dreaming of hope

by Freakinamask

Vic. The boy who was detained. Companion piece to Unsung and Fighting for Death.

My name is Victor Arinal. People call me Vic.

I am a muslim.

According to my government this means that I deserve to die.

They came for my family when I was eight. My parents were converts. White Brits who chose Islam. We could have renounced it. Stayed hidden and under the radar.

My parents chose not to.

My father was always smiling. He believed that if you had a choice between laughing and crying. It was far easier an less painful to laugh.

He didn't laugh when they took him.

I like to think that he kept smiling. That he kept his spirits up even in the detainment camps. I don't know for sure though. I probably never will.

They took my mother to. She screamed and cried as they dragged her away. I don't blame her. Her whole life she'd never had anything worse than a stubbed toe and a few anti-muslim comments in the street. Now she was being dragged from house. Beaten by truncheons and taken from her family.

I prayed for them both.

I climbed out the window. I thank Allah everyday that I made it out.

I survived seven years alone. It wasn't easy. But some had it much worse than me.

In the day I could blend in. At night. When curfew came into effect. It became a race to get to a hiding place before the fingermen found you. Some nights I'd wander for hours. Hoping that I wasn't caught. Praying for luck.

It was one of those night I met Cass.

I'd love to say that I loved her on site. That her beauty astounded me. That I saw a beautiful princess and we rode off into the sunset together.

Of course that wasn't what happened. I just saw a black girl with a little kid crouching behind her.

And not all stories have such a happy ending.

Still, for three years we were very happy. Cass was always so serious. I made it a personal mission to make her smile every day.

I managed it most days. There were the odd days when she was in a bad mood. A few days every month to be exact. But even then. The odd joke or bit of satire could usually raise at least the ghost of a grin.

Then there was her sister. Jazz. Pretty little thing. Big eyes thick hair. Back before she'd probably have won a bunch of beauty contests. But that's irrelevant. She was like a baby sister. I adored her. It was nice to see a little innocence in the world.

Cass and I started our, for want of a better word, 'relationship', a few months after we met. We never 'did it'. I mean. Take away the fact that we were kids and we didn't have a condom (from our position. Pregnancy was a death sentence.), Jazz was always around, and we weren't going to do it in front of her.

I loved her. I loved the way she smiled. The way she laughed. I loved the way she was strong for her sister. I loved the way she refused to cry.

Is it wrong that there were times when I was grateful for Norsefire. If it wasn't for them I'd never have met Cass. Is it wrong that if I'd had a choice. I'd still have chosen this. I'd still have chosen those three years with Cass.

Some of the things I did scared Cass. My family was gone. The two people I loved were terrified of being seen in the street. Someone needed to speak up.

So I did.

Graffitti. Yelling in the street. Defacing government property. Little things.

Cass was angry at first. It was a stupid risk she told me. She didn't believe that justice was a good enough reason to do things that to us, constituted as near suicide.

But it was justice. It needed to be done. Someone needed to stand up and say that not everyone was running scared.

I did other things to. I walked into shops and stole things for the girls. A pretty hair bobble for Jazz. A bracelet for Cass.

Little things. Cass always acted angry and worried.

But I could tell they made her happy.

I had a Koran. And that made her happy to.

She used to look at it. Said it was beautiful. She couldn't understand it. But she never asked me to translate. And I never offered or tried to convert her to my religion. Deep down we both knew we were better of where we stood.

Three years and I was so happy. The worst times were some of my fondest memories.

Then I got caught.

I was out getting food. On my way back, someone recognised me. I was so scared. He yelled that I was a muslim. Fingermen chased me.

They caught me.

I woke up in a truck with a black bag on my head.

When they pulled it off. I was in an interrogation cell. They'd searched my pockets. I'd snatched a few small things for the girls. A ring for Cass. A barbie watch for Jazz.

They'd figured out that they were meant for an older and a younger girl. Now they wanted to know who, and where.

They beat me. Hung me up in the showers. Almost drowned me. The bit that got to me the most was when they cut off my hair.

It wasn't anything special. Jaw-lenght brown and a bit shaggy.

But when they shaved it off. That was when it really hit home. I'd been caught, and I was probably going to die.

I never talked. Never told them a thing. Except that yes, I was a muslim. I never denied that. I'm not ashamed of it. I didn't try to lie my way out.

I don't like to remember the time I spent there. It was very bad time. I think I almost went mad. Once I was sure I saw Cass in my cell at night.

One thing that helped get me through it. Oddly enough, was a hair slide. Cass and Jazz both used to arrange there hair to try and hide their faces. They had a lot of hair slides. Invariably we all tended to have a few attached to our sleeves or in our pockets. We thought nothing of it. I hid the hair slide in my mouth. Took it into the cell with me. It was small, a shiny black laquered thing. Nothing special.

It was a reminder. A reminder that Cass was out there, that Jazz was out there. That I was suffering for them. That there was something on the outside. That they were real and there was life outside of this hellhole.

I still have it. The laquer is worn now. Dull metal shows throught the shiny black. but it's one of my most treasured possessions. A souvenir. A reminder of those three years. And of the reason I kept going from inside the camp.

Then they let me out.

It had been nine years. Nine years of torture. Of disease.

Nine years of thinking I was going to die.

I didn't find out about the man named V and the Fifth of November until later. There was no news inside the detainment camp. No way of knowing what was happening in the outside world.

When I got out. I searched the list of those detained for Cass and Jazz.

They weren't on the list.

I was ecstatic. The two people I loved were still free. They'd never had to go through the camps. It would have been worse for them. With girls there was always the guarentee of rape.

I tracked Jazz down. It was early days. Most fugitives were unknown and unregistered. They were trying to get the younger ones registered first. That way their parents and families could find them. Things were very chaotic.

I assumed that Cass would be with Jazz. Cass would be tweny-seven now. Jazz would be seventeen. I'd missed so much.

I knew that they'd think I was dead. That I'd died years ago. I thought it would be a nice surprise.

Jazz answered the door. I almost didn't recognise her. The innocent look was gone. Replaced by something hard and cold. She didn't recognise me. She was suspicious. Then I introduced myself.

Her face.

It made it all worth it.

Then she told me.

Cass was dead.

And it was my fault.

She didn't say so. She didn't even think so.

But if I hadn't said all that stuff about justice and taking a stand.

If I hadn't gone around stirring up trouble.

Cass would never have started rebelling after I was gone.

She's never have attracted the fingers attention.

She wouldn't have died.

It was like the floor suddenly fell out from under me.

I stayed with Jazz for a while. She was glad to have me. Apparently she'd missed me a lot.

Apparently Cass had cried for me.

That surprised me. The whole three years I'd known her I'd never seen her cry.

I drifted around aimlessly in the days. Just wandering around London.

It all seemed so dull without Cass.

I had nothing to hold on to.

A year after my release from the detainment camp I bought a gun.

I decided to finished it.

I didn't think it'd hit Jazz too hard. She went nine years thinking I was dead. She'd grieve. But she'd cope.

She's strong. She had to be.

I wish she hadn't needed to use that strength so often.

I went to a derilict house. I figured that people didn't need to hide any more. So it would be empty.

I couldn't do it.

I held the gun to my head, and I didn't have the courage to pull the trigger.

But for some reason, walking over I'd realised something.

Things were better. There were no fingermen. But still, there were hundreds of people. With no home and no experience with anything ressembling. Kids with no idea how to adjust.

Kids like Cass.

Kids like Jazz.

Kids like me.

Kids who need a laugh. Kids who needed help.

I knew what they'd been through. I knew how to cope. I knew what it was like to lose someone.

I could make someones life better.

I used to talk about justice and making a stand. I tried a one-man revolution. It didn't work. I never had V's resources. But people needed help now. And I didn't need special weapons training or explosives to help now.

I could make a difference. Atone a little.

Suicide, Cass used to say, was a stupid thing to do, it didn't solve anything. It didn't make anything better. It was just a sneaky way of running away, made all the more cowardly by the fact no-one could chase you, she was right.

It's easy to die for something. Living is harder. Alive you have to deal with repurcussions. Alive you feel pain. Alive you grieve.

I'll see Cass again, one day.

But not today.

Today I make a difference.

Today I live.

I throw the gun away and go back to Jazz's.

She might not be the same girl I knew. But she's as good as family, and I owe Cass enough to take care of her. I won't tell her about this. I'm not dead so why does it matter.

I've still got things to do.

I can still make a difference.

I pull an worn, old, cheap black hair slide from my pocket. I run my thumb along it it gently and smile.

I can try and make Cass proud.

A/N I was going for bittersweet here. Hope you enjoy. Any muslims, I mean no offense (if anyones offended) Please review ect. This is the last of the unsung trilogy (Cass Vic Jazz) please enjoy. I own nothing recognisable.