They’re Here

Mana wanted to scream as life dredged forward in its endless pace. A life which had dumped her here, huddled with countless others behind an unclimbable wall. Even those few who might’ve had the skills to scale it wouldn’t have made it out. She could hear, whether real or imagined, the buzz of electricity surging along the top.

There was no escape.

“They’ll come.” Mana didn’t know the small squeaking voice who’d spoken those words, but she knew the feeling. She knew the promise they’d all been made. This was an age of heroes.

Somehow, Ma’am managed to constrain her scoff. She didn’t need to steal the child’s small hope. Little enough remained anymore. There were no heroes.

The words dragged at her heart, and she slumped, hugging her knees. There was no hope in that hollow promise. Not for her. Not anymore. No one had come wearing a mask and cape to save them. None would.

A few had tried. They’d fallen. Their ends had been televised far and wide. Mana’s hope had crumbled with the broadcast.

“They’ll come,” an equally weak but deeper voice responded. A mother and daughter. The mother stroked her daughter’s hair. “They’ll come.”

Do they actually believe that? How could they, after everything? What hope was there in a world like this?

“No talking,” Mana watched the guard striding over, raising his rifle with the butt pointed toward the mother. Whether he meant to strike her head, her shoulder, her back, Mana didn’t know. All she knew was the child’s widening eyes watching the strike coming. Her mouth opened in soundless protest.

And Mana’s muscles responding.

The guard’s gun’s butt struck her instead of the mother. Pain stung her arm as she twisted to glower at the man, not even squeaking in her protest of pain.

“Mama.” If Mana hadn’t been standing there, she wouldn’t have heard the child. “They’re here.”

Mana blinked and glanced at where the child pointed. Others stood around them.

“They’re here.”