Dreamcatcher & Whistleblower (Part 2)

Once again, we had gathered minutes after the writer had done the work, since the paint was dripping off the 'u' and 'o'. I stood there, paralyzed by anxiety and wonder, shivering in the cool evening wind. Before the crowd around me could think of a sound theory on what the 'truth' could be, a man who traded on the stall next to me nudged me lightly, and pointed to the increasing number of Daraalis men appearing on the edges of the small plaza in front of the Temple. I nodded at him, and warned the others. Without rushing, without panic, we began to dissipate, diving into the shadows so that the guards wouldn't see our faces. In a matter of hours, the whole city knew about the new message. We all wondered what the Dreamcatcher meant, since truth has a different meaning to everyone. We all prayed we'd find out soon enough what the 'truth' meant to the writer.

To me it seemed the whole city was in emotional turmoil, all were excited and hopeful, even somewhat scared for the fate of someone they did not know. It was all very intriguing indeed. Those are the memories in occupation that I cherish most, that I consider most heartwarming. It wouldn't be long until hell rose up to Earth. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Fortunately and surprisingly, the Daraalis paid no attention to the writings, because they probably did not consider them important enough. Not yet, anyway. The Dreamcatcher did not give them reason to worry, and thus we could talk about him/her amongst ourselves, of course thinking up many theories both about the identity of the writer and the message's true meaning. I would often talk about the subject with my best friend from childhood, a funny little man called Alexis. One clear night, he stumbled across my threshold with an intriguing discovery. His bright eyes shone with determination from underneath his messy hair, his energy always seemed limitless and unlike me, he never lost hope.

He told me the Dreamcatcher was not working alone. The one who wrote the first message wrote 'artistically', curvy and in large letters. The second message was obviously trying to imitate the first, but the second writer's hand was more concise, sharper letters and more clustered together. Finally, he said, that the symbol nonetheless was drawn by the same person. His theory was later proven to be very true indeed.

On the third arrival of the unknown writers, the crowd was larger than ever before, and a melody of voices filled the evening air, though it was forbidden to gather in such numbers. The moonlight glistened in the pools of water on the ground from recent rain, and helped illumenate yet another message on the Temple Wall. Under the familiar dreamcatcher symbol, were two inscriptions, now obviously written by two different people. The lines were large, as if the writers were more confident in themselves. The dripping letters showed words of warning:

Just below the inscriptions, there was something pinned to the wall, a poster of some sort. I struggled to get to the front of the crowd to see it... I don't remember wanting something so much as to see that piece of paper, but I was far too small and weak to push through the wall of bodies before me. Moreover, the night was suddenly illumenated by fire as Daraalis men approached us with flaming torches. They penetrated the crowd, shoving us all into different directions, waving fire in our faces. They were so strong, one of them pushed me aside with such force that my stomach would hurt until the next day... The poster was immediately burned, and the ash that remained was carried away by the wind and thrusted into the ground by Daraali heavy feet. Any one of us who screamed or resisted was beaten with a sword handle until unconcious. Silence resumed, but now one of paralytic fear, not wonder and awe. Nobody spoke when we finally headed to our homes. The next morning I awoke to the sound of a building crumbling down.

The Temple of the Three, our city's pride and place of worship had been reduced to a pile of dusty rubble and then nothing. Nobody spoke of it. Nobody dared.

That night we were shown that the Daraalis would use brute force against us. Nobody wanted to push them further. The destruction of our sacred shrine offended us to the very core, but fear was stronger. We got on with our daily routine, living our dictated lies. I often wondered whether that night, the two writers made a mistake of sounding too threatening. I now think, what would have happened if they hadn't written anything that night? Would the Daraalis unleash hell on us either way? Well, I guess it's too late and useless to think these things now...

From that day onwards, our lives in relative isolation from our captors was over. That day, the first public execution of many took place, on a Saturday. The event was compulsory. We watched, and felt our excited hopes and desires for action reduce themselves to silent thoughts, creeping away into the back of our minds. Many cried. All turned away from the sign of a dreamcatcher painted with blood of the executed. This time, the Daraalis were sending a message to us, in the clearest and most cruel way possible. I wondered whether the Daraalis were human at all, since I could not comprehend how a human could commit such atrocities. I still do, in fact, after all this time. It's a defence mechanism to keep ourselves sane, I guess.

Dear reader, I pray that you will never feel the horror I felt that day - the helplessness, the sinking feeling as if there were stones around my neck and within my bones. There weren't even tears left to cry, and only dryness was stuck in my throat. I did not feel the desire to carry on living in such a world. Worst of all was that their message was through, and the Dreamcatcher disappeared. The Daraalis were successful in scaring the writer into silence. Since then, many had said the Dreamcatcher was dead, that the enemy found him/her and put a knife through the heart of our hopes. Believe me, that is not true. Now with hindsight, the Dreamcatcher was far from dead, and though scared to the core, eventually helped me and us all believe in a chance to be free again.

Though the Dreamcatcher faded from the scenes, the second writer did not. He or she was later named, as you might have already guessed, the Whistleblower. Before I go on to tell you about the second writer, I must say that much speculation has occurred on the subject of the two writer's identities. That question now worried not only us, but the Daraalis, and all were incredibly eager to know the answer. I have my own theory, of course, which I may reveal later... Some think they are a man and woman, some that they are two brothers or two sisters. Some even thought it was one person with a split personality.

Discussion on the subject is rather interesting, but I do not personally care much of what gender they are, but rather what they are as human beings. I know this much: the Dreamcatcher wrote the first message and part of the third, is careful and artistic, idealistic maybe, potentially not as brave as his/her associate. The Dreamcatcher seeked to inspire thought and emotion in individuals, whilst the Whistleblower presented the raw facts, and was much more open about the atrocities of our 'masters'. I often thought the Dreamcatcher did not lose hope in humanity yet, and searched for a piece of righteousness within our hearts. The Whistleblower cared less for emotion, rather for exposure and revelation of the truth and not more. The second writer was always the much more mysterious one, giving us little to judge about character.