A Song of Silence

Chapter 11

Callisto

It is a challenge in itself to keep myself upright instead of sinking, crumbling to the ground. The voices and faces of the people who neglected me, yet I somehow still, beyond comprehension, love and care about.

—LEAVE THEM IN THE PAST THEY NEVER WANTED YOU THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU—

But it is such a heart-wrenching revelation that dredges up all the memories I have tried to bury in the past year, resurfacing with the gut-punching anguish. How can I not stare? How can I forget the lifetime of unshown dejection that they were so long the source of? There's a simple answer. I cannot.

—THEY DON'T WANT YOU THEY NEVER DID YOU CANNOT CARE ABOUT THEM—

Turn away. Leave them. They never wanted you. They cared more about their duty to the Imperium than they did about you. I remember those late nights when my mother would get home from work and retreat into her room until she left again in the early morning, even when I was seeking the warmth that a mother should show her child. I remember my parents never calling me by my name, only ever referring to me as "her" or "the girl". I remember how I walked the miles to school because they didn't care enough to bring me there themselves. I remember the hollowness that I felt each time they would leave me on my own without so much as a word or a note. I remember all that, but most of all, I remember that there was not a single goodbye, a single hug, a single objection raised, when I packed up and moved out. I wasn't the daughter they wanted. So they would prefer it if I was gone so that they could act like I never existed.

Fine. If they want to play that game, I can play it too. I can pretend that I never cared, that I never wanted them even though I did. I can leave them in the dust and act like they were never there. Because honestly, they weren't. They were never there when I wanted them.

The moon is high up above, partially hidden in the endless sky by pale silvery clouds that don't fully conceal it.

Go, my mind, my body is screaming at me. The first step is always the hardest. It gets easier after that.

In my haste to run away from them, yet still in the quietest manner I can so as not to disrupt them and make them turn me in, as I surely shouldn't be roaming around the streets at this time, I bump into someone – literally. A heavily muscled man at least a foot and a half taller than me stands before me. My eyes scan his suit in the faint light of the lamps, which is bulky and white and perhaps contributing to his immense size. This is not good. Of all the people to have ran into, this is one of them who could get me into the most trouble. I could blow my cover of being one of theirs and be killed and get them killed and then no one would have the truth except for me, and it would be gone, gone forever.

But before I go down the rabbit hole of spirals and spirals of what could go wrong, I have to have some explanation. I have to make myself believable once again. If I succumb now, I have no chance.

"Oh, sorry, didn't see you there!" My voice sounds high-pitched and silly and stupid. At least it adds to the story of me being an ignorant one of their servants. "Lovely moon, isn't it? And the stars..." I let my words trail off and gaze upward for added effect, and he follows suit.

"Yes, they're certainly beautiful," he replies gruffly, evidently entirely uninterested in what I'm saying and in a hurry to go on to the rest of his duties. But because I don't want him to report me, I feel the need to ingrain it into his mind that this is a normal occurrence, me being outside at this time, and that I didn't hear anything or see anything that they would rather leave us in the dark about.

"I took a nap earlier and simply couldn't sleep tonight, so I decided to stretch my legs. You know, take a bit of a walk." If this was how I really was, I cannot fathom how I would ever be able to deal with myself. The too-genuine-but-not-genuine babble is exhausting and irritating. "Never been down this path before," I add, casting a glance at the snowy road behind me. "Rather peaceful, if I do say so myself."

I watch him carefully as he takes a discreet look at his watch, impatient to get away from some teenage girl's mindless observations.

"Well, I'd better get going now. Nice to meet you," my eyes shift down to his badge for a moment, and I read off of it "Lieutenant Nylund."

I skip off merrily, perhaps overdoing the act just a tad bit, but as soon as I am out of sight, I fall back into the shadows and retrace my steps. Maybe I am too curious, and maybe that'll be the death of me. But this is something that I cannot leave to be another of their secrets. If I have this, maybe I can have leverage against them. Maybe one girl's stand can be enough to show others that we need to live our own lives in our own way, not by following their commands because they said so. Maybe one girl's stand can be enough to set it on fire until it all burns. Maybe they only need someone to set it aflame.

And set it aflame they do, because only a few meters away from me are where the tongues of fire stop, the sparks showering down in a beautiful rainfall that you only can think that will hurt you, scar you with their vibrant blue. It is not the normal reddish orange kind, the ones with embers that seem like molton in solid form, but one that seems electric, like a current running through a wire. The air is thick with a scent that I can only describe as burning plastic, warped and shifting from the explosion. It is the kind of heat that sticks to you, seeping through your flesh in a freezing yet scorching wetness even in the winter. The smoke still lies drifting on the ground, cloudy and unmoving, and my hacking coughs rack my body. Coals sit in the mound where the detonation took place, some in shards but still wholly recognizable for what they are, dangerous and gleaming, most hardly scratched by it.

There are two ways to control people. One is by hope. If you give people barely enough hope, they'll do anything for you. That's what the Imperium has now. And the second is fear. People turn into ghosts of themselves if you frighten them.

My father once told me to always have a backup plan. Like when he wanted to be a soldier but was too late, so he had chosen to work for the police as well. Both equal ways of serving the Imperium. It dawns on me that this is their backup. This is their Plan B.

They have a weapon that could destroy us all.