We Follow the Leader - Dystopian Progression Fantasy

Dolor knelt in the cold, the winter night biting into his bones. His scraped, bloodied knees sank into the snow, leaving two deep impressions in the frozen crust. The sharp edges of the ice cut into his skin, and the heat of the wound melted the snow beneath, soaking his trousers with icy water. Pain throbbed through his legs, but the burning cold seemed to blur into one dull, oppressive ache. The dark water stain on his trousers was slowly making its way up Dolor’s legs, as if trying to consume him, to dissolve him into the snow. The rope tightened around his cold wrists, causing Dolor to forget about the pain in his legs by drawing his attention to an even worse pain that was coming from his arms tied behind his back.

“What did I do to deserve this?” thought Dolor to himself, but then quickly realized how meaningless this question was. Of course, he had done nothing, neither good nor bad. He had done nothing to deserve this but also had done nothing to not deserve it either. He realized he had done nothing with his life - and it took his impending death to see it. Dolor laughed bitterly. "Who deserves what, anyway?" he muttered to himself. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe people were lucky they didn't get what they truly deserved. The thought was cold comfort, and he wasn't even sure if it made any sense.

Dolor finally looked up, his courage barely holding. 'Who are you?' he asked.

The tall, skinny elf smirked. "What’s it to you?" His flowing blonde hair gave him an unnaturally youthful look, despite the centuries etched in his eyes. He laughed, loud and careless. "You won't need that information where you're headed, buddy." His voice echoed, unbothered by the people passing nearby.

“He thinks he will file complaints about us with the management. He wants to know the names and badge numbers,” said the second man who had now joined his partner after leaving earlier to “have things prepared”. Dolor had no clue what these preparations entailed, nor was he particularly interested in knowing, as it was surely going to be something quite gruesome and unpleasant. The second man was an orc with a shorter, stockier build who had wide shoulders, a barrel chest, and arms thick as tree trunks.

“I have the right to know, don’t I? I am a proud citizen of the Free Republic, who served Her and the Leader with his life and limb in four of the last five Revolutionary Campaigns!” exclaimed Dolor with a palpable hint of desperation in his voice.

“Say, former Lance Corporal Dolor Patiens, how old are you?” asked the elf with a clear intent to emphasize that he knew more about Dolor than Dolor knew about him.

“I am turning thirty-three… tonight actually,” replied Dolor, realizing halfway through the sentence that today was indeed his birthday.

“Well, I’ll be damned, magent Mons,” said the skinny elf, “we have a birthday boy on our hands! And his birthday is on the 33rd anniversary of the Conclave Revolt!”

“Why are you acting surprised? This was mentioned during the briefing and in the briefing notes, too. You didn’t read the briefing notes yet again, did you?” asked Mons.

“Come on, Monsy! You know, these briefings are just a waste of time. They give us a list of names and we liquidate them for the Benefit of the State and its citizens. That is not only our professional duty, but also our patriotic responsibility! Why should we bother learning about their birthdays, personal histories, and the specifics of their crimes? What a waste of time!” the blonde elf, whose name Dolor still did not know, was getting visibly and progressively agitated as his rant grew in passion. “All I need to know is that this man, our target, the dishonorably discharged former Lance Corporal Dolor Patiens, accused of treason by an official order of the Supreme Conclave, must be terminated so that our path to the Bright Future is not impeded as We Follow the Leader!”

“Oh, for the sake of the Conclave! Tell us how you really feel, Schmal! Why do you always try to take your anger at the job out on me, as if I am the one who sets the rules?” Mons was clearly annoyed with his colleague's emotional outburst. “Why don’t you try to go on one of your impassioned speeches in front of the management during the briefing? And why in Seven Hells would you reveal our names and mission details in front of the suspect?!”

“Mons, you see, this is exactly what I mean! He is not a fucking suspect; he is our target. You always want to pretend as if what we do is not actually what we do. Stop hiding behind euphemisms like a coward, Monsy. Calling him a ‘suspect’ would imply that we conducted some proper investigation, collected evidence, and were going to try him in a court of law, where he will have a chance to prove his innocence. Just admit that we are doing a dirty but crucial job of detaining, torturing, and executing the remaining internal enemies of the Revolt for the Benefit of the State.” Dolor noticed Schmal slowly stepping away from him and provocatively walking towards Mons, whose facial expression had lost any semblance of the stoic indifference it had been trying to portray until now.

The concept of the Benefit of the State was one of the core concepts of Conclavism, the official state ideology of the Free Republic. These activities for the Benefit of the State usually involved hard physical labor in the mana dust mines or grueling military training for all manaless citizens, such as Dolor, and, inversely, a big state stipend issued as reparations to all members of the magekind (more to some members than others, of course) by the manaless majority for the centuries of oppression inflicted on them by their predecessors. The jobs assigned to magekind were also usually much less taxing on the body and mind, as they would normally be assigned cushy “managerial” jobs or “supervisory roles” in the heavy industry, state bureaucracy, or the military, with additional exclusive perks for all members of the Conclave and their direct and not-so-direct relatives. Dolor thought about his mother, whom he hadn’t seen for over a decade since her death. She had to raise him alone while working as a janitor at a mana processing factory, and she never hesitated to tell Dolor how much she despised every minute of that. Dolor understood her disappointment. After all, she was not used to manual labor in her previous life as the wife of a high-ranking Conclave official, Constans Patiens, Dolor’s father.

“I swear by the fucking Leader, Schmal! Not another word, or I’ll execute you myself for spreading anti-Conclave propaganda,” Mons growled, snapping Dolor out of his reminiscences.

“Ok, ok. We have been here long enough. Let’s off this poor bastard and finally put an end to yet another manaless oppressor’s family line. My kids are doing a school play today that I need to attend, Mrs. Schmal said that Jules will play Colonel Constans Patiens, the great ally of the Revolt! Can you imagine Mons? Seriously, what are the odds that my son will play the role of Dolor’s traitorous father, while my son’s father, yours truly, will execute the traitorous son of Colonel Patiens? What drama, what sublime irony!” Schmal was slowly but surely losing himself in a fit of sadistic anticipation as he began approaching Dolor while rubbing his black leather glove-clad hands eagerly.

“Please, just hurry the fuck up and get it done, you elf sicko. I can’t believe someone as clinically insane as you is allowed by law to have a family and children to boot. Finish it and let’s go home. I am tired of freezing my ass off in this cold listening to your lunacy,” grumbled Mons discontentedly.

“Your wish is my command, magent Mons! We Follow the Leader!” Schmal yelled the last part cartoonishly loud and performed a rather clumsy caricature of the official military salute addressed to Mons, who only rolled his eyes utterly unimpressed, and shook his head in response saying something about the need for better psychiatric assessments before hiring people to work at the Bureau.

Schmal approached Dolor, who was still sitting on his knees, and watched the back-and-forth between the two SSB magents unfold from a distance. This whole time, he was considering his options. These two were magents from the State Security Bureau. They were going to kill him here, and there was nothing he could say to dissuade them of it. He needed to win some time to figure out if there was anything he could do.

"Magent Schmal," Dolor began, his voice subdued, “you seem to know my father. Could you tell me a little about him?” He paused, feigning vulnerability. “I was just a child when he left. I barely remember him.”

“Hey, Mons, get a load of this guy. We got ourselves a chatty little fucker this time, didn’t we?” Schmal looked genuinely entertained by Dolor’s sudden urge to talk about his troubled family history.

“That’s none of our concern. Just get the job done, and let’s get out of here.” Mons was growing more impatient with each passing minute he had to spend out in the cold.

“Come on, don’t be such a bore, Monsy. The young man wants to know the truth about how his loser of a father went from one of the most influential Conclave officials to getting killed in a dirty prison cell like the pathetic cuckold that he was,” Schmal was clearly looking to get a reaction out of Dolor, who was not in the very least perturbed by Schmal’s comments. The memory of his father’s arrest, which remained fresh in his mind since childhood, was a widely covered event in the media, and the insults he had to hear about him daily over the past twenty years had desensitized Dolor to such provocations.

“Yes, please, I want to know why my service to the Leader and Conclave is being cut short because of some old man, whom I, might I just add for the official record, haven’t seen for twenty years since his death,” said Dolor trying to feign the slightest bit of interest in what Schmal had to say to keep the elf talking and to delay the inevitable. Dolor could not come up with a way to get out yet. His hands were tied, and he had no weapons on him.

“Fine, I can humor you for a bit, young Dolor,” Schmal said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. Then the elf shouted, “Mons! Be a good fella and dig a shallow ditch for our valued customer here, will you? Don’t bother making it too big, he won’t need much space, land is at a premium these days and it belongs to the Conclave and the people, as I am sure you know” His voice carried across the cold air, and Mons, grumbling with discontent, headed to the nearby toolshed for a shovel.