10-18-2018, 08:53 PM
Various dates, between Sept 16th and Oct 7th
Camino Arreola would never speak about what happened to him in Kerlile. Less than two weeks after being returned to Lauchenoiria, he packed his bags and took a train to Summersea, the farthest point in Lauchenoiria from Kerlile.
Arriving in Summersea Central Station, Arreola stepped out onto platform six with the other handful of people on the train. A makeshift barrier blocked platform 6 to platform 9 off from 1-5. On the lower numbers, a crowd of people trying to leave the city was gathered. Arreola had known that people were trying to leave the city after the war had destroyed most of the suburbs, but he hadn’t expected quite so many.
As he passed through the ticket barrier, he caught a woman in the crowd’s eye. She had a pair of baby twins in a pram, with two other kids clinging to her and demanding attention. All five of them were dressed in black. As she met Arreola’s eye, she turned away sharply. He kept walking, in the other direction from the crowd, but fleeing from something just the same.
*
Chloe Conde was ambitious, but she was also smart. She could tell when the tables had turned, and she knew that sooner or later, the Kerlian government would blame her for losing the war. Conde knew very well what would happen to her then. She may have delivered Jennifer Hale, but she knew that Hale wouldn’t thank her for it.
Conde packed a single bag, and left her house under the cover of darkness. She headed towards Conternia, where she hoped her face would be less recognisable. She travelled on foot and she almost made it. Several miles from the border, she heard the sounds of a helicopter. She heard the barking of dogs. She pulled out her weapon, and noticed with fear the almost invisible tracking tag that had been attached to it.
Chloe Conde ran. She had watched a thousand people do the same thing before, and always remarked upon how foolish and futile it was. Nevertheless, she ran. She passed over a hill and suddenly there was lights ahead of her. She froze, trapped.
“You will remain there!” someone yelled at her. All the faces of the people she’d done this to flashed past her eyes. Her heart began to beat so fast she thought it might leap out of her body. She heard some people move towards her, but the bright light in her eyes made it impossible to see them.
Chloe Conde imagined what her life would be like in a Kerlian labour camp. She thought of all the people she’d sent to such places. She thought of what they’d want to do to her. She decided.
Conde ran once more. She heard their rifles cock and she could almost sense them pointing towards her. Chloe Conde closed her eyes, knowing full well that there were worse things than death. She was ready to embrace the end.
She wouldn’t receive that luxury. She felt an arm grab her from behind and she went tumbling to the ground. She tried to reach up and strike the attacker, but she found herself pinned against the ground. For the first time in her life, Chloe Conde felt properly terrified. She opened her eyes.
She didn’t recognise the woman who held her, but she recognised the expression on her face. She’d worn the same expression many times. She didn’t like it very much from this end.
*
Daniel Garza only spent a few days in Lauchenoiria after delivering the Moore children back to their parents. He’d met someone in Laeral, but that wasn’t his main reason for leaving. He couldn’t bear to be in his own country, after what had happened. Every moment he spent there, he spent thinking about Leanna Walker.
He had failed her, he knew that. Not only that, but he felt he’d failed the entire country. Walker had died for nothing, in the end. For a month after her death, he’d comforted himself that at least she’d taken Chaher with her. And then came the revelation about Clarke, and he didn’t even have that.
Daniel Garza had sat out the war, safely abroad and away from the fighting. As he’d walked through the streets of Lauchenoiria, he’d seen all the people who had been there, grieving for the ones they’d lost. He didn’t share their experience. He didn’t belong there any longer.
*
Eduardo Sanchez had spent his life in service of Lauchenoiria. When civil war came, he was forced to pick a side. He had believed what he was doing was right. He had been wrong. After the allegations that Charissa Clarke was Kerlian, General Sanchez had felt his heart sink deep, deep down.
The realisation that he had ordered his men to open fire upon Lauchenoirians in service of a Kerlian spy made him doubt his reason for ever being born. He was not a religious man, but he had the distinct feeling the universe had played a cruel trick on him.
He wondered if he would face trial for his actions in the war. A small part of him wanted it to happen. The part of him that thought he deserved punishment for his actions.
One Sunday, he decided to go to church. He did not beg for forgiveness. He did not believe he deserved it. Instead, he prayed for souls of all those lost in the war, on both sides.
*
Jae Chung still carried the burden of the Kerlian USB with her. Though she had delivered it, and the war was over, the contents still weighed heavily on her mind. Owing to the way Clarke had chosen to remain in Sanctaria, everyone was certain she was indeed the little Kerlian girl raised to infiltrate Lauchenoiria.
This was not what interested Jae. She was interested in why the USB existed at all, and who exactly had given it to Yasin Zaunq. She returned to Annatown, seeking out other survivors of the Gonhogian assault. Of the few she found, none knew any more than her about how it came into Zaunq’s possession. Most were dead, if not in that battle, in subsequent ones.
So, Jae continued to search. She found all the information she could on Councillor Carmen Robinson, the Kerlian who appeared to have ordered most of the files on the USB collected. She researched Kerlile with an almost obsessive vigour, contacting academics who had studied the country, and doing research into the early hours of the morning.
Jae Chung had not yet found what she sought, but nor had she given up. She would discover how the USB came into existence, and perhaps if she did, she could prevent something as terrible as this war from happening again.
*
Josephine Alvarez didn’t know if she loved Jennifer Hale or hated her. She knew she hated Kerlile, and that if Noguera’s government decided to extradite her, unlikely as it was, that she’d die before she let it happen.
Her first action upon her return to Lauchenoiria was, slightly shamefully in her opinion, not to get to work trying to rebuild the country, but instead to order a large pizza, accompanied by dessert, and consume them at a speed that left her sister gaping in amazement.
She hadn’t wished to return to her own house immediately, knowing it would be full of Sonja… Jennifer’s stuff, and it was nearing the end of September before she felt ready to move back there, alone.
Upon setting foot on the doorstep, Josephine felt a horrible kind of heartache. She warily checked her phone, but she hadn’t received any more calls from Kerlian numbers. Jennifer had been trying to contact her ever since her return. Josephine had refused to answer any of the calls.
She turned the key in the lock, and then paused with her hand on the doorknob. She pushed it open only a little, to where she could see nothing but the spare set of car keys and the key to the mailbox. Delaying her entry, she pulled the mailbox key off its hook and opened it, to find it stuffed completely full. She pulled out the bundle into her arms and walked through the door, keeping her eye on the mail to avoid looking at the house.
When she reached the kitchen table, she dropped the pile on it and looked up, more out of some habit from what seemed like a previous life than a deliberate choice. Josephine knew the house had probably been searched at some point by Chaher’s police, but there were no visible signs. Perhaps because her sister had already been by to clear up.
Josephine hit the button on the answering machine, letting the messages play aloud. There was a teenager speaking nonsense in some kind of obvious code, several silent messages, about three threats, one spam call, and, finally, a message from a Kerlian number. As Josephine heard Jennifer’s voice, she leapt across the room, pulling the plug on the landline.
Josephine sat down at the table, shaking slightly. She leafed through the mail, picking out all the obvious spam and chucking it in the recycling bin in a furious fervour. Then, still trying to distract herself from where she was, she sorted the remaining into mail for her, mail addressed to Sonja, and mail addressed to both or neither.
The last pile contained mainly bills, with the letters getting increasingly threatening as time went on. It had been over three months since the house had been lived in. Also in the pile was a bunch of government ‘information letters’ about the war. What to do in the event of an air raid (and thank God that never happened, thought Josephine), the emergency rationing system, and a bunch of pro-junta propaganda.
Josephine was about to start opening her pile, when one of those addressed to Sonja caught her eye. ‘Sonja Viratnen’, it read, using the unmarried (and false) name. It was handwritten, the writing curving in an elegant and curious fashion. The stamp seemed to indicate the letter had been posted in Conternia, but Sonja knew nobody there. Just looking at it gave Josephine the chills, and somehow, she knew the letter was from Kerlile.
Gingerly, she took it in her hands. She shouldn’t open it, she knew, it wasn’t addressed to her. But then, the real Sonja Viratnen had been dead since they were teenagers. Against her better judgement, Josephine tore open the envelope and pulled out a letter.
[floatright]Sunday 3rd June 2018[/floatright]
Jenny,
I was sorry to hear of the imprisonment of your wife at the hands of the Lauchenoirian authorities. Family is important, at least some of us still remember that.
We cannot escape this game, I fear, no matter how far we run. And you have certainly ran far. It took me considerable time to find you, but you must know by now that your newfound high profile will have attracted attention to the north. It is devastating when those close to us are the pawns we must sacrifice and yet sometimes necessity is a curse.
For all my mother’s sins, the only one grave enough to be punished in this life was that of failure. She paid the price with her life, and cursed me to play this game from adolescence until the day I inevitably follow her footsteps.
The Pierre family still run the Aurora Programme. You do not know what that is, but a high profile failure surrounding it would weaken them to the point where I can finally break free of this curse. I give you this information freely, but I dare not send you it directly.
You may not remember, but in our youth I had a cousin who chose to abandon our country. She travelled far, and in her travels she became enamoured with a Lauchenoirian who is now a member of your organisation. Through her, I have delivered the information to your country of residence.
Do with this as you will. We have all become failures, a horrific parody of what we set out to create. I sit in the Chamber every day and I despair at what we have become. I dare not reveal my feelings, I will play the part for as long as I must. I implore you to start the end game, but should we meet before you do, I will say nothing of this.
His name is Yasin Zaunq, part of your Annatown operation. I ask you, meet with him as soon as you can, if not for me, then for the Lauchenoirian people you purport to care about so much. Pierre is behind this, even if it does not look like it. Do not stop searching until you find the proof.
Yours,
Carmen.
*
“Definitely not!” the teenage girl wrinkled her nose.
“What about him?” another teenage girl asked.
“Ehhh… maybe, if I was drunk!” the first teenager shrugged.
“What about you, Leonie?” the second teenager asked.
Leonie Bennett continued to stare into space, ignoring her friends. The second girl waved her hand in front of Leonie’s face, and she blinked and turned.
“What? Sorry, I was…” Leonie began.
“Distracted, yeah, we know. I was asking about that guy over there,” the second girl asked and pointed.
“And I’m meant to just look at that guy and decide whether or not I’d go out with him? I know nothing about that guy. Is he kind, is he respectful… what side was he on in the war?”
“War’s over, what does it matter?” the first teenager shrugged.
“What does it matter? Everything! If that guy over there was willing to give up democracy, justify the atrocities carried out, I wouldn’t want anything to do with him. You can’t just act like what happened in the past doesn’t influence the present!”
“Jesus, you’re no fun since…” the first teenager began, then realised what she was saying and shut up.
“Since what?” Leonie pushed. The other two remained silent. “Since what?” she yelled louder, standing up and staring at the other two. A couple passers-by stopped to watch.
“Megan didn’t mean it…” began the second teenager.
“No, Casey, Megan didn’t mean it. And neither did you. The pair of you mean absolutely nothing. You just sat here sipping lattes while your parents stuck up freaking Chaher posters in an attempt to convince the communists you were on their side. And it worked, probably because Chaher was distracted by the war. But what if he’d won in the end?
How long would you have been able to sit in your imported jeans, sipping lattes and pretending nothing had changed? You think you’re immune to any danger if you just sit there and ignore it! But playing it safe isn’t always enough to save you. I hope you never have to learn that lesson the hard way. I’d say see you later, but frankly I don’t want to.”
Leonie spun around, storming away from the two teenagers who didn’t look nearly as guilty as Leonie felt they should. She didn’t slow down until she’d turned a corner, where she stood, shaking and trying to calm her breathing. She let the early October breeze blow her hair behind her and pulled her scarf tighter.
She turned to walk to the subway, when she noticed someone walking the other way, someone she thought she’d never see again.
“Caroline!” she called, thrilled, and ran across the street, prompting several drivers to peep their horns at her. She ignored them.
Caroline froze at the sound of her name, and as she saw Leonie, her eyes went wide. Leonie grinned and moved to hug the woman, but Caroline stepped back quickly, tensing up and looking to the ground.
“Are you okay? We all thought you were dead, I’m so glad to see you!” Leonie exclaimed. Caroline remained silent, avoiding Leonie’s eyes, and trying to appear as small as possible. “Hey, what’s the matter?”
Suddenly, a man and a woman, older than the pair, hurried over.
“Leave her be,” the man snarled at Leonie.
“Sorry, who are you? I am a friend of Caroline’s, I just wanted to make sure she’s okay.”
“I am her father, and I know exactly who you are, Leonie Bennett. You’re that Kerlian Councillor’s little favourite, who stood by doing absolutely nothing when your little role model hurt my daughter!”
“I… I didn’t…”
Caroline tugged at her father’s sleeve, shaking her head at him. He ignored her, staring daggers at Leonie. The other woman, who Leonie took to be Caroline’s mother, fussed over her daughter, ignoring the father and Leonie.
“All of you did nothing. Little bitch,” he spat at Leonie, who by this point was shaking and on the verge of tears.
“Mr Eastwood, I never…” Leonie began but she was struggling to get the words out.
Suddenly, Caroline’s father reached over and slapped Leonie hard on the face.
“Enough!” the mother yelled. Caroline was frantically shaking her head and arms at her father, gesturing for him to stop. She still didn’t say a word. Leonie gasped and jumped backwards, beginning to sob uncontrollably. A considerable crowd had gathered around the group.
“Stay away from my daughter,” the father spat and stormed away, shoving several of the crowd out of his path as he went.
“I think that would be wise,” the mother said to Leonie, not quite meeting her eyes. She pulled Caroline off by the arm, pulling her sleeve slightly out of place and revealing a horrible looking scar. Caroline made brief eye contact with Leonie, in a manner that Leonie thought meant she was sorry.
As the Eastwood family moved away, Leonie, still sobbing and with her heart rate much higher than it should be, turned in the other direction and ran away. By the time she stopped, she was half a mile away from where she’d seen Caroline, and her tear ducts were almost dry. She collapsed onto a bench next to the river, gasping and shaking.
Across the street, someone was putting up a poster advertising an initiative to get people of different political persuasions together to discuss their differences over a coffee and move forward with a ‘united vision for the future’.
Leonie thought it was a bad joke.
Camino Arreola would never speak about what happened to him in Kerlile. Less than two weeks after being returned to Lauchenoiria, he packed his bags and took a train to Summersea, the farthest point in Lauchenoiria from Kerlile.
Arriving in Summersea Central Station, Arreola stepped out onto platform six with the other handful of people on the train. A makeshift barrier blocked platform 6 to platform 9 off from 1-5. On the lower numbers, a crowd of people trying to leave the city was gathered. Arreola had known that people were trying to leave the city after the war had destroyed most of the suburbs, but he hadn’t expected quite so many.
As he passed through the ticket barrier, he caught a woman in the crowd’s eye. She had a pair of baby twins in a pram, with two other kids clinging to her and demanding attention. All five of them were dressed in black. As she met Arreola’s eye, she turned away sharply. He kept walking, in the other direction from the crowd, but fleeing from something just the same.
*
Chloe Conde was ambitious, but she was also smart. She could tell when the tables had turned, and she knew that sooner or later, the Kerlian government would blame her for losing the war. Conde knew very well what would happen to her then. She may have delivered Jennifer Hale, but she knew that Hale wouldn’t thank her for it.
Conde packed a single bag, and left her house under the cover of darkness. She headed towards Conternia, where she hoped her face would be less recognisable. She travelled on foot and she almost made it. Several miles from the border, she heard the sounds of a helicopter. She heard the barking of dogs. She pulled out her weapon, and noticed with fear the almost invisible tracking tag that had been attached to it.
Chloe Conde ran. She had watched a thousand people do the same thing before, and always remarked upon how foolish and futile it was. Nevertheless, she ran. She passed over a hill and suddenly there was lights ahead of her. She froze, trapped.
“You will remain there!” someone yelled at her. All the faces of the people she’d done this to flashed past her eyes. Her heart began to beat so fast she thought it might leap out of her body. She heard some people move towards her, but the bright light in her eyes made it impossible to see them.
Chloe Conde imagined what her life would be like in a Kerlian labour camp. She thought of all the people she’d sent to such places. She thought of what they’d want to do to her. She decided.
Conde ran once more. She heard their rifles cock and she could almost sense them pointing towards her. Chloe Conde closed her eyes, knowing full well that there were worse things than death. She was ready to embrace the end.
She wouldn’t receive that luxury. She felt an arm grab her from behind and she went tumbling to the ground. She tried to reach up and strike the attacker, but she found herself pinned against the ground. For the first time in her life, Chloe Conde felt properly terrified. She opened her eyes.
She didn’t recognise the woman who held her, but she recognised the expression on her face. She’d worn the same expression many times. She didn’t like it very much from this end.
*
Daniel Garza only spent a few days in Lauchenoiria after delivering the Moore children back to their parents. He’d met someone in Laeral, but that wasn’t his main reason for leaving. He couldn’t bear to be in his own country, after what had happened. Every moment he spent there, he spent thinking about Leanna Walker.
He had failed her, he knew that. Not only that, but he felt he’d failed the entire country. Walker had died for nothing, in the end. For a month after her death, he’d comforted himself that at least she’d taken Chaher with her. And then came the revelation about Clarke, and he didn’t even have that.
Daniel Garza had sat out the war, safely abroad and away from the fighting. As he’d walked through the streets of Lauchenoiria, he’d seen all the people who had been there, grieving for the ones they’d lost. He didn’t share their experience. He didn’t belong there any longer.
*
Eduardo Sanchez had spent his life in service of Lauchenoiria. When civil war came, he was forced to pick a side. He had believed what he was doing was right. He had been wrong. After the allegations that Charissa Clarke was Kerlian, General Sanchez had felt his heart sink deep, deep down.
The realisation that he had ordered his men to open fire upon Lauchenoirians in service of a Kerlian spy made him doubt his reason for ever being born. He was not a religious man, but he had the distinct feeling the universe had played a cruel trick on him.
He wondered if he would face trial for his actions in the war. A small part of him wanted it to happen. The part of him that thought he deserved punishment for his actions.
One Sunday, he decided to go to church. He did not beg for forgiveness. He did not believe he deserved it. Instead, he prayed for souls of all those lost in the war, on both sides.
*
Jae Chung still carried the burden of the Kerlian USB with her. Though she had delivered it, and the war was over, the contents still weighed heavily on her mind. Owing to the way Clarke had chosen to remain in Sanctaria, everyone was certain she was indeed the little Kerlian girl raised to infiltrate Lauchenoiria.
This was not what interested Jae. She was interested in why the USB existed at all, and who exactly had given it to Yasin Zaunq. She returned to Annatown, seeking out other survivors of the Gonhogian assault. Of the few she found, none knew any more than her about how it came into Zaunq’s possession. Most were dead, if not in that battle, in subsequent ones.
So, Jae continued to search. She found all the information she could on Councillor Carmen Robinson, the Kerlian who appeared to have ordered most of the files on the USB collected. She researched Kerlile with an almost obsessive vigour, contacting academics who had studied the country, and doing research into the early hours of the morning.
Jae Chung had not yet found what she sought, but nor had she given up. She would discover how the USB came into existence, and perhaps if she did, she could prevent something as terrible as this war from happening again.
*
Josephine Alvarez didn’t know if she loved Jennifer Hale or hated her. She knew she hated Kerlile, and that if Noguera’s government decided to extradite her, unlikely as it was, that she’d die before she let it happen.
Her first action upon her return to Lauchenoiria was, slightly shamefully in her opinion, not to get to work trying to rebuild the country, but instead to order a large pizza, accompanied by dessert, and consume them at a speed that left her sister gaping in amazement.
She hadn’t wished to return to her own house immediately, knowing it would be full of Sonja… Jennifer’s stuff, and it was nearing the end of September before she felt ready to move back there, alone.
Upon setting foot on the doorstep, Josephine felt a horrible kind of heartache. She warily checked her phone, but she hadn’t received any more calls from Kerlian numbers. Jennifer had been trying to contact her ever since her return. Josephine had refused to answer any of the calls.
She turned the key in the lock, and then paused with her hand on the doorknob. She pushed it open only a little, to where she could see nothing but the spare set of car keys and the key to the mailbox. Delaying her entry, she pulled the mailbox key off its hook and opened it, to find it stuffed completely full. She pulled out the bundle into her arms and walked through the door, keeping her eye on the mail to avoid looking at the house.
When she reached the kitchen table, she dropped the pile on it and looked up, more out of some habit from what seemed like a previous life than a deliberate choice. Josephine knew the house had probably been searched at some point by Chaher’s police, but there were no visible signs. Perhaps because her sister had already been by to clear up.
Josephine hit the button on the answering machine, letting the messages play aloud. There was a teenager speaking nonsense in some kind of obvious code, several silent messages, about three threats, one spam call, and, finally, a message from a Kerlian number. As Josephine heard Jennifer’s voice, she leapt across the room, pulling the plug on the landline.
Josephine sat down at the table, shaking slightly. She leafed through the mail, picking out all the obvious spam and chucking it in the recycling bin in a furious fervour. Then, still trying to distract herself from where she was, she sorted the remaining into mail for her, mail addressed to Sonja, and mail addressed to both or neither.
The last pile contained mainly bills, with the letters getting increasingly threatening as time went on. It had been over three months since the house had been lived in. Also in the pile was a bunch of government ‘information letters’ about the war. What to do in the event of an air raid (and thank God that never happened, thought Josephine), the emergency rationing system, and a bunch of pro-junta propaganda.
Josephine was about to start opening her pile, when one of those addressed to Sonja caught her eye. ‘Sonja Viratnen’, it read, using the unmarried (and false) name. It was handwritten, the writing curving in an elegant and curious fashion. The stamp seemed to indicate the letter had been posted in Conternia, but Sonja knew nobody there. Just looking at it gave Josephine the chills, and somehow, she knew the letter was from Kerlile.
Gingerly, she took it in her hands. She shouldn’t open it, she knew, it wasn’t addressed to her. But then, the real Sonja Viratnen had been dead since they were teenagers. Against her better judgement, Josephine tore open the envelope and pulled out a letter.
[floatright]Sunday 3rd June 2018[/floatright]
Jenny,
I was sorry to hear of the imprisonment of your wife at the hands of the Lauchenoirian authorities. Family is important, at least some of us still remember that.
We cannot escape this game, I fear, no matter how far we run. And you have certainly ran far. It took me considerable time to find you, but you must know by now that your newfound high profile will have attracted attention to the north. It is devastating when those close to us are the pawns we must sacrifice and yet sometimes necessity is a curse.
For all my mother’s sins, the only one grave enough to be punished in this life was that of failure. She paid the price with her life, and cursed me to play this game from adolescence until the day I inevitably follow her footsteps.
The Pierre family still run the Aurora Programme. You do not know what that is, but a high profile failure surrounding it would weaken them to the point where I can finally break free of this curse. I give you this information freely, but I dare not send you it directly.
You may not remember, but in our youth I had a cousin who chose to abandon our country. She travelled far, and in her travels she became enamoured with a Lauchenoirian who is now a member of your organisation. Through her, I have delivered the information to your country of residence.
Do with this as you will. We have all become failures, a horrific parody of what we set out to create. I sit in the Chamber every day and I despair at what we have become. I dare not reveal my feelings, I will play the part for as long as I must. I implore you to start the end game, but should we meet before you do, I will say nothing of this.
His name is Yasin Zaunq, part of your Annatown operation. I ask you, meet with him as soon as you can, if not for me, then for the Lauchenoirian people you purport to care about so much. Pierre is behind this, even if it does not look like it. Do not stop searching until you find the proof.
Yours,
Carmen.
*
“Definitely not!” the teenage girl wrinkled her nose.
“What about him?” another teenage girl asked.
“Ehhh… maybe, if I was drunk!” the first teenager shrugged.
“What about you, Leonie?” the second teenager asked.
Leonie Bennett continued to stare into space, ignoring her friends. The second girl waved her hand in front of Leonie’s face, and she blinked and turned.
“What? Sorry, I was…” Leonie began.
“Distracted, yeah, we know. I was asking about that guy over there,” the second girl asked and pointed.
“And I’m meant to just look at that guy and decide whether or not I’d go out with him? I know nothing about that guy. Is he kind, is he respectful… what side was he on in the war?”
“War’s over, what does it matter?” the first teenager shrugged.
“What does it matter? Everything! If that guy over there was willing to give up democracy, justify the atrocities carried out, I wouldn’t want anything to do with him. You can’t just act like what happened in the past doesn’t influence the present!”
“Jesus, you’re no fun since…” the first teenager began, then realised what she was saying and shut up.
“Since what?” Leonie pushed. The other two remained silent. “Since what?” she yelled louder, standing up and staring at the other two. A couple passers-by stopped to watch.
“Megan didn’t mean it…” began the second teenager.
“No, Casey, Megan didn’t mean it. And neither did you. The pair of you mean absolutely nothing. You just sat here sipping lattes while your parents stuck up freaking Chaher posters in an attempt to convince the communists you were on their side. And it worked, probably because Chaher was distracted by the war. But what if he’d won in the end?
How long would you have been able to sit in your imported jeans, sipping lattes and pretending nothing had changed? You think you’re immune to any danger if you just sit there and ignore it! But playing it safe isn’t always enough to save you. I hope you never have to learn that lesson the hard way. I’d say see you later, but frankly I don’t want to.”
Leonie spun around, storming away from the two teenagers who didn’t look nearly as guilty as Leonie felt they should. She didn’t slow down until she’d turned a corner, where she stood, shaking and trying to calm her breathing. She let the early October breeze blow her hair behind her and pulled her scarf tighter.
She turned to walk to the subway, when she noticed someone walking the other way, someone she thought she’d never see again.
“Caroline!” she called, thrilled, and ran across the street, prompting several drivers to peep their horns at her. She ignored them.
Caroline froze at the sound of her name, and as she saw Leonie, her eyes went wide. Leonie grinned and moved to hug the woman, but Caroline stepped back quickly, tensing up and looking to the ground.
“Are you okay? We all thought you were dead, I’m so glad to see you!” Leonie exclaimed. Caroline remained silent, avoiding Leonie’s eyes, and trying to appear as small as possible. “Hey, what’s the matter?”
Suddenly, a man and a woman, older than the pair, hurried over.
“Leave her be,” the man snarled at Leonie.
“Sorry, who are you? I am a friend of Caroline’s, I just wanted to make sure she’s okay.”
“I am her father, and I know exactly who you are, Leonie Bennett. You’re that Kerlian Councillor’s little favourite, who stood by doing absolutely nothing when your little role model hurt my daughter!”
“I… I didn’t…”
Caroline tugged at her father’s sleeve, shaking her head at him. He ignored her, staring daggers at Leonie. The other woman, who Leonie took to be Caroline’s mother, fussed over her daughter, ignoring the father and Leonie.
“All of you did nothing. Little bitch,” he spat at Leonie, who by this point was shaking and on the verge of tears.
“Mr Eastwood, I never…” Leonie began but she was struggling to get the words out.
Suddenly, Caroline’s father reached over and slapped Leonie hard on the face.
“Enough!” the mother yelled. Caroline was frantically shaking her head and arms at her father, gesturing for him to stop. She still didn’t say a word. Leonie gasped and jumped backwards, beginning to sob uncontrollably. A considerable crowd had gathered around the group.
“Stay away from my daughter,” the father spat and stormed away, shoving several of the crowd out of his path as he went.
“I think that would be wise,” the mother said to Leonie, not quite meeting her eyes. She pulled Caroline off by the arm, pulling her sleeve slightly out of place and revealing a horrible looking scar. Caroline made brief eye contact with Leonie, in a manner that Leonie thought meant she was sorry.
As the Eastwood family moved away, Leonie, still sobbing and with her heart rate much higher than it should be, turned in the other direction and ran away. By the time she stopped, she was half a mile away from where she’d seen Caroline, and her tear ducts were almost dry. She collapsed onto a bench next to the river, gasping and shaking.
Across the street, someone was putting up a poster advertising an initiative to get people of different political persuasions together to discuss their differences over a coffee and move forward with a ‘united vision for the future’.
Leonie thought it was a bad joke.
LIDUN President 2024 | she/her | Puppets: Kerlile, Glanainn, Yesteria, Zongongia, Zargothrax