Chapter 2: Before the Silence
Three years before he vanished, Miles Wilson was just another face in a crowded lecture hall.
He sat in the back row of Greenbridge University, notebook open, pen still, eyes sharp. Around him, students scrolled through phones, half-listening to a guest speaker drone on about "democratic resilience." Miles wasn't buying any of it.
Not in Zundaria.
Not where justice had a price tag and silence had a purpose.
The professor paused mid-sentence. "Mr. Wilson," he said, adjusting his glasses, "you seem unconvinced."
Miles leaned forward. "You're talking about democracy like it's working. But it's not. Not here."
The room went quiet.
"Would you care to explain?" the professor asked.
Miles stood.
"Our president hasn't debated a political opponent in ten years. Judges are handpicked. Protesters disappear. And we still call this a democracy because we vote every four years?" He looked around the room. "Voting doesn't make us free. Speaking truth does. And we've been taught to fear that."
A few students clapped — quietly, nervously. Most just stared.
It wasn't the first time Miles had spoken up. But it was the first time someone was listening.
---
Later that week, he found a note taped to his dorm door.
> "You're not alone. We've been waiting for someone like you."
— J.C.
The next night, he met James Carter in the basement of an old bookstore downtown. James was older, sharper, and already well-connected with student unions and underground journalists.
"People are angry," James said. "But they're disorganized. Afraid. You? You speak like someone who knows where we're headed."
"I don't want to lead anything," Miles replied.
"You're not," James said. "You're just going to speak. The rest will follow."
---
Over the next year, Miles gave lectures in secret, using abandoned buildings and encrypted livestreams. He documented missing persons cases, corruption scandals, and election fraud.
The movement started with seven students. Then thirty. Then thousands.
What they lacked in weapons, they made up for in truth.
One video — just one — pushed it all over the edge.
In it, Miles held up a photo of a ten-year-old boy, detained for spray-painting a protest symbol. The boy never made it out of custody.
> "This country silences children," Miles said into the camera. "Tell me again how we're free."
The clip went viral.
By the end of that week, Greenbridge University was shut down. Several students were arrested. A warning was sent to Miles: Leave the capital. Now.
He didn't.
Instead, he went live again.
> "I will not be silent because they told me to be. I will be silent when I have nothing left to say. And I am not done."
---
In the months that followed, the resistance grew into a storm.
People who had never voted began marching. Retired journalists came out of hiding. A nationwide strike brought fuel production to a halt. Cities lit up with the sound of truth.
But the government was watching. Listening. Waiting.
And they would soon remind everyone just how far they'd go to keep Zundaria quiet.