Peace and Violence

The following original short story contains sensitive topics, including sexual violence. Reader discretion is advised. Standard Futurism content will resume after this.

* * *

She looked up from her reader, unconcerned but somewhat bothered. "Yes?"

"You're in the road, miss," an older man on two wheels informed her, annoyed yet keeping his temper.

She slowly looked left down the street and right down the street, confirming she was on the cobblestone sidewalk. The man was standing on the sidewalk, with his bike behind him on the paved road. She answered, "No, I'm not." The man started to escalate and in response, Eirlys lazily pointed down to the dividing line in front of her and behind him. He turned to look, realizing these were indeed different stretches of road.

She followed up, "I don't know where you're from, but that's our road, and this is our sidewalk." He started to contest but gave up all on his own, got back on his bike, grumbled, and kept going.

Eirlys sighed and lounged back down, holding her reader with both hands again. The latest issue of the local paper had just come out. Apparently, there had been a few thefts, someone got called out for burning fuel, a nearby farmer lost his harvest in a fire... Oh, the fuel-burner was also caught forming a military and conspiring to seize land. What a freak, she thought.

A message came through from her friend Briallen: "We're going to the RFC Penfro game, you want in?"

She activated the comm on her wrist and responded, "I'm not about to be the third wheel again. Plus, I don't even like rugby."

"No, Emrys is coming this time. She's bringing drinks."

"Oh alright," she said, putting her reader away and starting the walk home.

* * *

She sat up, bleary-eyed after the events of last night, on the floor at the rail station. As she's trying to get her bearings, someone comes up to her. She takes this stranger's hand who helps her up. Her body was not ready to stand up yet and she fell partially onto the stranger, then mostly onto the floor. After a few breaths, the stranger helped her hobble over to a bench.

They sat there in silence as she rubbed her eyes and her head. Eventually, she managed to groan and say, "How did I even get here?"

The man beside her reminded her of his presence when he spoke to her, in English. "Lass, I'm sorry but I don't know Cambrian. But good morning. It's two in the afternoon."

She processed his accent, his language, his existence, not having looked at him yet, and managed a response. She nudged his arm off of her. "What do you know about last night?"

"Your last night? Nothing, I'm afraid. I was just... minding my own business, at home."

"And how did you end up in Penfro Station? You're not from here, right?"

"No, I'm from Ros Láir. My name is Conleth." He offered his hand. "Nice to meet you."

She turned to look at him. He was a pale man, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, short red hair, well trimmed red beard, probably one of the most stereotypical Irishman she's ever seen. He was probably average, but kept himself well. His smile creeped her out. She kept her hand firmly planted to the bench. "Eirlys."

"What a pretty name," he gushed.

She stood up and fought her body trying to crash her into the ground. Conleth began to follow her and offer help, which she refused. He slowed down but did not stop until she was out the door in the blinding daylight.

Conleth appeared behind her again as she tried to get her bearings again. "Here, I'll take you to the café."

She grunted, "No thanks," and started stepping forward. He grabbed her by the shoulder and swiftly warned her, "That's the street, Eirlys."

She did not hesitate to remove his hand from her shoulder, although it was difficult. She stood there for a minute in silence with him, trying to figure out what to do next. Finally, a trolley shows up and she jumps on board.

Once she is on board, she wakes up her comm --unlocked; that's odd, she thought-- and starts paging through her messages. So many texts she doesn't remember. She looked for, and eventually found, her conversation with Briallen.

"What happened last night? How did I end up on the floor at the station?"

Her friend responded a full minute later, clearly as disoriented as she was. "Station?"

She had just gotten into the thick of the exchange, and retelling of what had just happened, when the trolley approached her neighborhood. She switched to the other side of the car and got off. Now all she had to worry about was taking care of this hangover.

* * *

Knock, knock, knock. Her family froze, startled. Her mom got up and walked to the front door. After a moment, she came back, peeking into the room. "Eirlys," she said with a concerned and cautiously excited voice, "someone's here to see you!"

Her dad caught the hint and started saying, "Are you gonna tell us who he is?"

She was standing up, but froze for a heartbeat after hearing that, and then resumed. She did not answer him as she walked to the door.

Who would be at the door but the boy from the station. "Why are you here?"

"I just thought I might get you some dinner, what after all you must have been through..."

She cut him off and started to raise her voice. "I already told you no, Conleth. How did you find my house?"

A single bead of sweat formed on his forehead, but he answered calmly and seductively. "I asked around." He paused. "May I come in?"

"What do you not understand about the word 'no'? Leave me alone."

He let her close the door on him. She locked it behind her and closed the curtains.

When she returned to the dinner table, her dad and brother were looking at each other, chuckling and whispering. Her mom looked at them with concern, and then at her with both concern and compassion as she sat back down.

"What's so funny? Care to share with the class?" Eirlys quipped at the boys.

"So he's an Irishman," Dad said in English, poorly mocking his accent.

"Conleth," her brother sang, struggling to pronounce it.

"Oh will you shut up." She tried hard to ignore them as she ate, and eventually the boys gave up and started talking about sports.

"The goal they scored last night, that was one of the best plays I've seen from Cambria," Dad opened.

Eventually the conversation switched to rugby. "RFC Penfro played pretty well last night too. It's a shame they didn't get that last try. It would have been enough to win the game."

Her brother Cadell had a spark of joy and started jumping. "Ooh ooh, did you see the kiss cam? Teacher says she saw Eirlys!"

Pretty much everyone paused, interested, except for Eirlys, who paused with a knot in her stomach and a loss of appetite (good thing she was finishing anyway).

Dad stood up and started walking to the other room. "Now I have to see this." Everyone followed, Eirlys at the back of the line, trying to hide.

He turned on the TV and looked for the archived stream of the game. He started the playback, and fast-forwarded to nearly the end of the game. He caught a glimpse of a pink sparkly border, rewound a bit, and started playback. Sure enough, on the kiss cam there was Eirlys, making out sloppy style with none other than Conleth.

* * *

A message appeared on her comm, which was sitting near the edge of her desk charging. It was from Emrys. "Video?"

She turned her reader to landscape and put it on a mount with a camera on top. She uncovered the camera and plugged it in to the port on the side of the reader. She switched the reader to emissive mode, which renders faster and with less ghosting, but it's bright and she knows it's not good for her eyes. She adjusted her hair and called Emrys.

She answered before Eirlys finished putting her hand down, and started speaking. "You were on TV last night!"

"Yeah I know, the kiss cam. Honestly I ought to talk to someone about him."

"Well now I want to hear about the kiss cam. But that's not what I was talking about." Eirlys raised her brow. "Apparently, you were out bumbling around with a guy from Ros Láir. Look." The video feed switched to a TV news flash, which showed her stumbling around in the dark at the docks with -- damn it, it's him again. The banner on the screen read, "Lights out at the docks: This drunk couple suspected."

The video behind the banner changed. An amateur cameraperson had asked her, "What on earth are you doing out here so late?" to which she responded, nearly unintelligibly, "Thought it would be romantic to kiss him in the dark." Conleth added, with far less slurring, "Came all the way from Ros Láir to see my girl!"

Emrys cuts off the video there and her face fills the screen. "Sooo, who is he?"

She sighed. "Same guy as the kiss cam. Some guy named Conleth. Won't leave me alone."

"Ooh, he's got the hots for you!"

"Yeah, but he's... He showed up at my house, completely unprompted. I don't even know how he found me."

Emrys nodded in understanding and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I made that assumption. Look, I'll give Briallen the heads up for you." She smiled a little. "See you tomorrow."

She smiled back, glad to have it off her chest. "You too." Then Emrys ended the call.

Eirlys took the reader back to Natural Mode, unplugged the camera and covered the lens, and set the reader back down on her desk. She sat there for a minute to breathe, switched back to the canvas she was on before the call, and picked up her minty-green stylus. Just as it made contact with the reader, her comm buzzed again. An unknown address from Ros Láir.

* * *

Her friends got her message and met in the library. It was quiet and dim, and nobody else was there. Pretty much everyone else had gone to sleep. There wasn't even a librarian; they, too, had long been gone for the night.

Eventually, Eirlys walked in and found her friends sitting at a table in the back corner, reading some paperback books.

"You left your comms at home, right?" Eirlys opened.

Briallen and Emrys looked at each other. "You're that paranoid about him? Okay. We'll turn them off." They did so and took them to the other side of the library.

She sighed. "I don't get it. What's his problem?" Emrys put her hand on her shoulder. Eirlys leaned into her a little bit and started to cry. "Why won't he leave me alone?"

Just as she had expected, someone had entered the library. Emrys let go of her, and both of her friends stood up as Conleth approached them.

"I didn't expect a party," he whispered. "What's the occasion?"

Eirlys was shaken but did not move.

"Back up, asshole," Briallen boldly demanded, breaking the quiet of the dim library.

He paused in place and let the silence of the library return. He spoke in hushed tones. "I just want to see my girl."

Emrys stood tall. "She's not your g--" He punched her right in the gut.

Briallen went straight for his chest. He pushed her away, knocking her over, almost effortlessly. His gaze was fixed on the girl behind the table, curled over onto it, lit only by the nearby reading lamp. He started walking.

Emrys recovered and went after his chest too. He grabbed her hair and tried to lift her by it. She kicked his groin. He flinched and let her go, then pushed her aside and continued walking, starting to limp.

Briallen snuck up behind him and grabbed at his eyes. He shouted in pain and then thrust his elbow backwards with great force, making her stumble. She and Emrys grabbed at his stomach, heads low. Then he twisted to his left and slugged Briallen, and twisted to his right and slugged Emrys, both right in the nose.

He stepped around the table and resumed his whispery, seductive voice, almost snake-like now. He pulled something from his pocket.

"Why won't you just leave me alone?" Eirlys sobbed, curling up in the chair.

"My little snowdrop, you'll never be lonely again," he whispered, forcefully emptying the contents of a vial into her mouth and covering it until she swallowed.

She heard the screams of horror from her friends before she passed out.

* * *

When she awoke again, she was startled to find herself tied to a bed, mouth covered, half-naked. The windows were boarded shut from the outside, the glass broken and the shards cleaned up. She remained silent.

She looked around the room. The regular Irish flag, and one she's only seen in history books. A long metal case on top of the dresser. A mug with the Union Jack on it, the flag of what once was called the United Kingdom. And a collection of photographs of increasing age on the wall to her right.

She was looking towards the door when he came in.

"Ah, my sweet, you're finally awake. Here, have some breakfast." He laid a small platter of warm eggs and biscuits on the edge of her breasts, which slid and fell onto her belly. He did not take off her mouth covering and her chest was still tied down. He looked at her, dazed.

"I wish you hadn't ran away from me. I wouldn't have had to chase you down." He walked over and knelt beside her. Her eyes locked onto him, furious, but helpless. "You promised me you would help me bring back what's rightfully ours. You told me we could be King and Queen, and rule the world like we were meant to. Don't you remember?"

She tried to respond, but it was no use. Her simple attempted answer devolved into mad screaming.

He sighed. "I promise I'm just trying to help. I know you don't understand it yet, but once the Union Jack flies high, you'll understand. You'll agree. You'll remember. Maybe you'll even love me again like you did when we first met."

He took out a vial like the one he had before and drained it onto the cloth covering her mouth. "I'm sorry, Eirlys. You'll understand when this is all over."

She looked around for a few minutes, trying not to breathe in whatever he's drugging her with. Eventually, she passed out again.

* * *

He had finally let her eat, but he insisted she had to eat alone. She wasn't as concerned about what he might be putting in the food as she was getting something in her stomach. She was starved, tearing like an animal at the food she was now allowed to. The Union Jack mug was removed from the room, but pretty much everything else was left alone.

Once she was finished, she got to stand up and look around for a minute before he came back. She thought about trying to use some broken glass, or breaking the wood boards out from the windows. That would take too long. So she eyed the metal case.

The locks on it were simple flip-locks and they snapped right off. Opening the case, she found some kind of rifle and a few rounds of ammunition. Quickly realizing her escape route, she loaded up the gun, closed the case, and hid behind the bed.

A moment later, Conleth entered the room and gently closed the door behind him. He had some food stuck in his beard. He quietly approached the case, which was not locked. He opened a drawer and took something out of it. Eirlys held her breath and steeled her nerves.

He came around the corner of the bed and had one hand behind his back, and one hand offered to her. "Eirlys, darling," he said in that smooth, unsettling voice of his, "we don't have to do this."

"Yes we do," she muttered, raising the barrel and pulling the trigger.

He dropped the pistol in his one hand, moving it to cover the wound in his lower abdomen, and leaned on the edge of the bed with the other. She loaded up another shot and aimed at him.

"Please," he pleaded. "Don't do this. You'll regret it for the rest of your life."

Keeping the rifle aimed at his head point-blank, she shuffled over to the gun he dropped. She kicked the pistol under the dresser.

"I'm giving the orders now. Outside." She paused to wait for him to comply. He did not move. "Let's go."

His survival instincts took over, and he complied, stumbling out the door, using the one hand to cover the wound and the other to open the door. She went in front of him, scanning the house with the rifle. There was no sign of daylight, no modern touches. He had an old desktop tower computer collecting dust in the corner of one room. It was accompanied by golden trinkets and many flags and symbols. He followed her to the front door, one hand practically glued to his bleeding stomach, the other leaning against various objects as he goes. Quickly and attentively, she swung open the door.

It was the dead of night, and there was a small crowd forming around the house. They were muttering something about gunfire, or at least that's what the English speakers were talking about, until they saw the rifle. Then the commotion changed its tune, became a chant. They started calling her a murderer. Unfazed, she nudged him onto the street with the barrel, closed the door, kicked him over, and dropped the gun onto the top step, behind her. Finally, she addressed the crowd.

* * *

When the ambulance showed up, they quickly declared Conleth dead. After taking care of him, the crew tended to her and administered medicine.

At some point, another strange Irishman walked up to her. "Thanks for drawing attention to this place. We've been trying to find his secret hiding place for a while now. He was one of the higher-ups in that terrorist group. Trying to reform the United Kingdom or something. Fiachra, right?"

"No, I'm Eirlys."

"No, I meant him."

"...He told me his name was Conleth."

"Everything in there tells me this was Fiachra's hideout. Probably a family place. And the coroner's report is in Fiachra's name." He turned to someone beside him. "We need to check for registrations under 'Conleth.'" He turned back to her. "Where are you from, young lady?"

"Penfro."

He glanced at the man beside him, who is holding a reader and had just wrote that down, then turned back to her. "We'll check there too. Thank you for all your help." He patted her shoulder, then left.

She took a minute to pull herself together, still sitting on his bottom doorstep. She stood up, looked back at the rifle, shook her head, and looked forward again. She called out to the stranger who was just talking to her. "Hey, do you know where the station is?"

He gestured her to follow him. She hesitated but did it anyway. At the station, he told the station clerk, "Get her home to Penfro, Cambria. I think a lot of folks are missing her." She was on the next boat home.

Upon arrival, her friends and family were already waiting for her. Briallen and Emrys were still a little bruised. Her dad tried to figure out what happened, but she was too busy hugging and sobbing, and wasn't ready to answer. He gave up and hugged his beloved daughter, finally safe and sound. "Let's go home."