Dearest Forsaken

But I being poor, have only my dreams
I have spread my dreams under your feet
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams

It wasn't the loss of the press that turned America into what it became. It wasn't the curfew. It wasn't even the sudden change in the infrastructure of the government.

It was the Pax.

By the time the citizens of America agreed to Leader Carter Bentley's mandate, it was too late to stop him.

A mandate that ordered, for the safety and peace of the country, every man, woman, and child in America must forgo all emotion.

All emotion.

Not everyone takes the Pax. But life for people who don't take it is hard. Every moment they must lie to the world, live life without emotion, even when they have it back.

Some people rebel. They refuse even to pretend in this world. In the underground, the sewers of large cities and remaining North American wilderness, there are people who live with the hope they can change their world.

Some people can see what others cannot. Latent psychics and telekinetics who were taken by the government. Forced by scientists to undergo extreme regimens of medication and electroconvulsive therapy, their powers were augmented. Kept in the facilities, they were used as weapons and for information gathering.

Only about one in every one hundred thousand people have such abilities, latent or otherwise. The government doesn't have all of them, can't find all of them. There are few people who show outwardly.

But some people do. And some of them are outside, living, hiding.

And they can see what others can not.

Someday, America might go back to the way it was, or a new democracy that is different than old one that went before.

Maybe.

Or maybe there is only the hope that someday, everyone will meet in a place where there is no darkness.