The Re-Awakening
The year is 2030, and the world is terrifyingly polite. Under the rule of the Benevolent Committee Anonymous, conflict has been engineered out of existence. There are no political parties, only the "One Law": Total Benevolence. But the math of this utopia required a sacrifice. To eliminate poverty, the Committee held the Great Lottery. Half the population became "Home Dwellers"; the other half became "The Unhoused"—clean, fed, and smiling slaves who belonged to the homes they maintained.
The Gilded Cage
Cinda was once a teacher; now, she was simply Cinda, a woman without a surname or a soul of her own. She spent her days polishing silver and practicing the mandatory "Benevolent Grin."
To the Committee, this was perfection. To Cinda, it was a graveyard of the spirit. By removing the ability to choose "wrong," the Committee had deleted the ability to choose "right." Without free will, their kindness was merely a reflex—a biological script written by a tyrannical board of directors.
The Escape
The breaking point came when Cinda refused to report a fellow slave for "insufficient joy." Knowing the penalty was Benevolent Reprogramming—a barbaric neural scrub that turned deviants into mindless shells—she fled.
She ran past the manicured hedges and the silent, silver towers, deep into the unmapped wilderness where the Committee’s cameras couldn't reach. She expected to feel hunted, but as she collapsed by a mountain stream, a strange clarity washed over her.
In the silence, she didn't find the Committee's enforced "peace"; she found a Person. For the first time, Cinda spoke to Christ, realizing that true benevolence wasn't a law enforced by men, but a grace offered by a Creator. In that moment of surrender, she found the one thing the Lottery had stolen: True Freedom.
The Turning Tide
A rustle in the brush made her freeze. A man emerged—gaunt, bearded, and wearing the tattered rags of a Home Dweller who had seen too much. His name was Gray.
"They stopped following me at the border," Gray whispered, his eyes wide. "They can't enter the wild. Their 'benevolence' is a tether; they are too afraid of the shadows to hunt us here."
In the shadow of the old world, the two "deviants" found a love that wasn't mandated by a committee. It was a choice—raw, difficult, and beautiful.
A New Commission
Years passed. The wilderness became a sanctuary, then a home. God spoke to them in the quiet, a command that echoed the beginning of time: Be fruitful and multiply.
Cinda and Gray raised children who knew no masters and feared no lotteries. They taught them that justice isn't the absence of conflict, but the presence of Truth.
Today, Cinda stands on a ridge, watching her eldest son lead a small band back toward the shimmering, sterile cities. They don't go to kill, but to rescue. They carry a message that will dismantle the Committee’s gilded lies: You cannot mandate the heart.
The rescue of the captives has begun.
The Shadow of the Scrub
The mission back into the city required a descent into the "Wellness Centers"—the pristine, windowless blocks where the Committee sent those who failed to smile. Cinda and Gray moved through the shadows of the utility tunnels, their hearts heavy with the memory of the lives they’d nearly lost.
They reached the observation deck of the Benevolence Lab and looked down. Below, rows of "deviants" sat in white chairs, their heads encased in humming, silver halos.
"They called it 'cleaning the spirit,'" Gray whispered, his knuckles white against his rusted crowbar.
As they watched, a technician adjusted a dial. There was no scream, only a soft, wet sound of a brain being rewired. The person in the chair—a young man who had once been an artist—blinked. His eyes, previously dancing with the fire of rebellion, turned as flat and grey as a winter sea. He stood up, folded his hands, and whispered, "I am grateful to serve."
The horror was clear: The Committee didn't fix people; they erased them. By cauterizing the parts of the brain responsible for dissent, they had effectively murdered the soul while keeping the heart beating.
The First Rescue
Cinda signaled to their son, Caleb, who waited by the atmospheric vents. On her mark, they didn't deploy weapons of war, but tools of disruption. They cut the power to the halos.
The silence that followed was deafening. Across the room, dozens of men and women gasped, clutching their heads as the "fog" of enforced peace evaporated.
"Who are you?" one woman cried out, her voice cracking from years of disuse.
"We are the Free," Cinda said, stepping into the light. "And you are coming with us."
The Return to the Light
The escape was a blur of adrenaline. They led a dozen "re-awoken" captives through the labyrinthine sewers, emerging miles away where the forest met the concrete.
As the sun rose over their wilderness camp, Cinda sat with the rescued woman, Sarah. Sarah was staring at a jagged rock, tears streaming down her face.
"It's so ugly," Sarah whispered, touching the rough stone. "And it's so... wonderful. I forgot that things could be sharp. I forgot that I could choose to dislike something."
"That is the gift," Cinda replied, handing her a cup of water. "The Committee gave you a world without thorns, but they took the roses too. Christ didn't come to make us 'polite' slaves; He came to make us free children. And children are allowed to feel the sting of the world."
The Justice to Come
That night, Gray and Cinda looked toward the glowing horizon of the city. The Anonymous Committee felt untouchable behind their walls of forced kindness, but the cracks were forming. Every person they rescued was a witness to the truth: a "benevolence" that requires a cage is no benevolence at all.
The rescue was no longer just about survival. It was about a holy reckoning.
Comments
Post a Comment