**CURRENTLY A FEATURED STORY**
highest ranking: #11 in Science fiction
❝true happiness is only achieved without freedom.
There is a girl who wakes to a world that she was supposed to protect. Instead, she fights it.
There is a man who is cursed wit...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
evanna
THE BLOOD TRICKLES down from the body onto the dais in a faint, scarlet line, and I watch it, as the pistol clatters to the ground, and an amassment of grey bodies scatters all around me, liberating me from the suffocation of a crowd. It's an unsettling burst of colour against an unsaturated world: bright, shocking, enamouring.
The first syllable of her last word hangs in the air from a fine thread, one which is cut at the first scream. It's all bullshit, all of it. There's so much that goes on, and on, and on, and such things grate on the ears. The sound of the scream ripples over the square, shaking everyone, shaking everything, but I stand there firmly, the gun at my feet. I don't look back as they take me, I don't make eye contact with Julian or Bernard. And I go willingly: of course I do.
▿
The holding cells we pass are empty, their former occupants probably long dead, terminated without a problem. I suppose it's been a long time since they last had a case where the solution is a bit more complicated than capital punishment. I'm flanked on both sides by three armed guards, heavy titanium cuffs weighing my wrists down. I know not to test my chances at the moment. I can wait. The Red Hand can wait. Without a word, I'm relieved of my cuffs and led into one of the cells in an empty corridor. I sit down on the floor and close my eyes, listening to the sound of heavy boots and rustling fabric as they walk away, leaving behind two of their men to guard their complicated guest.
Yes, guest. Of course, and they're being marvellous hosts. I don't intend to stay here, I don't intend to let someone rescue me. I've made a decision, and now I'm paying the price. The problem with justice is that it's never clean-cut. It's a game of chess, and one party always plays the other, and it goes back and forth, all the time.
My only complaint is that prison is dull, boring. The lock on the door is made of the same titanium alloy that my cuffs were made off, laced with technology, complicated technology, too complicated for me to figure it out without having a proper look at it. For now, I'm stuck, but the gravity of my actions have bought me invaluable time. So, I have time to figure things out. Three days will not do much harm to anyone.
