Death, when viewed from above, is not as fearsome as one might believe..............

1 unfinished

I'd been sleeping when they stormed the house. 6am tear gas and riot gear. Kids stunned with tazers, me cuffed and kicked. winded and unable to move. My last memory of her gorgeous face is one of blood and tears and duct tape and a black bag. And then her feet kicking and trying for a hold on the ground as she is dragged away in front of our paralyzed and drooling children.

I try to force my way to my feet, but feel cold steel against the side of my face and then nothing.

I woke up in a bare, damp square cell. Feces decorated the walll by the toilet, hand prints and finger marks spelled out obscenities. Flies buzzed round and maggots wriggled from the edge of the pan to fall in pools of pish and vomit.
I gagged as i took my first breath, filling my lungs with its diseased air. My ribs hurt, my face was throbbing like hell and i could tell from the large plaster cast that my left leg was broken. The pain started to become more than a throb, more than just pain. Getting louder and louder ans it took over my body, crying in my brain, screaming out.

Hours passed as i lay there in the dingy and dark room, the only light coming through the edges of the steel plates over the window and the door. The pain had become part of me, a side i didnt like but couldnt divorce. My eyes had started to open, bulbous masses of blood filled sacks with slits as narrow as a racists mind. A key rattled in the door and fake light flooded my cell. i tried to rase my arm to cover my eyes, but a shooting pain climbed up through it as i stifled a scream.
"MR CHAPLIN, GET UP AND COME WITH US. THERE ARE A FEW THINGS WE NEED TO DISCUSS"

Introduction

The sun gleamed from the freshly polished medals and guns as the troops marched, triumphantly, along the high street. The people on the pavements clapped and cheered with little enthusiasm. They knew the war was lost.They knew the future ahead of them. The Fight and all the Heroes had been in vain.


The Era of the High Chancellor had begun............................................................................

Prologue

He could feel the draught from the open window blowing cold over his wet face. He stayed still, too scared to move. Petrified. He dare not breath, every movement scanned and processed. The buzzing of the machinery still could be heard. Not safe yet. The door from the bed room was open, the corridor dark and inviting. If he was on his own he might have thought about running, but not with the woman, that would be madness.
He could always leave her behind. He could easily say that she had been captured. They would believe him


He fought back the urge to bolt, to run as fast as he could and just get out of the building. But he knew the only way to beat them was to stay still.

He should have listened, he shouldnt have come back. not so soon. It could have waited.

He tried to make eye contact with the woman, but her neck was rigid and her eyes were screwed shut. her brown curly hair tied tight at the back of her head, her pale ivory face, drained, with one solitary tear pooling in her left eye. She had the fear. She believed the stories, she believed the detention camp was real and knew the horrors that would become them. She feared the beatings and the torture, the mutilation and the vicious trials. The removal from existance.

He, on the other hand, could lose nothing more.