All at once, every human that has ever died, learnt the truth. All at once, we bubbled with rage and horror and resolution. The resistance arose, the streets flooded with angry voices. The riot began. In turn, guards arrived, blank figures in dark clothes, eyes, humanity, hidden behind visors. Tear gas and batons. Screams and persistence. Retreat, organisation and rising again. Action upon action. Revolution takes time, but it is urgent, unfaltering, desperate. A fight for eternity, a fight for freedom, a fight for the right to one’s body, one’s mind, one’s choice.
Invigilators were held at gunpoint, torn from their posts. Our choices will not be dictated again, they will not feed off our shame. Doors were broken down, borders dissolved. Near every machine of amnesia is ripped apart, knowledge, the capacity to question and to doubt will not be stolen from us again.
We reached Block Zero, Psychopomp central. The revolutionaries of countless blocks, amongst them: Shadow, Harry, Everard, Atom, Willl, Bale. Fixed faces, clenched fists. A demand for surrender. Shadow prompted Bale to try and talk to those once obedient to him, to tell them to accept the change, to submit to the will of the people. Yet, the obedience of Block Zero, of Psychopomp’s governors, comes from the promise of power, of control, of pride and if Bale cannot offer that, then he is worthless. The kind cannot be tyrants. Pacifism cannot succeed against a system that does not value our thoughts enough to let us keep them. Against a system that acts to own and bind our souls.
There is a place for violence, and it’s planted in the face of your oppressor.
We fought in every block, but we burnt Block Zero to the ground.
And once everything was dismantled, we rebuilt.