The Trial

Chapter 14 - Edited

Movement stops and this time there's no looking for my captors, since the cowards will never reveal themselves. I see the mist start to filter in slower than ever before, at least I think it was faster than what I'm seeing now, and thought it was a little darker than what appears before me. As it thickens around me, there's no sense of the senselessness it once brought, and know something must have changed. There may be no other sense except direction, but at least it's something; not that I can actually move through it.

I'm left with only this swirling grays around me and feel a presence from somewhere. I attempt to turn towards it, but have no idea if I'm actually moving. This is the closest I've been to them and it's time for some much needed answers.

Where are you? Show yourselves. Since you refuse to come any closer, what do you want? Tell me and let's be done with this madness.

The presence gets a little closer, but I can't tell the intent and try to scream out to get their attention, but my voice remains muted. Gray starts to dissipate and I can see with clear vision as I continue to seek out my captors before it's too late. There'll be no release this time, but they were there and it has to have some meaning. I need something to cling to in order to prevent madness from engulfing my mind.

I find myself sitting in an office, which is much larger than the one I had as state clerk sixty. File cabinets fill much of the room and the computer is humming softly in the otherwise silent room. There's no sign of discomfort in my nostrils as I breath in and know I'm far away from camp nine seven two.

Several years have passed between moments of the mist, and I try to smile at the progress, but can't move anything. My captors came close to approaching me and I've no idea why the change occurred, but it did happen and it's something to grasp. I don't know how much longer I can last in this prison without losing my faculties, but their presence served to sharpen my mind and madness is held at bay.

I've just been promoted to state recorder fifty-seven and all three are aware of my meteoric rise, which is a double-edged sword. Being a little known clerk left me with few enemies, but everything's changed and hold my secrets even closer to my chest. I've done what I can to protect myself from the daggers of false friendship, but it'll never be enough to keep me truly safe.

My fingers are running across a document I'm meant to store and my time with the wonder is brief. We hold these truths to be self-evident. The words are burned into my mind and wrack my brain to find the greater meaning hidden within them, but evident is a word I've never come across before and no context to define it. Despite the state telling me words have no real meaning, I know this to be a lie. If words have no meaning, then why do they fear anything written?

My internal timer goes off and place the document into the yellow folder it had been stored with the full knowledge this is little more than a trap. I randomly pick up another folder and find the paper filled with old propaganda from the state and almost smile. The promise of a bright future never happened and the state has little interest in this document ever seeing the light of day again. It's placed into the proper cabinet, where it will remain forever.