Ilyria

The Beginning of the End

"Ad mores natura recurrit damnatos, fixa et mutari nescia -"(Juvenal)

"Hello, I'm Sarah Card. If you're reading this now, hope prevails. The World is at war within itself as the soils of this land run putrid with poisons that past generations have selfishly bestowed for future generations.

Everyone has a responsibility to care for what natural resources that are left, yet greed and power prove to taint even the most righteous. Populations have soared and the United Nation of Ilyria has been formed by issuing a world-wide mandate of full hysterectomies for every single woman of child bearing age against their will until the Times of Revitalization are near and have been met.

Colored pills are being issued by Ilyria in order to help aid their mission. Red is for Forgetfulness, Blue is for Obedience, Green is for Meakness.

I am number one. More are to come.

God save us all.

United under Ilyria Are We..."

We didn't take our pills.

It was in life and death did I truly remember everything. I remembered her. I remembered the exact luminosity of her translucent skin, shimmering and trembling innocently; quite similar to that of a hummingbird's twittering wings.

Peals of my daughter's laughter drifted hauntingly around me, caressing me as the exact hue of her amber flecked eyes drifted more clearly to my mind's eye than it has ever.

Her ringlets of golden copper, so similar a texture to her biological father Jack Lawson, framed her heart-shaped cherub face in a way that was so distinguishing to her.

She is absolutely beautiful. Or at least she had been before the nightmare started, when they tore her bird-like frame away from me and destroyed her among the fiery embers of unforgiving hell-fire.

This was my eternal punishment for adding to the world's collection of borrowed time.

"You jump, I jump. Okay? I love you Rose. We'll be with her soon." Jack shouted to me loud enough so that I could hear him over the screams of the frantic transmitter systems beneath us.

It was almost ironic, hilarious even, as my fingers gripped tightly around the edge of the sharp gilded bars of the balcony where we both hang, that I recalled a quote from the poem that was written in Before Chaotic Times which had been carved in the back cover of Sarah Card's journal.

It was called Invictus which was written by William Ernest Henley and went like this:

"Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid...

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul."

Though the United Nation of Ilyria had extracted my body separately away from my soul, it still remains solely Jack's and Adelaide's.

Oppressed are We Nevermore.

My hand met his, as the brightest smile flitted across my lips and together we were one once and for all.