As he walked through the beautiful ruins of the desolated city, a thrush was singing, its liquid notes pouring to nothingness. He was mesmerised by the beauty of it, that thrush sitting upon the ashes of the buildings. Behind the thrush, on a cracked wall, remained one of the posters from the dark days, almost completely torn but still intact and folded over in the wind, resembling how the past was now hidden.
The revolution was swift and effective, bringing the much desired end to the regime. Despite not knowing how exactly it ended, with several theories of how the leader was overthrown, the people were overjoyed the end had come.
For this man, though, the joy was marred with pain. Something was missing. Something irreplaceable, like the sun in the sky. The memories of his time with her lived on, aided by his recent rediscovery of his diary, an artefact from before the dark days (although the passages he had written were splatters of white on the black canvas of those traumatic times). The diary had smooth, silk-like paper, which was a joy to feel and write on. Why he still had it, he did not know – much to his amazement, most of his possessions were left untouched.
It occurred to him that maybe writing in this diary was a release of some kind, something that took the pain away for a while, and so he sat on some rubble and proceeded to write with a pen he found in his pocket, which he was still not used to writing with:
2nd November, 1993.
All is well. Or so we are told.
After my struggles in what must be almost a decade, good has prevailed over evil, and freedom has been granted. But still, I wonder what has become of her since I last saw her...
She's probably dead now; I'd be amazed if she wasn't. Frankly, I'm amazed I'm alive.
He stopped writing. Did he care if she was alive or not? Would she care if he was alive or not? That last time they met, it certainly did not seem that either one cared to see the other still breathing – they were more of an inconvenience, irrelevant to the lives they had built for themselves with their new love.
He did not truly love his new love – the fact he could only bring himself to say he was in love after several gins paid testament to this fact. When he was sober, he only thought about how he betrayed her. He hated himself, and if he could not forgive himself how could she?
As he sat distraught, with his head in his hands, she found him. She recognised him instantly, that skinny framework and unkempt face had haunted her for some time. "I'm glad to have found you."
He turned to see her standing there, her arms behind her back. "I'm glad you have found me too, Julia. You said they couldn't get inside me. They did, and so did you."
She sat down beside him. "I don't blame you for what happened, darling. Things happened that should never have happened, the important thing is it's over now. I don't love him anymore, I don't know if I still love you, but we need to try and make a live for ourselves now we can, like we always dreamed of."
She stuck her hand out, as if about to strike a deal. The look in her eyes was one of desperation, for some reason he did not know, she truly needed him. Not in the way she needed him before, for an escape from the dire situation they found themselves in, but this time for help in a situation she could not escape. Hesitant, his hand met hers. She was right, it was time for a new beginning. "I just have one question though – what did they do to you?"
The door opened to reveal a small room, as bright as burning metal and equally painful to behold. At the centre of the room was a chair, similar to one you would find in a dental practice, but with straps, and it was surrounded by bulky guards. You would quiver in that chair as a child as you lay your head down for inspection, and most would quiver now, anxious with anticipation of what was to come. However, as she entered, she was as cool as ice.
"Sit," ordered the man. She knew this man, and he knew her also. At one point, she had been foolish enough to trust him. However, the man seemed angrier now, as if possessed. "Do you know what awaits you now?"
"The worst thing in the world?" she replied, dismissive of the supposed severity of what was to come.
"Which in your case, is..." The man laughed, as though he had remembered a long forgotten joke, but ended abruptly, shifting his focus back to the task in hand. Two of the guards held her down by the arms, whilst the others strapped her in. As they did this, she saw the man take from underneath the chair a tray of needles: her worst fear. Despite this, she remained calm and composed. They wouldn't get inside her. "If you want me to stop, just say the magic words."
The first needle was stuck in her neck – she winced a bit, but she was largely unmoved. The man was concerned by this, perhaps this would be more difficult than he expected. Drastic action was needed to speed up the process.
"I was hoping you would be a lot more like him. We got inside him easily enough…" He knew this was a lie, but lying came instinctively now. Lies were his truth.
As the second needle went into her chest, her heart shattered in an instant. "He couldn't… He wouldn't…"
"Don't be so stupid! He was maybe more than a man to you, but to us he was just another man – weak, feeble, cowardly. The speed and ease with which he betrayed you, it was remarkable really. One of the easiest jobs I've done."
She attempted to break from the straps, but this could not be done. She was stuck there, tears streaming down her face as the third needle was injected.
"Why are you so silent now? Is this silence your admission of defeat? We know all about you, dear. All your sexual exploits with our members, we know them all. You're quite a whore, aren't you? Bedding any man who so much as looks at you. You disgust me. If only you could remember your next experience…" The man took a hammer from under the seat and struck her in the face, drawing blood. "Don't worry Julia, you only have one injection left."
Before slipping into unconsciousness, Julia caught a glimpse of the final needle. It had a label on it, but she could only make out the last half of what was written on it – '2.0' – before she fell insensate.
Julia awoke, and struggled to her feet. The mirror in the room to showed a deep cut running from her jaw to underneath her left eye. How she obtained this wound, she had no idea. Beside this mirror was a poster of a man she was meant to love, but still she hated him. Hate wasn't a strong enough word to describe how she felt. This man had taken her love and would take her life... How could she love him? "Ah, Julia! You're awake! Have you had enough yet?"
"I still don't love him."
He put his hand to her face, slapping her and knocking her to the ground. Much to her shock, he immediately helped her up, as though he was suddenly trying to protect her. But why, she wondered?
"I do apologise, that was unnecessary. I guess we'll just have to try again."
Unable to stand still, Julia sat back down on the floor, trembling with fear, but also filled with blistering fury, a characteristic she thought she had long ago lost. "Can you not see that all you have built up will dissolve into nothing?" she asked. "Look at the Nazis."
"How do you know about them?" he replied, taken aback.
"Your members aren't so orthodox themselves, nor are they secretive in certain situations."
"Oh yes, I remember now. You're a whore."
"Does it not concern you that there are cries for a revolution from within your group? You will self-destruct, if you are not killed by the Americans. Yes, I know that too. In fact, I can guarantee you're the only one who remains loyal to your leader."
This enraged the man - "What makes you think our leadership can end? Evil is eternal. The Nazis were not truly evil, they got too cocky and failed to achieve that blissful state of evil. To become as powerful as we are, you must be truly evil. You must crush the opponent by any means necessary, and what better way to crush the opponent by breaking their mind, impregnate them with our ideologies, and put a bullet through their brains?"
He sat next to her on the ground, changing his tone to one that a father would use. "I hope you realise one day that we only want to protect you, and show you a world so evil, evil becomes good. I wouldn't be so quick to distance yourself from that idea - you could be surprised with how much evil is inside you, growing daily."
She sat still, frightened to move. For the first time since learning of his betrayal, she needed him. But in this bright yet gloomy room, with the air of despair and lost hope, being told of the evil that lay within her, she was more alone than ever. "When will I be shot?"
"The lives of you and your lover will be spared, so that you can suffer as we tear you apart, and you battle to conquer the darkness that lives inside you. We have no business with you two now - we have greater threats than a pair of lovebirds, as I'm sure you are well aware of. But take note of this – one foot wrong, we will find out, and you will be shot. You're already in the twenty-third hour of your life, practically at deaths door. Don't make me bring you to zero. Take care, and remember - I'll be watching you."
"And that's what happened. That's how the three of us are still alive."
"Three?" he questioned.
"There's someone you need to meet. Emmanuel, darling, over here please."
A small boy, probably eight years old, approached him. The child had jet black hair, menacingly slicked back, and a podgy face. Though he was short and looked physically weak, you could picture him looming over his peers at his youth clubs, a daunting bully. "This is your son, Emmanuel."
He cast a stronger gaze upon Emmanuel, and immediately noticed his dark eyes, staring into his mind. His eyes seemed familiar somehow, like they belonged to someone he had seen, but he hadn't seen these eyes in the flesh before. The wind changed direction, blowing the poster on the opposite wall open in a swirl of gritty dust, and he realised who these eyes belonged to. "Julia, this is not my son. Look at the eyes on the poster, and look at Emmanuel's."
Julia gazed intensely into Emmanuel's eyes before focusing her attention on the poster. Immediately, she saw the true father of this child staring back, as though he was watching her and had been for some time. The thrush stopped singing, allowing her to hear the church bells ring as the clock struck thirteen, and she sat down in dismay. This was the darkness that grew slowly inside her, and now the darkness had emerged and bloomed.
(This was originally part of my creative folio for Advanced Higher English.)