Relics of Liberty

Beneath the wreckage of the old world, in a cavern lit only by the faint glow of candlelight, the rebels gathered around a table scarred by time and fire. The air was thick with dust and the scent of wax, the walls dripping with condensation from the weight of the world above. A tattered flag—its colors faded to near gray—hung limply from a rusted pipe. Once, it had stood for liberty. Now it was a relic of a promise broken.

Their leader, a man named Kerrin Dault, traced a finger across a crumbling map spread out before them. Cities—what remained of them—were marked with smudged circles and inked notes. Los Angeles. Phoenix. Denver. Places that were once proud, now ruins of a republic that had devoured itself in the name of progress.

“We’re not trying to build something new,” Kerrin said, his voice gravelly from years of breathing the soot-filled air. “We’re trying to remember what was lost.”

Around him, the others nodded silently. They were men and women of different backgrounds—former teachers, engineers, soldiers, and farmers—bound not by ideology but by longing. They had seen what unrestrained power had done. How, decades before, corruption masquerading as compassion had stripped people of their rights, one mandate and one crisis at a time.

The democratic regime that rose from the ashes of the last civil war had promised equality. What it brought was control. Surveillance drones filled the skies, speech was monitored, and obedience became the only virtue. The word freedom itself had become taboo.

Now, deep underground, this small band of rebels dared to speak it aloud.

“Freedom isn’t given,” said Sera Vonn, the youngest among them, her eyes fierce in the candlelight. “It’s taken back. Fought for. Every generation forgets until someone has to bleed for it again.”

The others murmured in agreement, but the weight of their task pressed hard on them all. Supplies were dwindling. Communications were fragmented. And above ground, patrols still roamed, remnants of a government too stubborn to die.

Still, hope flickered—because word had spread.

“Maren has gone below,” Kerrin said, eyes on the map. “If she finds Silen, if the two of them return together… maybe there’s a chance.”

He looked up, gaze steady. “They were there before the fall. They saw how it happened, how the corruption ate through every layer of power. They know what we’re fighting against.”

Someone in the shadows spoke softly. “Do you really think one man and one woman can change what’s left of the world?”

Kerrin paused, his expression hardening. “Not alone,” he said. “But if they can remind people what freedom feels like—what it means—then yes. It’ll spread. Like fire. The kind they’ll never control again.”

The candles flickered as a faint rumble shook the ground above them—distant explosions, perhaps from another clash near the surface. The sound carried through the tunnels, but no one moved.

They had no illusions. The road ahead would be brutal. They would lose many before they gained anything worth keeping. But the rebels were not afraid of pain. They were afraid of forgetting.

And so, in that dim underground chamber, the map became more than a plan—it became a covenant.

They would fight, not for revenge, but for remembrance. For a republic that once dared to believe men could govern themselves. For a freedom that had been traded away, and now had to be won back by those who refused to kneel.