The screams, the echoes, the calls of protest lined the halls of the U.S.S. Starlight Hope that day. Hundreds of arrests were made. Enough that they couldn’t fit all of the detainees in any of the cells. Some would be released, some would be shackled to confinement in official rooms. 40 Enforcers were considered injured. 1 was murdered by an unknown gunman, while 133 civilians contained within sought medical treatment. 3 were killed by the Enforcers.

  Inside of this container called home, anger, protest, and vindictiveness brewed. A container that floated through the vast emptiness of space, likely to never encounter anything within the lifetimes of most of the people aboard. Something that the history books, nor the people aboard the ship would admit –No. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t admit it, it’s more like that they couldn’t admit it. They could never admit that the original goal of this vessel was lost long ago.

  Without direction, without something to aspire to, multitudes of people were grappling around in the dark emptiness of the great beyond, hoping that something would catch their hand. Anything. Some would turn to religion as a coping mechanism for what they thought to be the pointlessness of their endeavors. Some would turn to illicit drug trades that lived on in the underbelly of the U.S.S. Starlight Hope, so that they could no longer consider the pointlessness of their endeavors. Others wanted to go down in infamy. After all, there was no better time to make a name for yourself in the United States than what it represented now.

  Morale had never been lower, and people sought anything they could to make sense of it all. Of course, groups of people had protested inside this container prior, but this marked the first ‘riot’ of this experiment's history. At one point, long ago, the civilians aboard were all united by a single unifying aspect. They had all lost the place they called home. They had all suffered immeasurable loss, and were supposed to come out stronger due to it.

  There was no strength to be found. Even now, it was as if they experienced exsanguination. Rather than blood, it was their drive that had been meticulously drained from them. This was no way for humanity to live. Contained inside dull, uninspiring walls. Embraced by the cold dark embrace of the empty universe. Crushed under the boot of a fascistic rise to power. Hopeless and purposeless, as they find nothing worth settling on. What would be the death knell of humanity, was that they grew incapable of dreaming.

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  He watched over them as they initiated the cleanup operation, random debris, canisters, and other broken bits were scattered around the biggest areas of protest. Thus, volunteers were chosen to initiate the cleanup for a day’s wage. To make sure that everything was cleaned up properly, and to ensure that nobody would attack the volunteers, Enforcer’s were deployed here and there, scattered amongst other organized groups of volunteers.

  Thus, Merle was also present. Last night served as the impetus, the powder keg moment, for a different America. Now, in the position he resided in, he would get to benefit from state pampering without having to actually put in the legwork to earn that care. The Administration awarded all Enforcer’s with accolades for their work during the ‘violent uprising’ of the civilian population.

  Frankly, Merle was not particularly interested in the ideological happenings of the vessel. A conservative Administration, a progressive Administration, it frankly made no difference to him, as long as he got to be right where he was, right now. A position of respect. A position of fear. If you really think about it, what really is the difference between respect and fear? Well, surely there was a difference. However, Merle intuited that if one was feared, they were inherently respected as well.

  It wasn’t as if Merle didn’t have his own ideology, or beliefs. He did. He was very sympathetic to the current conservative Administration. He just knew that the religious underbelly of the United States would never be massively influenced under any party, so if the opposition won, his position was still secured. Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Romans 13:1-2.

  Therefore, Liberal or Conservative, as long as he held this position of power and had the opportunity to move up, it mattered not. He hoped for the heretical idea of ‘separation of church and state’ to be done with, so that he could exercise that power. There is a reason that Earth fell, yet the U.S.S. Starlight Hope thrives. It isn’t due to the happenings of the people aboard the vessel, it isn’t due to intellectual structures designed by man. It was decided by God.

  U.S.S. Starlight Hope is the holy land. The governing body, the Administration, is chosen by God to secure this land. He would not allow for the parasites that showed up yesterday to prop up ever again. To infest this sacred ground, and turn it into the Devil’s playground. So, Merle would work. He would work until this underground rebel group had been crushed. He would return this vessel to its former glory, this riot becoming only a footnote of the vessel’s history.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The first thing he would have to do is, find the gun. Shortly after the riot, an all points bulletin was pushed to the Enforcers. An Enforcer was shot and killed last night, and an entire Detainment Room had been released. It was no secret that there were some loose guns atop the ship. Some people clung to the old Second Amendment of the constitution that was deemed unsuitable for spaceflight, so, there remained some underground gun trades. That much he was aware of.

  Now, with the rebel group making bold moves like this, it only spelled trouble. The only people that should hold guns are those who are free of mental delusion. And frankly, to Merle, if you still toiled about with wage labor, not attempting to land a cushy seat in God’s Administration, then you suffered from the highest of delusions. Merle would be the one to find that gun. He would find it, and he would ascend through the ranks. By any means necessary.

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  Ahhh. I’ve really gone and done it now. She wasn’t at her home as the terror sunk in. There was no way she could go back there. She would be the main person of interest in terms of immediate retaliation against the state, if she had to guess. Truly, she had done something unforgivable. Driven by despair, agony, hatred, longing, hopelessness, loathing, burning, melancholy, hostility, and zeal, she had made a decision. She would have to live with the actions that she had committed on that day.

  Honestly, where did she get off? One minute she crumbled to dust due to the pain, and the next, she was overcome with an intense desire to stem the bleeding. She thinks herself so incapable of doing anything, so impossibly inept that she can’t put one foot in front of the other. Yet at the eleventh hour, she got up, and had the audacity to take the life of another person.

  Another extension of the rot. Another step forward to her deserved annihilation. This was the natural conclusion. Rot does not randomly decide to stop one day. It is all encompassing. It spreads to anything it can touch, turning it putrid from the inside and out. It was truly a miracle the existences like hers did not radiate a stench of death. Perhaps that is an evolutionary failure. If they had evolved to emanate the miasma of doom, perhaps then other people would have known to avoid them.

  What she had done, should have been absolutely, positively unforgivable. It should be a mark on her soul, if that exists. It should be a permanent irrevocable damnation to Hell, if such a place had existed. The man she had shot had likely had a family of some kind. A mother, a father, perhaps even siblings. You wouldn’t be able to get a good look at his hands due to the Enforcer uniform, but what if underneath all that, a wedding ring laid underneath? The natural conclusion to that, would be to have children, and start your own loving family.

  And now, whatever family may have existed, had been shattered. People like April, murderers, killers. It was simple to describe them. They were enemies of humanity. They were a disease that preyed upon the vulnerable, that served no positive function for the species, and would often be moved to be erased. One would not debate the positives of cancer. One would not consider the pros and cons of chicken pox, or typhoid. They would simply be researched, and eliminated from the human population.

  Maybe when the Enforcers inevitably kicked in the door to where she was hiding and took her in, she would be strapped to a table and poked and prodded by researchers to determine where her brain, or her life, went fundamentally wrong. They would dice her up, slice her brain in two, investigate every cell of her to find out where the disease sprouted from, and maybe one day they could make a cure for being a sick, twisted, worthless individual.

  As she sat in that dark room, as her swirling thoughts showed no sign of standing still for even a moment of reprieve, there was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind. Something that she didn’t want to acknowledge, but no matter what she did, would make itself known. Against her will. Against her better judgement. Against all of the things that she had just been thinking. –There was not a shred of regret within her.

  Did she perhaps lack a human heart? Was she perhaps born broken? Maybe there truly was no impetus for her being this way. It simply comes down to a birth defect. Even worse, she knows that if she were put in the exact same circumstances, knowing what she knows now, she would do it again. She had already carried so much pain. So many expectations. Her Father and Mother both had placed so much on her without knowing it. She had to continue to be the one to carry on their memory.

  She could not afford any more memories. She could not afford any more dreams. If Alex were to be harmed, if something even worse were to happen to her, the existence known as April Wanless would have completely crumbled under the weight of it all. She could never afford to lose someone dear to her. Never again. This justification she had created in her mind made her feel even more sick. She could have perhaps understood if she was so mentally ill that she killed for no particular reason. That was not the case, though. She instead had a reason, an attempted justification.

  Her selfishness, her fragility, had caused thousands of people even more headaches. The damage spread beyond the family of the man who had lost his life. At this moment, the Administration would use the single act of violence reported to fulfill the rest of their doctrine. Unintentionally, in the heat of the moment, against her better judgement, April had given legitimacy to the crackdown of the government. –Truly, April Wanless was utterly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, unforgivable.

  "Her light is so dazzling, as if there is no darkness along my path. Even if it costs me my very life, I will protect her radiance. So, you and I together. Let’s scorch everything, to naught."