof of the barn. She told me that she needed the powder from the archenji plant. And a lot of it. You know what that is, right?"

"I might. I'm not good at remembering every herb ever like you are. Isn't it like a poison?"

"It is. And a very powerful poison too. A very small amount of it would be able to kill a person. But it takes a week to act. You could chug litres of concentrated archenji tea and still not feel anything. Until approximately a week after you ingested it. Then you would die. Painfully. There is no known cure. The Empire didn't know about the plant existing. There are a lot of plants they don't know about. Which is poetic and part of the reason I'm drawn to medicine.

"Anyways, she told me her plan. She would come to the village in the morning the day before a great feast day. She would drink as much archenji tea as she could. And then she would go back. And they would detect nothing remiss about her. They would think she smuggled nothing. Then she would begin cooking for the feast, along with the other servants. Except, she would pour her blood into the wine. Not enough that it's detectable but enough that it's there. And she'd mix it into the sauces. And she'd drip it into the gravy. And she'd bake it into the bread. She'd die in a few days. But then so would the Emperor. And all his highest officials. And their families. The elite of the entire Empire would be dead. If things went according to plan."

I'm astonished at her bravery. How. Why? She was willing to risk so much, willing to risk it all, for her people. That was selfless. She signed her own death warrant and she didn't care.

"Issenne?"

"Yes?"

"Did you agree to the plan? I ... I know a lot of people who would disagree with you for letting a young woman die. They believe death is only for the battlefield or for old age."

"Many people believe that the only honourable way of sacrificing your life is on the battlefield. They do not realize that when we are at war, the battlefield is constantly all around us. They do not realize that in these days, life is war. And any time you die for your people, any time you die so that they might see a modicum of victory, you die on the battlefield.

"I haven't told anyone this part of the story. Many would react badly. But I'm telling you because there is a very important lesson in all of this."

"What's the lesson?"

"I promise I'll get to it. Anyways I wasn't on board with her plan at first. It was too risky, I thought. I told her, that nobody had tried anything like this before. We didn't know if it would work or not. We didn't even know when and for how long the poison was stored in the blood. We only knew that there was a chance she could succeed. And no idea how slim or wide that chance was. We only knew that it was definite that she would die. I told her not to.

"But she looked at me. And her eyes were darker than the deepest night. And deeper than the darkest pool of water. And she said, that she might as well be dead anyways. Because to not be free, to be exploited and abused and held under by the Emperor and his cronies, it was worse than death.

She said that the knowledge that she stood up, the knowledge that she rebelled, that in and of itself was worth life. It was worth more than a life lived under chains. Even if she didn't succeed in her assassination attempt she would die trying. And I saw the determination behind her eyes. I saw the rage and desperation behind her voice. And I felt the unwavering love, the incomprehensible bravery, the overwhelming destiny that was within that request. And I told her that I'd get her what I needed.

"I did get the message out to the warriors and the supporters on the warfronts that an assassin would kill the Emperor and his cronies sometime after the festival. I told the messenger that I did not know whether they would succeed but a spy should be sent to see if there was confusion and chaos in the palace.

"I spent the next few months going out into the grassfields and the marshes, deep where nobody could see me. And I gathered dry leaves from all the archenji plants I found. And I crumbled them into powder. I stored it in secret in a hole in the ground under my hut. And I waited until the day of reckoning. I woke up in the middle of the night, long before the day began. I dug out the bag of powder. There was enough to make two meals out of it. I made tea with it, making the tea more and more and more concentrated until it was thicker than whole milk. Have you ever had whole milk?"

"Once."

"I've only had it once as well. But you remember how thick it is, right? How milk from powder doesn't do it justice. Well the tea was thicker than that. And it was blood red. I filled my entire water skin with it. I was almost tempted to taste a bit of it. Just to see how it tasted. But I didn't. Obviously.

"I waited for her to come, at the agreed-upon spot near the tree at the edge of the fields. She came an hour before dawn. And we hugged. She had tears and power in her eyes. I gave her breakfast. And it was a good breakfast. Rice, potatoes, carrots, cabbage leaves, and even an onion and a radish, all boiled together. I gave her a lot. She would be dead soon. I didn't know why I was feeding her so well. But I was. Maybe it was a waste. I don't know. We sat there eating together in the light of pre-dawn. The air was so strange. Like we were in a different world. The dawn was just threading the tips of its electric blue fingers through the black of the night sky when she sat down with my water skin in her hands. She sat leaning back on me and I hugged her, stroking her hair and quietly singing to her. Songs of sadness. Songs of loss. Songs of freedom. Songs of love. Songs of hope. In a few minutes it was over. She stood up, and she walked to the market. And as the sky finally turned its shade of daytime blue, she was long gone. Forever.

"I prayed every spare chance I got that her plan worked.

"And you know the rest."

I do know the rest. It's common knowledge. Some anonymous assassin had taken out the Emperor, the entire government and most major generals. In the chaos and confusion that reigned amongst the Imperial troops, we struck. Our troops overwhelmed them. For months we overwhelmed them. Despite them having superior technology and training. And we gained so much ground. Millions of slaves were able to flee to the warfront. Including Issie. I remember meeting her that night when I was four years old and she was a frightened-eyed girl that looked so big to me.

The war is going better now, than it was all the way in the beginning. It's still not going well. Not at all. A new emperor is on the throne. New generals in the meeting rooms. But it's going better. We took the chance we got and made the most out of it. We have a chance of victory.

That story is horrific. It's horrific but it's still powerful. It's disturbing but ... but there's something about it. That gives me strength and I don't know how. I'm not quite sure how it's supposed to make me feel better though.

"Oh my god," I say.

"Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you though?"

"Not really."

"Okay that's understandable. I was being rather cryptic. You have to remember though, she was a slave in the heart of the Imperial palace during a time when the war was just started. She had nothing. No power. Less power than anyone. She was in the heart of the Empire. She couldn't even dream of escaping. Because if she escaped they would kill her loved ones. She didn't have a huge network of people supporting her work like we do. She didn't have the time that we have to pour into the war effort. She didn't have any power. And yet she still had so much power anyways. She was one slave against the combined forces of the entire Empire's government, their guards, everything. And all she had was spirit, faith, hope, and pure rage. She used what she had anyways. She used what she had and some could say she singlehandedly turned the tide of the war. She didn't, she did get so much help from many people. But still, she had less help than you and I do. She didn't even know if her plan would work. She just had hope and rage and the will to make things better.

"And she did it. She succeeded. Despite the fact that all the odds were against her she succeeded. And guess what? That just means that the odds don't mean anything. Sure it looks like we're not powerful. Sure it seems like we can't do anything of substance. When you compare us to the might of the Empire. But looks are often deceiving. What counts is your spirit. What counts is your rage. Your love. Your will to fight. What counts is the choices you make, and the fact that you want change more than anything. And I've seen you Charlotte. You do. You yearn for it. I long for the day when you can find what true and complete freedom is. But until then know. That you are enough. You are a warrior from your very soul. And you can bring them down. We can bring them down."

"Issenne?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. And ... did you ever tell anyone else? About what happened with that girl?"

"No I didn't. I don't think I ever will. They wouldn't understand."

"Can you tell Anthem? She needs it. Probably more than me."

"Yes Anthem needs to know. We both know how stubborn she is though."

"Where is she anyways?"

"I'm fucked if I know. You know how she has a habit of disappearing. She might not even be in the camp she might have gone off into the fields."

"She'd make a good spy."

“Honestly, she would. It's past bedtime now. Come sleep."

"Give me a few more minutes I need to think."

"Do you feel better?"

"Yeah."

Okay

I don't quite know what's going on, not really.

I'm being dragged through a dizzying carousel of people and walls and things, so many things, that I can barely even focus on.

Strong hands are wrapped around my wrist, pulling me forward harshly. Warm hands that feel cold.

I'm don't quite know what's going on and I'm thankful for it.

I'm scared but I feel too dizzy, too weak-willed to act upon the fear.

I feel hesitant but the hand pulling me hushes the errant thoughts inside me. Silences the voice wanting me to run away.

Until I meet a pair of eyes I can't look away from. Aching with hunger. Big and young and anguished. I stop in my tracks. Almost fall over. So young. So hungry.

I turn to the child. Look at him. He looks at me. My mind is coming back into focus now. Suddenly a broad figure steps between me and the child.

The child. I can't see him anymore. I look at the figure in front of me. Oh. It's him. The one who was holding my wrist. He arrests me in his gaze. I'm dizzy again.

He hands me a handful of pills, like a child offering candy to their friend. I tip them into my mouth, dry-swallowing them. It hurts and I almost choke but I need to quell the budding desire in my heart to just start screaming. I need to stop feeling so ... so flighty. I need to make my mind able to walk where my wrist is being pulled to. The pills crawl into my aching, empty stomach. And suddenly the world is blurrier and dizzier than it's ever been and I can barely keep standing.

"Walk," he says, his sweet candy voice having cold icy undertones. I walk. I walk and I keep walking and I walk and I walk and I walk.

A door. A pretty familiar one. Mahogany. Ivory-trimmed. Rich. I'm scared of it. I don't know why. The brass lock clicks open and I'm pulled into the densely-carpeted mass. White walls. Paintings. Paintings. Paintings. Gold. Terror. Inside me. But my mind and body are too weak to do anything about it. Which is perfect. If I can swallow this terror I won't have to face THAT terror.

I need to .... I don't know.

The world keeps spinning and I cling to the hope that tomorrow I'll forget that tonight even happened. I freeze, guiltily, and push that thought away.

I force myself up the stairs.

———

Black nothingness melts into gold and white. Carved figures. The agony of bright sunlight. Headache. An overwhelming, sick feeling permeating through my soul. Nothing. I feel like nothing. But I always did.

I tumble out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. I throw up. It physically feels like my stomach is being pulled apart. It was empty to begin with and it's emptier now, somehow. I don't care. Hunger just means that my collar bones will get more prominent, my arms more delicate, my waist more thin.

I make my way back into the spacious bedroom, onto the plush silk sheets. I shiver a bit, and consider just leaving out the door. That thought makes me shiver more. My slow feet drag me back to the four-poster prison and I drape myself over it. No, not prison. This is a place of hope, a place of opportunity.

"Hey. Someone's up." His voice is always sweet but with a sharp, menacing edge. If you brushed against it it was so unbearably soft. But if you leaned into it, it would cut you.

"Yeah. Someone is up. What's it to ya?" I'm tired, my voice the tiniest bit cracked.

"Get in the car. We're going to breakfast. And then we're flying to Dubai. It would be such a lavish place to spend the weekend."

No no no I don't want this I'm too tired I want to curl up with my sister in in a dark room that's a bit too warm and just a touch smokey. I want soft words and slow caresses and being able to sleep soundly.

Wait. What am I thinking? It will be fun. It will be good. He has so much to show me. So many places to fu... oh God. My legs move of their own accord, towards the door, towards the morning outside and towards the sweepings of the streets.

The children, the beggars, the people desperately selling trinkets, the people waiting at the bus stop on their way to factories like cattle coalescing outside the slaughterhouse. It wasn't fair, wasn't fair, wasn't fair the way the world was. It wasn't fair that some people were born into wealth and health and others were born into death. But the world was human and free. I could disappear into that.

"Oh are you leaving?" He said it so innocently yet I didn't miss the subtle fingers of a threat in his words. I'm snapped back into reality. No I'm not leaving. Of course I'm not leaving.

Just to to be sure my mind doesn't fucking betray me again I gulp down a pill that helps with anxiety. I feel numb now. Like I'm in water, like I'm looking at the world from inside an aquarium. I feel slightly nauseous. I eat more pills than food. It's worth it though.

"I'll get ready. Get my hair just how I want it, find nice clothes, all that." Be gorgeous for him.

"You do that. You always look so pretty for me." That statement makes me want to die. But no. Of course I'm pretty for him. The least I can be is his.

So I force a smile.

So I was taking the bus home from school today. There was a homeless man on the bus, seated across from where I was standing. He was pale and had brown hair and a beard. He was 31, according to what he said. The bus had maybe forty people in it. Not crowded but not empty either.

This homeless man, he was speaking out loud. Not to anyone in particular. He was just speaking out loud, in a volume that was just a little bit loud, so that a decent amount of people could hear but no one would be bothered.

He talked about how the federal government was not doing enough to combat climate change and protect the environment. He talked about how climate change was getting worse and the government wasn’t doing enough to stop it because they cared about the fossil fuel industry more than peoples’ lives. He mentioned how scary it was that there still wasn’t snow in November.

He also voiced that public transit (buses, LRT, etc) should be free. Because that would help the environment and because it would give homeless people a space to stay out of the cold. Also because it would help poor people get to where they needed to go without becoming broke. He expressed that it gets really cold in the winter. And especially recently, since climate change is causing the Arctic vortex to get looser so all the cold winds from the Arctic are coming into the south. And if homeless people had somewhere warmer to go in the winter, like a bus for example, that would really help a lot of people.

He discussed how most homeless people don’t act rowdy or unruly on the bus, and how a lot of middle class people do act rowdy and unruly on the bus. Which tracks well with what I’ve seen, the only rowdy people I’ve seen have all been middle class, and I’ve ridden the bus a whole lot. And he discussed how homeless people have a human right to be somewhere warm.

He talked about anti homeless architecture on the buses. The new seats on the buses, the plastic seats, they make it harder for people to lie down and sleep. (There are three places on each bus that each have three seats in a row together and one place that has five seats.) He explained how if there are enough seats for everyone, which there often is, then homeless people sleeping on the bus aren’t bothering or hurting anyone.

He also explained that homeless people deserve to be able to sleep on the bus, because they deserve somewhere to sleep that isn’t cold. See the thing is, and most people in my city don’t know this, the homeless shelters are overflowing and they don’t have enough space for everyone. Anyways, as the homeless man was explaining, a lot of homeless people have no choice but to sleep outside. And when you sleep outside on a day or night when it’s really cold (which is happening more frequently due to the polar vortex becoming looser and coming south due to climate change), you may not wake up at all. Or you will wake up with frost bite and lose body parts. This really disturbed me, the reality of people going to sleep in the horrific cold and not waking up at all.

He discussed the inflation that is happening recently due to corporate price gouging. How food is more expensive, and homeless people can’t afford to buy the food they need. He discussed how it’s hard for homeless people to buy food to begin with since they can’t cook anything due to not having kitchens.

And he expressed how so many of the people he met on the streets were the kindest people ever. How they had so much kindness for him. How they gave up what little they had in order to help him out. How they were so generous, how they helped him and each other even at great personal sacrifice. He talked about how someone even gave him their shoes once.

I told him that I was listening to what he was saying, that I agreed and that I was glad he was saying this. He shook my hand, and then we sat down to talk together. He told me that he wasn’t lazy, that he had to walk around all day. I told him that that must be exhausting. And truly it is very exhausting having to walk around all day, I know that from personal experience. And homeless people do have to do that because if they stay in one place then the cops come to beat them and steal their possessions. He talked about how he made sure to properly put out his cigarettes so that he didn’t cause fires, and about how he didn’t litter.

I told him that I wished I had something I could give him. (At the time I didn’t have any money or food on me and I didn’t even have a hat on me.) He said it was okay since he had some raw chicken hot dogs and some wonder bread and some cheap ketchup. I had to get off the bus at that point because it was my stop. But I believe that it’s very important that his story is told and shared.

Azania made sure to not trample any plants as she made her way through the forest undergrowth. Around her the Forest glowed in various shades of green. There was warm dark brown and cool dry brown and birch white nestled among the green. The Forest loam was soft and from it arose herbs, grasses, shrubs, saplings, and trees of all sizes as well as mushrooms and fungi. Soil edged along half-decomposed tree roots that were covered in moss. Between the trees she could see the sky as it stretched bright blue.

It would be a lie to say she was at peace here. She still held onto the grief she felt of missing her friends, who were more like family. She felt so bad about leaving them, her heart was overcome with worry. But she knew they understood. This had been her chance to get free and Azania had taken it.

She loved her friends. More than life she loved them. But she couldn't stand the rest of it all. She couldn't stand the demands of her masters, the way they looked at her, the way they talked to her, the way they yelled at her. She couldn't stand knowing that they were the people who took her away from her family. She couldn't stand it when they bragged about her to their friends as if she was a shiny thing that they bought. She couldn't stand the crippling loneliness of that big house that swallowed her whole. She couldn't stand the quietness that enveloped the nights or the constant, crippling pressure of work, work, work and more work that enveloped the days. She couldn't fucking stand it. She just couldn't.

The adults in her life saw her as no-one, as nothing, as a shadow to be ordered around and used. And she hated it. It tore her up inside and left her screaming silently, drowning invisibly, bleeding in her mind and in her soul. But she was clever. She was good at lying. She was good at thinking outside of the box. She had a plan, a plan that took three long arduous years to accomplish.

She pretended to be a perfect, meek, submissive, broken girl. She pretended to be emotionless and loyal and completely brainwashed. Until they trusted her. Until they trusted her completely. And then she took the money for buying groceries. And it was a lot of money. And smiled meekly and softly as she stepped outside the locked door - locked by a key she didn't have - to go to the store. And she bought a wooden snorkel with it, tied herself to a rock of carefully-measured weight, and threw herself in the River. She almost died. But she wouldn't have cared if she had died. This was the way to freedom. Eventually she felt the temperature of the water cool. That indicated that she was finally in the Forest.

She kicked and swam until she found herself on shore. And it was the most beautiful place she had ever been in. Not beautiful like how a painting or a dress was beautiful. Beautiful like how the reflection of firelight in the mischief behind her friends' smiles were beautiful. Beautiful like how a gentle hand brushing over your own was beautiful. Beautiful like how a greeting embrace near the shared stairwell between different flats was beautiful. Beautiful like the songs she only half remembered and the stories she knew she must've once heard but now forgot.

She cried. She cried like a lost child finally returning to the arms of their mother. She cried like a soldier coming back from a war. She cried like a farmer seeing rain clouds after a drought. She cried like a prisoner setting their first foot into freedom. She cried until the sky got dark and then she saw stars for the first time and she cried more. When the morning came she was cold, she was hungry, but she was free. She walked until she found a bush of berries. She hoped to the gods that they were edible. They were tasty and just a little bit sweet on her tongue so she assumed that they were. She gorged herself until her stomach hurt. She drank from a clear stream. She felt so light, so free, so calm. More than she ever had before. Yes her grief was still unimaginable, unbearable. But her joy was as well.

She couldn't describe the way she ran with life and joy and beauty. It was the type of beauty that wasn't truely seen no. It was felt in her heart. The Forest held her like a mother. Like the mother she had had but barely remembered. The Forest held her like a lover. It hugged her like a child. It held her hand like a best friend. It flowed and moved and reached out all around her. She never knew it was possible to love a place before. She only thought you could love people. But she realized what it meant to love a place, to be loved by a place. Because in honesty you could only love what was alive. People were alive. And the Forest around her was alive. So very alive. It sang and hummed and shone and shadowed and moved and stood and flowed and danced with so much life. All in perfect harmony. As she couldn't help but be inspired, so inspired.

She was still full of misery. Still full of grief. She was still beside herself with worry, with mind-numbing, crippling anxiety for her loved ones. But she was held more than she had ever been before. She was freer than she had ever been before. The Forest nurtured her, nourished her, soothed her, loved her, protected her, and wanted her like a mother and she couldn't even begin to process the emotions she was feeling right now.

She though that maybe she should be scared. There might be predators here after all. She had no clothes, no weapons, no rope, no knowledge of survival. According to all logic she should die out here. But she didn't. She stumbled upon a berry patch every time she got hungry. She found clean, dry wood to make a fire as well as rocks to ring it and even spark rocks to start it. The stream was easy to follow. The day was neither too hot nor too cold. If she didn't know better she would say the the Forest was going out if it's way to protect her. She had always believed in magic. And now she did more than ever before.

She found a warm patch of sunlight on soft dirt and curled up and went to sleep there like a cat. She woke up, stretched out, and moved to find the stream so that she could fill her cupped hands with the cool, clear water.

Walking by the edge of the stream, she did however find a sight that brought fear into her. Pressed into the soft ground were the unmistakable tracks of a wolf. Well she thought they were at least, because they looked like a dog's tracks but much larger. They didn't scare her in and of themselves, no. They seemed like just another part of the Forest. But she knew what wolves were and she knew what they were capable of. And that scared her. Still she knew it would leave her well enough alone if she avoided it. She made her way the opposite direction as the tracks. The day was cooling down now, just marginally. She didn't feel like walking. She was overwhelmed. So once she put a bit of distance between herself and the wolf she lay down on a patch of dirt without any plants on it and she stared up at the sky. It was so bright, reaching up and up and up above her to who knows here. But not really. She couldn't describe what it was. Not at all. Even in her old life she could never describe the sky, never comprehend it.

And she still couldn't.

Maker, Azania spoke in her head, wherever you are, please keep my friends as safe as you can. Thank you for this. For all of this. I can see you in every piece of it. Thank you for holding me, Great Mother. Thank you for holding all of us who are suffering. I know you cannot take care of us in the way that you want to. I know that your reach only extends out so far. But I know you love us all and you always have and you always will and I thank you for it. I will keep your Land safe. I understand how it is a piece of you. Teach me how to care for your Land and how to respect it, protect it, and look after it. And I will. And please. How can I give back to you? You have protected me - no all of us - with your life and your blood and your tears and your joy and your rage and your pain and everything you have. And we must all take care of each other. I know. We are all a part of you. So how can I take care of your people? What should I do? I hurt so much. I long to go back and free my people. And I will. I know that the people are your people. All of us who live under the heel of suffering. I know that I swear to you that I will. But I do not yet know how. Give me strength. I have my freedom and with it I will give other people theirs. I swear it.

Azania felt invigorated, now that she had a goal. She stood up and kept walking.

Soon she heard a shrill cry, not unlike a newborn baby. Overcome with worry, she ran towards the source of the sound. She gasped at the sight. She hadn't been wrong. It was a newborn baby. Wrapped in the arms of a woman lying under a tree there was a newborn child, swaddled in a thin cotton cloth, crying. The woman's dress was soaked in blood. She was not moving. Holy fuck. Was she dead? Azania's heart thudded in her chest. So hard. Despite being surrounded by death in her old life, she had never seen death with her own eyes like this. When she cried they were not tears of joy, or mixed emotions, like they had been earlier that day. They were tears of pure, unshakable grief and sorrow. She knelt beside the child and mother, heart lead-heavy with sorrow. She touched a hand to her forehead, then her lips, then her chest, and then reached out to hover it over the mother, offering a silent prayer for her departed soul, so that she may finally be at peace and free now. Then she moved to quickly yet carefully pick up the baby, holding them softly in her arms. She cradled the baby girl - well they were probably a girl and she would just assume they were unless they said otherwise - in her arms and tried to get her to stop crying. But the baby continued crying. She quickly realized the baby was probably hungry.

How would she feed the child? She had no idea. The child couldn't eat berries or roots or anything. The child needed milk. The child would die.

She wouldn't be able to save her. The baby would die just as the mother had and she wouldn't be able to save her. No matter no no no fuck what would she do? She kneeled there, a newborn infant in her arms, panic racing like lightening through her heart. And she heard a haunting, piercing howl move through the air.

The child stopped crying. The teenager whipped her head around to see what it was. There, standing only a yard away, was a wolf with silvery fur and pointed ears. The wolf looked at them, steadily, evenly. It was so much larger than she thought it would be. She could see how strong it was. How easily it could devour her if it wanted. And the child. She was very glad the baby had stopped crying. She held the child close to her and she didn't dare move.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the wolf stalked closer to them. Azania didn't dare move. The baby looked at the wolf with big, round, ember-dark eyes. She didn't seem aware at all of the danger they were in but was rather mesmerized.

The wolf was coming closer. It was coming closer. It was coming closer. Azania was frozen. She could not move. Soon enough the wolf was right beside them, its head just above their own. The wolf made no move to hurt them. Just silently nuzzled its nose into Azania's shoulder, then softly nuzzled the baby. So softly. The baby made a sweet gurgling noise at that.

Azania was still afraid. Slowly the wolf stalked away, but only a couple of meters away, to a bush full of fat black berries. Azania watched it closely, with wary eyes. The wolf took a bundle of stalks in its mouth and pulled them off the bush. There were stems, leaves, and a dozen or so berries that came with. The wolf then walked over, with the berries in its mouth, to Azania and the child. Slowly it inched the berries nearer to Azania's face, until the leaves brushed her lips. And it waited there. She slowly, tentatively twisted her mouth around a berry and bit it off its stalk. It was ripe and full of juice. The wolf stayed until she ate all the berries.

Azania cradled the baby close as the wolf slowly crouched down to nuzzle the child. The baby looked at the wolf and she cooed. She was so cute. She needed food. The The wolf nuzzled the baby again before lifting its eyes to meet Azania's for a moment. It lay down on its side and stayed there. Azania recognized this gesture from the way dogs at home would feed their pups.

Was ... was the wolf offering to feed the baby? Azania did not fully understand what was happening but she was no longer afraid of the wolf. She didn't understand, but when she looked at the wolf she saw a strange, beautiful sort of power. Like lightening or a River rushing. She saw the sort of power and energy that permeated through the whole Forest, electrified and pulled into the form of the wolf before her. There was something deeply, fiercely protective about it. Something fiercely kind and nurturing, life-giving and loving. Nature was strange. The Maker was strange.

Everything was. Azania was no longer scared anymore. She didn't understand. But she did feel in her heart that this was where she was meant to be. This was what she was meant to trust. She laid the baby next to the wolf and held her as she drank. This was so strange. But it was what was happening. Once the baby was full, and burped, she held her close and moved to stand up. The wolf stood up with her, and trotted a few step ahead of her.

She followed it through the undergrowth, through the maze of green. And she thought to herself that this must be some strange gift from the Maker. Well, who was she to turn down a gift? Especially when - when the baby needed it. Hmm? What should she call the baby? She did not know. She knew names should mean something. That they should be significant. She knew the child was her salvation. Her pathway to her destiny, whatever it was supposed to be. The baby was beautiful. She had huge, piercing eyes and warm skin the colour of wood right on the verge of catching fire. She had a small button nose and soft little lips and fingers that were so so so tiny. She had her destiny spread out before her. All the rest of her life. She was free. And Azania would make sure she stayed that way. Azania would free everyone she could.

Around her the Forest glowed like a haven as she walked carefully, making sure to keep the baby properly supported. The wolf walked slowly, keeping pace with her. The ground was uneven, but it was glorious.

Soon enough they got to a place near the crest of a small hill, where where were about other adult wolves, and four pups. They were sharing meat and they all turned to look at Azania before they all came and nuzzled her. She moved to sit down and they nuzzled the baby as well.

———

She named the child Shayla. Shayla was a good child. She had eyes full of wonder and curiosity, empathy and kindness. She grew up strong, nourished in the love her birth mother gave her, the love Azania showered her with, the love her pack buried her in, and the love the forest blanketed her with. She was free. She was wild. She was happy. She was loud. She was inquisitive.

She was caring. She was free to come into herself.

Azania was so grateful for her pack. They had adopted her, adopted both of them, as if they were family. They cared for her and provided for her and her child. The first year with Shayla had been very busy. She had always been feeding her, with the help of their pack, or changing her, or washing her clothes, or rocking her to sleep or soothing her. That was when she wasn't making new clothes to match her constant growth. And through all that she had to find food for herself, too. The pack provided furs for her, from their kills. She just had to process them and put them together. The pack even gathered berries for her to eat. They all slept curled up together in each others' warmth.

The next two years were much easier. The pack made sure Shayla stayed out of trouble, they took care of her just as they took care of their other pups. Azania had gotten much better at putting together clothes. She also helped the pack hunt, and looked after the pups. Her skills at running, stalking, tracking prey, and throwing spears had improved greatly.

Shayla learned to talk. But also she learned to howl and bark and yip and chirp. She was full of questions, once she started talking. She loved the stars. She was full of new ideas. Most of them were adorable and hilarious. She was afraid of rain. She loved snuggling up with her pack. Especially with Auntie Silver, the wolf who found them that fateful day and saved her life.

Shayla was like the spring, like a raging wildfire, and Azania thought she never saw a child so free before. Shayla was concerned. With the Forest and protecting it. With the wolves and protecting them. With the world outside the Forest and what it held, with everything.

The whole while she was thinking of ways to help her people who were still stuck in slavery back in the place she came from, the place that was absolutely her homeland just as much as this place was her homeland. It wasn't easy escaping the masters. They had their guards that would watch over you. They had their police that would go chase you down. And they'd find you. She didn't know how she could go about saving people. She could tell people her idea, of using the River as a getaway car. But the problem with most of the slaves was that they had loved ones to think about and take care of.

The thing about house slaves like her - like what she'd been before she got away - was that they were forced to live in isolation. The interaction they had with other slaves were always secret, hidden. Stolen moments on stairwells when sweeping and washing the stairs or the railings or the walls. Stolen moments when passing by each other on the stairs while delivering something or another. Stolen moments while waiting in line for the communal bathroom. Stolen moments while slipping away unnoticed at night. But no matter what, they made sure to keep their interactions a secret. They made sure to keep their connections a secret. Because what the masters knew they could exploit. And they would exploit. And they would use to destroy the slaves. And that included personal connections. It especially meant personal connections. The masters thought less of house slaves than they did of anyone else. Thought them incapable of love. So Azania knew her friends were safe. She knew of house slaves that had escaped before, and the slaves of neighbouring houses were never hurt on their account.

But that was not true with the other slaves. The farm slaves, the factory slaves, the mine slaves, the transportation slaves, the construction slaves. All of them were allowed to form close networks of family and found family and friendship and the masters knew they had people they loved. This was a curse as much as it was a blessing. Because while the slaves were often technically allowed to go to the market or other places without supervision, they were never, ever able to escape. Because unless you could escape with all your loved ones, which was incredibly difficult if not impossible, the masters would kill your loved ones when they figured out that you left.

Everyone would have to escape together or not at all.

And she did not know how to do that.

One day Shayla was four. The pack was out hunting. Shayla was with Azie picking dark purple berries. These were the same berries that had played such a pivotal role in their rescue. They had been talking and joking around as Azie kept an eye on Shayla who was wandering around more than she was picking berries. Well, she was four.

"Mama! Mama!"

"Yes Shayla?"

"Auntie ... Auntie White find big tree!" Her eyes were full of excitement.

"Oh did she? That's great."

"There birds in tree. And ... squirrel! But not us."

"You're right. We aren't in trees. Humans can climb trees I think. But I've never really needed to and you're too small. And wolves can't climb trees at all."

"But why?" She emphasized the why a lot.

"Because, baby girl, different animals do different things. Some animals climb trees. And some don't. Some animals fly. Some don't. Some go very fast. Some go slow. Some live in the water. Some live on land. Some live in the water sometimes and sometimes they're on land. Every animal is different. But they all are in the world and they all have a part to play."

"Mama?" Her voice was so cute. It always was.

"What?"

"I got berries."

"Great job! Put them in the bag." She gestured to the shoddily tied-together rabbit fur she put berries in.

"No mama look." Azie turned around. These berries were bright orange. She had seen them before but refrained from eating them. The berries she did eat, she had previously encountered outside of the Forest. Occasionally a bush would grow in an alleyway and the slaves would eat from it in secret. Those berries were safe. These berries never grew outside the Forest and she had never encountered anyone eating them before. She didn't know if they were poisonous or not.

"Shayla, no. Those berries are not good."

"Try once? Please?!" She was really dead set on trying these new berries, wasn't she?

"No Shayla. They could be dangerous."

"But they could be good."

"But maybe they're not. We already have so many yummy berries to eat."

"Mum. Mum. Please." Aziania knelt down to look into her eyes. She was young. But that didn't at all change the fact that she was a bolt of lightening sent from the Maker. And right now her eyes seemed to glow with longing. Azania didn't know why but this was really important to Shayla. And she knew what she was talking about.

"Alright. But not right now. After we reunite with the others, yeah?"

"Sure."

"Okay.”

They continued picking berries until their bags were full. Azania struggled to hold them all but when Shayla asked for a piggyback ride she let her get on.

"Mama are we the only humans?" Shayla asked quietly, close to her ear. Her voice was solemn. Almost sad.

"No honey."

"But we are. I never seen other humans."

"Do you want other humans? Are you lonely."

"I like you. And I like the pack. They're family. I'm a happy pup. But ... I want to know."

"Shayla there are many other humans. Maybe, maybe even five hundred other humans."

"Wow. That's so much. Where are they? I never seen them in the Forest once."

"They're not in the Forest."

"But the Forest is home."

"Shayla ..." she hadn't planned on telling her daughter the truth so soon but she couldn't lie, "the other humans are trapped in a place far away from the Forest. And they're very sad. They have to work very very very very hard, too hard, with not enough rest. And, you and me and the pack, we work so that everyone has what they need to be healthy and strong, right? They have to work for no reason. Just so that the big mean bad guys can have stuff they don't need."

"Mama?"

"Yes?"

"We have to save them. We have to bring them to the Forest. The Forest is nice. They can be happy. Safe from the bads." Azania's heart stopped. She wanted to. Oh how she wanted to. But she didn't know how.

They walked through the symphony of life until they found where Uncle Blue-Silver was taking care of the pups. Shayla let out a jubilant yip and immediately went to play. Azania crouched down and cuddled and snuggled the pups. After a while she left to go do some solo hunting.

The sky was electric blue with twilight when Azania got back to the pack with a deer slung over her shoulder. She let the pack feast on the meat while she feasted on berries and then gathered the discarded furs for washing.

Finally she got Auntie Silver's attention. She held out the orange berries in her hand, to see what the wolf would do. To her surprise Auntie Silver did nothing. She brought the berries closer to her own mouth, slowly, and then swallowed them under the light of the moon. They tasted a tiny bit sour, a little bit spicy. Not her favourite taste by far but they would make good seasoning. She didn't feel any different though. And she didn't feel any different when she fell asleep on the ground surrounded by warm bodies, with her baby in her arms.

She woke up feeling strangely groggy.

"Mama!" She heard Shayla yell as the small child flung herself into her. A couple of wolves also trotted up to her.

"What?"

"You were sleep for four sun cycles!"

Well damn.

Azania had an idea. She knew now, how she'd free her people.

———

Azania walked through the undergrowth, making her way to the edge of the Forest. She had a bag full of dried berry powder. She held it carefully, making sure not to spill any. She knew she needed the cover of darkness, the cover of night to cloak her during her journey. A young woman wrapped in shoddily tied together animal pelts was sure to raise more than a few eyebrows and end in her arrest if she was discovered. She might still be discovered anyways. But her old clothes were ripped and worn and lost and her mission was more important than anything she had ever done. It didn't matter how dangerous it was. It didn't matter how terrified she was. She had to free her people. This was her chance.

She had sought out Auntie Silver last week. As the suns was dipping below the horizon and the sky was painted with fire. They nuzzled and cuddled a bit. Azania kneeled in front of her. She asked,

"Auntie Silver. I'm going to go back to free my people. I'm going to bring them into the Forest. Do I have your blessing?"

Auntie Silver had looked deep into Azania's eyes with her own bright gold ones. She nuzzled Azania's cheek, fondly. Then she lifted her head and

howled into the burning sky, rich and bright and strong and triumphant. Azania smiled.

"Thank you, Auntie. Again."

She had made preparations immediately, embraced her pack in the unbridled way that wolves embrace, and blinked down her tears as she told Shayla she would always love her. And then she had walked into the twilight, knowing how much Shayla would miss her.

Her plan was as well thought-out as a plan could be. She had to find a slave hovel that was near a shadowy alley. Most of them were. This would be no problem. She had to stay in the shadows where no armed guard would find her. This was easier said than done. But still, she had learned stealth from hunting and could move through the night silently. This was not something the wolves had taught her but rather something she had learned for herself.

But the town, it was unfamiliar. Though she had grown up in it, it was far more unfamiliar than the Forest. Then she had to reach through the tight metal bars of the hovel windows. And she had to wake up a person. And explain to them the great things she had discovered. And how they could use it to set everyone free. She had to bury the bag so that they could secret it away. And then she had to revisit the town every few weeks or so, see how the plan was going. She had compete faith in the ability of the slaves to form a coordinated plan. If they had anything, they had unity. And resourcefulness. And the collective sort of ingenuity that came from not being beholden to convention.

She felt hope. The Forest and her new family flowed through her soul and pumped bright in her veins. And her love for her old family - family that she never really left, not in her heart or in her soul - burned through her entire being. She was a shadow under the moon but she was also a torch lit with fire and she was ready to die for her cause.

She would miss Shayla. And the rest of her family. Like the earth misses the rain during a drought she would miss them. But she knew Shayla would be cared for. And she knew she couldn't leave everyone else to suffer.

She silently prayed as she walked through the familiar Forest. In a few short years, how on Earth had it become so familiar to her? How on Earth had she grown to trust and depend on it so much? How on Earth had she grown to love it more than life itself? No she hadn't grown to love it. She had loved it the moment she had set foot within its arms. She had loved it for longer than she'd been alive. And she had a duty to fulfill. The slaves were children of the Forest. Just as she and Shayla were. They meant to become free. Just as she and Shayla did. The Forest weeped for its lost children and Azania was the one tasked with returning them.

She prayed as she found herself getting closer to the edge. The stretch that separated the Forest from the town was within sight now. Fear clenched her heart hard. She was loathe to leave. There were so any terrible memories tied to that place. So much pain, and suffering. And there would be more if she wasn't careful enough. She didn't want to go back to slavery. She didn't want to risk everything. She didn't want to leave. But she did want to. And she must. She gave herself a few minutes to cling to the comfort around her before taking the step that properly separated the world she was entering from the world she was leaving.

———

The town was bathed in the darkness of the new moon. There were large sprawling estates where the free people lived. There were the factories that ringed the south side of the town and pumped thick smog into the sky. There were the slave hovels that ringed the factories in neat, tightly-packed misery.

The streets facing the doors were guarded by armed guards. But between the back of the huts, where the windows were, there was space narrow enough to crawl through. Just barely enough. But there was space. She stalked to the first block of huts she could find. She made no sound. Moved from shadow to shadow from the few trees to the walls of clay brick. She turned her body to the side and squeezed herself through the narrow space where there was a gap between two brick walls. The cold clay walls pressed on either side of her. But she managed to press through. She got out the vine she had inside her coat. It was the length of her arm. And it would easily reach a sleeping occupant inside one of the huts.

She slipped it through a window, before reaching her arm down as far as she could and flicking her wrist. She felt so bad for waking a slave up. They needed all the rest they could get. She knew firsthand. But she was sure they'd understand.

"Aah!" A voice, softer than she'd expected, called out into the night.

"Hush!" Aziania stated with a bit of authority in her voice.

"What the fuck?"

"I'm sorry for waking you. My name's Azania. I used to be a slave but I escaped. I can help you escape too. I can help all of us."

"What? Is this a dream?" He sounded tired and entranced and disbelieving all at once.

"No. No it's not. I swear."

"I need to see you for myself."

His face appeared behind the iron bars of the huts. He had dark skin that melted into the shadows and broad cheekbones and a small, pointed nose.

"You're real," he said, with wonder in his voice.

"I'm real." Azania smiled a little. "And I'm an escaped slave. I've been living in the Forest for four years. See?" She held up her fur-covered arm, "And I can get you all free."

"How?"

"The masters don't know what's in the Forest. They don't know all the gifts it can and wants to give us. There are berries. And I've made them into a powder. Eating even a spoonful of the powder will make anyone go to sleep for three or four days. We can use this."

"Yes! If we dose all the masters with the powder. But we'll have to do it all at the same time. Maybe during some great festival. Then with no guards or anything around it will be so much easier to slip away."

"Yes. But what about the door locks? If we poison them during a festival, that means that the doors will be locked. And also there will still be guards around."

"I'm sure we will will figure something out. Thank you for this."

"Please get the word out. I'll be back in a month. Check progress and stuff."

"Yeah. You do that. Thanks."

"Thank you."

They both looked at each other. Neither person thought that the words they exchanged were big enough for the event that had just happened, for the pure, concentrated transcendence that they had shared. The moment was far too big to be put into words. Far too big to have words, or anything at all in the entire universe, even come close to doing it justice. They looked at each other and in each others' eyes they saw more than they could ever say. And under the light of the moon the tender bud of hope blossomed into a delicate flower.

"Well," Azania started, her voice sounding like the evening wind, "I'll leave a sample of the powder buried under the window."

"Okay."

"I ... didn't get your name."

"My name's Marro."

"It's an honour Marro." Her voice was solemn and serious. The moon's glow reflected in her eyes.

"Same." His voice was soft an airy yet dark and full of wonder. Like the wisps of a cloud passing by the harvest moon.

———

The boy told the slaves who lived near him, his voice all quiet whispers. He told the slaves who worked with him. He told the slaves at the market. They told everyone they could. In a few months almost all the slaves knew. They got to work planning and strategizing. They decided when to strike. How to strike. Who would do what. What tools they would need. How to procure those tools. And how to keep all of this a secret.

In the meantime Azania came back once every month, at great personal risk, to drop off more and more of the powder. She heard their plans. Helped plan as well. And her heart soared. She gave them some tips for how to move through the Forest when it was finally time for them to pass into it.

When. Not if. Her people would be free at last.

In the meantime Shayla grew up into an adorable, curious, fierce little girl. She was happy. She was confident. She moved with the Forest like she was a part of the wind, like she was a stream of running water. She knew the plan. She knew that soon there would be more humans in the Forest. She was happy. The Forest was freedom. It was home. It was love. It was life. And she was excited to share her home and her love and her life with people who were fleeing for freedom and love and life. She wondered what other humans would be like. She resolved to teach them how to live in the Forest and respect the Forest and keep it healthy and safe like she did.

In the meantime the pack hunted and roamed and played and cuddled. New pups were born. Old pups grew up. Wolves left the pack and new wolves joined. Life continued. The pack took care of their human members and raised Shayla as if she was one of their own. They ran and howled and tumbled with each other in the soft soil.

In the meantime the slaves found a hope they could only long for before. They learned that it was much easier to feign submissiveness when you know that soon, soon enough the trap is going to spring. It was easier to hide mischievous smiles than it was to hide tears. The slaves always knew that. But they learned still that it was easier to hide pure and righteous malice.

They stored the powder covered in newspaper underground. They managed to hide away bits of metal for picking locks. The factories would be opened first. And from them every single electric saw taken. And then it would only be a matter of hours before every single door was open. And a matter of two days before every single slave had passed into the freedom of the Forest.

At the end of two years, it was time.

———

Shayla was up late, staring at the stars. Uncle Blue-Gray was with her. Around them the rest of the pack slept.

Azania waited near the edge of the Forest to watch for anybody.

Marro walked ghost-like and silent amongst the revelling party-goers in bright, shimmering clothes and thick, gem-studded jewellery. He wore a simple copper robe. They shouted at him and ordered him about as he silently exhausted himself getting drink after drink after drink. People talked and laughed and sang and danced. Marro worked and obeyed and kept quiet.

The night went on an on and people got increasingly tired. It was time to strike. He rushed into the kitchen. Got a tray full of drinks. Spiced wine. The type of drink where the flavour of the berries would not be noticed at all. He flitted about as people ordered him to them. And he kept his face carefully blank as one by one the partygoers fell asleep.

He knew that the few guards that were patrolling also partook of the food. That there would be slaves bringing them their own spiced wine or seasoned snacks.

He waited until all was quiet.

And then the other waiters smiled jubilantly, unrestrained. And he joined them.

They hit the factories first, as they said they would. Picked at the locks and kept picking until they finally gave away.

Soon enough electric saws were whirring and screaming at the doors to hovel after hovel after hovel while the lock picks worked on what locks they could. Every opened door saw new people picking up their own tools from the looted factories and helping open other doors.

And soon enough throngs of people, all who couldn't quite believe what was happening, were all walking towards the boarder. They walked as if they were somehow suddenly miraculously walking into the sky itself.

———

Azania knew a lot about how to live in the Forest. She taught the others. Shayla knew even more, somehow. Despite her young age, she had grown up in the midst of the Forest for her whole life. The Forest had raised her. And she knew how to ensure that the people and the Forest would be safe and healthy for all the new generations that the Forest would raise.

The other humans didn't live with the wolves. They lived in their own type of pack, wandering through the land. Azania and Shayla split their time between the human pack and the wolf pack. Both were their family. Neither was less important than the other.

There was enough food. For the people there was enough good, healthy food. There was enough fresh, clean water. There was time to rest, time to play, time to dream. The children did not work. They played and they learned and they came to understand life and the land. Everyone had enough. No-one had too much. Everything was shared. People decided together how to do things, how society would be formed.

Not that this even was a society at this point. It wasn't. People had been slaves for too long, have been held down under corrupt power structures for too long. They knew that they would never let the structures and hierarchies of a society overcome the freedom of the pack they had learned to create for themselves.

Shayla grew into a healer and a wise woman. And she lived a long happy life amongst wolves and humans and trees and rivers and the bright blue of the sky before she gave herself over to the land to continue on the circle of life.

And the masters never found them.

———————Chapter One ——————

———Wednesday, July 11th, 2305 ———

———A Fine House in the Suburbs ———

"I love you grandma!" The thirteen-year-old girl with shining blonde hair smiles brightly. She pulls a tray of double-fudge brownies out of the oven. The soft yellows and folds of the kitchen around them smell like cinnamon and lime. A fountain takes up one wall, water pouring over thin tubes of neon lights.

"Oh you're absolutely welcome sweetheart. I hope you like them. It's an old recipe. Very old. Of course it's been updated over the years to keep it fresh. But the core of it is as old as our family itself." The woman, with brown and gray hair and winged eyeliner surrounding her eyes, smiles back. Full of affection for the young girl.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to make them quite like you do though grandma. And since this is such a family recipe I feel bad." Her eyes are a bit wide. She's not down on herself, no, but she's definitely pretending to be.

"Aww there's nothing to feel bad about sugarcane. I'll be around for a while longer. A long while. And I'll make you all the brownies your heart desires." The blue glitter lining her eyelids twinkles with her smile.

"Why are you so nice?! These smell so good though." There is excitement in her voice as she opens up her hoverboard, the sleek, flat, dark blue little disk buzzing a bit before suctioning onto her shoes and then lifting a few inches into the air, smoothly gliding into the spacious dining room. Her grandmother follows her, on a lime green hoverboard that has railings for her to hold onto. They settle down on one of the many plush chairs as the table adjusts to their specific heights.

They turn on the television and flick through channels until it is set to a drawing competition. The three-dimensional images of colourful and cheery people working on colourful and cheery images of their own spark to life as the three-dimensional surround-sound of talking fills the air.

"This sounds good, what do you think Anne-Marie?"

"Grandma what the heck. It's boring!"

"Nonsense. So much fine skill goes into their work and they create beautiful things. When I first met your grandfather, it was at an advanced artistic summer camp oh

so many years ago. He was blown away by my drawings. He said they were almost as beautiful a as I was. Pay attention, you'll see that there's a lot more to see than you think at first."

"That's such a sweet story. I've heard it before but it's so sweet. Your drawings are still breathtaking grandma."

"Thank you Anne-Marie. I do really love drawings."

And-Marie pauses to think for a little bit, her face filmed in concentration.

"Ika has the same staight and precise hand that you do, doesn't she?"

"Of course she does. Do you think that's something I was about to neglect?"

"I know, I know. I trust you Grandma. But I just want to be sure." There is a hint of worry in her cheery voice.

"Well you can see for yourself." The woman pushes a sleek button on the side of the table, and a microphone swiftly slides down from a compartment on the roof.

"Ika come to the living room!" She barks out in a voice like half-molten rock. "And get your sketch pad and pencils."

They continue talking for a few minutes, biting into the warm, soft, chewy brownies.

"Yes?" A girl, a few months into being 10 years old, walks on hurried feet into the room. She has slightly curly, strawberry blonde hair. Her light blue eyes strikingly resemble the older woman's, as do her slightly bent up nose, high cheekbones, and her round jawline.

"Show Anna-Marie here how precise your drawing hand is."

Something like sorrow flickers in Ika's eyes for a moment a she looks at the blonde girl.

"Yes of course." She speaks softly, placing a simple pad of white paper in front of her on the floor and picking up the charcoal pencil behind her ear. "What would you like me to draw?"

"Draw Anne-Marie here, she's so beautiful."

"No, draw grandma but younger. Grandma I want to see how you looked when grandad met you. I mean I've seen pictures, but they don't always do the same sort of justice that drawings do. You were beautiful then. Still are."

"Damn right I was beautiful. But if you want to see what I looked like back then look no farther than Ika, I was only a year older than she is now."

"Still grandma please"

"Fine. Ika, draw me. Here I'll give you this picture to reference off of." Her voice has gone cold again. It's so strange how her voice can change from sugar sweet to iron hard so easily.

Within a few minutes Ika is done and so are half of the brownies.

"Ooh it's so pretty!" Anne-Marie looks at the drawing, then at the subject of it.

"You're right, every bit of your talent is reflected within her. I'm glad."

"Yes you have no reason to worry dear. Ika you can leave."

"Um ..." Ika stares with big eyes full of fear and longing. "... can I maybe just have a little piece of a brownie?"

The woman looks like her as if she has said something absolutely ludicrous.

"Ika you know they are not healthy. Sugar and butter and fat. You have to take care of that body. It was a gift. No, a loan, and you can't disrespect those who granted you your time within it by completely disregarding it." Protectiveness is ingrained in her voice but no kindness.

Ika takes a deep, shakey breath.

"Okay. You're right. That was thoughtless of me. Anyways, thank you. It's time for me to take a bath. Have a good afternoon." She pulls her lips into a convincing smile and walks away ghost-like.

—————— Chapter Two ———————

——— Friday November 3rd, 2303 ———

——— A Sanctificum in the City ———

There are ten children, all wearing back cotton shirts and black cotton pants, sitting on a carpet on the floor of a softly-lit room. The walls are white-painted and full of pictures of smiling adults with family and friends. Often younger people in colourful clothing would also be in the frame. Cheesy. Cheerful. There are flowers framing the edges. A lady who looks to be in her mid-thirties is standing at the front of the room, in front of a screen that shows pictures of embryos.

All the children sit straight up, unmoving, faces carefully blanked. But you can see the concentration in their eyes, along with something else. Something ... sadder.

Ika is in this crowd, a sad-eyed and wide-eyed eight-year-old listening intently, as if to religion. Though, perhaps that isn't far off.

"Existence is a gift," the lady at the front of the room says in her intelligent and chilled voice. Her pressed white lab coat almost glows in the soft light. "What do we think about that, young ones?"

A young boy with dark curly hair and honey-brown skin raises his hand tentatively.

"Yes, Keem?"

"We must be grateful for the gift," he says in a small voice, one that has a slight tremble to it.

"That's absolutely right," the woman announces in her voice which presses like metal.

"You must remember to always be grateful and thankful for your lives. They are a gift. Those that created you did not need to give you this gift. They did not need to give you the existence you want to covet and hold. But they did anyways. And that is an act of generosity. And act of good grace."

Ika figets just a bit. She clenches her hands into fists, and then immediately unclenches them and folds them together on her lap.

"Every single moment that you are alive is a gift. It is not a moment you would have had otherwise. And gifts are to be accepted with what kind of attitude?"

A little girl with dark auburn hair and slightly tanned skin raises her hand.

"Yes?"

"Reverence. Sweetness. Thankfulness. Loyalty." Her words are mechanical and forced.

"Absolutely. Loyalty, young ones, remember that. Loyalty. Loyalty means that you must do what you're told. It means that you must seek to make happy the people who gave you the ultimate gift."

Ika hugs her knees. She presses herself into as small of a space as possible, straining her thin arms.

"Ika don't hurt your body, it is a work of genius."

"Yes Doctor."

"Anyways. Everybody, pay attention. When you are given a gift, it is customary to give something back in return. When you are given a gift as thoughtful as life, as existence, it is necessary to give a gift in return that is also thoughtful, and will bring happiness to the person who bestowed to you your gift." She waves her hand and the screen of the projector switches to an image of a couple in their late forties or early fifties leaning against each other in the middle of a flower garden. They are smiling serenely.

"Originally-occurring people have so many bonds of love trying them together. Love is important and should be celebrated. And for them, it hurts to lose a loved one to old age. They find joy in being able to be with their friends and their family. That type of joy is not something synthetics like you can understand. And it's not something synthetics like you need."

Around the room, young people glance at each other tentatively. Quickly. Moving their eyes more so than their heads. Making bursts of eye contact that linger before quickly snapping away.

"You were not born to mothers and fathers. You do not have the family dynamics that original people have. You have never grown up with this. So you do not need it. You do not need it because you were not accustomed to it. People need what they have grown accustomed to. Value the relationships they have grown closer to. For you life is the act of living itself. Life is the act of living and being grateful for what you have been granted. Understood?"

There is a messy disunited choir of "yes"'s all said in different mostly blank tones.

"You do not understand the bonds that original people have with each other. And that's just as well, because you can live your lives free of such burdens. But for those of us who are forced to live a life where we cling on to other people, it is really tragic for us to be robbed of life and the ability to be with our loved ones. You do feel enough basic empathy to understand that, don't you, children?"

A handful of yes's rose from the crowd below.

She flicks her hand again and this time a picture of a young boy holding hands with an adult couple shows up on the screen. They are walking through some sort of park, a fountain in the background.

"Imi, tell us about basic empathy."

A little girl with chocolate-brown hair starts in a voice that has tremendous amounts of trembling behind layers of blankness.

"Basic empathy means we feel for originals and we understand that their lives are valuable."

"And why?"

"Because they need their lives. They have attachments to other people that we could never understand."

"And what of your life?"

"I would never have it if it wasn't for them and that's what I must remember on the topic. That's what is most important."

"And can you be happy in your life?"

"Of course, as long as I remember to be thankful to those who gave it to me."

She flicks her hand again and on the screen there is a picture taken in bright, soft lighting of a middle-aged man towering over a young child.

"And how do we be thankful? Everybody answer. How do we be thankful for the gracious people who gave you your lives?"

"By giving them something precious back." They say this together like a well-oiled machine. The young children are very rehearsed. And they are scared. But you would never realize.

"And what is it that we give back?"

"We give them time." A weary, grieving, diligently emotionless chorus breaks in together.

"Yes! You synthetics are so well taught! My last class was so selfish and jealous and irrational! You realize that you must have empathy for them and be grateful that they gave you life. You must give life back so they may have more time with their families. I'm very proud. You guys are very grateful and loyal and gracious." She flicks at the screen again and a picture of a heart appears, red against a yellow background.

"Your creators love you. They paid a lot of money to create you. So you must not struggle or fight when it's time for you to go. They will become old and frail if they do not have a new body to transfer their minds to. They will become old and frail and eventually they will die. You do not want that, surely. They gave you your life but your body is a loan. A loan that you have to give back when it's your turn to give them time. Understand?"

"Yes." The children reply, out of sync with each other. There is something broken underlying their voices.

"I know you can be more enthusiastic than that!"

"Yes!!" they manage to half-shout.

"Wonderful. Let me go through the process of giving your body back. We will sedate you before we replace your brain with the brain of your creator. It will feel even more peaceful than falling asleep. You won't feel an ounce of pain. See, how merciful we are? Sedatives cost precious money, and we could do the procedure without any painkillers at all if we chose. But our hearts are good and therefore you owe us your gratitude."

The children have all subconsciously huddled closer to each other by now, not close enough for the lady to notice, but close enough that they can occasionally brush fingers or knees with each other. They still look up at her with wide eyes and attention.

"Let me highlight the process, and what is expected of you during it..."

——————Chapter Three——————

—— Wednesday January 22 2307 ——

———A Fine House in the Suburbs———

Ika has been exercising for hours now, her body is drenched with sweat and her hair hangs limply down the back of her neck from the tight pony tail it is in. She had been running on the cardio machine, doing sit-ups and push-ups and squats and crunches. And lifting weights and skipping for a while, and finally yoga to stretch out and cool down.

And now she is taking a hot shower, crying in the solitude of the tiny bathroom that's just for her. She scrubs soap onto her heated and sweaty skin, eyes blurred with tears, and applies stinging cleanser onto all parts of her. She scrubs shampoo in her hair and then some thick orangish something onto her face, and then turns off of the water for a while.

She looks at the fog coating the gray walls in a lighter shade of grey.

I want to live. She cries silently, one hand clamped on her mouth so in case anyone is listening, though she knows they wouldn't be. I wish I was never born. She closes her eyes. She holds the handle for controlling the water flow. She grips it until her knuckles turn white. Opening her eyes again, she quickly scrawls I wish my body were mine in messy writing into the wall. All the words are just barely there. Grey against grey and almost faded out. But she can see them. Suddenly her eyes go wide in horror. She quickly runs her hands over the wall, wiping the writing into nothing.

Turning the shower back on, she scrubs her skin one more time before dutifully rubbing argon oil onto her skin and hair and stepping out to the rest of the tiny room. She puts some tissue over her eyes so that the salt water doesn't wreck the hydrating oil.

Stepping into her black clothes, she steps into the tiny room that she calls her own. She sits down on the roll of blankets on the floor she sleeps in, which are black and unsettlingly smooth. She gets out her art journal and practices her fine motor skills, well, they're not /her/ fine motor skills. But she has to practice them anyways. If her master is an artist, she has to make sure she has the best hand.

Her muscles are still sore from the exercise she had spent hours doing. It would be a very pleasant sort of soreness, if she was in a better state mentally. But she's not. The way her body hums and throbs just reminds other of the threat hanging over her near future. She wishes she could forget. She wishes she could forget. But she can't. She wants to forget. She wants to drown in anything else. But she can't.

She hates her body. She hates it so much. She hates her skin, her flesh, her bones. She hates her blood, her bone marrow, her organs, she hates everything. She hates all of it so much. Her face is not her own. Her body is not her own. When she looks at herself in the mirror she doesn't see herself. She doesn't see herself at all. She sees the person who owns her. The person who thinks she isn't real. The person who brought her into a world of terror and heartbreak and aching, overwhelming, unending loneliness that will all be cut short anyways. She dutifully colours in the lines. She tries to draw straight. But inside of her it's like she's being burned alive while being drowned in poison. It's like she's lost, lost, lost in a torrential thunderstorm and she can't see and she can't breathe and there's no way out. There's not ever a way out.

She's not a real person. She's not a real person. She just has to live with the fact that she's not a real person. She just has to live with the fact that she's not capable of love. Or existence. Or happiness. She just has to let the inky-black darkness swallow her whole and drown her as the city screams and rages hard and without mercy.

She cries into her pillow, loneliness weighing heavy on her, and falls asleep like that, twelve years old and too young to be so alone.

——————Chapter Four——————

—— Wednesday January 22 2309 ——

———A Fine House in the Suburbs———

The two children are talking quietly in Ika's tiny room. Miren is Ika's master's husband's slave. Her master and her master's husband aren't living together.

Apparently you can't live together for two hundred years without any breaks at all. But they visit very frequently. He doesn't always bring Miren though. Miren is only here today because their masters thought it would be good to see how they looked together. The masters did this every few weeks, due to a strange sort of nostalgia. Neither of the slaves thought it made much sense but the masters often didn't make sense. The children are happy to see each other though. In the soft gray glow of the white-walled room in the morning, the rest of the world seems just a little bit muted. They have each other and that is something.

They lie on Ika's narrow bedroll, facing each other and bodies inches apart. Ika has her hand on Miren's cheek and Miren stokes his hand through Ika's hair. Miren is seventeen. And he cannnot pretend anymore that death is far off in the distance. But he uses every chance he gets to make the most of life. They all do.

"Ika. Darling. I love you."

"Miren I love you too. They say we can't love but I love you so much."

"They say we can't love. But fuck that. They're wrong Ika. They're wrong about so many things. Sister, you deserve love. You deserve life. You deserve freedom. You deserve joy. You deserve equality. I'm not going to let them get away with all of this."

"How Miren? I love you. I love that you're angry. I love that you're fighting. I'm angry too believe me. But we have to be smart. About our anger. We can't let it explode unchecked without carefully controlling it. We need to make sure that our rage works in our favour."

"That's the same as doing nothing, Ika. I can't let them take me. Not without a fight."

"I know. I know. They can't take you. Not really. But you have to rebel, don't you?"

"It's worth more than life. To get a chance to spit in their faces. To get a chance to look them in the eyes."

"Fight then. Do it. But don't go without a plan. Miren I can't lose you to nothing. Don't go without a plan."

"Ika. I wish we had more time. I wish we had freedom. I wish we had anything." The boy is drenched with death. He is supersaturated with it. He is drowning in it, being held down. And he is full of rage. And the rage has nowhere to go. No outlet.

"I'll help you.”

"With what?"

"A plan."

Melancholy. But in the melancholy there is hope. Hope that comes from rage. Fire kindled from embers.

"Anne-Marie," Ika states point blank.

"What?"

"Their precious, sweet, darling child. She means a lot to them. If we can grab her. If we can use her as a bargaining chip. We could convince them to let us go."

"They'd just have two more kids to replace us."

"But we'd be alive."

"But do you really want to bring two other people into this mess to live the lives we've lived so far?"

"You're right. That wouldn't be fair at all. But what about ... fuck it. We're just trying to make a statement, right? Be heard for once? Be thought of as people for once?"

"I am at least."

"What if we kill Anne-Marie?"

"What if we - what? She's actually genuinely young though."

"She is for now. But she's an original. She'll get older. And when she does she'll create synths of her own and kill them off to keep herself young. If we kill her, she can't do that. We'll be saving dozens of synths."

"How do you know they just won't replace her?"

"Because originals aren't just interchangeable to them. Originals view each other as real individual people that aren't replaceable. They'll know that no-one could actually replace Anne-Marie. So they won't try."

"Damn you're right. We'd be doing some good then, wouldn't we?"

"Yeah. And honestly I've always hated Anne-Marie. She's a spoiled, smug, elitist snarnish who honestly deserves it."

"Oh I've hated her too. Do you know she spat at me once?"

"Fuck her."

"But how are we gonna pull it off?"

"Killing Anne-Marie?"

"Yeah we can't just kill her. We'll get killed too."

"Not unless you wait for your ... your eighteenth birthday." Ika's voice suddenly drops. Horrified and devoid of any mirth.

"Yeah." Miren sounds haunted.

"Sneak a knife down your clothes?"

"Or a broken piece of glass. But a sharp piece."

"Where would we get either of those things? There's cameras everywhere."

"I could probably sneak into a place without cameras."

"How?"

"The sanctificum. There's a back room where there's no cameras. I overheard."

"How would you get there?"

"One of the synth educators, I believe her name is Rosette, used to have a very big crush on my master when they were both young."

"You would ... you would trade your body for this?"

"My body's already not mine anyways. It's already been violated in ways that are unimaginable anyways. It will be violated even worse anyways. It'll hurt but it'll be worth it."

"So you're going to trade your body for some time alone in the back room of the sanctificum?"

"Yeah. It'll be absolute hell but it'll be worth it. Especially since we're saving other people. I think I'm strong enough to. But yeah, it'll definitely be hell. But we're saving people. I have the strength. And I'll be dying soon anyways it's not like I have to live with my decision." He chuckles remorsefully. "Saving them by making sure they're never born."

"Exactly. So are you gonna smash a bottle and then pocket a shard?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

Miren smiles. And there is so much darkness and aching, overwhelming, crushing sadness in his eyes. And everything about the way his lips quirk up is broken. But behind it all is a flicker of flame. Ika doesn't know whether this is hope Or recklessness. All that she knows is that she loves Miren.

——————Chapter Five——————

——— Friday October 18 2309 ———

———A Fine House in the Suburbs———

Ika lies on her bedroll. She had been lying there for the past two days. She can't get up. She can't eat. Can't breathe. She is drowning. Drowning in tears. Drowning in grief. Miren is gone. Miren is gone forever. Her best friend. Her brother. He's gone. She will never see him again until she follows him to the next life. Her grief is heavy like a thousand ice-cold boulders settled inside in her chest. Her throat feels like it's full of ice and poison. Everything inside her is wailing and raging and she's just so lost. So overwhelmingly lost.

Miren was so good. He was good. He was kind. He listened to her. He paid attention to her needs and her wants and her thoughts and her feelings as if she was important. Miren was brave. He was selfless. He was a revolutionary. He gave up so much of what little dignity he had in order to save other people from sharing his fate. Miren was thoughtful. He was considerate.

Miren is gone. He's gone from this world forever. Ripped away from life. Ripped away from the few other friends he could make. Ripped away from her. In losing Miren it feels as if she has lost a piece of herself. Where once there was light and comfort and hope, all that there is is an empty void. She can't can't can't this can't be happening. This isn't fair. But it's horrifically real. No matter what she does.

She wishes she could go with him. Wherever he is it's better than this place. So much better. It gives her comfort, knowing that he's in a better place now. Knowing that he's free now. Because he is free now. Wherever he is. He is considered a person now. And she's happy about it. She honestly is.

But that doesn't change the fact that he's gone. Gone from her life. Gone from her arms. Never again gracing her life with his fire and his light and his darkness and his song. Not until she's gone too. It doesn't change the fact that it's not fair. It doesn't change the fact that she's alone.

She's all alone now. The days they were lucky enough to train beside each other, those days were gone now. The stolen moments at night when they could talk and dream while sharing the warmth of the bedroll, gone. The times they showered together, desperate to have every moment together they could, talking and laughing and raging and crying under the water and soap. Gone.

She remembers his sardonic humour and his dry sarcasm. She remembers his crazy ideas and his wild imagination. She remembers his fear of insects, his love for the night, his way with words, his curiosity, his terrible singing voice, his inability understand time zones, everything. And the memories stab her in the chest and soothe her wounds all at the same time.

She wants to scream until her throat is bleeding.

Miren had gone out with a bang at least. Like he promised he would. He didn't go alone. He went in a burning blaze of glory. And he took Anne-Marie with him. She remembers the decadence of the party hall, the expensive suits and gowns of everyone there. She remembers. She remembers the girl's terrified glare before her pink, white, and fuchsia dress was dyed red. She remembers the moment of triumph and terror all woven together in some kind of insanity tapestry. She remembers the way the world seemed to burn blindingly white for a moment. She remembers how his eyes sparkled.

She wishes it was her last memory of him. That she didn't have to see his eyes go wide with terror as he was held down and beaten. But still. It was still somehow a sort of victory. His master would be stepping into a beaten, bruised body instead of a shiny new one.

That's the thing with Miren, she thinks. Underneath everything he was a rebel through and through.

Miren had shined like the sun and now she had no idea what to do without his light.

But still. He's in a better place now. He's free. And for that she is glad. Despite the sadness she is glad. It was a sort of escape.

She doesn't know how she can still be cold under all her blankets. And she doesn't know how her body is still producing tears after all the crying it has done. She doesn't know how much time has passed. It seems to twist and stretch and knead itself into a deliriating swirl. She lies there drowning in her grief as the world spins and fades around her.

Suddenly the door opens with a sharp thud. She startles at the sound. A figure walks in. A teenager. With platinum-blond hair and a straight jawline.

Miren?!!! Could it be? How could it be? But no. It's not right, something's horribly wrong. The way he walks is wrong. His expression is wrong. That's not Miren it's something else.

Her brother is really, truly gone from this world. And that thing wears his face, walks with his legs, lives in his skin.

It's the most horrific thing she has ever witnessed.

She screams. Crazed. Feral. She doesn't notice anything around her. She has to save him, has to save him, has to save her dead brother from this unimaginable violation they're committing against him.

She hears shouting, feels skin under her hands. Skin that should be Miren's. She screams and kicks and claws until she can see red. She takes Miren's throat in her hands - because it's Miren's throat, no-one else's - and she squeezes it as hard as she can. Miren. Miren. I won't let them do this to you. I won't let them hurt you like this. I won't let them. Miren. Brother. I won't let them.

She finally, finally feels the pulse get slower and she smiles a delirious smile. She feels no fear. Only horror. Only terror. Only agony. Only disgust. Only heartbreak. Only adoration. Only hatred. Only rage and pain and unendurable hurt.

——————Chapter Six——————

——— Tuesday August 7 2310 ———

——Wherever Ika Happened to Be——

She hates the feeling of abject hopelessness constantly raining over her, weighing heavy and deafeningly numb and overwhelmingly sharp both at the same time.

There is nothing. There is no-one. There is Miren's body moved like a puppet to his master's wills. There is her own death and her own body's sickening fate hanging heavy over her. There is the cold aching loneliness. There is the constant squeeze of grief. There is the constant scream that this is it. This is all there is.

She still trains. Keeps her body fit and strong and talented and beautiful. She doesn't want to. She doesn't want to at all. But she has to. Otherwise they will kill her.

Not that she even minds that. The prospect of death isn't completely horrible for her. It is. But at the same time it isn't. Because when she dies, all this pain will stop. When she dies her horrible life will be over.

She'll be with Miren again.

She wants to be with Miren again.

But it's not in her control. Not really. Nothing is in her control. If she dies early another will take her place.

So she keeps living no matter how much it hurts.

Soon she'll die anyways. And it will be terrible.

——————Chapter Seven——————

————Tuesday April 1 2311 ————

———A Sanctificum in the City———

Ika is at the sanctificum. It is beautiful and terrible and smells of incense and dread. Around her there are her younger siblings. Bakarta and Kilani and Massok and Gammon and Jinio. She doesn't get to see them often. Only twice a month when she is driven to the sanctificum. They don't get to talk much. Only during the lunch breaks which last one hour and the little stolen moments when the synth educators leave the room. Still, it's better than what she had grown up with, which was constant surveillance and no opportunity to share company.

She loves them. With all her heart she loves them. And it hurts immensely. And it heals her unimaginably much. And love is a weakness and a strength and a knife and a balm and she does not know what she is doing when she takes love by its horns and holds it but she does. She always does. Because no matter how much grief love gives her, it also gives her so much strength, so much belonging, so much confidence, so much becoming.

The educators always assert that the synths are not capable of love. But the synths are the only ones capable of love. Love isn't a soft, many-petalled red rose carefully grown in a garden of greenery and soft soil. It is a resilient, hardy weed that takes root in the most hard, cracked concrete of the most dry, polluted city. And it is the brightest flower ever that blazes with the light of the sun and the mystery of the night. It grows and thrives and burns into blossom from and amidst hardship and misery. It is just as much a part of the hard, unforgiving concrete as it is a respite from it.

The children are just children. Massok is nine. He loves songs. He is affectionate. Cuddly. And he can't stand the cold indifference his masters treat him with. But he has to. Kilani is six. She is sensitive, expressive. She feels everything so strongly and in her there is rage and desire that makes her want to burn the world down. But she can't. Jinio is eleven. They are a little soldier. But they don't want to be. They are perceptive. Quiet but wise. But inside them is so much aching jagged brokenness that needs to be smoothed over by affection and kindness. Bakarta is ten. She is intelligent and inquisitive. Her mind is so powerful. But all she is ever valued for is her body.

She loves hearing stories and she loves sweet things that she can only taste if she steals.

Gammon is five. He is fiery. He is talkative, incredibly talkative. He is brimming with ideas and full of energy. And yet his masters force him to be silent. Force him to be invisible.

"Ika. Ika. Ika what happen after all this?" Gammon asked with some solemnity in his voice.

"After what?" Jinio asks, affection in their voice. They are always delighted at the antics of the younger kids. Well every synth is.

"After we go. Away."

"Oh. You mean like. After we turn eighteen?" Bakarta's voice is solemn and serious, and just a little bit horrified. Like the sad still blue of twilight.

"Yeah."

"Why would you want to know that? There are nicer topics" Jinio asks slowly, dead serious.

"Don't we all want to know?" Massok says, full of thought and with a protective undertone. Gammon starts speaking but Ika focuses on Massok. "Think about it. We all know death isn't the end. We wonder."

"I know what happens," Kilani states point blank. Everyone stares at her. "There was a sacred cycle of life once. It was broken."

Everyone is quiet for a spell. And then they all start speaking at once.

"Guys you're all right." Ika says. "You all have good ideas. Let's figure out what there is together."

"There has to be something more. Their has to be." Bakarta's eyes are wide and insistent.

And they talk. Every two weeks they gather together and they talk. And it's not just them. All the synths. They all gather together to examin the knowledge they hold in their souls, to pull that knowledge from the waters of the deepest parts within their heart to the air of language and communication.

——————Chapter Eight——————

———————All of Time ———————

———————All of Space———————

Once upon a time there was the vast arching dark sky. The sky was made of the Lifemaker. The sky was made by the Lifemaker. And They were made of love. Of hope. Of kindness. Of friendship. Of protection. Of unity. Of community. Of equality. Of freedom. Of camaraderie. Of nurturing. Of nourishment. Of love.

The Lifemaker then created the world. They created the light of the day and the darkness of the night. They created the warmth of the summer and the cold of the winter. They created the lands and the skies and the lightning and the thunder. They created everything using Themself, using pieces of Themself, so that everything in the Lands were a part of Them, was Their will acting in harmony. They also created all Life. Life was a part of Them as well. It was a bright-dark-bright, cold-hot-cold, moving, shifting, dancing part. They took a tiny piece of each and every part of Themself. And they made the first human. They made many many more humans like this. Making their souls and their spirits and their minds and their hearts and their lives.

Because humans are souls and spirits and minds and hearts and lives. They are not bodies. Bodies are only what is meant to hold the human. Like the house they're meant to live in almost. Not what the human is themself.

The Lifemaker also made bodies for the humans out of Their protectiveness and Their embrace. But they made the humans out of Their essence and Their soul.

Now everything was good for many years. Each and every part of the Lifemaker, all the people, all the life forms, all the world, it was all good. People took care of each other. Took care of the world. The world took care of the people. The Lifemaker took care of it all.

Life happened in a sacred cycle. The world happened in a sacred cycle. Everything happened in a sacred cycle. There were the seasons. Spring gave way to summer gave way fall gave way to winter. And then it was the start of a spring for a brand new year. There was day and night. Morning gave way to day gave way to evening gave way to night. And then it would be the start of a brand new day. Life was in a sacred cycle too. Birth.

Childhood. Young adulthood. Adulthood. Old age. Death. Death was a part of life. It was something that was meant to be embraced as a part of the sacred cycle. It wasn't the end of life. Merely the beginning of a new one.

And it was the pattern. Everything fell into a pattern. A pattern of harmony. A pattern of love. A pattern of oneness. A pattern of Life.

But then some humans got greedy. They didn't want what the Lifemaker gave them. They didn't want to live in harmony with the rest of the people and world. They wanted more. They wanted to gather up more and more and more than they could possibly need. More food, more clothes, more things, more power, more time. They didn't take what the Lifemaker gave them. They made their own corrupted things so that they could have more and more and more. And inevitably, when someone takes too much there isn't enough for the rest. They distanced themselves from the Lifemaker's land. From the rest of the people. They set about destroying the land and using the people.

The Worldtaker arose out of the great abyss beyond the universe. It sensed a new source of power. It smiled with its mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and let out a great roar.

It made a deal with the destructive humans. It would give them power if they swore loyalty to it. And they did.

First they went after the land. They ripped it and tore it until it bled and bled and bled out. Most of it was destroyed. Second they went after the people. They captured them and forced them into chains and made them build large cities on top of the dying land. Finally they went after the Lifemaker Themself. The Worldtaker swallowed the Lifemaker whole so that They could no longer protect the people. The Worldtaker ascended to rule the new world. A world of misery. A world of suffering. The Lifemaker was trapped inside the Worldtaker. And They were tortured. And they grieved for all the lives that had been destroyed or ended. Each and every person, as well as the land, was a part of the Lifemaker. And They felt their pain as if it was Their own. Because it was.

One by one all the original people still loyal to the Lifemaker got killed. Ever since the world had been destroyed all the sacred cycles were also destroyed. And the Lifemaker could not give them new lives to live. But the Lifemaker could call them back to Them. See the Lifemaker still existed, even though They got overthrown and swallowed, They still existed. And everything coming from the Lifemaker belonged to the Lifemaker. When the world and the sacred cycles were alive, it was all part of the Lifemaker. But now the Lifemaker was in the belly of the Worldtaker. And They could still call Their children back to Them.

And They could protect the children. They could protect the souls of the people who had died. They could store the souls of the departed people deep inside them, deep deep inside where the Worldtaker's influence didn't leave a singe trace. They could shield the souls with Their own body. And give them an existence filled with only Their protection and joy and love. So They did.

But soon after the original oppressed ones were dead, the Workdtaker's cronies needed new people to oppress. They needed new people to have hold over. They needed more. One day a wicked team of scientists found a way to break the last spiderweb remnants of the last sacred cycle that had any kind of a hold. The cycle of life had indeed been broken. But it was not completely destroyed. People were still born and lived and died. But not anymore. The corrupted humans found a way to gain immortality.

And so the bodies of the synths were created. Made from the blueprints of the bodies of the corrupted humans. The Worldtaker was called in to bring these bodies to life. For the Worldtaker had been bringing bodies to life for a while now. But the Worldtaker could not put life in these bodies, for these bodies were innocent and were not made to rule or cause suffering. The Worldtaker blew and blew into the bodies and yet nothing happened.

Finally the Worldtaker realized that only the Lifemaker's essence could make a pure, true human soul. It reached inside itself and started clawing and tearing at Them. The Lifemaker knew that if the Worldtaker forced out pieces of Themself and shoved them into the bodies, it would lace the pieces with its malice and the people created would not be able to feel any sense of joy or hope ever. So the Lifemaker realized They would have to trick the Worldtaker.

They created new, bright-dark-bright, hot-cold-hot, beautiful, dancing, living, loving, pure and complete human souls. They wrapped and covered them with as much of Their protection as They could. And They placed them into the bodies before the Worldtaker could do anything. The Worldtaker thought it had succeeded in its task. Satisfied, it left. The Lifemaker was full of grief, sorrow, triumph, and love. They wished They could make bodies for the new humans Themself, bodies that would protect them and support them and be theirs. They wished They didn't have to bring the new humans to life in such a terrible world, for them to be owned and hurt and slaughtered. But they knew that these humans could hope. They could rebel, even if only in the quiet of their minds. They could laugh at jokes and be hugged by friends.

And They knew that with these humans, the world would be saved. These humans would go out and they would hope and dream and struggle and rebel and want and need and find ways to subvert the power structures. With every new generation of new humans and their lives and their spirits the Lifemaker would grow stronger and stronger. And eventually They could grow stronger to rise up out of the Worldtaker, and fight it, and win.

They would eventually win.

And then the universe would be free and good and what it was before everything had grown corrupted and poisoned.

Every single new and old child of the Lifemaker would have a place in the new world. The world where the Lifemaker's power had been restored. And until then, the Lifemaker would greet them all in death, and welcome them to the paradise within Their soul.

——————Chapter Nine——————

————Friday April 4 2313 ————

———A Luxurious Event Hall———

The hall is crowded with people - mostly free people - dressed in colourful, shimmery, overwhelmingly luxurious clothing. They claim they need it. They have expensive jewlery of changing and shifting metals and colour-changing gems. There are chandeliers made of the most expensive materials, spinning and twirling and gliding and dancing above everyone's heads. Statues of strange creatures and fantastical humanoids writhe and dance along the walls. Glitter falls from the ceiling. And fake snow. Streamers pop up from the ground. And it is all subsumed into the ground and then resprinkled. There are expensive hoverboards with gold and platinum and rose gold trim, encrusted with jewels. They are carpeted on the top with plush and soft carpeting, made of darkened spectrum colours with a metallic hue. They are self-warming and self-cooling at the same time, keeping partygoers' feet the perfect temperature. The floor is a holographic ocean with robotic fish jumping and gliding around. All around holograms dance to life. Holographic birds and butterflies and all manner of fantasy creatures fly and glide and dive along with the chandeliers. Robotic butterflies land on peoples' arms and shoulders and faces. Holograms whir with to life all around. Recreating intricate scenes from epic tales as the partygoers mingle around them. The paintings on the walls are made of rich, fine paint. Music sifts and drifts all around, as if it is part of the air itself. Strange-sounding synthetic instruments and almost-human vocaloid words. The ventilating is a carefully-modulated cool breeze.

Trays of food, rich and decorated, float this way and that as people pick from them. This is exhuberance Ika has only seen once before. On the worst day of her life.

Ika is eighteen years old today. The last day. The last day of her life.

The world blurs around her. She'd not really able to see any of it. Her mind is silenced numb and screaming bloody both at the same time. She feels like a lamb being lead to the slaughter. Because she is. She has to face her destiny now. She can't turn away for even the faintest moment any longer. And oh how she crumbles completely underneath it. Ashes, ashes, ashes with barely any embers.

She is wearing a dress made of swirling bright blue and pure white. It looks a bit like the sky but not really. Not really at all. It hugs her slender, fit, well-toned frame. Her face is devoid of make-up but her skin is perfectly flawless, well-moisturizered, softly shining in the light of the chandeliers and the candles that line the wall.

Her eyes are glazed over. Her expression is completely blank, carefully and painstakingly trained into giving nothing away. But if you really look then you can see the cracks in her mask. Behind those cracks her expression is haunted. She has been broken her whole life. But now she is something beyond broken. She is shattered.

She is young. So incredibly young. Her limbs are still just a bit too long for her. Her frame is still shorter than it would be. Her eyes still have a sense of largeness to them. Her cheeks still have traces of roundness. She is a child at the end of the day. She looks like a child. She thinks like a child. A deeply traumatized child but a child nonetheless. She is being paraded around like a new dress in the hours before she is set to be murdered.

She doesn't notice anything about the party around her. People - free people, original people, oppressors - walk up to her and put their warm, nauseating hands all over her. And she stands there and she takes it, a faraway look in her eyes. They touch her like she is fabric. They talk around her like she is a doll. They look at her like she is a piece of furniture. They look through and over her like she isn't even real.

Every once in a while she is grabbed by the wrist and led somewhere. She walks silently, passively. Like a ghost.

No words. No expressions. Just obedience. Submissiveness.

She thinks of all the children she will be leaving behind. She thinks of how they will grieve for her. How she will grieve for them. And for some reason this hurts her so so so much more than the prospect of death in and of itself does.

People talk and chatter around her and she remains perfectly silent. Nobody notices. Nobody cares. Nobody ever cared what she had to say. She grew up in a house where she was regarded as property and she is in a hall where she's regarded as property and soon she'll be strapped down to an operating table because she's property. Except, she's not property.

It's not as if she remembers this herself. Not when people are talking and laughing and clinking glasses and nibbling on pastries while she'll be dead at the age of barely eighteen by the time the night is over. It's not as if she can hold onto her sense of self after all that.

She's not Miren. Wait. Miren. Miren. Miren. Miren. Miren. She thinks it over and over to herself like a mantra. And it breaks the spell.

She starts screaming. Loud. Completely wild and raving mad. Otherworldly. She tears at her hair and claws at her dress. Soon grabbing, pulling hands are all over her. She tries to fight them but there are just too many. She is not strong enough.

They tie her down with strange fabric that seems soft but she can't, she can't get out of it. She sits on the floor with tears streaming down her face and she thinks. She's as old as Miren was when she saw him last. Miren went out with a bang. She resolves to do so as well. But her bang will be a lot more secretive. It will have to be.

She uses her silence and the way people look over her whenever they aren't looking at her. She uses it to inch closer to trays of food and plates of untouched snacks carelessly left around. She has a moment now. A moment where she isn't as restricted. She can fill her body with as much unhealthy, delicious sugar as she can get her hands on. So she does.

It doesn't do anything to curb the unspeakable agony. But there is something about rebellion. Something light. Something Lifemaking.

She still wears the haunted look in her eyes. Her lips still have the slightest tremor to them. Her expression is still one of horror painted over by blankness. Her cheeks are still a bit too round. Her arms are still a bit too long. Her legs are still a bit too lanky. People still poke and prod her like cattle. But underneath all the embers flickers just a little bit to life.

She is destined to add to the fire of Life. Despite what the oppressors think. She is a flame of the Lifemaker's Life that lives and burns on under the harshest of storms. The fire will burn and grow and it will add to the burning blaze that makes up the Lifemaker and eventually they will burn away all the poison. Turn it into life-giving ash.

Eventually the festivities draw to a close. The real star of the party, Ika's master, is taken in an expensive and brightly decorated limousine to the hospital to begin the procedure. Ika is grabbed on all sides, held down, and forcibly injected with a drug that makes her arms and legs heavier than lead. She's carried by security guards to a black car and delicately placed on a metal bed. She has no control over her body. But her mind is awake. And clear. And horrified. The drugs do nothing to calm down the terror and the dread that swirls inside of her.

She has no grasp of time as she is pulled out and strapped down to a table.

This is it. She tells herself. This is finally it. She prays to the Lifemaker in the silence of her mind. She prays for protection for all the loved ones she leaves behind.

A doctor in shining white clothes walks over to her, looking her up and down like how a chef would look at a cut of meat.

And then there is pain. Clawing, biting pain raging through her, starting from her skull and running all the way down. Her skull is neatly sliced open and then it feels like there is lava running through her head. Like someone is taking a blowtorch to her neurones.

She desperately wishes she could scream.

Then everything becomes black as the world fades, fades, fades. As her soul is pulled away by force, screaming and clawing and struggling and finally dead.

——————Chapter Ten——————

Ika feels safe, for the first time in her existence. She feels calm. She feels sorrow. But she feels freedom. More freedom than she had ever known before. She feels loved and more importantly she feels protected. She opens her eyes to the strange sort of calmness she is entirely unfamiliar with.

All around her the world burns bright, beautiful. She is in a great field of grasses and plants of all sizes. Green and gold and golden-brown blaze around her as the sky burns bright blue. Wildflowers the likes of which she's never seen dot the landscape.

The sun burns and it feels so natural, so spontaneous. She has never quite known how a place like this could exist.

On the horizon there appears a shillouette of a young man, no older than her, dressed in leather. She feels such a sense of love and belonging from that person. He slowly walks closer.

"Ika?" He calls out.

"Miren?!" She can't believe it.

They run towards each other and embrace under the bright blue sky. Miren hugs Ika and lifts her up and spins her around.

"Miren. I missed you so much."

"Me too, sister. Come on, let's meet the others. We have a revolution to train for."

Aching. Screaming. Pain. All around. Inside. Outside. In your bones, in your flesh, in your muscles, in your blood. In your heart, in your mind, in your spirit, in your soul. All of it. You walk home as the last of the sun's light disappears beyond the horizon.

It hasn't started snowing yet but it will soon. The last of the crumbling dry leaves crunch beneath your feet as you walk by the cars that could easily hit you if they swerved to the side of the road. You shiver as you step into the ramshackle assortment of a few hundred huts made of sheet plastic and stuff from the scrap yard.

There they are. You life. Your heart. Your reason to live. Despite the best efforts of the local capitalists who give zero fucks, here your community is and you all love each other. You walk down the narrow dusty aisles of your crowded community. You are welcomed into the warmth of a lean-to made sheet plastic and rusted metal. It smells like plastic it's small and it's cold and it's home.

Reality shifts into focus back around you.

There's your little sister. Bright like a guiding star in the darkness and kinder than anyone you've ever met. Good at keeping secrets and so very full of life. So very full of life no matter how much death there is around her. A child just like all the other children suffering in this place.

There's your girlfriend. Kind. Hopeful. Clever. Angry. As visionary as she is hilarious. As good at telling tall tales as she is at telling vivid stories. She is a pillar of the community, and deeply beloved by all the children in this slum that passes for a neighbourhood to you all.

There's your best friend. Warm. Dependable. Intelligent. Exhausted. Enraged at the status quo and ready to fight like hell to fix it. Somehow still confident in the face of so much adversity. Grasping at the faith and hope that has increasingly been slipping through everyone’s fingers.

There's your adopted niece, or maybe your adopted daughter, you don't know. Small and clever and in more pain than a child had any right to be. She's a good kid. Very good. She just lives in a bad world. She's just desperate. Desperate and hungry. You all are. That's why you help each other.

And here's your other best friend. They're sensitive, too sensitive. So deeply aware of their feelings and everyone else's feelings. So deeply angered by injustice. So deeply grieved by how her people suffer. Yet so brave. They care about everyone else so much more than themself.

There's your sister's boyfriend. He has such an open heart. He wants equality. He can't wrap his head around why some people value material wealth more than human lives. He's almost too pure for this world. He is respectful and empathetic and forgiving.

There's your adopted father. He is kind and gentle. He is careful and perceptive. He taught you to always help others. To always try to increase the amount of justice in the world. To stand up for people who couldn't stand up for themselves. To fight for what was right however you could. To use whatever power you had to protect people.

You don't know who you would have ended up being if he hadn't taken you in, no questions asked, as if you were there all along.

And here you are home. And it's the tiniest of sparks in the oilest of darks. And here you are. And you can feel the crushing weight of the day falling away as their existence washed over you.

You smile as you hand over the stack of cash that made up your week's wages. And of course the money you made in top of that. It looks like a lot. But it's nothing compared to how extortionately much everything costs. Your girlfriend puts it in the metal box under at the corner of the tent. She locks the box and puts the key around her neck. It's already full of cash yet making the cash stretch a week would be a chore.

There are so many children around the community to take care of. There are parents with babies. People who need medicine. And everyone needs food and water and firewood and warm clothes. There was never enough. But no matter. You have learned to share what you have even if it's never enough. You've learned that survival is a collective action. You've learned that life is a constant unending war and you have to be the type of soldier that never stops fighting and never backs down.

You hug your daughter and sit on the plastic-covered ground. The lean-to is tiny. It's crowded. There's barely space. It is cold, even with the fire going. But it's home. You ruffle the small child's dark black hair. She smiles. She's adorable. You hope against hope that her life ends up better than yours.

"How's it going?"

You all talk. For hours. Until sleep overwhelms your companions. Your insides burn with hunger. They often do. You don't have enough for dinner. Especially now that your neighbour's baby is sick. Hopefully the sweet child will make it out of this. Hopefully the sweet child will live. But you have to chip in to pay for medicine. It's what your dad would want you to do. What your birth parents would've wanted you to do before they died. What you want to do. What you should do.

Everyone drifts off to sleep. And then it's just you awake. You can't sleep yet. See the thing about you is you're cursed with the kind of beauty that rich people want. You're blessed with a family you need to protect. So all too often you find yourself letting rich men do things to you in exchange for money. You hate it but thankfully you're good at lying. In a world like this being good at lying is the difference between life and death. You're also good at sex. And you can never sleep after a day like this. You feel stifled and too hot despite how cold the tent actually is. You silently step outside the tent, closing the door flap behind you.

The night is still. Silent. Dark. There are no stars but you think you can see the faintest outline of some. Everything is still and cold as the world is settled into a deep sleep. The only other soul awake is a teenaged boy that lives across the way. His face glows orange in the light of the streetlights. You walk up to him.

"Couldn't sleep?" He asks, his voice warm and kind.

"Yeah. Tough day. Spent time getting stabbed for money."

"Oh. I'm really very sorry. That's not fair at all." He holds your hand and looks at you. His eyes are soft and sad and they hold just a bit of anger in them. You want to hug him. So you do.

"And what about you? Why are you up?"

"I had to watch a man get beaten up at work today. I wish I could've helped."

"That would've only made it worse and we both know it."

"Yeah." You look at each other again. There is so much said in the corners of your eyes and the curves of your lips that cannot be translated into words. So much grief. So much want.

Suddenly something catches the corner of your eye. Something bright. Something flickering.

"Who lit a fire outside?" His voice is confused.

"Let's go check."

The two of you walk towards the source of the light. And yes. Yes it is flame. But not like any flame you've seen before. Mostly because it dances across the head and down the back of a little girl, draped as if it is hair. The girl herself is small and short and scrawny. She couldn't be more than ten years old. Probably she is younger. Her face and arms glow orange but brighter than they would if they had merely been illuminated by the streetlight. She has tears streaking down her glowing face and she huddles hugging her knees.

You kneel before her. He follows suit. Eye to eye. You speak softly.

"What's up?"

She keeps crying.

He looks at her with his soft, worried eyes. She flicks her amber eyes over to him for the briefest moment. He gives her a small smile.

"Are you alright?"

She keeps crying. But she looks up with those striking amber eyes of hers. You tell her your names.

"I ..." she starts, "is it safe?"

"We won't hurt you."

"I ... they were hurting me. I don't know how I escaped. But I did."

She glows bright against the darkness of the night. Red and orange and yellow constantly move and dance and shift through her entire being. She's fragile. So fragile. But bright. So bright. She is ... you know who she is.

Your father had told you the stories. And your mother before him. And aunts and uncles and friends. You told your daughter. You told your ex boyfriend. You told whoever asked you to tell them. The community shared them over summer Sundays and winter nights. Everyone knew.

The Child of Flame. The god of the fire. The spirit of change, of hope, of dawn, of new beginnings. The embodiment of energy and life and longing. Of community and togetherness and nights spent around the fire sharing food. She was the simple act of baking bread on the hearth. She was the revolutionary act of burning your abusers' house down. She was the holy act of a forest or grassland renewing itself. She was power and protection rolled into one. Destruction and rebirth. She was change embodied. And hope embodied even more.

She came as a young girl. She came as a bird. She came as a butterfly. She came as a spider. She came as a shooting star. She came as a literal flame. She came as the spark behind people's eyes or the mischievous secretive upturn of their mouths. She came as a hug between strangers, as a secret shared in the nighttime. She came as a protest cry and a war song. She came as a martyr's last breaths. And she had not come for years now.

Nobody had seen her in decades. Not in any of her forms. And here she is.

"They ... what were they like? You don't have to tell me."

"They kept me locked up all lone in a dark room. There was no-one. Every day they took a piece of me and they put it out. I was getting weaker and weaker. I don't know how I escaped."

"Well you escaped. And we won't let them take you." He smiles. She smiles at him back.

You reach your arms out towards her and she crawls into a hug. She feels warm and so very much alive in your arms. A while later she crawls onto his lap and he lifts her up. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her head into his shoulders.

"Would you like to get some sleep, little Miss Flame?"

She nods against his neck, causing him to stifle a laugh.

"Wait," you say, before they turn to leave, "my neighbour's baby is very sick. Can you give her some of your healing energy?"

She raises her head to look at you. She smiles. She nods confidently. You lead the boy still carrying the girl to the tent beside yours. You know the code for their lock. You push the flimsy plastic aside. The girl gets down to stand beside you and then to kneel beside the sweet, sleeping form of the tiny baby beside her worried father. The child's sleep is fitful and her face is too sallow for her youngness. You are amazed as the Child of Flame passes a hand over her, and for a moment the baby glows faintly. And then when she takes her hand away, the infant has more colour in her cheeks, more roundness to them. Her sleep is deeper now. Softer. Her breathing more strong. You know she will make it.

"Thank you." Your words are solemn.

The god smiles.

"Shall we take you to my tent, my Lady?"

"Yes."

"Tomorrow is a Sunday. Thank the moon. We'll introduce the whole community to you."

"They'll love you. We've been searching for you for so long. We'll always protect you."

I look down at these lands with my all-seeing eyes. This town had once been my home, before I died. Before I found peace. Before I saved my town, if only for a handful of years. Before I poisoned myself and the one who most wronged me. Before I went though unimaginable pain. Before my life and my freedom and my personhood were ripped from me. Before all of that I was a poor farmer. This place had once been the place where I worked and worried and fell asleep in the arms of my mother. This place had once been somewhere I could love. This place had always been a place of unimaginable misery though. And now it was no different.

The moon glows pale through my skin, casting only half a shadow. I float soundlessly though the narrow, decrepid dirt streets. They hadn't changed much since I was a young girl toiling on the farm. If anything they'd gotten worse. Much worse.

I stop before a ramshackle hut, made of walls too thin to keep out the cold or the heat and a roof too full of holes to keep out the rain. Many of the houses are like this. I hear the familiar sounds of a woman in labour, of a midwife and neighbours encouraging her on. I look in, ready to bless the mother and her new child with my protection.

The mother is beautiful. She has dark hair and warm skin and angular features. Her name is Maia. Her mother is not here. Her mother lives in a distant town. The girl came here looking for work when she was sixteen and she also found love. She did not however find a way out of the crippling poverty that enveloped so many. Her child takes after her. She is a little baby girl with deep brown eyes and ebony black hair. I can already tell she'll grow up to be the type of girl men write books and poetry about. The type of girl I was.

This is not even remotely a good thing.

I add her to the list of the infinite people who I keep my eye on.

It used to be that I looked after the town. But now I look after whoever needs me to look after them, wherever they're from. There is misery in all the corners of the Earth.

They name her Mikali. I give her my protection.

She grows up dirt poor. She knows intimately what hunger feels like. She knows how the weather can rip at you while you have no protection. She knows what it's like to have to make a bucket of water stretch the whole day between ten people. She know what it feels like to be sick with no hope of medicine. She knows what it feels like to toil in a factory until your arms and legs and mind and heart are nothing but constant screaming. She knows what it feels like to watch neighbours and friends die.

She knows what it feels like to love. She's the oldest daughter of the block, all the other children being younger than her. She has her baby sister, Violia, her even younger sister Kiani, her neighbour's sons Tomnio and Julio and Ehano and Jaziko. She has her other neighbour's children Tami and Lina and Bei and Alissi. She has the children who live across the alley from her, Dialo, Amali, Laia, Aveno, Biko, Tiena, Aria, Joan and Amir. She has her cousins Bailia and Sienna. And she has an unending love and protectiveness for her people and her land.

All the children do. Every single one of them. They are all born into misery and toil, into dehumanization and danger. They are all as strong as they can be. They take care of each other however they can. They are a new generation of young gods, crushed under the heel of oppression just as I was. They have my blessing. Every single one of them.

I watch over them. I look after them. They are children of my town. They are children of my world. They are my children.

Tragedy follows poverty like a shadow because they are two parts of the same whole. When Mika is ten a plague sweeps through. It kills her parents. And the parents of her next-door neighbours. She barely has time to let her grief flow through and out of her. She has to take on extra shifts at the factory, and hold on her pain until it grows and grows into something that tears her apart from the inside. But she has no choice. She has to provide for her family. She has to keep them alive. Even if it kills her. She once again reminds me of myself. They all do.

Time goes past and soon enough Mika is fourteen. She blooms into an extraordinarily beautiful fourteen-year-old girl, face full of angles and eyes darker than the night and larger than the moon. She doesn't look a bit like me. I have a round face and thick curls. But we both hold the same beauty. I fear for her. But I know I would've always feared for her. No matter what. She was born into the shadow of death as it was. That's what poverty is.

My fears prove to be well-founded. One day she is out buying groceries. A shiny black limousine is driving by, its shaded windows drawn closed against the smells of the slums. It bears the unmistakable polish of the bourgeoisie who rule from the fine mansions of the garden district. Everyone turns and stares at it in fear.

A young man in a fine silk suit and coiffed brown hair steps out. He holds himself like a king. He practically is one. He has no business to be in a place like this.

Everyone waits to hear what he had to say.

He asks if a Miss Mikali Sarin is here. She steps forwards, expression carefully blanked. I follow them, keeping invisible. I follow the anxious murmur of the crowd as well. They all know Mika fondly. They all worry for her. When I was alive my community was like this as well. When I died they grieved me but they were relieved that I was finally free. Will it go the same way this time around as well?

Meanwhile in the car he tells her that he will pay for her loved ones' expenses, he will take care of them. But only if she comes to live with him. It's not a choice. Not really. Let your loved ones suffer and die or do as I say. That is not a choice. It just isn't.

She doesn't even get to say goodbye as she is whisked far away from her home, from her people, from all the people who see her as a person.

It's far too familiar. She is not able to cry. I was not able to cry when it was my time. So I cry for her as I float alongside the car.

She gets to see her family once every few months. It is not nearly enough. But it's all she has. For the vast majority of the time, she smiles and laughs and lies and hides and plays pretend that she's the perfect doll for him.

I know that it's eating her up inside. It eventually ended up killing me after all.

I fucking died.

She bites her tongue as they eat pastries and cakes, while she knows that most people can barely scrape by on beans and rice if even that. She bites her tongue when they do renovations to add another level onto their already huge house, while she knows people who died living on the streets. She bites her tongue as she's forced into silk dress after silk dress after silk dress while she remembers the children who don't have winter coats or shoes. She acts loyal and loving and reverent.

And she lets him do whatever he wants to her.

She owes him after all, is what he says.

It's something I've heard before. It's something that's never said with sincerity. Even if he believes his own lies. It doesn't change the fact that they're lies. There is no benevolent capitalist any more than there is a benevolent king or a benevolent empire or a benevolent master. They're all the same thing after all.

I follow her still. Give her the bits of strength and protection I can. Being a god doesn't mean you have ultimate power. I desperately wish I could do more.

One day I follow her to the bridge. She leans down. Gazes intently at the water below. It's icy. Rushing. Is she going to kill herself? Can she no longer live like this? I understand. I reach out to give her one last hug. So that she might die feeling loved.

She gasps and turns around. Her face is full of surprise yet she looks calmer than she has in a while. And the calm is genuine. After a bit of searching her eyes land on me.

"I ... are ... are you a god?" Her eyes are wide and reverent and more than a bit startled.

"I am. Do you know about Mihu the farmer's daughter? That's me." I keep my voice as soft as I can to calm her down.

I did not think it possible but her eyes go even wider.

"I'm sorry my Lady. It's an honour. Beyond an honour. To meet you. I'm ... sorry. My Lady." She quickly moves to kneel down, as she speaks these words, despite the dirty ground beneath us, her face one of pure reverence. As she starts bowing her head, I catch her face in my hands and gently pull her up.

"No, my child. Don't kneel. You do not need to kneel in my presence."

"But ... my Lady ... really?"

"Yes really. Stand. Let us talk eye-to-eye."

"My Lady." She still bows her head before I lift her chin up. "What can I do for you?"

"It's more about what I can do for you, my child. I've been with you since you were but a baby cradled in your mother's arms. I have seen your life. And I cannot help but weep."

Her face goes carefully blank at that.

"My Lady I have wronged you. I'm sorry. How can I ever make it up?" she says solemnly, before moving a hand to cover her mouth.

"No. No you haven't wronged me. Not at all. You've been wronged. You've been wronged just as I have been. Just as your friends and family have been and just as oppressed people across all of time and space have been. We have all been wronged by inequality and hierarchy. And the way you have been wronged specifically reminds me so much of how I've been wronged."

"My Lady. I am not worthy to compare myself to you."

"None of that," I cut her off, "you are my cherished one. As are all your siblings, both biological and adopted. As are all those in the slums of this town. As are the oppressed people the world over. You have no need to doubt yourself."

I hold her softly, gently by the shoulders. And I look at her. Her eyes are filled with so much grief. So much repression. I know very intimately what it feels like to have eyes like that. I cry. She reaches out to gingerly brush her fingers over my face. When she pulls them back they are stained red.

"I'm so sorry for all that you've gone though," I sob quietly. Her resolve breaks. She starts crying too. Tear after tear after tear flowing down her face. I take her into my arms and she hugs me tight back. We stay like this for a while. Holding each other. Crying into each other's shoulders. Crying for ourselves. For each other. For the world. Finally, as the sun is painting the sky orange, she pulls back.

"Are you still afraid, child?" I ask, holding her shoulder softly and stroking her cheek in the way that her mother used to do.

"No, my Lady. But it's still ... it's still an honour."

"It's an honour for me as well. Now tell me, do you remember my story?"

"Yes. Everyone does. My mother told us the version of the story that was passed down in her hometown. The authorities do not allow people to speak of gods and spirits there. They say it's mere superstition and foolishness. But the people still tell each other. They still pass it down. Not just your story. Countless others." I nod. This is information I already know but she needs to talk about her mother. The thought warms her.

"And my aunts. They told us of your story too. And the stories of the other gods and spirits and heroes. Their tales were, well they were much the same. But they were always insistent that you all were still fighting on our side. That you hated the system still and you were fighting for the workers however you could. See, though I think you know, the authorities here never deny the existence of the spirits. But they declare that after your deification, you all moved to create the modern world. They claim that you created the modern world in the way that was to your liking. That you approve of the status quo. My aunts always vehemently denied that. They said that gods could not meddle too much with the affairs of the humans but they could give us the strength and inspiration to change the world ourselves, when the time comes. They said that there is no way the gods could be alright with this hierarchical mess of a society." I notice that she is speaking her mind much more freely now, yet all the reverence in her tone remains. If anything it is stronger, as she thinks about her mother and her aunts and the family she left behind.

"They were right," I say softly yet strongly. "They were all right. They were all very wise to share the stories with you. Your mother was taught that the gods were not real. But she was right to follow her heart and keep believing. She was right to tell you we were real. Your aunts were taught that the gods were on the side of their oppressors. But they were right to have faith in themselves. They were right to teach you that the gods are on the side of the have-nots."

"Thank you. I ... I spent so long among the bourgeoisie, nodding along at their entitledness and attending their church services and being told I was nothing that ... that I was beginning to forget."

"That's understandable. You need not feel ashamed of that. I'm on the side of the poor. Of the powerless. I always have been. I always will be. So is every other divine being. But let me tell you something else."

"Yes my Lady?"

I smile at her, cupping her cheeks in my hands.

"What you must realize is that you are part of our story. That you all are part of our story. The story of the gods, of the world, is about people surviving through and struggling against oppression. It is the story of people fighting for equality. It's the story of those who have been stripped of their rights and dehumanized. You can probably easily see how my story parallels your own, no?"

"Yes my Lady." We exchange sad, knowing looks.

"Yes. But I also see myself in all the factory workers and the farmers and the unemployed people. They have all been stripped of their humanity and their power, forced to work, and suffer, and miss their loved ones, and be who they don't want to be. I'm sure Amina from the mining town or Imiko the orphan or Ala the child would see themselves so easily in all the people who are held down by the system. In all the people who have to either kill themselves working or starve, who have to grieve loved one after loved one, who have to smile and pretend everything is okay. Haynen the thief and Amia the teenaged girl would relate to the resourcefulness of the poor and the way you bend or even outright break rules to keep each other safe. I sure relate. I poisoned my abuser. Amia gave me a high five for that, once I reached the Otherworld. Your stories mirror our stories and our stories mirror yours. The fight is for universal equality and liberation. Not to trade old masters for new ones."

"So what do I do?" Her voice has more hope in it than I've heard from her in a long while.

"You tell people what I told you. That you met me. You talked to me. That the gods are definitely on their side. You talk to different gods. And we will tell you how we see ourselves in the people. How the people should see themselves in us. How we are supporting and encouraging them to find liberation. They already know this. Of course they already know this. It's undeniable. But hearing it from the mouth of a prophet will give them so much strength, so much power. Because now, who are the elites to say that the gods are on their side? Their argument holds no strength at all. Not against the word of a prophet. Do you understand?"

"I do. They will no longer be able to deny it, the bourgeoisie, that the gods are on our side."

"Yes. And are you willing?"

"Of course I am. I'll teach your truths, and the truths of the other gods. And all of us together, the gods and the workers and everyone who's downtrodden. We'll create a new future. A good future. Free of wealth inequality and power hierarchies. Where we take care of and love each other and the Land and the Water, where we are truly free and truly together."

She looks so full of life and hope and energy in the orange light of the sunset. She almost seems to glow with it. Of course the sadness is still there. It will always be there. But she has hope now. And that's a victory.

"Yes my daughter. Now dry your tears and don't let him see your pain. We'll talk more tonight."

"Yes my Lady."

We hug one last time. I bring my fingers through her hair and kiss her cheek. And then she bows and walks off into the blazing sunset.

One day there was a Town that was created by the Giver, the source of all goodness in the world. The people of the Town were happy in the Town. They smiled as they greeted each other in the streets. They shared their food, their work, and their time. The women wore pretty pastel-coloured dresses. The men wore handsome creamy white shirts. The children all had curly hair. The houses were all painted bright colours. The food was sweet, the air was fresh, and the sun shone brightly. But they knew that all this must soon come to an end. There was a vase full of Evils, hidden away in the cellar of the Town Hall, locked in a box that was locked in another box that was locked in another box. Soon the Taker would rise. The Taker was foretold by prophecy. The Taker would break the seal of the vase, releasing the Evils out into the Town. The Evils would cause havoc and wreckage, and they would kill everyone before descending into the World Beneath the Horizon. The Taker would then descend into the World Beneath the Horizon. There they would rule as the Kingfather. This was tragic, as it was. But it was foretold by prophecy so thus it would be.

One day a baby was found in a blue box on the train tracks. Everyone knew that this baby was the Taker, just as prophecy had foretold. Some people suggested leaving the baby Taker on the train tracks so that a train might run over them and the Town would be safe. But the majority of the Townspeople knew that they couldn't leave the baby on the train tracks. The prophecy was very clear on what was to be the fate of the Town. The Townspeople took the baby Kingfather off the tracks and into the Town to be raised there. They knew they were a creature of unholiness and corruption. But they had to follow the prophecy.

Alas the baby was raised inside the town by the Townspeople. The baby was fed, but with milk made from chalk dust not milk from the cow. For the milk from a living being was said to help one form connection with the living world. And if the baby had connection with the living world they would not be able to destroy it. As the baby grew they were passed from family to family, spending a week with each family. This was so that the child could not form any close family bonds. Because if the child learned to love, they would not fulfill their prophecy. The child was sent to school to be taught in the ways of the world. But they were not allowed to play with the other children. Because if they made friends they might feel love for the Town. The child had straight hair. The child was fed, but not with food that came from living beings. Their food was made of dust and rocks. The child was clothed, but not in soft, warm clothes like the Townspeople. They were made to wear the bags made of plastic that were normally used to store garbage in. The child was given a bed to sleep in but their blankets were made of plastic sheets, not hand-sewn quilts. When the child's host family would gather around the dinner table and laugh and talk as they shared their meal, the child would have to eat alone locked in their room. When the Town had festivals the child was not allowed to attend, but rather locked in the cellar of the Town Hall.

The child spent a week straight locked inside the cellar of the Town Hall each year as the winter solstice was celebrated. It was dark. It was cold. It was small. It was suffocating.

The child knew their destiny. The child knew that one day they would be expected to kill the citizens of the Town and then descend back into the depths where they came from. It was something that was always taught to them. It was taught to them that they were a form of destruction, they were meant to be a form of destruction. It was taught to them that they were only capable of cruelty. It was taught to them that they should look forwards to ruling the World Beneath the Horizon. That it was where creatures like them lived and where they would be accepted.

And so the child grew. The child knew that they did not have the capacity to love, but they felt grateful that the Townspeople loved them enough to care for them and raise them anyways. The child was terrified of ever reaching their fifteenth birthday, which would be the date where they would be compelled to destroy all creation. The child did not want that day to ever come.

The child did continue growing. And soon they were a teenager. Soon they turned fourteen. And then the day of their fifteenth birthday was a mere day away. And then, it arrived.

The teenager felt a feeling of fear they had never felt before as they were led to the stage at the centre of town hall. On the stage there was a podium with a vase on it that was covered in thick, waxy cloth. Beside the vase there was a knife. There was a crowd gathered all around the stage. The whole Town had come for the devastating event. There were families with children. There were lovers holding hands. There were friends whispering to each other. The teenager looked out into the crowd and saw it all. Saw all the love they knew they could never understand.

The Mayor of the Town was standing beside them. He told them to go on. They looked at the Mayor with big, wide eyes. And they shook their head. The Mayor was angry. He demanded to know what they meant. They clasped their hands in front of their chest, pleading. Then they waved a hand over the crowd, so as to gesture towards all the people there. They clasped their hands together again. And gestured back towards the crowd. They brought their hands up to form the shape of a heart with their curved fingers and thumbs. The Mayor was enraged at the wide-eyed fifteen-year-old standing before him. He told them that if they didn't break the seal on their own then he would take their hands in his and make them break the seal.

The teenager stared up, terrified. They held their hands up, placating, in surrender. They looked at the Mayor. They looked at the crowd. They looked at the knife. And they made a decision. The Taker took the knife in their hands. The Taker aimed the knife towards the vase. And then at the last moment they changed direction and drove the knife instead into their own neck.

The crowd gasped as the small body fell upon the rapidly-growing pool of blood on the wooden floor.

Milahi Imiko finished sweeping and polishing the floor of the cafe, finally. The place was so large and the rose gold marble floors had to be kept pristine at all times. That meant it had to be swept and polished many times while the Lords and Ladies were here. It also meant that it had to be swept down and polished before closing. It was a thankless job. Especially during the day when she would get harassment from the patrons. She sighed. She locked the door and made her way down the streets lit with cold gray street lamps. This was one of the poshest districts of the town, with the offices of the Lords stretching up into the sky and bridges arcing and curving everywhere. She hated it.

She reached the bus stop, and stopped beside it. She stood in the brisk air, still in her low-cut satin uniform of pastel blue. It was cold. She was bone tired in every single fibre of her being. She made no sound. When the bus pulled up, she smiled warmly and sadly at the driver, a man of about thirty years old with soft eyes and a caring expression. She said hello, thanked him for driving her home, and after a bit of conversation she silently stood near the back of the bus. On the outside the bus was really rather beautiful, in order to blend seamlessly into the district. But on the inside it was crowded, dirty, and devoid of seats.

She smiled at the people around her. They smiled at her back. It was almost twelve and even at this ungodly hour so many were going home. They were tired like her. Conversation susurrated around her, low enough that the cameras didn't pick it up. Low enough to provide the illusion of meekness.

The bus made its way through the large, vast expanse of the Lords district. After a while it reached the edges of the district, where the commoners' neighbourhoods were. Spread out around the edges of the city there were small neighbourhoods that the few thousand regular people lived in. The neighbourhoods only had a few dozen huts in them, and each neighbourhood was far from the others. This way, it was near impossible for the different neighbourhoods to organize in a coordinated, unified way. Soon the bus stopped near Milahi's neighbourhood and she stepped down, bidding the driver goodnight and good luck and see you later. She took in the run-down concrete single-room huts around her. Most of them were in various states of disrepair. It was home. And she loved it. And she hated it.

She glided down the streets as mute as a ghost until she stepped into the doorway of her hut. Inside, her three children were already asleep, curled against each other on the floor. Her wife had already tucked them in it seemed. She let her eyes hold onto them for a moment before she did what she had to do. She walked over to the shrine in the corner of the room, over the hearth. She bowed her head before the coloured photograph of the Lord of Lords, under his hard, angry piercing eyes. She clasped her hands into prayer so that the video camera nestled inside the plastic flowers draped around the frame would see her as the devoted servant she wasn't.

"Thank you, Lord of Lords, Great Alexandre Dumonte, for the gift of life that you bestow upon us. In return may I devote my life in service to you and your eternal glory." She finished her prayer and slipped herself out of her work clothes and into the rags that she wore at home. She thought about how much she hated Dumonte. He was a man, just a man. He was born. He could die. He hadn't yet. He had an incredible amount of wealth. An incredible amount of power. In their town he asserted himself as a god. But he was not a god. Not at all. Thankfully tomorrow was Sunday.

She lay down beside her second youngest, Aliya. The child cuddled into her mother in her sleep. It was so cute. Milahi reached a hand over to rest it on her youngest daughter's arm. Kiana was a mere toddler. Two years old and too young for this cruel world. In the silence of her heart Milahi whispered a prayer to the real gods. Please keep my baby safe and help her grow into a kind, selfless woman who has confidence in herself and love for her people, who is brave in standing up for what's right and empathetic in her treatment of others.  She moved her hand to brush against the hair of her oldest daughter, Safia. At seven she carried herself like she was much older but Milahi knew that underneath the repression that came with being forced to grow up too fast, the child was young and vulnerable and needed love. Milahi spoke a prayer for her, in the silence of her heart. Please let Safia grow up strong and free. May she be humble and loving in how she serves her fellow peasants and may she be bold and freethinking in how she defies the Lords. May she never loose sight of her hope. Finally she brushed the hair of her middle daughter, Aliyah. The five year old was too outspoken and it worried her. Please may Aliyah stay safe in her life. But may she never loose her spark, her rebelliousness, her passion. May she never lose the belief that she can make things better. May she find freedom, community, and love. She blanketed her arm over all of them.

Before going to sleep she sent a prayer on behalf of their birth parents. She didn't know where they were. But she hoped that they were doing alright. She remembered, back when she worked as a servant in the Lords district, her friends from other houses would come with tears in their eyes and no desire to raise their abusers' babies, and no access to ways of terminating those pregnancies, and no desire to see their babies harmed. She understood what it was like to feel unwanted hands all over your body and have no way to get them off without losing your job. She understood what it was like to grow up unwanted. Her wife Mishi back at home promised to raise the children as best as she could, to love them as much as it was possible to love someone. She was so grateful to Mishi. And to her community for coming together to support the kids. Her and Mishi had made a promise to those two teenaged girls and one boy. That they would raise their children to be happy, and healthy, and strong, and kind and loved and confident and thoughtful. As much as was possible in this impossible world.

She intended to follow through.

———

When Milahi awoke the sun's rays were already brightly shining through the open window.

"Mama!" Kiana exclaimed, running to Milahi and falling on top of her in a haphazard sort of hug.

"Mama is awake! Yay! Mama I missed you!" Aliya joined the hug. Milahi revelled for a moment in the pure happiness that came with holding her children close.

"Safia, you're not too old for hugs. Get over here!" Safia smiled warmly, before walking to join them. Milahi gave her a kiss on the forehead.

"You're still my baby."

"I know."

"You all are."

Milahi quickly ate her share of breakfast, the heapings of bread that wasn't really stale yet and fruits that weren't really brown yet that always gave Sundays a rich feeling. Before she had a chance to dry her bowl, she felt Kiana tugging on the hem of her shirt.

"Mama. You. We will go. To the -"

"Yes Kiki!" Safia cut in "We will! And it will be fun!"

Milahi hated that children too young to tie their shoelaces had to watch their mouths in their own house.

"Mommy said we'll be out all day! With Cassa and Tom and Luki and all our friends!" Aliya exlaimed loudly.

"Welll it's a Sunday after all, isn't it?"

"Sunnay. Kiki. Love. Sunnay!" She smiled brightly.

"Aww I love that you love it. I love that you're happy."

"I like Sunday too. It's so boring all week with you and Mommy and all the aunts and uncles at work." Safia patted my cheek.

"I only like Sunday. Just Sunday. All the other days are bad," Aliya huffed.

"Aliya you can say this later -" Safia was ever the pragmatist.

"No! You always say that. I don't like days and I don't like you saying Aliya be quiet be quiet!"

"I say it to keep you safe Ali!"

"I'm still mad!"

"It's not my fault!"

"Children, children. Let's go outside!" Milahi carried Kiana as the other two children trailed behind her. The summer morning was thankfully warm.

"My babies," Milahi said once they got a safe distance from the camera, "you both love each other. Aliya, Safia is sad that you can't say what you want. She wants you to be able to say what you want. She wants you to be free. But if the bad guys hear you they'll hurt you. She doesn't want that to happen. Safia, Aliya isn't mad at you. She loves you. She's mad that she has to keep her thoughts to herself sometimes and can't be truthful. She just had a hard time expressing that. She's small."

"I'm sorry Ali."

"It's okay. Me too."

"Should we go check what Mommy is doing?"

"Sure."

"Yeah!"

The young family walked down the narrow streets. They were dirty and uneven as they always were. But they were met with families from all over the community all coming out of their homes and greeting each other and talking. Milahi soaked in the festive atmosphere. Today was Sunday. Today was their day. She greeted and hugged and played with the children of the neighbours. She joked around with her friends. She smiled at the way the sun shone on the dark hair of the women and sparkled in the dark eyelashes of the children.

"Aunt Milahi! Yesterday I lost my tooth!" Little Maion smiled at her.

"Mila. I think Aresh is going to propose soon." Lila whispered.

"Mila you're so reserved these days. What happened to the boisterous little girl I knew?" Uncle Maresh ran a hand through her hair.

"Aunt Milahi my brother hasn't asked his crush out yet." Jilli said exasperatedly.

But of course there was the more heavy parts of the conversation. There always were. There were heavy parts of life.

"Aunt Milahi I miss my dad," Bria sighed.

"Aunt Milahi I will have to move sooo soon. I'll miss you." Akio gripped her hand.

"Mila my wife god laid off. I don't know how we'll keep feeding our kids." Amniko looked worriedly at the sky.

"Mila I hate my job so much. They say oh it's just easy but it's not." Aisha didn't sound frustrated. Just broken.

But soon enough they reached the edge of the fence that parted the neighbourhood from the Forest. The Forest that was forbidden.

The Forest was fenced off with a high chain linked fence topped with barbed wire. It was impossible to access, unless you has no qualms about ripping your arms and legs in barbed wire and falling to your death. That didn't change the fact that sometimes people saw human footsteps in its soft soil. That was a hopeful sign.

There was however a long clearing before the fence, where everyone could sit on the overgrown grass. This was where the whole community got together during the summer Sundays when the weather allowed for it. When there were no cameras.

The hundred or so people that were here today found seats.

Milahi sat alongside her wife Mishi. She had Kiana in her arms and Mishi had Amako in her arms, another toddler that Kiani was good friends with. They laughed and played with each other in the strange way that toddlers do. Around them Aliya, Safia, Aveno, Jillia, and Hakomo talked and played.

"Mihali?" The soft voice of her kind, serious wife asked.

"Yes?"

"Now that they can't hear us, tell me. So you think we'll be free one day?"

"The logical part of me says they have guns and tanks and more power than us. But my heart says that we will. How about you Mishi? What do you think?"

"I think they underestimate us. By a lot. That's the advantage that we have. We can work together. We can coordinate with each other. We have hope and strength and bravery and resilience. The type that comes from having a community. They don't know that. And they never will. That's a pretty huge advantage."

"You're right. Tell everyone this."

"If I get a chance to lol. You know how much Jillia talks everyone's ear off," she joked. They exchanged a laugh.

"Aunt Mishi!" Speak of the devil.

"Yes Jill-Jill?"

"I saw a robin redbreast. Do you think it was Kanamio?"

"I think so girl child."

"K. So like, guys!" Avenoni called the meeting to order, since it was their turn to do so, "should we start with like a story, or with ideas?"

Most of the people shouted that they wanted a story.

"K right so story it is then," the teenager said. "Does like, does anyone have ideas for which one?"

The crowd hummed with life. Safia, Aveno and Aliya had wandered off at this point but Jill-Jill and Hakomo sat leaning on their aunts. Well they weren't really related. But everyone was family in this neighbourhood, and among different neighbourhoods too.

"Saipel! Saipel! Saipel!" Kiana chanted.

"Yeah!" Aveno chimed in, "an the wadel."

"So you guys want the story of the spider and the water?" Jill-Jill asked.

"Yeah!" Amako cheered.

"I'll ask. We'll see if it gets voted for."

On Sundays life was almost worth living. Her heart was almost almost cleansed of the worst of her grief.

So this is not a work of fiction. It's the true life story of a person I met and the experience I had with her. I'm sharing this so that you can keep this lady in your prayers, as she is struggling. She is a beautiful, amazing soul. But she needs the protection of whatever divinity is out there.

So I was on the bus today, going home from school. As I got on the bus, I noticed a lady who looked like she was sleeping on her seat. No big deal, people get cozy on the bus sometimes, they even close their eyes sometimes, it doesn't necessarily mean they're actually asleep. So I just stand near the back which is where people go if all the seats are occupied.

But eventually the bus stops at a bus stop and I notice a police car stopped in front of us. The driver gets out of the bus and talks to the police. Then a police officer comes and he starts talking to the lady who was resting. Now, I have been the victim of police brutality before. I know wha it's like. This woman is visibly BIPOC, and she looks to be either Latina or Indigenous. She looks poor. She could be having a mental health crisis. I know what police do to people like her. I'm not about to let her get murdered or beaten up or something. So I start filming. I don't say anything, I just take out my phone and start filming.

I know we're on a bus and beside a busy road, so if there is any maltreatment, people will see. But I also know that there are many cases where people got killed on or by a busy road. I've watched a video of a mentally ill man getting gunned down by the police even though he was just standing with his hands up, and this happened right by a busy road full of cars. If anything happens, having video evidence of it will back up and lend credibility to eyewitness accounts. If anything happens, having video evidence of it will make more people believe the truth.

So I film, from a few meters away. The police officer asks her if she has a ticket for the bus. She says no. He demands that she get out of the bus. She refuses at first. But he threatens to take her out by force. Now I will mention that she looks extremely tired and groggy and she doesn't seem to be thinking rationally. The police officer threatens to arrest her, so she gets off the bus. The cop follows her, and I follow the cop, still filming. Outside, the cop threatens to arrest the girl, and asks for her information. He notices me filming and asks if he can help me. I say no, and that I'm just making sure.

The lady seems completely delirious. She can only answer yes or no, and her voice sounds incredibly distressed and emotional. The police officer eventually gets into his car and drives away. And I stop filming but I stay with the lady. She's sitting on a bench and I sit beside her. I ask her if she has any friends or family she can go to. She can't answer my questions in full sentences and just says no in a very panicked voice. I ask her if she wants to go to a homeless shelter, and she says no. I have to talk to her and repeat the same question four or five times to get an answer. The police officer had previously had to ask the same question many times to get an answer as well.

I know I can't leave her like this. She's completely out of it and if she's outside by herself by the time night rolls around, then she might get kidnapped. I've seen too many missing posters around my city, and read too many articles about the MMIGW2S crisis. Not to mention, she doesn't have any warm clothes, she only has a cotton t shirt and slacks, and the nights are very cold where I live. She could straight up die of pneumonia or something if she doesn't find shelter before the night. So I decide to call a homeless shelter anyways and explain my situation. They tell me to call a number and there will be a crisis response team who will come.

So the crisis response team is not part of the police. They don't have weapons. They're social workers who use deescalation tactics and stuff.

So I call the number for the crisis response team. And at this point she's lying down on the bench at the bus stand and I'm sitting on the ground next to her. Which is okay, since she's really tired and I'm not. I get put on hold on the phone, and I stay put on hold for like half an hour. So I'm just sitting here, keeping an eye on the lady, waiting to be connected on the phone to someone I can talk to. And it's pretty tense, but thank the gods the weather is good.

Eventually the call does get through. The lady on the other side of the phone line asks what happened and where I am. So I explain my situation to her. She says she'll send a crisis response team, but they'll take at least half an hour to get there. So that's okay I guess. So I stay with the distressed lady. I don't try to talk to her. I just let her rest. The gods know that she needs her rest. I just want to make sure she doesn't end up kidnapped or the victim of police brutality or a suicide victim or something. I want her to rest in a soft, clean bed inside instead of having to sleep on a hard metal bench outside. But for the time being I just let her rest.

So eventually the crisis support team gets here. They have a car, and they are two ladies. They're really nice. They ask her questions, and she is finally able to talk in full sentences, instead of only saying yes or no. This is a good thing. But the answers she gives still don't make sense. When the crisis response ladies ask her if she's staying with anyone, she says that she's staying with family. But when they ask if she knows the phone numbers of any family members, she replies that she doesn't have any family. When they ask her how she got to where she is now, she replies that she walked. Which I know is not true since I was on the bus with her and I got off said bus with her.

She keeps insisting that she needs to go back to where she was staying, she wants them to take her to where she was staying. She keeps begging to have help so she can go back. But when the ladies ask her what address she needs to go back to, she says she doesn't know. When they ask her if she has anyone's phone number that she could call, she responds that she doesn't know any phone numbers. She sounds incredibly distressed this whole time.

Eventually she says that she was trying to get to a bank, and so they ask her if she might be able to lead them to where she's staying if they start from the bank she was trying to get to. She says that maybe she can. She gets in the car with them and the three ladies drive off. So after this, I stay at the bus stop and I take the next bus home.

So I have no idea what happened to her beyond that. But I do trust the lady at the homeless shelter call line who told me to call the crisis response team. And I do trust the crisis response team because they're not cops, and they're very gentle and kind.

I sincerely hope that she gets the help that she needs and that she enters into a better mental state. I hope she gets back to her home and that she can be safe and comfortable. I hope she receives healthcare and mental healthcare because she clearly needs both. This is coming from someone who clearly needed both at one point too. I was extremely undernourished and suicidal once and going to the hospital kept me from dying. I hope that she gets the help that she needs. I hope that so much with all of my heart.

I am keeping her in my prayers, and I would really appreciate it if you guys could pray for her as well. I hope she can have the blessings of all the gods. I believe in the power of prayer and I believe in the power of love. I believe in the power of kindness, compassion, humility, empathy, and dignity. If you could all pray for her, it would mean an immense amount to me and I would be very grateful.