An Awakening

Her name was Liora. She didn’t remember the last time she had felt sure of anything.

She stood frozen at the edge of the crowd as the torches were lit and the shouting swelled again. Her hand gripped the strap of her satchel, her fingers trembling slightly, not from fear, but from the strange feeling gnawing at her gut—a feeling she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge for months: doubt.

When the boy with the camera—Micah—had shouted back at them, something cracked. Not loud, not visible. Just a hairline fracture deep within her certainty.

She had joined the protests because she had wanted to belong. Because everyone around her said they were building a better world, and she wanted to believe it. Professors praised her for repeating their slogans. Friends smiled when she burned books she’d never read. Every act of destruction came with cheers, and for a while, that had been enough.

But tonight was different. Something about the flames licking at the student union, something about the way Mara's voice shook—not with righteousness, but with desperation—made her pause.

Liora stepped backward, away from the mob, her footsteps silent against the wet pavement.

No one noticed.

The chants grew louder, the crowd surged forward, and the boy disappeared down an alley with the others. No one cared that she was gone. Not really. They would have screamed “traitor” if they’d seen her leave, but they didn’t. They were too busy burning the world they thought they were saving.

She walked. Slowly, carefully. Past the statue of the founder they had toppled weeks ago. Past the skeletal library, still smoldering. Past signs that read “Abolish Thought” and “Feel, Don’t Think.”

Rain soaked her hoodie, cooled the heat in her cheeks. She turned down a darkened street and stopped beneath a cracked mural—once a painting of the Declaration of Independence, now defaced with red Xs and curses in spray paint. Liora stared at it, heart pounding.

What if they’re wrong? What if we’re all wrong?

The question hit her like a blow. She didn’t have answers, only the creeping sense that the people she had trusted—the people who told her what to hate—had never wanted her to think for herself.

Up ahead, something flickered. Not fire this time, but a faint yellow glow. A window. Still intact. A door, slightly ajar. A light in the ruins.

Liora hesitated, then stepped toward it.

Inside, she found a room lined with shelves. Books. Intact. Old. Smelling of paper and ink and something long forgotten. A single candle burned on a desk where an elderly woman sat reading by its light. She looked up, startled—but not unkind.

Liora didn’t speak. She simply crossed the threshold, dripping rainwater onto the wooden floor, and whispered:
“Can I… read something?”

The woman studied her for a moment. Then nodded.

“Of course, dear. That’s why we’re still here.”

And outside, the city burned. But inside that room, for the first time in a long time, a mind began to awaken.