“Gather round, gather round! Quickly, get in here! We cannot be seen!” Said an old man. Very few people had gathered for his secret meeting, but it was bigger audience than he had hoped for. Now all that was left was to convince them of the lies they had been told from birth. That was the hard part, for the lies had been engraved in each of their brains, as they had been in his once as well.
Worry was visible in his face, for his forehead was even more wrinkled than usual. This speckled, droopy skin hung on his face like a wet towel. He caressed his face as the audience scrambled to find their seats. His beard was an ashen grey, and far more scruffy than he liked. The hairs on his chin twisted and curled into a bush on the bottom of his face. Bags hung under his eyes, for he was tired. Tired of living, and he had lived for so very long.
He quickly put all such thoughts aside and directed his attention towards the handful of people who had bothered to take such a risk as to attend his meeting. He himself was astonished that the government hadn’t found and executed him long before now. He was after all, doing so many things that in their eyes were wrong. This meeting being among them.
The man cleared his throat; “I have gathered you here today for a very specific reason. Your government has been lying to you!” Nothing. These people just continued to look at him; that was a good sign. The fact that none of them had protested against him meant that they had already suspected this long before he said anything about it. He continued. “My name is Joshua, and I swear to you that everything I am about to tell you is true.” He shouted. His voice was firm, and far more powerful than it had been for years.
Joshua took a step forward and lifted up his sleeves to reveal hideous scars on his arm. Deep gouges that stretched across his forearm were visible. Skin had grown on top of these wounds, but had remained a bright red color. He closed his eyes, thinking of the memory he had tried to repress for so long. He didn’t want to remember, but for the sake of the world, he did. “This is what you’re government does to those who do not follow their rules! They claim that peace and nonviolence must be used in every aspect of our lives! Yet they themselves use torture! How is that fair to us?”
Several members of the audience were holding their breath at this news. In truth, these scars were mild compared to the other forms of pain he had endured. However, he decided to go slowly. The majority of the population had never known cruelty of any kind, and the fact that it existed would bother them terribly. He stepped down and began to walk around the people, to show them the scars up close. Many of them let out an audible gasp when they saw his arms up close. The skin which had formed on top of the wound was more transparent than the rest. You could see the blood moving around underneath the skin, and in all honesty it was rather grotesque. As he walked around the room, one unfortunate woman looked like he was close to fainting.
Her eyes bulged out of her head and his breathing became heavy as she eyed the mangled skin. Her hands shook violently as she mustered up the courage to touch his skin. When her fingers touched his skin, he felt nothing. He had lost all of the nerves in that area that day long ago. She looked very concentrated as she caressed his skin, then she relaxed a little.
Joshua smiled as she finally lifted her hands away and placed them gently on her lap. That was when he got his first good look at her. The girl’s hair was a dark red color, like cinnamon and it went to about mid back length. It was wavy, and had brown streaks in it. The colors collided with each other making a nice collage. “What is your name?” He asked.
The girl looked up at him with soft blue eyes, looking slightly less timid. Though some of the shyness had gone away, he could tell that she was a very timid person. “My name is Skyler, but most people call me sky.” She whispered. Joshua nodded and turned away to continue with the meeting.
