Stark Betrayal

Bernice, mother of Sara

I knew it would be soon that we would receive a letter this year, 2020. My daughter is soon to be nineteen. I am a secretary for a cruel man, but it is where I was told to work. In some ways I am glad of the switch, because some presidents have been known to mess up the country, our last one was one of those bumbling dolts. In others I ridicule it, since they no longer teach American history or any country’s history, but they teach the history of the founding of the new government system to our children and I believe it was wrong of them to change the school system to fit their needs and not the needs of the children like my daughter. Sara, that is the name of my daughter, gets into trouble sometimes like skipping school and public disturbances in the neighborhood. She spends most of her time outside with her friends and they fight with the other kids in the neighborhood. I want my daughter to be a doctor or a lawyer, but I worry about what the government will want her to do. She is the gem of my life, and she sparkles with such brilliance especially around her friends.
The day that the letter came, my hands were trembling. I opened the letter this is what it entailed: “Dear Bernice, We are to inform you that your daughter, Sara, is to be a man-hunter. Inform your daughter of this and burn this letter. She must report to the former post office on the following Monday of her birthday. Be proud, she will be a great man-hunter and she will be servicing justice to the wicked. Sincerely, Designated Official.” I told her, and then burned the letter. I am afraid that they are watching and listening to whatever anyone does, before the change the president passed a bill that allowed them to do so without a subpoena or a warrant. Some days, like today for example, I wish the world was the way it was before the change. Although to say so out loud would be treason. This is the world we now live in.
Today is the day that my daughter leaves for the old post office. I had long suspected that they still use it, although I never knew what for till now. It is a cruel thing for them to do this to me, to anyone and their children. I will never get to see her again. After she completes her training she will be relocated and given a new identity so that I cannot find her, and she will be so busy that she will not have the time to come back to me. I cannot seem to stop asking myself; ‘How can you let them take your daughter?’ All that comes to my mind in answer is that I have no other choice. Sara does not know that her life will be changed, though I cannot say for good or bad.
I never wanted her to be a man-hunter. I wanted her to be a doctor or a lawyer but it will not be so. I have a feeling that they will come for me, the government. I have heard stories from others who had neighbors disappear in the dead of the night without so much as a peep being heard. The next day there was a sign that indicated the house for sale. I fear for my life, but I fear for my daughter’s life. Not very many people make it out of the man-hunter training grounds. I hope that she lives to see the world return to its former imperfections that made it a place worth living in.
It has been about a week after she left. A white van pulled up in front of my house at exactly eleven pm. I did not scream when they unlocked my front and back doors and entered into my house. I felt like screaming and running for the nearest window and jumping through it to my escape but if I did so it could result in the death of my daughter. I poured lemonade into six glasses. I have no idea why I only poured six but it seemed like a good number to place on the table. I also pulled out some pinwheels that I had made two days ago.
“Kind sirs, would you like some lemonade and pinwheels?” I inquired to them.
They did not answer though they did take the lemonade, the pinwheels, and me. They shoved a black bag over my head so that I could not see and they tied my hands and feet in a hog tie. I was picked up and thrown over one of their shoulders. I was manhandled out of my house and into the van that had been parked there. I heard another vehicle pull up near where I was. One of the men told the others to put up the “For Sale” sign and to clear out all the clothing, food, and pictures and mementoes that belonged to my daughter and me. The last thing I remember is a stinging sensation in my neck and I lost consciousness.
When I came to, I was sat at a metal table in a cement room. There was a man dressed in a Giorgio Armani suit. I knew that because I looked them up for a suit to bury my husband in. I know it took every penny I could scrape up, but I wanted him to look his best and he was a lawyer. I was thinking about that when he asked me a question to which he then repeated. He wanted to know if my neighbors and I were close. I told him that we were not and that my neighbors and I rather disliked each other. I did not want them to get into trouble because they know me; also it wasn’t that big of a lie. He then asked me what I was going to do if I never saw my daughter again. I told them the absolute truth on this one. I told him that I would look for her till I found her or found out what happened to her, or died looking for her. He looked rather pleased with my answer and my stomach dropped to the floor.
“Then there is no other choice than to try and change your mind. Take her to the holding cell, to see if that will change her mind. I am sure that it will not, but we have orders to give them a chance to change their minds. Some of them do end up changing their minds.” He said to me and to the men outside of the interrogation room.
I was more or less thrown into the holding cell, which had enough room for me to lie down without being too close to the toilet. It was only two minutes later when they came and gave me supper. It was goop of some meat and vegetable kind. I could barely choke it down. I soon felt like throwing up. There was no sink in the room, only the toilet and floor. Then they pulled me out to take a shower. They tied my hands and shoved me into a room. I was still in my clothes. From the ceiling there was a large shower head. When the water began to pour, it was freezing cold. I was shivering and curled up into the fetal position. I do not know how long it had been when they dragged me out of the shower but I was numb all over. I could not even feel the floor underneath of me. It saddened me to where I physically wanted to scream, tear down the door and end the madness of this world. The only problem is that it is physically impossible for me to do all of those, save the screaming.
It has been a week since they took me. I am in pitiful shape. I am constantly thinking of my daughter and wondering where she is. There are mice, or rats, here. I found that out three days after I was thrown in this room. When I fell asleep, I dreamed about when Sara was only four. She asked me about all she could think of. I would smile and answer her and she would smile back. She asked me why I was sad, why I always had sad eyes, and I smiled and asked her why she thought I was sad and had sad eyes. She answered me with, because your eyes are wet. I woke with a start because my eyes actually were wet. I had been crying.
It was a few hours later that they then shoved in a plate of that nasty goo and a saucer of water. It was not much but I dumped it down the toilet so that I would not have to smell it any more than I have to. It made me want to vomit. I think that they put something in to either make you ill or make you complacent. Either way I did not want to eat it.
I can no longer tell how long I have been in here, though it seems to have been for a life time. My existence has been erased from any paper trails and all of the pictures of my family and I, are most likely burned. I write all of this on the toilet paper that is provided and I had a mechanical pencil in my pocket. It is disgusting the life I am forced to live. Whenever they came in to “shower” me I would hide this and hope that they would not search the room for who knows what. It was hard for me to find a place to hide this, but I found a crack in the wall to place this makeshift journal.
I have given up any hope that may have lingered about a rescue for me. I knew from the start that I would not be saved. I think that I wished my daughter would find out the truth and maybe with the help of her friends save me, but that is rather selfish of me. I can only hope that my daughter finds out the truth before it is too late. I know that my daughter likes to keep a journal and that the government likes conformity. It would be disastrous for her if they found the journal that I know she will be keeping.
“I want out of here, I want out,” I screamed at the top of my near nonexistent lungs.
I knew that there were only two ways out either to accept that I would no longer see my daughter and live the rest of my life they tell me to or in a body bag. They knew that I was reaching the critical breaking point so they ignored my screaming. It was like a game for them, I think. They were waiting for the precipice of falling either to their side or falling into one of their word traps that they use to try to get me to say or do something to allow them to torture me all the more.
To say that I wanted them to hurry up and kill me would be lying, I wanted them to leave me alone and let me go back to my home and have my daughter back. They were not going to allow that, I know. I only wish that I could somehow escape but they have this place sealed tighter than an air lock seal, figuratively of course.
I had to hurry and hide the paper and pencil because they were unlocking the door. I just barely had time to make it to the toilet to pretend that I had been trying to vomit. It is something I would never do but since I have been losing weight like crazy and dumping the food down the toilet it was believable. I was hoping it would be a shower but it was not. They took me back to the interrogation room and asked some of the same questions that they had the time before, but they also asked new questions. There were questions like, do you know where your daughter might hide something that she does not wish for you to see and what would you say if we told you your daughter basically had the skin of her back whipped off because she refused to hand over a journal that we are most certain she has? I was angry and I tried not to show it, because it I could last a bit longer I might be able to get out of her, but I was unsuccessful and the looks on their faces told me they knew that they had struck a chord and they were going to push it as far as they could until I either broke or gave them the information that they wanted to know.
They did not get the information out of me, I am happy to write. Though, they did decide that it was time for me to die. I knew this because when they tossed me back into my room they asked me what I would like to eat. I asked them why and they told me that it was for my last meal. I told them homemade lemonade and turkey with provolone pinwheels. That is what I had served to them when they abducted me from my house, so that is what I will eat besides now they will serve me what I had served them. The only difference is that the ones that they serve me will be fresher than the ones I gave them, unless they give me the ones I gave then they would be moldy by now.
When they brought the food in it was fresh and they left the entire pitcher of lemonade. I knew it was the last thing I would ever have the chance to eat so I ate it. I was half starved and it looked so very delicious. I ate all twelve pinwheels and drank half of what was in the pitcher plus what was already in the glass. I was full. They came to take away the dishes and leftovers. After fifteen minutes I knew that I was already dead in a sense, because I began to feel as if my insides were burning. They had laced the food with poison, but even if they had not I most likely would have died from eating. My stomach seemed so used to having nothing inside of it that I vomited most of what I ate. There was still enough of the poison still in me though. I hope that Sara will someday read this and know that I will always love her, if nothing else a stranger will know about what they did to me and how much I loved my daughter. My sight grew dark and my body grew cold, I would not see my daughter again.