NeverSeen

The Senator stood square to the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began with an air of displeasure and impatience, “The Traitor is convicted of High Treason. Rest assured that the evidence is clear and convicting. Now, let’s get this over with, so we can bunk down and ride out the storm, shall we?”

As he forged the lies of my lawbreaking endeavors, I screamed that this was tyranny. As he elaborated on my evil conniving of destruction, I told them everything, about the caves and the slaves and the manipulation of our minds. But there was nothing I could do to make them hear me. They were dead to me, just as I would be dead to them.

Tears sprung anew and mixed with the dirt and blood, racing down and away like the time left on my clock. My parents, blind and heartless, were just another wave in the sea of menacing faces. Sam stood further down the row of soldiers in the arena. She ignored my gaze. Her stone-faced parents, having completely forgotten they even had a son, a son I helped rescue with the cost of my own life, didn’t move.

My soul folded up in despair, and I sagged to the floor, hanging on my wrists. I cried without a sound, for even my voice was stolen. I was alone in the city I had loved my whole life that had raised me and cared for me, and only now, in my moment of need, there was nobody to stand by me.

I prayed for a miracle.