Freedom or Fire?

London Waterloo, 10 am, New Year's Eve, 2049

On the final day of 2049, a 45-year-old Anglo-African woman weaves through the crowd at London Waterloo, her eyes darting nervously. She sinks onto a bench beside an older Caucasian man, tears spilling as the clock strikes 10:30. She mutters, 'Sorry,' over and over, rising unsteadily. Her hand trembles as she pulls a gun from her coat pocket, the cold metal glinting under the station lights. Tears and sweat streak her face as passersby freeze, their conversations fading into horrified silence. Her fingers tighten around the cold metal. She thinks of her son—gone, taken by the UWO for questioning two years ago. She pictures his smile and how he laughed at her bad jokes. The tears come faster now, but her resolve doesn’t waver. "This is your fault, freedom or fire" are the last sad, fearful, but defiant words to leave her mouth before she pulls the trigger.

“Why do we care about the actions of one stupid woman on the last day of last year?” asked the suited man in charge.

“Sir, it's not just one stupid woman, though. It's more complicated. There have been—other incidents—” replied the other suited man holding a tablet and controlling the screen they were viewing.

“What other incidents?” asked the General, looking up from his computer for the first time.

“Beijing South Station, 10 am, New Year's Eve, 2049

A 22-year-old Chinese college student walked into Beijing South and followed the same pattern, crying, saying sorry and before blowing his brains out, saying, 'This is your fault, freedom or fire?'" replied the other.

So, two lunatics on opposite sides of the globe. A bizarre coincidence, but hardly a crisis,” the General said, dismissive.

“With all due respect, sir, it’s not just two.” The man with the tablet didn’t wait for permission to continue. “Milan Centrale. Grand Central. Sydney. Buenos Aires. Johannesburg. Tokyo. Same words. Same deaths. Same time.”

The General’s brow furrowed. “So...not a coincidence.”

#

January 28th, 2050, at the UWO Monthly Public Trial and Execution of Freedom Fighters

"Ladies and gentlemen of our good nation, we have finally caught and apprehended a lethal insurgent who has been hellbent on dismantling the calm and stable environment you all love. We even have intel that suggests he was the mastermind behind the "fake suicides" of New Year's Eve."

"Please stand and face up to your actions."

A man with a bag on his head stands up as the crowd jeers. As the bag lifts, he smiles confidently. Looking at the man with the mic, he grins. "Something funny, terrorist?" the man with the mic, chairing the monthly event, asks.

“You think you’ve won? Do you think your version of freedom is true? This trial, the suicides, my death—they’re just the spark. The fire will spread. It will consume your lies, your control, your fake peace. True freedom will rise from the ashes. A martyr’s death fuels the fight more than the chains of submission ever could. Freedom or fire.”

#

Although shocked to its core, the world should have known something would happen, that there would be some pushback, eventually.

2050 was a nice landmark time for it to happen. Since 2025, there has been subtle, gradual criminalisation and elimination of the word "freedom" from the worldwide lexicon and the concept. Unless it was the kind of freedom that the governments pushed.

They had their people's best interests in mind when they established the new Unified World Order that saw the ceasefire of wars and disputes by changing and bastardising what freedom meant. Why resist or push back or even debate and protest a government that has done so much good? In the eyes of the UWO, it is the true saviour. The economy is stable worldwide; there is a greater sense of peace or at least movements towards worldwide peace. Boardroom discussions behind closed doors have replaced rebel fighters and cruel regimes trading shell fire through towns and cities.

All good, you’d think. I’d always been a sceptic, a quiet dissenter. But even I couldn’t resist the UWO’s honeyed words and glittering promises of a paradise that never existed. By the time I realised what we’d traded for their version of peace, it was too late—my brother disappeared, my daughter stopped asking ‘why,’ and I was left shouting into a void. An inclusive and submissive population becomes inevitable without freedom of expression—the right to question, argue, or even offend. As Orwell wrote, 'If liberty means anything, it is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.' That truth was lost, buried beneath the UWO’s narrative of righteousness. The mass book burning of the 2030s helped.

Looking back, we should have paid more attention to what was happening. The loss of freedom to think for ourselves, as flawed as sometimes can be, was more significant than most anticipated.

Even the public executions, a thing long resigned to the past, became a pivotal part of the UWO's brand of justice and how they represented the people. Two-fold, it served as a warning to any would-be freedom fighters and a way to make people feel like their rights were under protection and the average Joe citizen was part of the process. Inclusion. We all want it and need it, don't we? But when is the cost of inclusion too high?

The powers that be did more than silence dissenters; they made them selfish pariahs against peace. To question the UWO’s methods was to endanger the collective good. Debate became exclusionary. Protest was a violent act. The language of unity was their weapon, and we wielded it against ourselves.

Before long, as the world's governments unified and concentrated on solving many of the world's problems, controlling the general population became easier. The smokescreen allowed them to dismantle everything we had previously enjoyed as humans systematically. With the power of the Internet and technologically advanced algorithms and tracking software, nothing was secret to the ruling classes. It was for our safety, and to their credit, they backed it up and sold those ribbon-clad packaged lies.

An omnipresent network of AI systems monitored every citizen’s thoughts and movements, which meant they didn’t just punish disloyalty to the state but would predict it.

By 2035, the UWO had replaced entire dictionaries with censored editions. Words like ‘revolution’ and ‘resistance’ were erased, their meanings forgotten.

Uncertainty surrounded the idea of public trials at first. But the UWO silenced doubts with a clever move: they began with a universally despised criminal—a known paedophile.

The trial was a spectacle. Crowds jeered in support of the UWO’s brand of justice. Soon, the executions became monthly events. Child molesters, serial rapists—the first ten trials cemented public support. By the eleventh, no one questioned the system anymore.

#

As the executioner unsheathed his blade, the insurgent locked eyes with him, unflinching. “It won’t end with me,” he said, his voice a low, defiant growl. The executioner hesitated for half a second before regaining his composure. The blade gleamed under the harsh lights as it sliced cleanly through the insurgent’s neck. His head hit the stage with a sickening thud, blood pooling at the feet of the crowd. For a moment, there was only stunned silence.

Then, a murmur rippled through the crowd—uneasy, uncertain. A single voice shouted, ‘Freedom or Fire!’ Others began to hesitate and glance at one another, fear etched on their faces. Then, as if a dam had broken, the chant roared to life, a collective memory of freedom and resistance rising from the ashes. The chant grew louder, an unstoppable tide, as if centuries of fear and silence were dissipating. The UWO had ruled by silencing hope. But hope, once ignited, is impossible to extinguish. ‘Freedom or Fire!’ The chant caught like wildfire, consuming the silence. I had thought hope was gone for good, that people would never rise again. But as the chant swelled, I realised how wrong I was. Hope hadn’t died—it had just been waiting.

Hope, once extinguished, had reignited—and this time, it would burn brighter than ever.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: There is always hope. This is story was taken from some of the bones of a long-put-off idea I've had for about a year. Although it can be read as a standalone, I wrote a piece that acts as a prelude to the above. You can read that by following the link below. Aside from the Orwell references, I took inspiration from these three songs by the band Fear Factory. In addition to one providing the title, they are all about fighting back against oppressive ruling powers.

There is also a fun little Easter egg in this story that is personal to me. Although there are no prizes, I will be mildly impressed if someone knows it or picks up on it.