by K. Weikel
Rose exhales heavily and lifts her head.
“We surrender.”
Her shoulders slump as the floor becomes her focus. She’s truly given up, and Daniel can feel it. But he’s proud of her. Sometimes there are battles that shouldn’t be fraught, and sometimes there are silences that need to rest.
The rebels slowly begin to cheer as they round up the Elites, slowly believing that they’ve really won as they herd them out the doors, poking and prodding them with their weapons. The sounds grow louder as they exit into the cornfields of the World, crowds of people outside holding weapons. They aim at the crowd spilling out from the tiny hole in the middle of the corn stalks, not sure at first what is going on. As the crowd nears, they too begin an uproar, cameras everywhere run by either rebels or people threatened by the rebels. They record every second as Daniel is pushed to the front of the body.
Rose hangs toward the back, the two boys finally releasing her wrists. She looks out at the crowd, her stomach twisted inside of her and her brain regretting giving in. Give me liberty, or give me death, right?
Rose catches the eyes of the last person she ever wants to see again. One. She stands away from the surging Unnamed, scowling, her hands on her hips and her eyes on fire. Her face contorts into something almost scary as she realizes who it is she’s looking at: the girl who betrayed the rebellion to fight against it with the boy who originally turned his back on the Unnamed to show its belly to the Elites. She’s the ultimate traitor in her eyes, but Rose doesn’t scare. Rose gives an angry smirk at the woman, her emotions getting the better of her.
One comes pushing through the crowd, her eyes set directly on Rose. She’s saying something aloud, washed out by the commotion surrounding them. Rose stands her ground, the people pushing past her as she readies herself to fight if she needs to. She has the upper hand, anyway. She’s younger, faster, and isn’t fueled with revenge or hatred, or even anger. Her head is level, and if this is how she goes out, it’ll be her choice, and hers alone.
One elbows through two more people and reaches out, grabbing Rose’s hair just as Rose, herself, reaches out to connect her fist with One’s chest. Rose is thrown to the ground, cursing herself for underestimating this woman. People back away, creating a loud circle around them two, a person or two walking up to One to calm her down and try to pull her away, but she pulls her gun out from her pants and points it at Rose’s head.
Rose grimaces, hearing the clatter of something small and metallic by her hand.
“Rose!”
Someone grabs Daniel as he sprints up to try and save her.
“The Elites have fallen,” he cries to One, his eyes darting to Rose. “There’s no more need for blood!”
Rose finds this so out of character for him, this random outburst. But she agrees. And she plans to let the world know that she does.
“He’s right, One,” she says, her voice strong in the midst of all this pressure. “If you kill me, it’ll prove that you didn’t care about anything but your victory. A victory you don’t have because there wasn’t a war for you to fight. You have eight seconds to walk away with your head held high. Show your followers who you really are, One. You don’t want to disappoint.”
One cocks the gun and returns the gun to its target, her face twisted in rage. Rose can hear some of the pricks in the crowd egging her on, while others beg her to stop. There are a few though, that heard Rose, and stare at her and Daniel, their brains malfunctioning. If One shoots Rose, then it’s true. One never wanted to make the world better. She wanted a war that she could rise from and be the savior to these people. Some wonder if, if things had gone her way, would the way things were have changed at all? And if so, would it be for the better?
“They will never see you as a hero if you shoot me,” Rose says. “Five seconds. Max.”
“You are the worst of all the traitors I’ve come across,” One spits nastily.
“No,” Rose says. “That would be you.”
One shoots, hitting Rose in the shoulder and making her fall on her side. The woman walks up to Rose and stands over her, watching as a smile appears on her face. She pulls something round from her pocket. The grenade.
“My gift to you, One. Without you, I would have never seen the truth.” Rose says as she looks over to Daniel, feeling every emotion she’s ever had for him as it swells inside her, a tear falling from her eye.
“Go, Daniel,” she whispers. “Goodbye.”
The crowd scatters, someone tugging Daniel along behind them away from the blast zone.
He watches as she’s eaten by the flames.
As the explosion takes the houses.
As he falls to the cement, his ears ringing.
As he looks back in hopes she survived.
But there’s nothing but smoke and debris.
Rose is gone.
Forever.
23: Chance Given
The streets are quiet as the echoes of the explosion bounce off the walls. Or, at least, they’re silent to Daniel. He can hear nothing but his own heartbeat, feel nothing but his soul ache for the life that was just lost. Why did she have to go? She could have made it out of there, if only...
Daniel knows the truth. She wouldn’t have made it out of there. Neither of them would have if One survived. People stand around him, beginning to talk, to shout, and to fight. Daniel stands slowly, watching as everything around him escalates. People still as he makes his way through the crowds, momentarily distracted as he walks to the rubble, taking hold of a megaphone found in the toppled wall of an announcer’s building. Daniel climbs to the roof, glad his strength hasn’t failed him yet, and stands atop the roof. A few people were already looking up at him, wondering what he’s doing, while the rest are distracted, acting out of confusion. But none cry at the loss of their leader.
Daniel presses a button that lets out a loud wail, grabbing everyone’s attention almost immediately. A few call out to him, telling him how much of a traitor he was, but he ignores them. It’s not the past they need to look to right now. They need to look forward because the past is all they know. The past is only a tool that they can use to make the present better, and, hopefully, the future as well.
Daniel stares out at the thickening crowd and over the walls that encase the World. The place he’s known all his life. But now things have changed. And this is one of the only times that change should be embraced wholeheartedly.
“My name is Daniel,” Daniel says through the megaphone, feeling awkward at the strange contraption. He’d only used it once, and swore he would never use it again, but... he feels as though he needs to. “Several, if not all of you know who I am. The person who turned their back on the Unnamed. And I just wanted to say I was sorry. But now I’m all you have. You may hate me and the people I stand with in the government. But if you stay silent when issues arise, and you become violent and angry, nothing will change for the better. Now, we can do this one of two ways.” Daniel shifts his weight as the crowd finally settles down. “I grew up under the Elite Solver, and I learned a lot from being around him. I know that at one time, there was a paper that listed the rights we had in this country. One of them was to defend ourselves against an unjust government, and the other was freedom of speech. Those things were lost, but it was our parents, our grandparents, and those before them that made that happen. This effected the future because they were selfish and kept taking and taking, never giving, and never caring about what happened to anyone else down the line. You can either keep going down the path you’re going, blind and angry and confused and unsure, or you can trust me and I can work something out with the Elites. We can bring back voting and the voice of the people. Of you. We can expand the government to get more opinions and make things fairer. But. The only way we can do that, and the only way we can make our lives and the people’s lives around us, is if we work together. If we take a step back and realize not everything must change, that happiness can be achieved without laziness and without a clear
path ahead of you. If there are no obstacles, then there is no point of trying to live. There is no point in helping others conquer challenges if there are none to face. Life without risk and uphill battles isn’t life at all—it’s just being.”
Daniel lets his words sink in to the rebel’s ears, to the loyalist ears, and to those that are unsure. He hopes they hear him. He hopes they understand what he’s telling them. Because without understanding of balance and selflessness... there is only room for idiocy and ignorance. He prays they understand.
Rose would have understood.
“I ask you now to stand with me. Look at everything that’s happened. We can change this corrupt world. We can change our minds. We think we can’t change our ways, that this is how we are, how we were made, and this is what we’re meant to do: whatever we please. But that isn’t true. I have come a long way from the boy who would talk to no one because he was training too hard to become an Elite. Take control of yourself and figure out what is right, not what you want, because that is selfish. Standing here before you now, I can see what is right, and that is everything I’ve told you. We need to work together. If you disagree, then this will be the end of my speech. But if you’re with me, I want you to stand with me, and I will meet with the Elites. We will solve, not everything, but the main things that need to be fixed. There will always be obstacles we must face—but it is up to us to figure out how to handle them. Who will stand with me?”
Daniel finds air as the silence slowly decreases, the voices crescendoing. He can feel Mortimer the Elite Solver and Rose and Jim and One with him, inside his heart, their pride playing through him as his throat ties in a knot. He knows there will be those who will walk away. But he knows there will be those that long for a change for the better. The people below cheer. They argue. They smile. The excitement reaches Daniel and explodes onto his skin as bumps as a chill works its way through his spine. Change has come. It has happened inside everyone beneath Daniel on the cement below. It has happened inside Rose, who gave her life to what she believed. Change has always been pressed onto the generations, and has always been present, but that doesn’t make it inevitable. Change is an idea, it’s a feeling.
And that feeling had wedged itself inside Daniel the moment he took that letter from his Master to the Elite Leader, and it swelled when the girl placed her fist over her heart. When the girl was killed on television for coming in second place from the Unnamed. When he infiltrated the rebellion and created friends. When he lost Jim to Blaise. When he won and became an Elite. When Rose forgave him and came back to him. When he began to have feelings for her he couldn’t explain, nor had the time to think about. When he was tortured for what the Unnamed saw as wrong but he saw as right. And even now, as he opens his watery eyes and looks out at the horizon. He has changed. And he will continue to change those parts he doesn’t like about himself for the better, of hot himself, but for the people around him. And it’s not to impress them. It’s not to acquire their acceptance. It’s because he wants to become the kind of person people will come to in times of need, in times of distress, for advice, and for the truth, even if these things hurt.
The Runner understands more now than he had before, and he wonders if this was his God-given purpose all along. To give these people a chance at a new, better, and truthful life.
His lips find a serene smile as a tear tumbles down his cheeks. Those closest to him will never see this world he’s helping create, but he knows their souls will be put into it because he knew them. Because this final stage of his change... he knows he’s been changed for good, Daniel the Elite Runner.
24: Change
The walls are torn down. The people walk the streets, buzzing with the news of new buildings, of new competitions, which aren’t mandatory and only for those who love what they do, or for those who only want to compete. And they don’t compete for spots any longer.
Violent radicals sit in the newly built jails and currency will soon be established. Jobs will be added, and old documents thought to be lost in the rubble of the old cities are turning up and being studied. The government has expanded, people appointed and elected, and sometimes both, into office, doubling their headcount.
Everything is headed in the right direction, people trying their hardest, for the most part, to be selfless. They want to create a perfect society without the pressure of trying to be one. Acceptance isn’t something strived for and taken with blind reasoning. People speak their minds, and some may get offended, but they try to keep calm when their emotions are stirred up because they know it will help them in the long run, to talk about what they think as well as listen to opposing beliefs. The new nation still has a lot to learn and a ways to go, and Daniel knows it will never be perfect, but that’s the beauty of growing in oneself and in the friendships created. Perfection is a lie. Only God knows its truths. But Daniel’s okay with it. Sometimes there are questions that shouldn’t be answered and wonders that should be marveled as such and not picked apart to figure out the meaning. Sometimes things should just be left alone and just stared at, or felt.
Daniel knows this, and he takes a deep breath as he walks up to a rock with a name etched on it.
Mortimer the Elite Solver.
A man of wisdom, who guided unsure feet in times filled with strife, and a man of love, who created a family out of Servants, and who knew how to listen to both his heart and his mind. One of the greatest men to have ever lived.
His body isn’t below it, but Daniel requested it be put in the newly made cemetery. He speaks to him briefly, telling him of what’s been happening around him, and how he’s influenced him. How the man has changed Daniel’s life in such a good way... And how he really was like a father to the former Elite Runner. Daniel knows he would have been so proud of him, and he can’t help but let the tears fall onto his cheeks as he placed a white daisy at the base of the stone.
Jim’s headstone was next, the words reflecting how he was a troublemaker with a heart as big as a canyon. How he wanted to have fun, and how he never gave up. Daniel found it hard to swallow as he talked to his name, placing a small Indian Paintbrush down. It was the smallest of the flowers he had brought, but there was something about it, poking out on the sidewalk that reminded him of Jim.
Daniel strides to the last headstone, the name automatically making tears jump into his eyes once again, and he sniffles. He says nothing to her; he just lets the silence swallow him whole. He lets the feelings inside of his heart do the talking for him. A sense of peace settles upon him as the tears fall as the thorns from her flower bite into his palms. He closes his eyes as hope washes over him, feeling the three people who impacted his life the most around him, as if their souls are stranding around him and giving him strength to continue on in the wonderful thoughts of the future. He can almost feel their hands on his shoulders, handing over love and wrapping their arms around him in support. He knows he is never alone, and he never will be through the years that come.
He hopes the generations to come will learn from the past so they don’t repeat it. He hopes they see that change isn’t always the answer. The sun hasn’t changed, nor has the moon. And as he lays the white rose down before her name, he hopes they see that sometimes the only thing that needs to change is themselves.
The Elite
Author’s Note
Thank you for going on this journey with me. These last chapters have felt bittersweet to write, and I nearly cried on all three. But I didn’t, because of the hope I felt while writing them. They’re a little long winded, but I felt it was needed. So many things have changed since the first chapter of the first book, and it’s over the course of like three years. I hope you learned something from these, because if you didn’t, I don’t know what you were paying attention to.
And now it’s time for me to say ops bye to the Runner forever. I might just cry now.
I learned something about myself through writing his character, and switching over to Rose. Sometimes not everythin
g we think is right is really right. Sometimes we realize it too late. But, like the Runner, when I feel like I’ve made a right choice, I’m perplexed why others think different. And then, sometimes, when I take a step back, I understand. When I listen to others, I understand. It doesn’t mean I agree, and sometimes it changes my point of view, but if I think about something enough, I figure out what is really right. And, like the Runner, I learn from my mistakes. But like Rose, I’m headstrong, and once I figure out what’s wrong, I won’t back out of it.
Goodbye, Rose. Goodbye, Daniel. Goodbye, Elites and goodbye Unnamed.
I’ve learned a lot of unspeakable things about myself through this book. Unspeakable as in I can’t put it into words. Unspeakable as in I won’t. And I don’t want to. Because most of the things I learned weren’t things that needed explaining. They were more... emotional. Heartfelt. And hopeful. They’re things I can’t put into words. They’re things I feel should just be felt. Things that shouldn’t be looked too far into for whatever reason.
Thank you for going on this journey with me. I started this in 2014 with the first chapter of The Runner, and quit when I thought I lost the chapters. And then I found them. And I wrote. And wrote. And I loved his story. It’s been a two-year journey.
Thank you for coming with me.
Y’all are awesome.
