Sea of Embers

All the King's men

Song: All the king's horses by Karmina

And the most terrifying question  of all 

may be just how much horror can

the human mind stand and still

maintain a wakeful, staring,

unrelenting sanity.

-Stephen king

 I hated the king....despised his very being. He was the reason for this war. His selfish wants caused so much destruction. Too much pain. Our small country had been the last Independent one on the planet. The king had taken over everything else. Everything. He seemed to believe that our small country was a threat to him, and I guess he had been right. We had put up a fight for over five years. I was proud of that simple truth.

Had I known what horrors awaited me five years ago, I wouldn't have believed what was to come, what had yet to be taken from me.

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Five Years Earlier

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"Shoe, honey, what are you doing?"

My fingers shook as I tied the hideous pink apron onto my waist. The diner was quiet, besides the clanking of pots, pans, and whatever else was being tossed carelessly around in the back kitchen. No one had come in yet, but I knew they would. They always did...especially after what happened today. People needed to get their minds off of things. Things like debt, war, starvation. Our small community was scarce in supplies anyway, since the rebellion against king Coli had begun. It didn't do much, other than piss the bejesus out of the king. He decided, apparently, that the best course of action to take was to demolish our president's home, killing him, and his entire Cabinet...which also happened to be there on a very important meeting about killing him, ironically.

Things had remained relatively calm, that is, until the taxes came in, along with a wave of debt. The town had been forced to pay everything we had saved for important town business. No one had paid a cent in taxes since before world war three, after that, our country had been the only independent one left. We had to take matters into our own, slightly callused hands. Since the late King, Adelram, decided that he would rather die than allow the import and export of goods between the two civilizations, we had to grow and produce all our own stuff. It was not a huge success.

Now, after a year of taxes, people began to rebel even more...many, surprisingly, were from my very hometown. it had been made a public disgrace by our new appointed country leader, Kin, that there were to be absolutely no rebelling. The action itself would result in an immediate Flinching. That was what we all decided to name the punishment, after the reaction people often have to seeing it. We couldn't really name it after the reaction people have to receiving  it, son there really isn't a one-word equivalent for AUUUGGGHH, GURGGLE GURGGLE HNNGH BLECK. It was graphic to watch, and a brutal process to heal.

Now, whomever decided to rise up and defy the "order" that Kin had created among our broken people were immediately captured by soldiers hired in service of Kin himself...who, ironically, requested that we all call him Kin, like we were his family, yet here he was handing out Flinchings like free candy.

I had witnessed one earlier this morning on my way to the diner. It had been around nine in the morning, and as I passed by the town square, I noticed a man tied down with shackles that linked to cuffs...which were embedded in the ground with ancient cement. It had made me consider just how many others had been in his very position. It hurt my already broken mind to imagine things of that topic.