V for Vada

A Bulletproof Idea

-September 17th, 2020-
-12:00 A.M.-

My mother was always the type to scold for the minuscule things in life.

She would scold me until her face turned blue for this.

The humbling toll of Big Ben marks the day of my seventeenth birthday, my seventh spent alongside no one but the thoughts in my head and the soft humming emanating from my lips. This is also the day I promised myself I would hold out to before I got some answers.

Answers to why my parents were so brutally stripped from my life by a group of scummy fingermen, and why I never knew I had a big sister until I found an old photograph hiding behind one of myself alongside my parents. The Voice of London plays softly in the background of my quaint living space, Lewis Prothero's boisterous attitude filling me to the brim with aggravation. I don't have a particular reason why; his voice tears me to pieces, and the way he delivers his hateful speech boils the blood running through my veins. 

Nevertheless, I have work to do. Illegal work, but work, nonetheless.

I drag the small chest from beneath my bed, huffing as I hoist the hefty thing onto my mattress, sprawled with photographs of my family and myself. 

I lure the key dangling from a chain round my neck with quivering fingers, my nerves racking upon themselves in preparation to remember that dreadful day and those leading to it.

A knock on my door rouses me from my sleep, and my eyes snap open to the sight of my horrified mother, a fake smile of reassurance plastered on her face.

"It's time to hide, Verity--just like we practiced."

However, despite her playful mannerisms, something tells me this isn't one of my parents' training drills I've taken part in, unknown to me why. I slide out of bed without a sound, slipping beneath it, into the darkness. My mother shoves something beneath it along my side.

The once ajar door bursts open, men in uniforms with torches and guns surrounding my mother, who drops to the ground in compliance to their muffled orders. My eyes blur with tears as I see my mother's face for the last time. I only get to tell her I love her one last time, memorizing each and every feature of her beautiful face before it is masked by a hideous black bag.

My home, from then point on, was anything but. All the doors were locked behind once I was found, soon after the incident. Any and all propaganda was cleared from the house, all but two things. The key I adorn myself with, and the chest that remained hidden in the same spot my mother gave it to me. 

Now of course, I reclaimed the chest beneath highly illegal circumstances--however, this is of no concern to me. My only concern rest with what lies inside.

I lay the key next to the chest, taking a moment to admire it in all its glory. A simply wooden box, locked away from any prying eyes other than mine. Even so, it had been kept from me for long enough until I could figure out what to do with it.

Without any further stalling, I reach for the key, leading it into the lock , and with a delicate touch I lift the lid from the chest to reveal all that it entails.

"It's time to find out what falacies  I've built my life upon." I sigh, having it up to my chin with Prothero boasting in the back of my mind. I reach for my telly control, powering off the device to leave me be. In utter silence, I plant myself on my mattress, and I pull the chest to me.

I pull out a chain first, a pair of rings dangling from it. My eyes fill with tears, my hand clamping my quivering lips as I realize what it is. My mother and father placed their wedding bands on this necklace as a symbol for me to wear, in remembrance of them. I immediately clasp the pendant around my neck, my fingers tracing down the silver metal to the rings. I've never been a very spiritual or superstitious type of person, but it's almost as if I can feel their hands cup my own together, a sort of embrace to reassure me that I am in the right.

I press on, then finding two journals. One seems to be tattered almost to bits, its pages having been covered in packaging tape to preserve the pages, the other close to brand new.

I open the new one first, reading the first page softly, my fingers tracing what I know to be my mother's scratchy handwriting.

"Verity,
I know now that if you are reading this, my time has come and gone, years ago. It is now that you've realized you need the truth. That is what I named you for, after all.

Inside this chest lies the entire foundation of your existence, traced all the way back to your relatives, the Fawkes'. I've left you this journal so that you may read and know more about what happened to your father and I, and why it was inevitable.

Keep these things hidden.

Tell no one.

However, when the time comes...

Preach your golden heart out, Verity Edith Vada.

We love you more than words could withhold.

- Vivian Edith Vada & Victor Allen Vada."

I dry my eyes with the hem of my shirt, clutching the journal to my chest.

Fawkes?

There's no possibility, no confidence within any centimeter of my being that this is the bloodline of the one Guy Fawkes.

I press on in my search, pulling out laminated photographs and birth certificates, letters and legal documents. I find records and compact disks, names scratched out on them.

I've managed to claim ownership of a CD player, so I decide to pop one in and hook the device into the telly.

Upon the screen brightening, I find the face of my mother and of my father.

And for the next few days, I find myself watching these videos, reading these documents. With all the new information I learn, I lock it tight in my brain, and I keep the chest hidden beneath my bed, locked tight.

I soon know the reason for the unlawful murder of my parents, and the omittance of my oldest sister, Valerie, from existance. The three, along with all of my other relatives, past and recent alike, we're political activists. My mother and father were inspired by their hatred of Chancellor Sutler, the man who took claim to London, "saving" its people from viruses and disease spreading all over the world. The war was the turning point in it all.

And the revenge of the common people began with a man by the name of Guido Fawkes.