If you're still reading this, then I can guess you either believe what I have told you or you think I'm raving mad and want to see just how deep the rabbit hole gets. Either way, you're still here and, to me, that's all the matters. It's strange how we as humans thrive on attention; even after thousands of years of existing that aspect still drives us. I was never a very connected man, but even still I can't say I don't feel some sort of pride when my hard work is acknowledged or I'm given a compliment. I don't know a human alive who wouldn't appreciate a good word every now and again.

On that subject, I never got a chance to introduce myself in the previous chapter. I suppose I decided telling you, the reader, about the government and the state of the Union affairs was more important than my hair color and favorite movie. It would have sounded strange for me to introduce myself first, it's like lyrics coming before music… though I suppose that could work if done well.

Perhaps there's just not all that much to say about myself. My name is Berwald, I'm twenty-seven years old, I work for the government, and I have a dog named Blippy. I didn't name him; my coworker did when he found him amongst an abandoned litter.

In my opinion, I'm not terribly interesting, as I said I'm a detached man and I think of myself in simple lighting. I hear the phrase "a man of few words" quite often. I don't find this offensive; I actually think it's rather true. To be honest, this is the most "talking" I've done in a long time, though that's depending on whether you consider writing to be talking or not. But I'm getting far off topic, sorry.

I've run over this entire chain of events more times than I can count and I honestly cannot think of a perfect place to start. Some points sound too mundane, others too vague without that seemingly useless information. The main point is I just want to get this written down even if no one sees it. I could be writing this to absolutely no one and thinking anyone will ever read this is selfish and, if I'm being honest with myself, narcissistic. Though if I truly do want to get this out in the open I have to pick somewhere to start.

Let's begin with waking up.

That morning seemed perfectly normal and in its entirety it was normal. It was the middle of winter so there wasn't much sunlight coming in through the window and I didn't hear a whole lot of birds. I remembered not wanting to get out of bed, it was cold and the covers were far too warm. I debated with myself whether or not to call in sick to work that morning, but it wasn't serious. Just simple human laziness and the want for more sleep.

Eventually I did get up, grabbing my usual breakfast from the kitchen, showering to get rid of the last bit of grogginess, slipping on my temperate suit and heading out the door. I didn't think much of the morning, no sudden profound appreciation for the earth around me, no life changing realization, and certainly no feeling that anything was going to change. I would say it was almost too mundane, but even that would suggest I noticed something was off. I wasn't unhappy with that normality either, I was perfectly content and I believe I could have carried on the rest of my life without fuss had I continued on with that.

I got into the office at about eight that morning and grabbed my mail. I closed the door, me and my partners names printed on the frosted glass now reversed against the back of my head as I skimmed over the envelopes. I had been a police investigator for probably about four or five years by that point. I enjoyed my job, it was interesting and I almost liked the sense of empowerment it gave me. I remember the first time I was allowed into the records room I felt like a child allowed to go into the forbidden "dangerous" areas of a building. It was silly now that I think about it.

I had studied political science when I was in school and taken a large interest in the government in my early twenties. I was fascinated with our perfect society and wanted to learn more, get involved and work alongside it if I could. I didn't expect to work so close to the central government but I suppose all the studying I did in my early adulthood paid off. I guess I got lucky too. It's not as if it's an extremely hard job to get, but when you work with your main figures of power it isn't the easiest either. Even if I was relatively low on the food chain.

I heard a knock on my door and my partner, Tino, popped his head in with his usual smile and more papers. I already had my computer open and my fingers were pounding away at an email.

"Morning! I hope I'm not disturbing you too horribly."

"Hmm? No. You're fine." I paused and looked up, my eyes glancing to the papers in his hand.

"The Crawford Case, nothing we don't know really. I spent a better part of my night transcribing those interviews." He answered my question without me having to ask. "I don't think we have much to worry about with him though. Just another rebellious one trying to find something that's not there. What do you think? Thirty days of jail time with community service?"

"Well breaking into a government building is a pretty serious crime." Then again, a person trying to break into government buildings and search for information against the government wasn't exactly uncommon. I could understand the suspicion, what with a high functioning government there had to be some problems. Where there's light there's supposed to be shadow. In my opinion, people weren't looking for shadows, but for pitch darkness that I truly did not believe existed. I worked in the building, I would know.

"Oh come on, Berwald. The poor boy is only nineteen. Honestly I think he's too scared to even try this again. I doubt he's working for anyone. He doesn't seem the type." Tino flipped through the papers, scanning over the words on the sheets once more before looking up to me, waiting again for my opinion. I don't know what he wanted to hear from me.

"I guess. But one rebel can lead to a large group of them. You know that. It's happened before." Which was true. One or two rebellious teenagers weren't what we were dealing with at the time. It was a larger scale of radicals that had the potential to be dangerous and had been violent in the past. I didn't care if I took my job too seriously, if it meant protecting lives…

"You work too hard. You need a vacation. I'm shipping you off to Paris on my paycheck." Tino made that threat at least twice a month and he knew it always got a laugh out of me. "I mean it this time!"

He closed the door behind him and left me to sit in front of my email, wondering just how dangerous one nineteen year old boy with questions could be. I found myself thinking that was completely silly, Tino was right, it was nothing to worry about.

But then again, I thought that could possibly be the most destructive force to ever walk the face of the planet. Tino would have called me a stuffed shirt and I was half sure he was right.

Besides the threat of outside forces, our Union faces an internal problem. As I said, when a society runs smoothly and without a hitch for the first time… ever, there are bound to be those who seek out the problem. I didn't and still don't blame them. We as human beings question perfection as though it's our job. When we see a painting, we often don't appreciate it for what it is. We instead find the pieces of it we find unnatural or odd, things we'd want to change.

When reading a book we look for the characters we don't like, the pieces of dialogue we think are stupid. We criticize the people we see as beautiful, they must have some flaw in their appearance. After all no one can be that pretty or handsome without some kind of downfall. And whether these questions come from a source of knowing nothing is perfect or perhaps out of a strange jealousy, we continue scrutinizing. Back then, I found no point in doing so. At least when it came to our leaders.

A decade or two after the Union formed, a small group of people began asking questions. They were convinced the government was hiding something from the public and wanted access to everything behind the closed doors. How the formed that assumption is something that is completely beyond me, I had never heard of perfection breeding panic before. Even still, their few started becoming larger, more people from more areas in the Union from all different age groups. I hadn't been born yet when this small rebellion started, but I heard it began getting out of hand.

When the government tried to smooth the situation out and tell everyone that there was nothing to worry about, they pushed more. They scrutinized every statement about future plans for the Union. They questioned how the Union was able to form without large arguments. Every answer brought more radicals and eventually violence. People were tired of receiving the same answer over and over, even though what they were told was true, and took drastic action on more than one occasion. People got hurt, property was destroyed, and the government had no choice but to form the branch that I now work in. My job is to basically track down, investigate, and question these people. We're working to prevent any future harm and try to squander their angry flames. We look for where they hide out, try to discover their future plans, and – if need be – arrest those who might be a danger to society.

As I said, I worked closely with the government so I figured that I would be the first to know about any problems they would have. I actually knew our leader and talked with him on a fairly regular basis. Again, I was lucky when it came to my job. Given my loyalty and trust in the government I was given the task of investigating cases.

I wasn't too sure what I was up against when I first accepted the job. I wasn't positive how bad these people could be. I was nervous but I must have not let it show through. The few people Tino and I brought in within our first two months of working together seemed more terrified of me than I was scared of them. Then again, Tino reminds me that even given our jobs, we aren't very high up on that chain. In the kindest of words he told me we were basically security guards. I still remember the way he clamped a hand over his mouth the moment he said that, as if he were afraid I'd yell at him out of insult. I chuckled. I said I didn't mind being that. He looked like he was going to faint from relief. We didn't know each other very well back then.

Over the course of three years, Tino and I had investigated a large amount of cases, often being tacked onto larger, more important groups. When we had individual cases they were small and usually didn't make too big of a difference, but we didn't complain. Tino always told me "There's no such thing as a small bust, only small busters!"

It made me smile a little. Still, I had never single handedly brought in a rebel before. Only interrogated and written up reports. It sounds sick but I wanted to be the one who found one lurking around in the alley, handing out maps and codes, not even knowing I was there until the handcuffs were around his wrists. It's cliché and straight out of the movies, but even I can dream.

Besides, questioning rebellious teenager after teenager got very dull after a while. The adults had to be out there somewhere.

Sometime during that week our Prime Minister came in to check in on things. As I said, I knew the man personally since I had met him more than once so, adding on the fact that I tend to be calm most the time, I wasn't panicking about it. Other people were frantically cleaning their desks, some were acting to work harder than they already were, while Tino and I watched from our shared office threshold.

"I'm surprised there's still coffee in the pot." Tino said, taking in what was quickly becoming a mad house. "I've seen at least fifteen full mugs in the past fifteen minutes."

"I think they have someone stationed for that specific purpose."

"Probably… or everyone above us has their own coffee maker and we just haven't been promoted that far."

"If you get to the top tier, you get a latte machine." Tino snorted into his own cup and caused a few drops to spray over the top. He rolled his eyes as another person zipped by with two full boxes, headed to somewhere unknown.

"…Berwald, do you think we're being too calm about this…? I mean if everyone else if worried…" Tino's fingers nervously started rubbing the rim of the white glass, his teeth chewing away on his lip. I shook my head no in reassurance.

"We're doing what we're supposed to be doing. We got into the office on time, answered emails, filed paper work, and are now waiting for our orders. It isn't our fault that they're late," I answered, wondering if perhaps I should have taken that caffeine away from him. He looked like he was starting to tremble.

"Yeah… I guess you're right. Besides, what more could we do? Re-Alphabetize the case files?" He pauses and then nudges his head against my shoulder. "Oh wait, you already took care of that this morning."

I was about to tell him that there was nothing wrong with being organized, but I was interrupted when the elevator doors at the end of the large room opened and our Prime Minister, along with what I could identify as security, stepped out. It was almost scary how the sudden panic of the room turned to hard working lull, as if everyone had been sitting still all day without a care in the world.

I could see our chief walking next to him, having to pause in explanation as various people said hello and good morning. Our Chief, Milo, was a short tempered man. He didn't like being interrupted and hated having to correct mistakes. If he read over a report with something the slightest bit off, you could heard his voice all the way down the hall through the doors. I know he was just doing his job and it must have been stressful, but he'd made a few agents cry before. Tino told me more than once he was glad I was his partner, otherwise Milo might have scared him into quitting.

Prime Minister Lindberg was completely different. He returned every hello, smiled at those who offered him a good morning, and even laughed when the Chief was exhausted from having to stop his sentence too many times. He was in his years, taking over the position from his father before I was born. If there was any problem in our society, it was the fact that when our Union was formed we abolished the monarchy and fully adopted a parliamentary republic. People weren't fond of parting from the tradition, but once people began to see that the Union was function far better than every expected, the frustration simmered down.

Lindberg walked with a cane which somehow only made him look even more sophisticated, but still kept an approachable air about him. He had a balding spot on the top of his head that he liked to make fun of, especially in live interviews when he caught someone staring. He was a nice man but also a fabulous leader.

Being in my position, I often attended press conferences and addresses that he did. I was fascinated with the way he could grab the attention of the room and hold it so intently. When he told you that he cared every single person in the Union, you believed him just by looking in his eyes. You truly believed in the perfect society when you heard him speak of things like hope, peace, and love. He was far more charismatic than his father and knew just the right words to say to make you feel an overwhelming sense of pride in your homeland. There wasn't much criticism to be said about him, he was smart, he was experienced, he was kind, and he knew how to lead a nation.

"Good morning, sir!" Tino chirped up from beside me and smiled as Lindberg walked past us. I nodded and said hello as well.

"Good morning boys! Seems like you two are the only calm ones in this office."

"And the only ones not working." The chief added in, raising an eyebrow at the both of us. I was about to argue and tell him we had been waiting for his orders, but Lindberg was happy to interject.

"I'm sure they are on a well deserved break. Or maybe waiting for their orders from a certain man?" He smiled directly at the two of us, making a few wrinkles appear by his eyes and a line crease in his forehead. "How are things going for you, anyway?"

"They're good! We've been busy lately. We were helping on the Anders case while working on another of our own." Tino was more than happy to answer, ignoring the somewhat stern look of the chief. "We just closed the both of them, er- well… assisted in closing I guess."

"Assisted, huh? Well if I know Berwald, I know he's smart enough to handle a large case of his own. Don't you?" He turned to look at the Chief who had assigned us individual cases, but as I stated, were never big in scale.

"It would be interesting." I was talking more to Lindberg than I was to Milo, but the response I got was not a desirable one. It wasn't that Milo didn't like us enough to give us an important assignment, I don't think fondness had anything to do with it, I just don't think he trusted our ages. We were a few years behind other agents and others our age were working the same level or sometimes even lower. Though given how tirelessly Tino and I worked combined, we had both proposed the idea on a few occasions. Even though I understood his reasoning, rejection still isn't an easy thing to swallow.

"Well you want a big case. Fine. Come by my office in an hour and I'll find some work for you two to do."

Lindberg and Milo walked off afterwards, going back to their previous conversation while leaving Tino and me alone to our thoughts.

"…Maybe he'll actually give us something good…?"

"Knowing him, I wouldn't count on it. But thanks for dreaming."

Author's Note

Jesus I know this took forever for me to upload. I'm so sorry! I'm getting on a more regular writing basis I'm hoping to update sooner than I have been! Thank you for being so patient! Half the reason this chapter took so long is because I had to put in a ton of research and even then I'm still really, really nervous putting this up. I'm hoping I did a good job.

I know it's still going a little slow, but it will pick up in the coming chapter. Things get exciting, I just had a lot of explaining to do. And even then there's still more to explain, but thankfully that'll work in with the plot ;) Thank you for reading!

Havoc