I cough as dust flies through the air and into my throat. Everything was smoke-infested and dirty nowadays. After our new, foolish leader decided the best way to govern our world was banning us from doing basically anything. I stalk down the street—as for cars were banned—as I clench my fists tightly to my sides, my destroyed winter boots clunking against the cracked pavement.

There were many people everyday that were taken by the government for simply existing. The dark, ominous trucks cruising down the streets, the tinted windows showing absolutely nothing on the insides of these trucks. I knew the people behind them were from the government, scanning for anyone who simply breathed wrong.

There were no longer innocent cars on the streets.

I keep my head down, my face covered with a shirt. Keeping my identity on the down-low was a common thing to do in these days. Only my boring, brown eyes showed. Thank goodness brown eyes were common, or else my identity would be easy to find.

It was too easy to do something wrong.

I hear the smooth sound of tires on the road and I continue walking towards my desolate house. Multiple symbols and posters were slapped on the siding of my run-down home. The government had done this to almost every house, almost to remind us of our upmost doom. Leaving wasn’t allowed either. The walls surrounding this hell were tall and guarded by the most trained military I had ever heard of.

“You there. Stop walking!” A sharp voices calls out from the dark truck driving down the road. I stop dead in my tracks, clenching my fists so prevent them from shaking.

I pivot to face them, thankful for my common eye color and covered face. “Yes?” I say in the most polite voice I could speak.

“Why, you’re rather young,” the person notices.

Shit, shit, shit. They knew I was young. If I let them examine the very few features they could see of my much longer, they would take me away.

I say nothing.

                                           ***

Years later, that awful leader’s term ends. The weight of the announcement that our rights were back releases itself off of my shoulders. But I would never be the same. I still feared walking down the street, I still tried to cover my face up with a shirt before stopping myself. I still cringed every time I saw any symbol remotely close to the one that foolish man coined. Everything had changed, but I felt optimistic. I knew that our new leader was also affected deeply by the last leader, and would do everything in their power to make sure someone who was that evil never stepped foot on that podium in the middle of our town. I was no longer trapped under his leadership. So I held my head high as I stuffed the shirt I usually used to cover my face back in my dresser, and stepped into the outside, the cold stinging my face. I look at the sunrise and see something amazing.. Hope was on the horizon.