The Last Witness

The wind whispered through the broken windows of the courthouse, carrying with it the scent of decay and dust. Once a place of justice and law, the structure now stood hollow, like the bones of a forgotten giant. Outside, the city of Dorne lay in ruins, the skyline jagged with the skeletal remains of buildings and the scorched silhouettes of war.

Inside, amid the silence, sat an old man. His name was Elias Graye, and he was the last witness.

The tribunal had once been held every week here, long before the Collapse. Elias remembered it clearly—the creak of leather shoes on polished floors, the murmurs of lawyers and clerks, the sharp clang of the judge’s gavel. He had once been a clerk himself, recording testimonies and decisions, a silent observer to the slow grind of justice.

Now, he was the only one left who remembered the trial that had changed everything.

It had been a trial not just of a man, but of a truth. The accused, Professor Alden Veck, had stood before the court with calm defiance, a brilliant mind condemned for unveiling a secret too dangerous to tolerate. He had discovered what the government had buried: that the energy crisis wasn’t accidental, that the wars which followed had been orchestrated to consolidate control, that the supposed salvation programs were designed only for the elite.

The evidence had been damning—videos, encrypted files, testimonies from insiders—but it had all been ruled inadmissible, destroyed, erased. The jury had been dismissed before deliberation. The outcome was predetermined.

Elias had seen the truth. He had held the files in his hands. And in that moment, he had made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life: he copied the data, buried it deep within a secure drive, and fled before the purges began.

Now, fifty years later, Elias sat in the same room where justice had been strangled, waiting for someone who might never come.

He’d sent the signal out a week ago—on the old emergency frequency that used to link the resistance cells. One last call, one last attempt to pass on what he knew.

The sun dipped behind the skyline, and Elias closed his eyes. Perhaps it was time to stop waiting. Maybe the world no longer needed his truth.

The door creaked.

He opened his eyes.

A figure stepped through the ruined threshold—tall, wrapped in a weather-beaten coat, face shadowed beneath a hood.

"You sent the signal," the figure said, voice muffled.

Elias nodded. "I did. I wasn’t sure anyone still listened."

The figure stepped closer, pulling back the hood. It was a woman—young, eyes sharp, shoulders burdened with the weight of survival. A faint scar ran along her jawline, a silent testament to the life she’d lived beyond the walls of Dorne.

"My name is Kael," she said. "I’m with the Archive."

Elias exhaled slowly. He had heard whispers of the Archive—wanderers who collected memories, records, anything that survived the Collapse. Most dismissed them as myth, scavengers of broken tales. But she was real.

"You came for the truth?" he asked.

Kael nodded. "The real story died with the old world. But we’re rebuilding. Not cities or machines—stories. We believe if we understand what happened, we might not repeat it."

Elias reached into his coat and pulled out a small data shard. It was wrapped in layers of insulated cloth, aged but intact.

"This has everything," he said. "Veck’s files, the court transcripts, the names of those who silenced him. It’s all there."

Kael took the shard with reverence. Her fingers trembled slightly as she held it, as if sensing the weight of history contained within.

"Why now?" she asked.

"Because I’m tired," Elias said, voice thin. "And because the truth doesn't belong to the dead. It belongs to the living."

Kael looked at him for a long moment. "Will you come with me? We have others—listeners, scribes, teachers. You’d be welcome."

Elias shook his head. "My place is here. Let the dead speak one last time through you."

She didn’t argue. Instead, she reached into her pack and handed him a small recorder. "Then leave your voice. Tell it in your own words."

And so Elias did. As the night deepened, he spoke of the days before the Collapse, of Veck and the trial, of fear and cowardice, and the choice he made to keep the truth alive, however faintly.

When he finished, Kael stood.

"Thank you," she said.

He smiled faintly. "Go. Before the city wakes."

She disappeared into the dawn, leaving Elias in the dim light of memory. He sat alone, the recorder silent in his lap.

Outside, the sky began to brighten, and for the first time in decades, Elias felt something shift in the air—not just wind or time, but hope.

He was the last witness. But not the last voice.