By: Kerry Ding

I look across the street, the secret police are here! I discreetly moved across the street, into the shadows where I would be mostly safe. Even in this relative safety, every hair on my body tingled with fear. Suddenly, a baby cried somewhere nearby and the police immediately were on the move. Soon enough an entire family was dragged out of a small alleyway. The police threw the parents into a police van and left the baby. I wonder how many more times something like this would happen on scouting duty.

During the next few minutes, the baby continued to cry, but I couldn’t move yet. I had to make sure that the police were gone first. “Poor child, he’d have to grow up like me,” I thought.

After the police left, I snuck out of the garbage bin I was hiding in and picked the child off the ground. When I studied him, I noticed he was named Will. “Very fitting,” I thought.

Quickly, I sprinted through the streets with Will tight in my hands. I needed to get him back to the New Dawn Base. I had joined the insurrection many years ago, and I was the newest member. The insurrection might need another member. Many people had already joined, but it was very risky. If the government discovered your involvement, the police would make sure to punish you. If they couldn’t get to you, they would capture your entire family. Nobody knows what happens to the captives, but they never come back. Most of the members are people whose families have already been taken. Otherwise, it would be too risky. After making it to the Base, I met with my friends, and we decided to keep baby Will. We decided to watch him one day a week.

Many months later, Will began to walk. My friends and I celebrated this achievement by throwing a party. It was almost like life was back to normal again. I felt like I was celebrating my friends’ birthday parties many years ago. I can’t believe how quickly things can fall apart. One new authoritarian leader and the whole world flipped upside down. When the “King” came to power he made some terrible laws. He suddenly decided that people who are lower than him don’t deserve life. He turned on the very people holding him up.

At this point, Will was still making baby sounds. 4 years later he spoke English, and at the age of 9, he spoke fluently. This is surprising because Will had never actually been taught, and he just learned to speak by being around us. As he got older, Will became extremely good at throwing knives. Will was a hunter and always brought plenty of food from the forests near the Base. When he turned 15, however, the entirety of the Insurrection planned an attack on the Watchtower. The Watchtower is a tall tower of steel which was sometimes known as the Tower of Blood, because of the executions that take place there. The place was the enemy of humanity. When the hundreds of people in the insurrection grouped up, our leader, Stanly, proposed a plan to attack the building. When we stormed the building, some guards fled while others remained and fought. After the guards eventually all gave up or were defeated, Will rushed up and met the “King”.

When I caught up, Will and the “King” were circling each other trying to find weaknesses. Suddenly, Will struck first. Let’s just say the final execution on the Watchtower was the King’s.

After the Empire’s collapse, Stanly became the Prime Minister and Will became his right-hand man. When Stanly resigned, Will became the Prime Minister and became known as Will the Reformist. After years of reforming the government, Will singlehandedly turned Earth from a random little nation to a nation that sat with the Galactic Council of Nations. It was a huge honor. This was huge since Earth wasn’t always this strong and usually couldn’t fight back against nearby exo-planets.