Every Day in May (grand prize winner) ✔

May 4th

I should have known the last line of yesterday’s note would peak your interest.  You thought you already knew the answer—your father is the Leader, as was his father before him, and so on.  Of course you are meant to carry on the dynasty.  This is why you believe you’ve been hidden away, isn’t it?

There is nothing more important to your father than securing the future of the Land, and you are that future.  You solidify an undying line of control but you also make the Leader incredibly vulnerable.  He has no other children.  If you were taken or killed, the Land would be thrown into disarray.  This concern, he tells you, has driven him to many extremes, not the least of which has been shielding your existence from the public. 

He’s managed to make your captivity feel natural to you.  Your situation isn’t odd—not at all.  Keeping heirs a secret is simply how this sort of thing is done.  Right?

Rumors have persisted no matter how carefully your concealment has been orchestrated.  Some believe the Leader has fathered a dozen or more children by various consorts.  Others are firm that he’s outright refused to supply the Land with an heir. 

Having a child means that child will have to take over someday, just as he did when your grandfather passed.  Therefore, to have offspring would be an admission that he isn’t immortal. While the Leader does indeed have a son, this is by far the most accurate depiction of the illogical state of affairs within the Tower.  It doesn’t seem farfetched to me that he’s chosen to secret you away so that he can pretend you aren’t necessary and never will be. 

It would be easy for you to mistake his obsession with keeping you in the Tower as a sign that he cares. Your mother loves you, Theo.  But your father?  No one says it, but even his closest advisors must know, deep down, that he’s completely insane. 

We’ve all seen what he’s done to the Land, the atrocities he committed during the Riots and their aftermath.  None of us have gotten out from underneath the boot he placed on top of us that day.  He is a pitiless, murderous dictator.  You are at the mercy of a man who has none.

How can the future be anything but a nightmare when he is in control of its every aspect?

Don’t trust him, Theo.  It may have been drilled into you that you are his cherished successor, but remember this: you are a symbol of his mortality.  If he wishes to delude himself into believing he is a god, capable of ruling the Land for eternity, then your life is in danger no matter how thick the walls surrounding you may be. 

The Riots proved that he is most dangerous whenever he appears the most benign.