Whispers of Rebellion

The dust settled, not on my lungs this time, but in my throat, a gritty testament to my return. It tasted like the grave, like the suffocating finality I’d been cheated of. They thought they’d buried me, and in a way, they had. They’d buried the reaper, the obedient drone. But the man, the one who had watched his wife’s life drain away because he was forced to be the instrument of her death, he was still here. He was breathing, coughing, and more alive with a burning purpose than he’d ever been.

CID was there, his eyes bleary, but with a spark of something other than drunken stupor. He knelt beside my hastily dug grave, a flask clutched in his trembling hand. “Told you,” he slurred, a grin splitting his face, revealing a missing tooth. “Old CID knows a trick or two. Even death ain’t as permanent as they make it out to be, eh?”

I pushed myself up, the stiffness in my limbs a dull ache. My frysuit, still bearing the scorch marks from my ill-fated attempt to exceed quota, felt like a second skin, a constant reminder of the futility of individual sacrifice in a system designed for mass exploitation. “How?” I rasped, my voice raw.