Introduction
This wasn’t meant to be seen by the public eye. He said it would upset the Gods, that it would cause havoc in The Locus. He said that if I talked about it, my family would face damnation.
But something like this shouldn’t be burned in an enormous flame.
I took the sheets of paper under my arm and charged through the man to get to the door. That charge shook me up a little. I am no large man and I certainly have never picked a fight over something so delicate, but this was something that could bring a land and a King to its knees. The city I was in felt like a maze as I was running through it. Each corner I took turned into another part of this maze, and it seemed never-ending. After some running, I began to hear the church bells ring. You know something is wrong in The Locus when you hear church bells at unscheduled times. I also began to hear some yelling. The sounds of sheer horror from the people were daunting to my ears. The people didn’t know what to think when they heard those bells. The ringing could be anything from a warning of invasion to a lost guard. Every person and statue that I passed felt like an immediate threat to me and the future of The Locus.
The guards were yelling. They were coming for a man with papers. The common person is not allowed to have paper since writing down new ideas goes against everything the Theocracy stands for. They believed that everything that was needed to be written down has already been, and the only kind of writing that was believed to be beneficial was done in a temple under an Awoken. I hated those days. I was forced to transcribe The True Word for hours upon end. It was supposed to bring your soul to the Gods’ attention so they could love and cherish you. All it did for me was filling it with animosity.
The gate is almost in sight. It seems that the guards are letting people run out of it. I put the papers under my sleeve and begin to run towards this gate. The stone and sand began filling my boots as I ran since it was so unkempt. As I am about to pass through the gate, a guard grabs my arm. To my surprise, it was the sleeve where the papers were kept.
“Take off your robe, we are looking for an item” says the guard.
“I am wearing nothing under this robe, so I do not want to be reprimanded for public indecency”
“You heard what I said” As men and woman ran past him out of the city.
I couldn’t risk getting caught. This was too important to the future of The Locus. I decided to pull my arm away from him and run. By doing so, my sleeve ripped alongside some of the paper. It wasn’t long before the guard and his friends noticed some paper fabrics with my sleeve. They yell, and begin chasing me. My robe is much lighter than their suits of armor, so I took to the tree line and made my way through the lush climate of The Locus. As time passes, I still hear the clinks and the clanks of the steel armor behind me. I cannot run anymore. I must hide. This nation must know of these papers in order to truly understand the real world around them. I hear the yelling and steel coming closer. I bury the papers in hope someone finds these before the Theocracy destroys all of the written history.
The sound of steel is right behind me.
