-S&H-

The night was dark, murky, and humid. Everyone in the inner party was sound asleep, their telescreens observing them at all times, monitoring them for thought crimes, even while they were unconscious. And when they detected any thought crime being committed, even down to the slightest sign of insubordination, such as them saying something wrong in their sleep, or unknowingly making a pro-revolutionary gesture while fidgeting about in bed, anything at all along those lines would cause the telescreens to send out an alert to the thought policemen.

One such alert was administered on this dreary night, and a pair of officers were dispatched to apprehend the detected traitor to Oceania, a traitor to Ingsoc. The one driving their car was a skinny black man with short hair, a short beard, and hazel eyes covered by sunglasses. The one in the seat next to him was an albino man wearing glasses.

"Hey, Stanley, who do you think would win in a fight, Captain Oceania or The Protector?"

"Not now, Henry! I'm driving!"

Henry turned his head to face the window, his attention still on his partner, however. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"Look, we can talk about that later. Right now, we have a job to do, and we can't afford to get distracted by our comics."

Henry sighed softly and dropped his attempt at a friendly conversation entirely. However, he did raise a new question to fill the vacuum left behind by the original.

"Soooo… what did she say exactly?"

"No idea what she said. All they told me was that it was anti-big brother rhetoric and that they need us to put a stop to it."

"Damn. I would have liked to at least know why we're arresting her."

"Rule number one of this job, newbie: don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong."

The two eventually reached the house of their target and bashed her door down with a battering ram they had in the back seat. They could hear the woman screaming in the room above them and marched up the stairs to her bedroom, before dragging her out kicking and screaming, ignoring her constant pleas and declarations of love for big brother, however the mere fact that she was struggling at all confirmed to them that she was guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.

They tossed her into the back seat of the police car with handcuffs on her wrists and ankles and drove off once again, her pleas now muffled by a two-inch thick wall of plexiglass. They then strapped in and drove away to a Miniluv (Ministry of Love) Correctional Facility.

"Another traitor, another paycheck," Stanley said. And so the two drove off into the night, blissfully ignorant of her screams and cries as the ministry got to work "fixing" her mind.

A week later, still completely unaware of what they had done to the woman from last night, the two leaned against their car, drinking their morning coffee while on watch duty. They kept a close eye on everyone in their section of the outer party. It wouldn't be long until the two minutes hate began, and they needed to make sure that everyone was ready for it. While waiting for the two minutes hate to begin, they picked back up on the question Henry asked last night, and Steve's answer shocked Henry.

"What do you mean, he doesn't stand a chance?" Henry said.

"Dude, The Protector is able to block stinger missiles with his shield, which, I might add, DOUBLES AS A GUN! Not to mention the fact that he has better training, stamina, and he's stronger than Captain Oceania in general."

"But what about the time he lifted a lead pillar?"

"That was when he was given a power boost by Madame Mystere."

The two continued to bicker until one of their comrades tapped Stanley on the shoulder and told them that it was time for the two minutes of hate.

"Go time, Henry." And so the two drove off to patrol the town while the cop that alerted them marched into a nearby bar to observe the people inside.

All over town, the people of the outer party were watching various screens that displayed the face of the most hated man in the (recorded) history of the party, Emanuel Goldstein, as well as anyone and everyone who followed in his footsteps. They all screamed and shrieked and yelled in blind hatred as their faces appeared on their screens. This was how it was meant to be, and Henry and Stanley were driving around to make sure that this was how it was. Before the 2 minutes hate was over, they stopped at the nearby beach so they could check to make sure everyone there attended the 2 minutes hate. This would be easy for them because all they needed to do was set up some yellow tape around the beach and then go look for anything that wasn't an Ingsoc branded umbrella and towel, a cooler, or a beach toy.

"Should we split up to cover more ground?" Henry asked.

Stanley scoffed at the suggestion. "You have a terrible sense of direction. We should probably stick together."

"Good call."

The two stuck close to each other, checking in every possible hiding place while occasionally stopping so that Stanley could take a puff of a cigar, or so Henry could taste someone's victory gin, only to immediately spit it out and scrub his tongue with his fingers. After doing a clean sweep of the entire beach, they were about to head out, until Henry noticed something sticking out of the water nearby. He told Stanley to wait while he went to investigate it. Approaching it, he found that it was white, covered in sand, and stained in a rusty brown substance. Henry pulled it out of the sand and turned it around, then sharply inhaled and dropped it.

"What is it?" Stanley asked from a distance.

"I-i-i-it's… it's a…"

Stanley sighed and walked over, wanting to see what frightened his co-worker so much, only to jolt back at the sight of it. Lying at the two men's feet, being splashed against by the tides, was a human skull covered in dry blood, the color indicating that it's been there for several weeks. But that wasn't the end of it, as they also saw a rib and a skeletal foot sticking up out of the ground. This wasn't just a skull. They had stumbled upon a person's grave. Stanley immediately pulled out his radio and called all available forces to their location while Henry unburied the skeleton with a nearby plastic shovel and laid it down on a nearby tarp.

Several hours later…

Stanley and Henry sat in a dimly lit room at a metal table, like prisoners being interrogated by the police. At this moment, they may as well have been, as their discovery bordered on a thought crime. Before them stood an elderly man with thinning hair and a stern gaze that pierced right through their souls. He was dressed in neat formal/casual clothing, contrasting the two thought police, who were still in their uniforms, even wearing their face-concealing helmets. On the elderly man's jacket was a pin that read "O'Brien" in gold-plated letters to show his higher status over the duo. He spoke in a sharp, poignant tone that captured their attention.

"So, what did you see at the beach earlier?"

Henry nervously said "A-a dead body?"

"God damn it, Henry…" Stanley muttered.

"Wrong," O'Brien bellowed as he pulled Henry's helmet off and slapped him in the face. "You saw a person who was hiding from you by running to the ocean. You two captured him and brought him straight to Miniluv. Now, what did you see out there?"

"We saw a traitor who was hiding from us by running towards the ocean! We captured the rebel scum and brought him straight to Miniluv, sir!" Henry said with a salute.

O'Brien nodded and clapped slowly. "Very nice touches." He then looked down at Stanley. "And you, don't you dare say that name again! The only god you need is Big Brother! Understand?"

Stanley gave a salute. "SIR YES SIR!"

"Good dog. Now, go back out there and spread the new truth."

Henry wanted to ask about the skeleton, but O'Brien, ever the master of reading people like a book, answered before he could say anything.

"'What happened to the person who died?' That is above your pay grade."

"How does he do that?" Henry whispered in Stanley's ear.

"Now, go."

And they were gone. Another thought cop escorted them back to their station, and the two began forgetting about the bones they found in the water.

-J-

It was a bright summer afternoon in the outer party. Down by the beach, people were all having a fun time, or at least as much fun as you could have when you aren't allowed to wear anything other than the same full-body swimwear that you can't take off while on the beach, meaning you can't sunbathe, adults can only drink their revolting victory gin, kids only have a handful of toys that they could bring with them, and you weren't allowed to go outside of a specific area.

While playing on the beach, a little girl suddenly heard a buzzing sound coming from nearby. She wandered off towards it until she eventually stepped into the restricted zone, and a light on the back of her wetsuit began flashing, prompting a thought policeman, who had been standing guard there, to approach her as she continued to wander towards the sound.

"Citizen! Get back into the safe zone this instant! That is an order!" Said order fell on deaf ears as she wandered behind a cliff face with the thought policeman giving chase.

"Did you hear me? I order you to stop NOW!" Suddenly, she stopped.

The cop caught up to her and grabbed her arm to drag her back to the beach, then the two suddenly heard the buzzing get louder and louder. The girl looked up just as the buzzing reached its apex, and screamed in mortal terror.

An insect as big as a man suddenly landed on top of the cop, its toothy maw dripping with saliva. The man tried to reach for his baton, but suddenly a second, land-based bug crawled out from behind a rock and sank its jaws into his neck. The cop screamed as two more soon arrived, their eel-like teeth perfectly built for tearing the flesh off his bones. The flying bug stabbed her tail into him, and it began to glow as the man's life rapidly faded. His energy bow utterly drained, and the crawling bugs devoured his corpse while the little girl ran back to her parents. The bugs then started freaking out when they saw her leave.

The Meganulons chastised their Meganula sister for letting the girl escape, but she reassured them that she would not be a threat. She had seen how their society worked from the shadows and knew that their rulers would never let their existence become public until it was too late for them. Knowing this, she knew that the coming feeding frenzy would go swimmingly. She then flew away, letting her brothers enjoy their victory human. And so, the Meganulons began to feast upon his dead body, picking it clean of every single juicy bit of meat, even using their long, prehensile tongues to scoop out his eyes and brain. Soon nothing was left but his bloody bones, which they left to lie cold and alone as they returned to the sea.

Back on the beach, the girl ran towards her parents but was grabbed by another thought policeman, who saw her come back covered in blood and shook his head.

"Tut tut tut. You just couldn't come quietly could you, kid?"

The little girl babbled incoherently about what she had just witnessed, the man's blood still covering her face. "Th-the… bug monster… and the… h-he… I couldn't…"

"Clearly you're delusional and criminally insane. You are not safe to be allowed in society. Come with me. The Ministry of Love will fix you."

And so she was dragged away, traumatized by the horrors she had witnessed, yet unable to express them to anyone who would listen.

Watching all this transpire was a middle-aged woman carrying a purse. She was surprised to see a child was a thought criminal. She briefly wondered what the child was talking about, but cast those thoughts aside when a burly man dressed in the thought police garb asked that she avert her eyes from the scene.

"My apologies, officer."

"It's quite alright, Madame. Just be sure to avert your gaze next time." He playfully poked her forehead. "We wouldn't want you to see something that would taint that pretty little mind of yours."

She giggled. "As much as I appreciate the gesture, my heart belongs only to Big Brother."

"As it should," he said with approval in his voice, seeing that she had passed his test. "Right then, off you go!"

She waved goodbye to him. "Tata, officer."

As she walked away, towel and umbrella in hand, for just a split second she felt… off. As if something trapped in the back of her mind was scratching at the walls. It was screaming that something, no, everything about the conversation that she just had with the officer was wrong on a fundamental level. Julia didn't understand why she would ever think something like this though. She loves Big Brother and all things associated with him. Even when she was a little girl, too young to know what love was, her love for Big Brother was still in her.

Just as quickly as this sacrilegious thought entered Julia's mind, she quickly expunged it and went to enjoy her day off from her job at the supermarket. She picked out the perfect resting spot, put on a pair of sunglasses with pink trim, and began to set up her resting spot. However, before she finished setting up her towel and umbrella, she heard someone in the water scream with disgust. Normally, she would be a good little citizen and ignore it, but again those alien thoughts showed up. Julia sighed and decided to placate them this time, and looked out to the water. She jolted back in shock when she saw that the man who shouted out in disgust had what appeared to be a starfish stuck to his foot, but the starfish was… strange, to say the least.

It had two thin, yellow tendrils that sprouted out of the bottom of it and wrapped around his ankle, and also had a mass of tumorous orange eyes all over the top of it, each of them resembling human eyes. The mound of eyes darted all over the place, then all focused on the thought police, who were currently evacuating everyone. One of them pulled out a pistol and shot at it, but it suddenly jumped off the man's foot and exposed a pouch beneath it. It spat a glob of acid at the bullet, incinerating it in mid-air, before landing in the water. They rushed into the water and began stomping and shooting into it while the man who was attacked ran out of the water while screaming for dear life.

Julia rushed into her car and drove all the way home, not bothering to look back or collect her things. She didn't need them. Her instincts were kicking into overdrive, telling her that she needed to escape. And escape she did, making her way home and slamming her door behind her. After catching her breath, she turned on the news, hoping to get her mind off of things, before her thoughts started to stray. She sighed in relief as the news reported a lovely day at the beach, but everyone there had to leave because a crazy child attacked a thought policeman.

That's right, she remembered now. She ran away because that little delinquent frightened her. It's a good thing her brave… strong… thought police… saved her?

But what about that starfish? She saw it with her own eyes. What is it going to do next? Is it still out there? Are there more of i-

Julia shook off these stray thoughts once again. That wasn't real. The telescreen said it was that girl she saw, and the telescreen never lies.

"Reports say that the culprit was a teenage boy armed with a kitchen knife which he smuggled in his wetsuit."

But…

That's not right.

She saw a little girl with no weapons, covered in blood.

War is peeeeeeeace.

She wandered out of the safe zone, and a member of the God da%×*#/ lovely thought police chased her behind a cliff face.

Freedom is Ss-s-slaver-ry.

When she came out from behind the rock, she was scared. She said something about giant bugs, before she was taken away. Julia didn't run until she saw that... starfish thing.

Ignorance is no-n-n-t stre-

Julia calmly walked to her kitchen, opened a bottle of victory gin, took a sip, and fainted. As she blacked out, she heard the sound of her telescreen sending out an alert to the thought police.