The Shore of Serenity

This here is an excerpt from the Diary of the Bearer and Historian, Cyrene

Location: Hopetown

Date: 19-03-1977

The Eclipsed War started somewhere around 1895 no one really knows when or why. Both the beginning of HopeTown and the ending of war came long after in the autumn of 1941. I was born in 1939 being a child of war I was raised within these Four Walls that surround us. This place is the only one that persevered though the Eclipsed War, the Failed Migration and finally the Sinking of lands. These tales of the war were at best whispered and now even those whispers have faded to silence. I came here in 1941 still a feeble kid. As I grew up everyone had a sense of unease about the war. It had truly been the worst of us, doomed to go extinct we were taken to strongholds just like this one where we learn our roles with the guidance of the Sages. The Sages are the only rulers within these Walls.

This Goliath of a town was built to carry the human race forward. A concrete, iron clad structure rising 600 meters above the mountainous region that it was originally built on and stretching across a 51 square miles stretch, excluding the Gap. This place was located somewhere in the north-western hemisphere. The Four Walls were 60 feet high. Due to the danger of being flooded by unbounded ocean, the walls are usually heavily guarded by the Protectors. Most people that reside here don’t know anything about the Protectors. Not much is known about the Nameless either, only that they occupy the Gap and since they don’t fit in any roles they become the Nameless.

Officially Hopetown is occupied by 1984 residents. This number would never change. As the rules dictate that the society should only flourish to the extent that the Town can hold. Among the residents of this town there are 150 Sages, 500 Saviours, 420 Bearers, 480 Collectors, 200 Executives, 234 Protectors. The Gap between the walls on each side is filled with the Nameless. Each Wall also has Sanctuaries for those that have fulfilled their roles. South one for the Bearers and Collectors. East one for the Saviours and Executives.

The West wall is a special place where Protectors live beyond the town, from the Gap, to almost raising all the way to the top of the Wall. The North Wall was known as the Wall of the Sages, this wall didn’t have a Sanctuary but rather a majestic walkway that led to the top of the wall, the residence of the Sages. The residence that faced the only shore there was. But only the Sages and those deemed worthy of upholding the Law of the Sages, mostly the Saviours and the Protectors are allowed to pass through there. They mostly stay guarding the Gap, the Walls and the Nameless. Everything that exists between the Walls and Hopetown is their domain. For this town however, they are ghosts not to be mingled or trifled with. The Nameless, give their lives in service of HopeTown

As the saying goes, 'Forego your Freedom so we can all be free'; to give up your dreams & occupying a role in this town was the only way and being the Last of humanity we bore an immense responsibility, an inescapable duty.

Most people waited for their turn to fulfil their roles. The Bearers, were to birth and raise children, the Saviours to uphold the law, the Collectors, to provide every necessity for the masses, the Executives, to manage the workforce of both the Bearers & the Collectors. The Bearers and the Collectors were given names when they were assigned a role. The Saviours and the Executives were given numbers, the Sages had titles.

The number, the names and the titles after the completion of roles were passed to the those that would assume those roles after. I became a Bearer in 1959, I I don’t know much of the world before the war. My curiosity had made me wanting to see the shore. I wanted to know what the world must’ve been like when the earth was dominant and the oceans free.

Part of me thought I would never find out. Till I met the Sage Called The Poet. The Poet took me to the shore after the day we met. He handed me a Heart Shaped Locket, gripping it in his hands as he whispered “a dream of the past maybe it was shining with a gold tinge, carved on the outside were the words “ May your return mark the end of the War“

Inside a few lines that read,

“The Ocean of serenity,

A portrait of magnificence

A reflected iridescence,

To the skies’ harvested colors.”

The Poet never really told me who gave him the heart-shaped locket.

All the Poet ever said when asked about it was: “this is how the world used to be”. After a few years our closeness grew into fondness but then his role became his guiding path and I grew up and found my role as a Bearer. After. Eighteen years tomorrow my role as a Bearer will come to an end. I will be sent to retire in the Sanctuary near the South Wall. Having fulfilled my role, I will give away my role as a mother to a new 20-year old.

The one who will bear my name, Cyrene and I will be forgotten.

History of my world is just as long as my own but it seems like this world has run out of a use for me. I will be forgotten and so will my memory. Any token for memory, unless they represent the great suffering of the Eclipsed War or the Glory of Hopetown, are otherwise strictly prohibited.

However having hidden the Heart Shaped Locket all my life and this personal account I hope my son will know that it wasn’t just a role for me but I loved that I had the opportunity to be a Bearer to him.

He was the youngest to gain a number among the Saviours. He is heartfelt strong and will sacrifice anything for others.

So for my one last story to him.

I leave this note.

The Poet was your real Bearer and I hope you will remember as a Bearer who love you the utmost.

Goodbye my son.

This is my history and the history of my world to the best of my knowledge.

This Excerpt is from the Dairy of the Bearer, in possession of Saviour 313:

Date: 07-10-1990

I had arrived home to meet my Bearer one last time. I found her dead next to this notebook cleaning in her hand as the cold dead body lay their motionless was the Locket.

The revelations of the history and the story of how I came to be, left me confounded. The Protectors could arrive any minute in absolute secrecy to deal with the murder of my Bearer. So I took this notebook and decided to tell the true story of this world for the sake of my Bearer and find the Poet to know what must’ve happened and being a Sage how he could’ve been my Bearer.

The Poet but he was nowhere to be found. Having already made his way to the shore perhaps, where he usually disappeared off to.

The Protectors trained the Saviours to kill the Nameless if they are useless or those that try to destroy the system of our world. I always thought of it as the most rewarding role to fulfil that of the Saviour. I had known the Poet for a few years he is the Sage that chose me as a Saviour at 18. But Right now the only thought incessantly occurring in my head was if he had killed Cyrene.

Although I kept Cyrene’s diary hidden and left the murder. I knew I didn’t have much time.

As I write this I’m nearing the North Wall. I was going to shoreline where I had just for the first time taken the Nameless or those that had broken the law of the Sages.

The guidelines were simple we were to kill the people and dismember their limbs. Then we were to throw them down the edge of the shore and into the ocean of despair. That’s how you became a Saviour by killing people to keep the numbers constant or the Law upheld.

Being one of the Sages, the Poet had the freedom to go to the shore, freedom that was seldom awarded to any commoners.

I made my way to the shore and I saw the Poet in the distance sitting close to the edge of the shore looking out. I ran to him and I yelled if he had killed Cyrene. Not saying a word he embraced me and handed me a note. I inquired and as I did so, the Poet leaped into the ocean and disappeared from view.

Right now I’m sitting right here on the edge of the shore. I’ve lost those that made me, in the same day as I was given the title of the Saviour.

I feel as if I was expected to be at this shore.

The note read as follows.

Saviour 313,

I am the witness of the guilt I carry. Guilty of misgivings, worst of all guilty of knowledge, but now I’ll speak not to help those who don’t know they need it but to leave a truth behind for those brave enough to believe in it.

This Hopetown was a prison colony made by the enemy to hold the prisoners of war. The Protectors are the Jailers that keep the real control of this place. The West wall is the side where they can leave this colony and come back. The roles have been created to keep a steady workforce. As most human lives have been claimed by the war. The War that have never ended and is still raging on. We are the ones that were caught by the enemy. The Sages fulfil their role in order to get out of HopeTown but most are just forced to become the Nameless, slaves that work till they die to keep producing more than needed at Hopetown for the enemy. Anyone who ends up in the Sanctuaries shares the same fate.

We are the Nameless!

I wanted to give you the whole truth and part of that truth is that it’s this fate that I didn’t want your Bearer to go through.

Cyrene always was curious but she thought of her purpose as a divine.

But there is no divinity in life or in death of those who are not free to even think of freedom for they are oblivious of it ever to have existed.

As I glanced over my skin went pale, a maelstrom of shivers went down my spine.I turned away from the shore and looked at the town that was supposed to be our home, our last hold, and saw nothing but a gut wrenching truth as the illusion dissipated. So I fell to the ground in the edge and held the locket that my Bearer had left me with while I was overrun by emotions. I cried out louder than I ever knew I could.My heart had given up it’s composure and now the flood of tears from my eye bore the same stench as the ocean of despair.

The excerpt from the last note of the Poet:

A Poem:

“The light of truth is blinding,

The night of night is up,

The dawn is hear,

flooding the skies

Memories burning as the truth sparks,

Eerily madness is calling,

Verily time is stalling,

Traps set to distance the heart,

Dampen the mind, civility on this shore is servile,

I dream of the shore,

The shore of Serenity,

Now Drowned in an ocean

Of everlasting despair”

Three shots were fired and Saviour 313, still coming to grips with his reality, shot. He falls to the Ocean locket and Diary in hand.

The Poets note drifts away with the wind towards the inner town.