text: I didn’t sleep well that night. Less than two hundred metres away was a man I had known my whole adult life imprisoned, sleeping on a rough wooden floor. Yet, here I was in luxury. A large bed, a soft mattress, and blankets that felt almost frictionless against your skin. All the physical comfort imaginable had been afforded to me. But mentally, rest was impossible. In just a few words I could walk into Jacob’s office, vouch for Thomas, demand my friend was released and he would be. I was certain of it. Thomas should be out by now. I should have gotten him out. I wondered if I could sneak over, get back in, and sleep on the floor by the cell. Suffer as he suffered. I had spent enough nights with splintered and uneven planks replacing my mattress. One more wouldn’t hurt. However, it wouldn’t help. Another’s pain doesn’t make yours any less. So instead, I compromised, deciding to be as awake and as uncomfortable as I could. No matter my physical surroundings, in my own head I was lying on the hot sticky floor listening to the rats scurry. I lay there listening to the nothingness, and staring at the inanimate ceiling. Everything was frozen. Time refused to move. I don’t how long I lay in that bed, vaguely aware of the shifting stars out the window in front of me, but at some point I heard a noise from outside - a break in the monotonous nothing. It started quiet. The faintest disturbance in the air, but soon it grew into definite voices. Alessia was fast asleep, her face planted into the pillow, her mouth agape. But the voices grew closer, and louder. Slowly I rose from my bed, listening to the calls like they were a Siren's song. I began to detect an anger in them. One shrill cry battling against stronger but calmer heads. I wrestled with tge urge not to investigate until curiosity got the better of me. I got dressed and headed down the stairs. Outside, the guard by the back door greeted me, before his gaze turned to the right where the voices crept around the wall towards us. Without the walls, the screams were crystal clear. The shouts cut through my skin and I could feel my pulse race instinctually. The curious noise that drew me here was now definitely a woman's howls. Her voice a mixture of despair and rage. It won’t do any good. You can’t stop all of us. We will come for you. We will dismantle all we have built.” She appeared accompanied by two guards wrestling her up the path towards the prison. She wore a sleeveless dress, and I could see symbols painted onto her arm - stick figures of animals and patterns of leaves. “You can’t just go back to the way things were. We have to change. We have to turn to the Earth.” “Shut it. It’s over,” one of the guards barked as he yanked her arm. She was momentarily silenced by the forceful jolt. Squinting into the darkness, I recognized his face. He was part of the group that had found us by my old house. “You can lock me up all you want. There’s plenty more of us. Nature will prevail.” I approached them till I was close enough for my voice to carry. “What’s she been arrested for?” The guard looked my way and nodded, seeming to recognize me. “Found her trying to set fire to one of the Council buildings in town.” His voice was steady and calm despite the woman struggling in his arms. “Why?” The woman turned to me, her mouth wide, and her teeth bared like a cornered dog. “Because we need to undo our sins. Undo civilization. Return to nature.” “Quiet,” the guard muttered. The woman ignored him, keeping her eyes fixed on me. “Look what technology brought us. These empty shells. These guards. It’s corruption. Nature is the only peace.” “Quiet!” The other guard shouted as he shoved her in the back, knocking the wind out of her. The first guard looked up at me shaking his head. “Her lot have been causing problems all over. We’ve got them though. Sorry to wake you. Have a pleasant night.” He turned his head away and continued dragging the woman away. She continued to holler. Not to be rescued, but instead a final battle cry, a recruitment call to the nighttime so that they may join her fight, replace her in the ranks once she disappeared. But there was no one to listen. Just me, a few guards, and the other prisoners she would soon be locked up with. ------------------------------------------ As we set off for the Yarmouth Pit the next morning, I could feel the tiredness cling to my bones, weighing me down. Despite a cool summer breeze, I still felt a damp sweat stuck to my skin like leftover glue, and my muscles groaned with each step. Despite not knowing the way, Alessia was out ahead of me, pace setting and dragging my unwilling limbs behind her as we headed to the western side of the island. She raced up the smooth dirt path as it crested at the top of a small hill. She stopped at the top, turning back to me as the morning sun glistened across her face. She looked down with a smug face, her arms folded. “You doing okay back there?” “Yeah. Just tired.” Alessia paused, picking up on my tone. Her smile fell flat “Thomas?” I nodded. Alessia looked out to the sea to her right, watching the waves crash against the rocks below. "What do you think we’re gonna find today?” I gritted my teeth. “I don’t know. Probably nothing.” As I caught up to her, Alessia began walking again, this time empathy slowing her gait. “You don’t think there’s anything odd?” I shook my head. But out of confusion not denial. “I don’t know. If I were to choose three people in this world I trust the most, it would be you, Thomas and Jacob. Not sure what to do when they disagree.” Alessia raised an eyebrow. “No Xander?” I let out a small chuckle. “Xander did try and kill me when we first met.” Alessia tilted her head back and clicked her tongue. “Oh yeah. Before I got there.” I looked at the path ahead as it curved out to a small headland. “I don’t know why Thomas is in there. I can’t understand it.” Alessia pursed her lips. “Jacob put him there.” “I know But... Jacob. He saved me. If it weren’t for him risking his life I’d still be back in that prison hoping to survive the day. I’d never had gotten out, never traveled the Archipelago, never met you...” I turned to Alessia with a frown. “I owe him everything. Including my faith.” As the path turned left, the new citadel - the Estates - came into view once more behind us. My eyes looked to those homes down on the coast and the hope they contained. A patch of cloud rolled across the hills beside it, the homes highlighted in the gaps between the shadows. The light glanced across the red slate roofs, before brushibg against the wide windows of the upper floors, and rolling across the shamrock colored grass. Somehow the homes were more beautiful than the ones I had imagined at the Citadel. “How you feeling about your speech?” Alessia asked. I turned to take in the whole island anf the contours of the land I knew so well. “This place needs to calm. If I can help with that. Jacob needs it. The island needs it.” I threw my arms up into the air. “I need it.” “You don’t have to give that speech if you don’t want to. We’ll get the information on Sannaz.” I remembered the woman last night, and the path others might take the island down. “I’ve got to do what I can for this place.” I said as I forced my feet to keep moving, breaking from the pensive inaction. It took another hour of walking until we reached the Yarmouth site. The once great pit dug down into the earth, like the claw mark of some ancient god. Where once hundreds of workers could be found either scraping away at the rock or dealing with the output, over the years the lines had run dry. Now Yarmouth was a relic. A lonely place where a handful of workers spent their days digging away, hoping for a fresh vein to make their efforts worthwhile. It was remote, uninteresting and uncared for. And as we approached the office door I was certain that we were alone. As alone as Thomas would've been when he left the documents here. I momentarily paused as my hand grabbed the door handle. I took a quick breath and forced my arm down as the space opened in front of us. Thomas's old desk was in front of him. As I looked at the chair half drawn out from the desk, I wondered when Thomas was last here. At some point, he had sat at this desk and worked unknowing of what was to come. At some point, his life held a routine. It was my actions that had caused that pattern to be unravelled, for the predictable and certain to be replaced with the horror of his speculative imprisonment. Shaking the thought from my mind I walked over to the cabinet at the back of the room, bent down next to the cabinet and pulled out the bottom drawer. I could see several stacks of papers. Most were old books. The same type I had used when I managed the pits. But in the far left there was a folder, its sides thick, the front bulging with papers jammed inside, a taut string keeping its contents from spilling out. I lifted out the folder and walked it over to the desk, letting it land on the table with a thud. I undid the string and the lid flew up, the contents seeming to breathe a sigh of relief at being let free. Alessia looked at the stack of papers pushing out. “Any idea how we go through this?” I frowned. “No. Just... go through it and see what we get, I guess.” We began laying out the papers on the table, separating them into various categories. Almost two-thirds of the papers seemed to be applications from islanders, people pleading to be allowed into the Estates. They spoke of their family’s efforts, how hard they strived, and named those who could be contacted to vouch for their work ethic. I only gave each one cursory attention, but still I noticed page after page of people boasting of the extra hours they worked, how they had volunteered to help build the park after the Citadel was seized, or how they’d sacrificed time with friends of family to the greater cause of Pomafauc Reset. Others had taken a different tactic. Merely begged or detailed stories of their own suffering. Then of course there were those that tried bargaining, offering their own meagre house to the Council in return, or suggesting donating funds to causes the Council deemed worthy. After the applications, the documents began outlining the construction proposal for the Estates, the number of homes and the square meterage of each building. There were a few letters of correspondence, messages sent out to the towns to declare the application process open, or clarifying the new open nature of the Estates. Then there was a memo titled “Projected Earnings.” I scanned the document. Most of it focused on the costs, going into detail how to calculate the expenses of the project; totaling man hours, materials and the inevitable setbacks. Then at the end there was one line. “Jacob, I know after our last meeting you asked me to be certain of the return value. As I presented the other day, I can confirm each home should be able to return double its investment cost and more than make up for the downturn in the islands’ exports in recent months.” I stopped and read the sentence a second time. I blinked slowly, trying to take it in, being sure every word was as I saw it. “Have you seen anything about income from the homes?” Alessia turned to me and shook her head. “How would they be making money off the homes? They’re awarded.” I began to feel a sour taste in my mouth and a lump in the back of my throat. I contemplated putting down the papers, walking out the door, and trusting that there was an answer that made sense. But then I looked down at the documents still to be read. I began turning over the last few pages. Near the very end, there was one final correspondence. I immediately noticed Jacob’s signature at the bottom. It was a statement declaring that the winners of the first round of homes at the Estates had been declared. Beneath that was a long list of names. I began reading. South, Willem Naudain, Tess Lombard, Hannah Waverley, Ronald My mind paused, stuck on the last name. Waverley. I had heard it somewhere before. I didn’t know anyone on the island with that name - no colleagues, no friends. Yet it flicked a spark, a little sequence of thoughts that brought me back to Kadear. Yet it wasn’t Ronald Waverley I knew. I had the sound of an Alice Waverley in my head. An Alice that tied to a Waverly. Distant thoughts. Small pockets of memory that I couldn’t make connect. I read on. Pine, Wilbert Panama, Melle Delancey, Michel That name I knew. This time not with some distant connection I couldn’t make out, but as clear as day. “It’s got to be a coincidence,” I muttered. “What?” Alessia furrowed her brow. I turned away from the desk, back to the cabinet, pulling open the upper drawers. I grabbed one of the old large books, and dropped it onto the desk, a thin film of dust dispersed into the air as it landed. Inside was a list of substantial sales; bulk orders from traders on other islanders. I flicked through the pages, skipping over the tonnage and delivery dates, just glancing at names, until I saw one. Michel Delancey. I closed my eyes. I could feel that lump in my throat fall down to the pit of my stomach, and down further until my legs felt like stone. “What is it?” Alessia asked. I pointed to the name in the book. “He’s a massive land-owner on another island, runs a bunch of factories. Used to be one of our major importers.” “He’s got the same name as...” Alessia trailed off. I shook my head. “I bet you if I keep reading that list I’ll find more of them.” Waverley. That name came back to me. Alice Waverley. I could hear the name being shouted by an impatient mother, keen to use every syllable to get her point across. “Alice Waverley, you come down now or we’ll be late.” I remembered the shout. Steadily the picture grew clearer. The woman was right next to me as she called out, but paid me so little attention I could’ve been a ghost. I had grimaced as the noise reverberated around my ears, but I didn’t flinch. It was in one of the homes in the old Citadel. I had ignored my ringing eardrums and continued polishing the cabinet in front of me, certain not to cause a scene. Now the image was crystal clear and all the details came back to me. The who - the mother; the where - the Citadel; the when - I was a prisoner. I could see that family so clearly now. One daughter. Mother and father. He was on the old Council. His name was... Ronald. There was a bubbling in my gut, as bile made of stress and dread began working its way up my throat. Another moment flashed before my eyes. Our first day here, when we toured the Esates with Jacob. The woman who I saw scurrying up the steps to the building. I knew her name. I recognized that face. I looked down at the list of awardees. The very next name. Spruce, Christine. “FUCK!” The words left my lung like a stab wound. I hunched over, clasping myself against the desk. Alessia reached out a hand, placing it on my arm to stabalize me. “What?” I pulled myself back up as I felt my knuckles spasm with the anger. My hands burned, as thoigh the bones inside were trying to leave my body through fury. I stared at my palms, trying to regain my thoughts, my heart pounding against my chest. The rage overcame me again. “GOD DAMN IT!” I bent over placing my face in my hands. “Ferdinand.” Alessia placed a firm grip on each of my arms, gently stroking them. Part restraint, part soothing. “Ferdinand. You’re going to have to explain this to me.” I forced my head out from the sanctuary of my hands. “They’re selling the homes.” “What?” “The homes aren’t being awarded for hard work. They’re real. But they’re just being sold to whoever can afford them. Tycoons from other islanders, people with stolen artefacts, even the old council members themselves.” “The old council?” “Ronald Waverly. Christine Spruce. They lived at the Citadel. I cleaned their homes.” I could feel the nerves in my arm convulse, until my hand shaped into a fist and slammed into the desk. The old wood shook and a few sheets of paper fell to the floor. “But why not just build the houses and sell them.” “Same reason as ever. Keep people working. Keep everyone striving for something and trying to please you." I clenched my jaw and my throat. Words boiled up, pushed out my mouth like steam pressurised by the heat in my chest. "That’s probably the only way they could’ve built those homes in five months anyway. Builders working round the clock believing it could be them on the inside.” Alessia looked to the ground. My mind was racing. “Nothing changed. The old council fell, and everything stayed exactly the same, except now the man conning the entire island was one of my best friends. I’m complicit in it this time.” “No you’re not” Alessia tried to interrupt. I didn’t stop. “I’m part of it. I released him. I was glad when I found out he was premier. And I left the island so he could stay here and do to the island exactly what the people before him did.” “This isn’t your fault, Ferdinand.” I turned away, facing my body back towards the Citadel. I couldn't see it, yet I turned to it like a magnet facing north. “How did I not realize the second I saw Thomas in that prison? How did I accept that for one moment?” “Because you trusted Jacob. Trust is good.” “That trust was stupid.” I spat the words out “What do you want to do?” “This ends. Now.” I looked at the papers strewn across the desk. “Grab the evidence we need, and take it to Jacob. This ends today.” ------------------------------------------------------ The closer we got to Citadel Park, the more people we saw. And each face brought with it another flicker of anger. I didn’t mind the faces that looked grumpy or displeased. It was the smiles that hurt. The bodies dragging uneven heavy carts across pothole ridden roads, grinning with wide eyes as the sweat poured down their faces. They would die doing this, die pulling that stupid cart, the grin still wide on their face. Slowly all that bitterness that had nowhere to go developed into melancholy. And my feet dragged slowly along the ground. “Do you think I’m to blame?” I muttered, my eyes staring at the dirt. “What? No?” Alessia replied. “If I hadn’t left when I did... in the way that I did. Maybe things would be different.” “You didn’t do this, Ferdinand.” I shook my head, scrunching my eyes shut. “You said it to me. All the way back on Tima Voreef. The truth isn’t enough. You have to build something after. I didn’t see it through.” “You were running for your life, Ferdinand.” I opened my eyes again just in time to see a couple walking away from the park towards us. I stepped around them as they silently marched by. They passed me as though hypnotized, disconnected from my presence. Turning to Alessia, I scrunched my face. “Do I see it through this time? Should I stay here?” I could see Alessia take a momentary pause in her step. “That’s up to you. Can’t make the decision for you. But I will say... I hope you don’t. And I don’t think leaving is wrong.” “I could’ve done more.” Ahead of us I could see more people heading down the path towards us. Their eyes fixed forwards down the hill. Alessia gritted her teeth. “Ferdinand. When you escaped. You came back and freed the others. You could’ve kept running. But you handed them the island to do with what they wanted. You gave them the blank slate. Them screwing it up isn’t your fault.” Part of me listened to Alessia, but I was caught by a growing crowd leaving the park. They all had the same fixed expression on, hollow eyes that were forced forwards, their necks refusing to rotate as though screwed in place. Some instinctual part of my brain, hardwired to the behavior of others, was alerted. There was an abnormality in the air. The mixture of our surroundings not quite right. There were two women ahead of us. They walked briskly, as one held a small child on her hip. The kid was three or four, capable of walking on their own, and large enough that the woman shifted awkwardly with the weight on her hip. Yet she insisted on carrying. “I know it’s the rule of law. I just don’t want my kid seeing it, you know?” Alessia was eyeing up the pedestrian traffic as well, her eyes shifting and focusing on different people, trying to parse a meaning. “First one in a while, I think. Right?” a man said to another. “Yeah. Was starting to worry the Council had gone soft,” the other laughed. I picked up my pace as ahead of me I could see the great arched sign that welcomed you to the park. A family walked out from under the archway. The man had his hand on the shoulder of a young boy in front of him, the child’s face glued to the dirt. The man shook his head, and turned to his wife as they passed. “I guess it’ll be good for him in the long run. See justice served. That crime doesn’t go unpunished. But...” The scaffold. I began running, charging underneath the large archway, weaving between the bodies meandering down the hill. Ahead of me two young women walked idly in gossip, hogging the center of the path. “Move!” They parted, jumping out of the way with, their lips turned upwards. “Rude!” one of them shouted. I didn’t care. I sprinted until my legs told me they could sprint no more. And then I still kept sprinting. I had to collapse the unknown into truth. The limitations of my limbs were irrelevant, a greater physical force propelled me forwards. The prison building grew closer, the walls masking the blue sky. My skin grew hotter, and my eyes stinged with sweat the fear of what lay around the corner. I ran past the building. I stood. I paused. And I wailed. A long desperate sob left my lungs. Saliva spluttered from my lips as my lungs heaved, coughing out every ounce of grief and anger and regret I could find. There in front of me, hung two bodies. The woman who I’d seen brought in last night. And next to her, Thomas. Alessia arrived, keeping a few paces behind, giving me space. “I’m sorry, Ferdinand.” “Give me your knife.” “What... why?” “Give me your knife.” I held out my hand behind me. “Ferdinand, what are you-“ “I’m cutting him down. Now give me the knife.” My tone had lost all respect, all humanity. It simply demanded the world bring me what I need. I felt the metal blade land in my palm. I wrapped my hand around it, feeling the sharp edge scrape at the skin, a small pain that served as a welcome distraction. At the base of the slope, I climbed up the steps to the gallows. Somewhere in the distance, people would be turning to look - confused and concerned onlookers, gawkers, even guards, unsure if they should intervene. But they were all a haze. An indistinct blur. There was only one figure I could see. I wrapped an arm around Thomas’s torso, feeling the heat dissipate from his limp body. Stretching, I reached up, and grated the knife firmly against the taught rope. After three strong slashes there was a snap, and Thomas’s full weight fell upon me. We staggered back, and I fell down, landing in a seated position, with Thomas’s body lying on my lap. There was a look of pain on his lips. But I couldn’t help but notice a small smile at the corner of his mouth, and how relaxed his body seemed. Wrapping my arms across his chest, another convulsion of grief rose from within me. I spluttered his name. I tried to apologise. It was all for nothing. I sat on that stage, for the whole park to see, as I held my oldest friend.