Chapter Six
The Minister of Justice touched my shoulder.
“Come, Marine. History seldom repeats itself in exactly the same way. It repeats itself through the choices of men.”
The world shifted again.
The speeches had ended.
The signatures upon paper were no longer the story.
Now I watched their consequences.
Across the nation, new agencies emerged with extraordinary powers. Emergency directives had quietly expanded their authority until they no longer resembled the institutions they had once been. Officers appeared in dark uniforms, heavily armed, their faces concealed beneath masks. Identification was seldom visible. Questions were answered with commands rather than explanations.
I watched families awakened before sunrise by pounding upon their doors. Some were ordered into the street before they understood why anyone had come. Husbands reached instinctively for frightened wives. Mothers gathered crying children into their arms. Grandparents stood helplessly upon front porches as loved ones were led away. Some pleaded to know the accusation. Others asked only to speak with an attorney or a judge.
The answer was always the same.
“Not now.”
The streets themselves began to change. Buildings were quietly marked as places to be avoided. Rumors spread that entering certain businesses or associating with certain people invited unwanted attention. Friends stopped visiting friends. Neighbors crossed the street rather than be seen together. Fear accomplished what no decree alone could ever command.
The vision carried me farther.
Temporary detention compounds appeared almost overnight. Some people remained only hours. Others disappeared for days or weeks while families searched desperately for answers. Every unanswered question gave birth to another rumor, and every rumor gave birth to greater fear. Soon, silence became its own form of self-protection.
Then I noticed something that chilled me even more.
It was no longer only the officers who had changed.
The people had changed.
Ordinary citizens lowered their voices before speaking. Curtains closed whenever unfamiliar vehicles entered a neighborhood. Parents warned their children not to repeat conversations outside the home. Conscience slowly surrendered to caution, and caution gradually surrendered to fear.
The Minister of Justice rested his hand gently upon my shoulder.
“Come, Marine. Fear never remains confined within the borders of one nation.”
The world dissolved around us once again.
In an instant, we stood overlooking continents instead of cities.
Smoke rose from distant horizons. Armored columns crossed borders. Governments declared that decisive action was necessary to protect their people from growing threats. Citizens were assured the campaigns would be swift, hostile rulers would be removed, and peace and prosperity would follow.
I watched capitals fall one after another. New authorities promised that the wealth of conquered lands would ultimately benefit the people. Yet, as the years unfolded within the vision, ordinary families remained poor, villages lay scarred by conflict, and the promised prosperity never seemed to arrive.
Desperation gave birth to resistance.
Pipelines burned beneath the night sky. Bridges collapsed. Supply convoys vanished along deserted highways. Every act of sabotage was answered by greater force, and every act of force produced another cycle of retaliation until no one could remember who had fired the first shot.
Then another announcement echoed across the world.
A greater threat, the people were told, demanded immediate action.
More troops departed. Fleets crossed the oceans. Aircraft filled the skies. What had begun as one conflict spread beyond its original borders, drawing neighboring nations into its wake. Shipping lanes closed. Trade slowed. Fuel became scarce. Food prices climbed. Factories reduced production. Businesses that had once prospered struggled simply to keep their doors open.
Far from the battlefields, ordinary families carried the burden. Every trip to the market cost more than the last. Every paycheck purchased less. Anxiety settled over neighborhoods already weary from uncertainty.
The vision darkened again.
Without warning, another battlefield opened—not across oceans, but within the nation itself.
Essential systems failed one after another. Water treatment facilities ceased operating. Electrical substations fell silent. Traffic signals blinked once, then died. Airports struggled to function. Emergency centers were overwhelmed as computer screens filled with unanswered warnings. Empty chairs faced rows of flashing monitors, each silent workstation hinting at a nation straining beneath pressures it could no longer contain.
Confusion spread.
Small groups struck wherever they believed they could inflict the greatest disruption. Forests burned. Neighborhoods filled with smoke. Families fled carrying only what they could hold in their arms, leaving behind homes that existed only in memory.
Rumors spread faster than the fires. Some claimed the water could no longer be trusted. Others warned that food supplies had been compromised. Whether every rumor was true no longer mattered. Fear itself had become contagious.
The nation continued to unravel.
Civil authority could no longer contain the unrest. Armed auxiliaries were called into service. Cities struggled beneath rolling blackouts, failing water systems, empty store shelves, and the collapse of ordinary commerce. Families who had spent a lifetime building homes and businesses now measured wealth by a loaf of bread, a bottle of clean water, or one more day of safety.
Vast detention compounds appeared beyond the outskirts of the cities. Barbed wire stretched toward the horizon, broken only by guard towers and floodlights. Endless lines of weary people shuffled through the gates carrying whatever possessions they had managed to save. Inside the fences, overcrowding overwhelmed every available resource. Food became scarce. Clean water scarcer still. Disease spread where hope had already begun to disappear.
The camps continued to expand.
When one filled beyond capacity, another was built.
When that one overflowed, still another appeared.
Outside the fences, the war demanded more people. Those judged physically able were separated from their families and assigned to labor battalions supporting the nation’s wartime industries. Every departing transport carried away more fathers, more sons, more daughters. Every returning convoy carried fewer faces than before.
The suffering knew no boundaries.
Families were separated without knowing whether they would ever meet again. Parents searched endlessly for children. Children cried out for parents who never answered. Everywhere I turned, grief hung in the air like smoke after a great fire.
Then the vision carried me to an aging harbor.
The camps had grown beyond control. Supplies had nearly vanished. The authorities themselves appeared overwhelmed by the system they had created.
Those judged too weak to labor or too ill to continue were separated from the others.
Waiting at the docks were rusting cargo vessels whose best years had long since passed. Their steel hulls bore the scars of decades upon the sea. One by one, frightened families were driven aboard until the holds were packed beyond endurance. Heavy doors closed behind them, and the ships slipped quietly away from the harbor.
Days passed within the vision.
Darkness filled the holds.
Air grew thin.
Water disappeared.
The cries of children became whispers.
The whispers faded into silence.
Far beyond the horizon, flashes of light broke across the sea.
Moments later came the dull echo of distant explosions.
One by one, the vessels vanished beneath the water until nothing remained upon the surface except drifting wreckage.
My knees gave way beneath me.
I buried my face in my hands.
The weight of grief pressed upon my soul until breathing itself became difficult.
Beside me, the Minister of Justice remained silent.
He did not rush to explain.
He allowed the silence to speak where words no longer could.