A Song of Silence

Chapter 6

Callisto

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I wasn't fast enough to hide. I didn't think anyone was watching. Turns out, someone always is. I need to be more careful. One friendly interaction with Astrid doesn't make her safe. At all. For all I know, she could be trying to fool me into trusting her, then run to the Imperium the moment I tell her everything to promote herself. No, that's one thing I cannot do. Bridge the path to friendship. I imagine that having a friend would be like having a confidant, someone who you believe will keep your secrets for you, no matter what, who you believe you can tell anything. I don't have that kind of bond with anyone. So I must keep it all to myself.

—DON'T TRUST THEM THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU ONLY THEMSELVES—

And the Imperium, obviously. What's one more execution, one less traitor to them? Only a good thing. I heard some of the girls in my year whispering about yesterday's execution this morning.

"He deserved it," one of them said, a little too loudly to have been private.

"Nobody wants a defector," the other added with disdain, nodding.

If he deserved it, what must I deserve? Capital punishment, surely. The worst that is possible. Such a deserter is not even worthy of a death; it must be the most painful and awful that could be given. That would be my punishment.

I must not be discovered. That must not happen to me. Just one tear and the entire disguise will vanish. It will only take moments. Moments to bring a life's work down. No. I must endure this current pain, at least if I want to survive this. Maybe one day we will be free again. But I don't see that happening any time in the near future. Not with the Imperium in charge. Not when I live in fear, when the rest live in this cruel order.

—DON'T SHOW THEM THEY WILL HURT YOU BE ANOTHER ONE OF THEM—

So I wipe the wetness from my eyes in one quick movement, discreet and swift, determined not to let anyone see me this time. I cannot cry. Not here. Not ever. There are eyes everywhere. Do not let them know. Be strong. They must not find out.

A sudden thought strikes me as I am poring over the short essay I am writing for class, and I struggle to continue the monotonous movements that I've been assuming for the past half an hour. What if somewhere out there, there is someone else like me? Someone who is not under their control? It is a wholly new idea, and the possibility of it makes my fake smile real.

Maybe I'm not alone. My thoughts whirl together, ecstatic from this theory, this realization that I may not be the only one immune to their drug. I finish the rest of my paper in rapid speed, suddenly energized, though I hardly slept last night after the events, and walk up to the front to turn it in.

Guns. Sickness. War. Death.

Many years ago, we were divided. We were dying. We were few. We would soon be gone, no life, no feeling, nothing. We would have been floating, waiting for some nonexistent survivor of our past to save us from the future we were destined to live. A life among a meaningless darkness, with nothing to tell us how much longer or further we have left. Floating, with no compass to show us what was the true north. Watching the stars for some sign that would reveal it to us and hoping for the shred of hope that someone would come for us. This is what we nearly were. Starting in shadow, ending in shadow. A black hole, which consumes all light. In a mere few weeks, we would have ceased to draw breath. And then they came for us.

And come for us, they did. Only it wasn't good, as I made it out to be. But what else could I have said? Any public defiance would have made me a target. A target, like Xavier Caddel, the brave man who died because of his choice to resist this unfairness. Something I will never be brave enough to do.

Seventy-five years ago, we were rescued. Rescued by our beacon of light in a world where light itself did not exist. Rescued from the depths of the precariousness of the midnight territories of the ocean. Rescued from a place where we thought there would be no hope left. And who was that, the ones who saved us from our own self-destruction? The ones who found a way to lead a splintered population when no one else stepped up to take power and bring us back? Who was it that protected us from the dangers that we were about to walk into, lured into a trap like all the rest of humanity. The Imperium. What would we be without the Imperium? Nothing. From the uncertain limbo that the mystery of what's to come holds and keeps. And yet here we are, reborn and a new nation because of them. Not a group, not a society, but a community, united by them. United by them and their control. We are one people. Because of them. Only because of them.

One people. None of this was our choice. There were some who willingly gave up their minds without struggle, believing in the Imperium to eliminate all the horrors and plagues of before.

Fragile. Shattered. Broken. Torn.

This is what we would have been if they hadn't come for us. Like glass. Transparent. Far too easy to crack into shards. But they put us back together from the fragmented pieces that we were, the seemingly impossible task. They accomplished it, when no one else thought they could. We owe them for this. We can never repay them. So instead, we must do the best we can.

No. They're the ones that shattered us beyond repair. We have no reason to repay them. This is another one of the influences of the venom they gave us that takes control of our thoughts, our actions, our life.

Order. Justice. Oneness. Peace.

This is what we stand for. This is what the Imperium promises us. We must follow them to ensure that we achieve it. Perfection is not within our reach without them. We need them. Together, we make one people that functions without crime, without disagreement, without argument. Justice. Peace. Liberty. Order. Oneness. Today, we are void of all the problems of the earlier world, all the complications from before.

They only added to our problems, our worries. And I'm the sole person – that I know of, at the least – who is aware of the truth. The whole truth, not only what they like to tell us. More lies, but not coming from my lips. They flowed from my hand onto the paper that I am turning in, inked in dark splotches that stain the previously pure sheet. Lies that will please them. Lies that will not make them not suspect me.

Today, we are renewed, just as we were then when they first found us. Today we must pay them back in our unrelenting devotion, for there is no other way to reciprocate it.

Today, we are one because of them. Obey. Always obey.

Obey if you don't want to die.

~

Author's Note: I had so much trouble with Callisto's essay, because it was really difficult for me to segue into how she tries to act from a perspective more like Astrid's. Turns out, it's a lot harder than I thought to write an essay in character but also not in character. This one's also probably pretty different than most of the other chapters, mainly because of the essay, but I wanted to give you all a glimpse into how different Callisto is on the outside from the inside.