A Song of Silence

Prologue

Callisto

Don't stand out. Don't speak up. Stay quiet. Be who they want you to be.

This is what I have learned. Speak up and be killed. Stand out and be killed. It's safer to pretend to be another one of them.

It is a cycle of control. Constant control. No one is their own. We are all one people, one country, united. United by their control. We march as one, we follow their orders. Always. We never defy them. This is our world.

Seventy-five years ago, the Imperium sought to put an end to our constant suffering, taking the leading role in creating the medicine that would allow long life. They wanted to create a perfect world, they said. No more crime. No more sorrow. They had a flawless solution.

This is what the history books tell you. This is what they will tell you, if you dare to ask. But I will tell you what really happened.

Seventy-five years ago, our government was usurped by another group waiting to take power. They struck when we were at our weakest.

A plague had already wiped out more than half of the population, and the survivors were fighting to live. They saw this opportunity, and stepped in. They acted like they would be our saviors. They weren't. They lied to us and exploited us and used us for their own benefit. Not such amazing saviors as they were before.

They created a drug that would allow you to live for longer. That much is true. But they were not as generous as they liked to tell us they were. They kept it to themselves for years, and when they finally released it to the public, or so they said, it did nothing. People lived and died without any change. Until the rest fell under their command. Then their true intention became clear. They wanted power. They wanted infinite power, power that would last them forever. Power that no one could defy. This was the result.

Once a few people had been put under their venom, it was easy to get others to obey. They now had mouthpieces for the propaganda, and the schools were no better. The children, with their minds so fresh and young, so gullible and naïve, were easily fooled into believing whatever the teachers, government officials, told them. And so within the short span of a few months, they had what they wanted. They had control of everyone and everything. Almost.

This is my secret. I have kept this from the world for all my life. I am not the same as the rest of them. I am not under their control.

When I was younger, I thought that I was normal. It was only after the stares I had gotten after blurting out a negative comment about the curriculum in front of my class that I realized the true danger of saying these things. The trouble it could get me into, that it could get my family into. I never realized how ready people were to carry every word I said to the government, who would have me killed the moment they got wind of the treasonous words that I had spoken. This is why you don't question what you're told. This is why I must fit in with the rest of them. This is what they have taught me. Be a square. Even and equal on all sides, every one a copy of the rest. You can't break these rules. This is what they have always told us. Obey. Always obey.

The words still ring through my mind, inducing a suffocating fear, even when I'm alone, when I'm free and safe.

Because really, I never am.