Before

She’d had a family. Before.

Her husband with unerring patience, a man who radiated warmth like the sun, who straightened her corners and kept her from trouble. Their daughter, a wicked dance with nitroglycerin in the form of a child, tight curls always moving, laughter ringing out from her lips day and night.

If she closed her eyes, she could feel the warmth. She could still hear the laughter. But eventually it always faded into just ringing.

Her breath hitched as the trailer caught a bump. Maybe a pothole. Hopefully a pothole. Her eyes strained in the darkness, trying to get some sense of what time it was or where they were heading. Not that it mattered. Her fate was the same whether the setting was the ocean or the mountains - but it’d be nice to meet her end closer to home.

She settled back down eventually, back leaning against the cool metal side of her prison. She closed her eyes and pretended she was in a car with her family, on their way to a much needed vacation. Maybe the beach, where they could sit in the sand and feel the cool wind in their hair, the smell of the sea breeze mingling with the sunscreen slathered on their skin. Her husband would watch, eyes twinkling, as she and their daughter twirled in the sand. As they thanked the world for welcoming them and expressed it in dance, her daughter’s laughter harmonizing with the sounds of the world that used to belong to them.

Idly, her fingers wandered to the heart-shaped locket around her neck, squeezing the cold metal in her palm. It didn’t feel like she’d lost them that long ago. Like she could still feel a hand on the small of her back or tiny fingers laced within her own. But somehow, that was still all Before.

Now she could remember the warmth of her husband’s embrace but in the same way that she remembered the warmth of the sun, the days since she’d felt both fading into Before. Before, when she’d had a house with room for a garden, when that garden had the luxury of growing flowers. She could remember the meals she’d made, like a photograph in her mind - the colors, the textures, but never the smells, the tastes. They had all long since been replaced, forgotten. But in times like this, it helped to remember Before.

Before they’d stormed the town with guns and tanks and unwavering force. Before the drought and famine, before the heat drove them underground, before her life was all short bursts of light and adrenaline keeping her alive. Before she knew that there was nothing left fighting for. Before the world ended for the second time.

She didn’t regret what she’d done. If she could do it all again, she would. She’d die a thousand deaths, over and over, face the apocalypse a thousand times. They’d taken everything from her already. By that point, all she had was giving. She’d given it all for food, for justice, for a chance at reclaiming their lives. If given the choice, she’d give it all again.

The trailer stopped, and she tried to imagine the sound of her husband’s voice, chest aching at the fact that she couldn’t quite hear it anymore. We’re here, he said in her head. When the door rolled up, exposing her to the setting sun and sending her eyes squinting against the form that had freed her, she could almost believe that the dark figure was him. She rose to her feet to meet him, refusing to cower, refusing fear. No. She chose Before and could almost hear her daughter laughing. Come on, Mom. A new adventure. Another day together.

She was pulled from the trailer by her arm with chains still dragging behind her, connected at her ankles. She tried to smell the sea breezes. She tried to remember what sunscreen felt like. Would it be cold, when her husband rubbed into her back? That seemed right. His palms would soothe the icy feeling soon after. As the ragged clothes were cut from her body, she refused to let her cheeks burn, refused to cover up even as she was redressed in a prisoner's smock. She was getting changed into a swimsuit. She was removing the cover-up from her body to embrace the sun.

She didn’t open her eyes fully until they removed the light chain from around her neck and replaced it with a rope. “Wait,” she said suddenly, forcefully, so much so that the man beside her tensed as though she were a bear waking early from its hibernation and not a woman with no fight left to give. She looked pointedly at the hand clutching her necklace. “I just want to see inside of it.” There was a moment of silence, her humanity unprecedented. “Please.”

He took another moment, moving hesitantly, before obliging, prying the metal open with no care for the trinket. It was of no consequence to her, as long as she could see what was inside - her daughter’s smiling face, several front teeth missing, the rest bright in contrast to her sun-loved skin. She took in every detail she could - every curl, every freckle, every wrinkle in the fabric of her shirt - until the image was distorted by tears that fell quietly down her cheeks.

She gasped suddenly against her tears, shoulders shaking as the man forced the locket into her hand. He didn’t say a word or make a sound, avoiding eye contact as he grabbed her arm once more and led her to the gallows.

It was then that sobs rocked her body, anguished cries rising over the voice of the man now reading her crimes to the raucous crowd. Treason against the Supreme Leader. Conspiracy to commit treasonous acts. Theft of essential goods. Misuse of government rationed water. The more they read, the harder she sobbed, baring her heart to the present, hoping to be heard. Hoping she'd made any difference at all. In her hand, she grasped the locket like a life force.

Drums took the place of the executioner's even-cadenced voice, and the man beside her grabbed the rope and left her side, leaving her alone on the platform. At long last, the setting sun hit her back, and her cries hitched. She could feel her husband’s hand again. She could hear her daughter’s laughter.

She stared down at the locket in her hand, the latch broken so that she was able to once more see her daughter’s face. How she had her father’s eyes. How she carried the sun in the same way he had. They were both there with her now, caressing her lower back, entwining their fingers in with hers.

And there they stayed as the floor gave way beneath her, and they guided her once more into Before.