They’d lined them up in rows, and forced them to dig their own graves. The Rebellion had been a fleeting glimmer of hope in the history books, but the traitors amongst us… the Loyal, as they call themselves…had destroyed that hope, betraying their fellow man. Seventy-seven Rebels were killed the first day, though it would be hundred and ninety-six that would eventually die a ‘Traitor’s Death.’ I remember thinking of those PETA ads that used to run on television, the ones that used to show how herders slaughtered cows for meat. It was all the same really, except now they were killing my brothers, my sisters, my parents, my kindred spirits. Sometimes I think I should’ve been among them.
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
They made us watch. The flashes of green light, the sound like an oncoming airplane, the collective ‘Thud’ of multiple bodies hitting the ground, the wicked laughter that followed each and every death—all to let us know who was boss.
I vaguely remember throwing up.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
It rained for three weeks straight after the Death of the Rebellion. We were put to work anyway, and covered their bodies with the despot of soaked soil. The High Lord and his royals sanctioned off our lands, and Britain became desperate. We bowed to them in the muddy streets, sank to our knees and kissed their feet whenever the need befell them. We were tortured freely, and often, and we were forbidden to mourn their deaths.
We mourned anyway.
It became an underground custom to wear the Muggles’ Catholic cross Ad Memoriam beneath our clothing—we fashioned them from what was left of our stashes of silver Sickles and wore them sorrowfully, as constant reminders of our mistakes.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The children of the traitors were given front-row seats to their deaths. They say you could feel the innocence of an entire generation seep its way into the air and waste away to the heavens. My brother and I were a few of the oldest they let live, and watched from twenty yards off as life was swept from my mother’s eyes. That’s how it was for us. The other children cried, shouted, tried to run. But for the children of the leaders, it was different. Grief hit, eventually, but it was in those moments, as our once lively eyes hollowed out, that we became the future. We were broken, like the others, but we were angry, and strong, and desperate. As our parents fell and the High Lord laughed in triumph, he created his own worst nightmare. At seven, eight, nine and ten, we became the New Order. We became the next generation of Rebels.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
And now, as I reach twenty years old, I give you our story. Our parents may have lost the Battle, but with patience, behind closed doors and drawn blinds, we begin our fight to win the War. This is the Anthem of our Doomed Youth, the answer to so many prayers.
We are the Children of the Revolution, and this is our story.
