They’ll come for me soon. I know it. One thought recurs every few minutes: that I should run, get as far away as possible.

It’s impossible, though. Everywhere I go, a church looms. Their eyes follow me. Everyone I see is one of their spies. That isn’t even appropriate, really. Can you really be a spy if you’re in the majority?

I’m recording this today in the hope that things will be different in the future. Maybe the people from your time, whoever you are, will find this, and understand the shackles that hold us.

My name is Leslie Grant, and it is the year 2047 AD, by the Gregorian calendar. Of course using that is a punishable offence now. In real years, it is 26 AE – After Enlightenment. Twenty six years after the world found its one religion.

I was born in the year 2006. Even now, it seems hard to believe. Before these current years of “enlightenment,” memory is almost a blur. There are isolated patches that I can remember – the first time I fell off my bike, when my mother died, the end of the Fourth World War.

That was their chance to take over. They had been growing in number for a long time, but our attentions were focused on butchering each other. Then, when we were all exhausted, a new world order rose from the ruins. We could never have prepared for it, and they soon took complete control.

By the time some people were ready to resist, hundreds of millions had already begun to convert voluntarily. Then when all of the history books, and any novels that contained slivers of the past, were deemed heretical and burned, the past began to fade faster than it seems possible. The history of the world was obscured by the smoke of the burnings. On the day that I saw the news broadcasts of thousands of fires, I knew that it wouldn’t be longer before total domination.

Still, after we reached 0 AE, I remember everything. The Great Purges of 3 AE were the worst, when anyone who didn’t publicly announce their affiliation was “neutralised.” Back in those days, there were people called Atheists, who denied the existence of God entirely. I was one. I converted quickly, though. In a world where anyone who gets left behind is soon dead, I couldn’t afford not to.

Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. I lost my dignity the day I surrendered, but I lived, and kept my beliefs alive with me.

I guess it’s amazing that I’ve avoided detection for so long. I missed one too many days of church, I suppose. The members of the congregations almost go into raptures when they find someone new to denounce. So they always watch. The vultures watch me, even as my life comes to an end.

Their fanaticism used to terrify me; now I am anaesthetised to it. It almost seems normal, as horrible as the thought is. I still can’t comprehend it entirely, though. How can anyone devote themselves so completely to one ruler, when there is doubt as to their existence? I lack that side to my mind. Following blindly could have never been my path.

They say that my crimes are too many to count. I am blasphemous, a heretic, treasonous. I have subversive opinions. My only real crime was that I trusted in someone other than myself, and maybe I deserve to die for that. After all, how could I have been so stupid? I’m a woman; they were always looking for a way to get rid of me.

Even ten years after her death, it makes me think of my friend Caroline. They encourage us not to think of the past, but to look into the future, to what we can do for the Ruler. Even so, I can’t help it. She came to me after the rape, terrified, but wouldn’t tell me who had attacked her. The day after that, when she was taken to be neutralised for acts of prostitution, she couldn’t meet my eyes. She only stared at the Bishop, and then I remembered how friendly he had been with her a few nights before. I knew then, and cried myself to sleep that night. Before that day, I had started to consider submitting to their Truth. Not after that. I kept my determination.

I shouldn’t have told my father about my beliefs, even if I did think we had a rather unusual bond. I’d gotten away with it for so long, but the guilt had been building all the while – and listen to me! Talking about my Atheism as if it isn’t something to be proud of!

One upside comes from this. My father was neutralised before me. No one who could father such a subversive child could be completely normal themselves, they said. He’s gone now, even though he was one of their most loyal followers. It’s disgusting, but it makes me laugh.

I can hear them now. The lift doors are opening, and their footsteps thunder down the hallway. I will hide the tape. If you listen to me, sometime in the future, remember me. Remember Leslie Grant, willing to die for her beliefs! I will not repent, even in my last moments.

I will not repent.

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This is a rather amusing device. Outlawed for about twenty five years now, I believe. It is incredible that people still manage to find these artifacts. Even more incredible that they think we won’t find them.

Resolve is an unusual thing. Even when we are determined to hold our beliefs, if we are subjected to some physical and mental... persuasion, repentance is inevitable. I don’t know why she seemed so proud of her isolation, anyway. If she had allowed the light of God to fill her soul, glorious happiness would have followed. She would have been part of a greater Being.

I really cannot comprehend it. How could anyone deny the embrace of our Almighty Creator? To resist is futility itself. Ah well. He is inflicting his punishment on her now.

For even though she did repent in the end, it was only with our coercion. She would have corrupted others with her forbidden thoughts, foul temptress of the devil.

I will not destroy this device, even though regulation demands it. I will put it back in its place under the floorboards. Maybe another subversive thinker will find it.

If you are another, then I give you this message. Remember Leslie Grant. She said that she would die for her beliefs, but in her last moments, she shrieked the praises of Our Lord.

Let her be an example of what will happen to you.

Okay, this is a preview of my NaNoWriMo for 2008. Well, this is a story set in the world of it, anyway. I'm starting my planning now, and thought the best way to get going would be to immerse myself in the world completely. It might actually play a role in the story, we'll see.