Blood Skies

I am forbidden to imagine.
Well, I mean, no one can really forbid me to imagine. Mind-control technology is still a long way off. No one can control what's in my mind, and it's the same for everyone else's mind. Our society might control what we say, but we can choose whether it controls our paths of thought.
But even though no individuals are controlling my mind, something else is.
I don't know what it is exactly. It just keeps me from dreaming about certain things. For my whole life, I've been trying to find a way to destroy it. I want to be able to dream, to have something to work for, to be able to recreate pleasure for myself.
I've always wanted to dream about what a perfect society would be like. What would happen if these controversial debates would somehow or another just stop? Would we ever have eternal peace, or will we always be at the brink of war?
Would us individuals ever become wise?
My mind forbids me to dream about such things, and find answers to such questions.
Yet still, I always try to find clues that lead me to these answers. Like physical things in this world. When we only have physical things to determine the answers to imaginary questions, we must use them to our full potential.
Yet the only real physical object that I can use to answer these questions is our local magazine.
As an avid reader, I use written words to my full ability, making seemingly useless things useful. Since I find a live video to be stupid and boring, I get every piece of information I've ever remembered from written words, mostly this magazine, which releases new editions every day.
Technically, it releases four editions every day. Our society has four political factions, and representatives from each paction write the same news stories from their own point of view in the magazine, so we can look at the parts where they agree and disagree.
As much as I'd hate to admit it, having four political factions just makes our eternal conflict in this world even more bloody. I get that it gives our people a little more freedom (as if we have that much at all), but it creates more problems than it solves.
Most of these news stories have something to do with our nation's MASTER. Our MASTER claims to be all-powerful, all-good, and all-wise. And she lets us do whatever we want, as long as it's in the name of herself.
Which doesn't really mean much, because the whole point of freedom is that we don't have to do everything in the name of our master, let alone our MASTER.
Today, though, a particular news story shocked me. All four editions of the magazine recorded the transcript of a message to our nation's people from the MASTER herself. It read:
"Attention, all citizens of our great nation. I have launched some atmospheric probes that will change the color of the sky based on the actions of you, the citizens. There are too much unrest and discrepancy in this country, and these probes will cause catastrophic things to happen if this horror continues. So please, I warn all of you: watch what you say, and watch even more what you do."
As I said, we don't have much freedom at all. The MASTER and her worshippers like to coat everything with golden flowers. Yet deep inside all of those wasted statements, there is a deep and smelly truth that disproves the outside.
Those we the thoughts that went through my mind until I heard screaming and shattered glass outside the window.
We live in a relatively small country, so all of the citizens were within an hour's range of our MASTER's tower, which is so high it's visible in every part of the nation. Which I feel was strategically planned, so that the MASTER's loyal guards can catch any "muddy souls" before they can do more of their pro-anarchy deeds.
However, this is also a weapon against the MASTER. Even though the MASTER banned protests, they still happen anyway, and since we're so densely populated, the numbers can never be greater.
In this country we have an old folk saying: "When minds roam free, they will be split apart."
All I saw outside were millions of people running in the direction of the MASTER's tower, holding weapons painted with blood in their hands. They were shouting things like "We won't let you brainwash our children!" and "We deserve a mind, a voice, and a life!" and "We will make peace, but first we have to win this war!"
All of the shouting people were wearing red bandanas. A few days ago our family received a whole bunch of red bandanas, with a message on it: "Just don't tell the MASTER."
I have a feeling that the enthusiast who set this whole protest up sent red bandanas to everyone in the country, hoping they would protest with them, while, I guess, wearing the color of blood on their heads.
The plan was simple: kill anyone without a red bandana on their head.
And that means everybody without a red bandana on their head! Their philosophy must be that if no one is wearing the red bandana, they are in favor of the MASTER's "legion of lackeys" as they like to call it.
I didn't know what to do at that point. I just sat by the window, watching things in flight. Rocks, signs, stones, bullets, arrows, blood, words, and bodies.
"When minds roam free, they will be split apart."
I would've kept on watching longer, but pretty soon I couldn't see anything because my entire window was covered in blood.
I was just about to tell my mother that the windows were blocked when there was a knock on our door.
My mother got there before I did. A thin, tall man stood behind the door. He was obviously wearing a red bandana on his head.
"Are you guys fans of the MASTER?" he asked.
My mother thought about it for a few seconds, but before she responded, I said, "Not really. Certainly not me."
"Did you receive the red bandanas?" he asked.
"Yes," we replied.
"Then come join us. We need all the help can get!" he said in a pleading voice. Then he walked away, probably to get killed.
We were just about to put on our red bandanas when three things happened at once. We heard someone yell "The guards are coming!". One of our bloody windows shattered. My little brother ran out into the war-torn streets with fear. Without his red bandana.
There was no use saving him. This wasn't the time to grieve.
Luckily, my mother and I were able to get our bandanas on as we joined the parade of protest.
We missed our father. He signed up to join the MASTER's group of guards. He has written us many letters over the years, all of them ending with "How I wish I could come back!" He signed up a long time ago to "ensure peace lingers throughout the whole nation". Little did he know that he was working towards the same problem he so wanted to solve. He knew now, but it was too late.
We didn't want to know if he was still alive.
If he was, then he was out there somewhere on the very same battlefield we were trying to survive on.
Nothing else interesting happened for the next few hours. Sometimes, we didn't even know what we were even doing out here. We just stood there while everyone else either killed or got killed by the guards.
Until I saw the face of my father.
He has certainly changed. His beard was white, his eyes were splashed with blood, his mouth was severely scarred, and he certainly looked a lot more frightening than before. I feared that he would embrace the teachings of the MASTER, yet I also felt sympathy for him. He went through so much pain just to be fighting for the thing he so wanted to fight against.
I didn't know what he would do if I went up to him. He could either be compassionate and fight his true enemy, or he could continue to live his lie for the last time and kill us.
I decided to go up to him.
My mother cried out, "Honey, where are you going?!"
And I replied, "I'm going to see father!"
And then she said in return, "Then I'm coming with you!"
The sword of fear slowly cut through my heart the closer I got to my father. And with it, the knife of question: will he live his lie or destroy it?
I just had to call out, "FATHER!"
He turned around and saw my face. I didn't know what my own face looked like, but by the look in his eyes, it must have been one of emotional pain.
"Daughter! And honey!" he replied with a smile as Mother ran over to him and hugged him.
Then I heart the sound of a shotgun and my mother fell down flat with a bloody hole in her chest.
When I find out who the gun came from, I ran away.
I could hardly believe what I just witnessed. I knew that the MASTER was powerful, but I never knew she was capable of mind-control.
Just as I sped away, I saw a couple of probes in the sky. Simultaneously, all of the loudspeakers in the city let out a message from the MASTER herself: "I am warning you all right now. Stop the violence and you can all leave unharmed."
The sky started to turn a little red.
I found a nice, deep pothole in one of the roads. It went farther and farther down, then it curved to the side, providing a nice temporary shelter for an escapee like me.
Yet it was still good enough that I can observe the sky from there.
I could still hear a lot of screaming and lives ending outside the hole.
Then I saw the sky got even redder, and another message from the MASTER, "This is your last chance: stop the violence and peace will be existent!".
The needle of dread kept on digging deeper into my soul. I didn't know what to do or where or when to do it. All I knew is that, unfortunately, the end was near.
So I took out a couple of pieces of paper, grabbed my pen, and started writing my story. Hopefully, someone will see it and transport it somewhere. Hopefully, I can inspire future citizens of the world to make their home a safer place.
I wrote down everything that happened, from the magazines to the bloody battle to the betrayal of my father to the moment when I climbed into the hole, right on this very document. I tried as hard as I could possibly try to concentrate, whilst not letting fear kill me before the probes. It was hard trying not to puke with disgust every time I heard blood squirting out of a body being shot or stabbed, but I am happy to say that I did it.
Now, the sky has turned to blood. Not even other planets and clouds were visible. It was just blood and probes.
The MASTER had one final message for us, "You have failed to meet my demands. Now you shall pay the ultimate price."
I had no idea what that "ultimate price" would be. It could be death, or it could be torture, or it could be money. Although she said that we would all be killed from the original message, I never wanted to believe it until I saw it.
And just as the MASTER said, the probes started firing nonstop at everybody: the guards, the protesters, innocent people, everybody.
It really does seem like they're searching all over. They would literally break windows and walls to get to certain places just to kill the people inside.
In fact, now one of the probes is coming into my hole and I can see it's aiming its gun at me and