~?~
“Ever since my grandpa was a child, he was adventurous. It just started with him taking pictures of the places he visited, and going to great extents to take these photos. The older he got, the more freedom he got from his parents. But, by the time he was sixteen, laws were put in place in his hometown to keep people all the same. Everybody had to look the same, everybody earned the same wage, learned the same thing in school for their age, even got the same scores on assignments. The thing that made it so much worse, was that no one could leave the city, so everyone could have the same experiences. So someone couldn't brag about climbing a mountain or going kayaking on a lake somewhere far away, and someone else becoming jealous because they did not know what that feeling was.

“Just two years later, when he was eighteen he started an organization that he called FFTP, or Freedom For The People, that's sole purpose was to let people express themselves and go wherever they wanted to. The once rich and famous people were all for it because they might begin to earn more money and be treated as more important and live in a bigger house. At the same time, the normal people were all for it, even though they didn’t have much to gain by it, some might even lose some of what they had, but everyone wanted their freedom back. The biggest reason everyone was for this was that the government officials were all richer, with bigger houses, wages, nicer clothing, and cars. Overall, everything they had was bigger, nicer, and more expensive.

“During this time, my grandpa met my grandma, someone I don't know all that much about, but I heard many great things about her. Apparently, she was the nicest soul on Earth. Anytime anyone needed something, they could go to her. She wouldn't even kill a fly that had gotten into their house but would help it get back outside. That was apparently why my grandpa fell in love with my grandma. Since my grandpa was just barely nineteen, my grandma being eighteen, they were both a little reckless. They snuck out over the confining walls of the city and traveled to a lake nearby in the mountains. There and then my grandpa proposed. He knew at that moment that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Not only that, but they got married the day after in a neighboring city. One without strict rules and laws. It was there they stayed for their honeymoon, completely oblivious to what was happening in their hometown.

    “My grandparents had left the care of the FFTP in the hands of my grandpa’s best friend who was, shall I say, in no way capable of running a colossal organization full of thousands of people. While he was trying to be a good team leader, the government, being as big as they were, were planning to take down this organization that was big enough to oppose them. My grandpa’s best friend was not street smart, or of physical strength. In fact, I think you could describe him as scrawny. Many of the members of the FFTP decided to wait until my grandpa got back from his trip to do anything, leaving the organization down men and in a weak state.  Since there was a weakness in the organization my grandparents had put so much time and effort into, the government decided to attack them right then.

~?~

    “When my grandparents got back, not only did they find the organization in shambles, but my grandpa’s best friend lying dead on the ground with bullet holes riddled through his corpse, with other people that were part of the organization killed too lying around him. They all had the same message, that these people had betrayed the government and deserved to die in that right. He was filled with so much rage, and anger that came from the deepest, darkest pits of his heart, that he had never felt before in his life. Something he believed would stay in his heart forever.

    “My grandpa wanted revenge, but deep down, he was still the same guy that he once was before, because he didn’t want to hurt anyone in the process. At the same time, he was so caught up in his plotting to get back at the government, that his wife never had time to tell him that she had been four months pregnant, ever since their honeymoon. Their soon to be a baby girl would be a happy bundle of joy for both father and mother.

    “My grandpa’s plan was to take the five government representatives hostage, make the government give back what they had taken from them, not only their freedom, but he wanted his best friend back. Take in mind, he was nineteen, and adolescent and arrogant teenager. His wife tried to convince him there was no way his best friend was ever coming back, but as you probably know, many teenage boys don’t listen. With his team of men, my grandpa went after these five men, but the men he went with had known the men that got killed. They wanted revenge more than my grandpa did, but not on the government.

    “After four and a half month of planning, they began to get into their positions, ready to fight their way through bodyguards to get to these men. Their plan finally in action, and the trap about to be sprung. The team of men my grandpa had with him had a different plan, because not only were they mad at the government, but mad at my grandpa, for leaving the organization in a weak state for something as simple as a girl. My grandpa hid behind a dumpster, ready to jump out and catch these representatives, but by the time he had jumped out, all of the representatives were dead, and his team of men nowhere in sight. Leaving him to take all the blame for these guys that just got killed. He ran, not knowing what else to do, and all the police saw was the back of my grandpa’s head disappearing around a corner as he ran for his life, from a crime he didn’t commit.

    “As my grandpa got back to the FFTP hideout, my grandmother was going into labor, with a beautiful baby girl they would later name Amelia, who if you have not figured out by now, is my mother. Since my grandpa had no idea she existed, he couldn’t really help pick out the name. Before he walked into that room, his heart was slowly darkening because of all of the hatred he was building up after what had happened. But, as soon as he walked into that room, and saw his newborn daughter for the first time, all of those emotions left him, and what was left was the urge to protect and love this new life that he was now responsible for.

“Something clicked in my grandpa’s head that reminded him who he was, someone carefree and adventurous, and all he wanted to do was share that with his new little girl. He held her and cradled her and completely forgot about the rest of the world. All that was left was him, his beautiful wife, and his newborn daughter. The next day would challenge my grandpa more than when his best friend died, or when he was framed for murder because it was the day my grandma died.

~?~

    “It started like any day would for a happy couple and their newborn daughter, with happy relatives and friends cooing over their precious baby girl. They were completely oblivious to the pandemonium going on in the government, the government freaking out about their representatives killed last night when heading home from work. I’m pretty sure my grandpa even forgot about what happened the night before, about the framing and murder.

    “As the sky outside got brighter, the lovely couple decided to take a stroll outside and into the town center, where there were shops, libraries, and parks. They dreamed of their new life that was ahead of them, about bringing their daughter to the parks in the center of the city, or reading her books they got from the library. My grandpa even pictured them exploring outside the confines of the city together, sneaking out over the walls of the city every other week to go on a new adventure.

    “But, as my grandparents would soon find out, the FFTP was nothing more than an organization that was intent on killing people, and anyone associated with them would be considered murderers, or so said the government. My grandparents didn’t know they were in danger at the time because the announcement was made while they were away. There were some points where they even walked past TV screens that were in windows, that
displayed this news. People would shut their blinds as my grandparents walked by, but they were to caught up in their daydream to notice any of what was going on around them.

    “Maybe if my grandparents had their precious baby girl a day earlier, and had their wits about them, I would be living in a warm comforting house, with both of my grandparents, my mom and dad, and who knows, I might have even had siblings, aunts, or uncles. They would have noticed the cops sneaking up on them as they climbed the steps of the city hall. Or they would have seen people looking out from in between their curtains, waiting for one of the officers to pull their trigger. And maybe, they would have seen their fellow FFTP, or the Mafia, as it was soon to be known as, being taken to a police station just a couple hundred yards away.

    “All the government knew about this organization at this point, was that it was lead by my grandpa. The mayor of today, who was only a small boy, about the age of 3, watched out his window from across the street, as a friendly looking couple was walking up the steps towards their impending downfall. He was smart for his age, but even he didn't realize exactly what his father had in mind for these so-called traitors. The last thing he heard as his mother brought him away from the window was the ring of a gunshot being fired.

    “The first gunshot my grandpa heard, left him in shock because he had completely forgotten about everything else that had happened before his daughter was born. When the second was fired, he snapped out of whatever it was he was in and tried his hardest to protect his wife. They sped around the corner of the building, but the cops had seen something that my grandpa had yet to realize. What they saw was a bullet wound going straight through my grandmother’s chest, as she limped forward, trying to keep up with her husband. They realized they had already won the battle.

“By the time my grandpa had let them stop to breathe, my grandmother was already slowing losing the life in her eyes. At the same time, my grandpa turned around to see his wife, a third of the family he so dearly loved, crumpling to the ground. He ran up to her cradling her head in his lap, but he couldn’t find any words, only the tears coming down from his face expressed how he felt in that moment. The one thing my grandpa did tell me about that day was the promise he made to his wife, one that he would protect with his life. A promise to protect their daughter at all costs.

“As my grandmother said her final words, the light that once shined so brightly in her eyes slowly faded. From the outside, someone looking at them from a distance, it would only seem as though two teenagers were lying there staring at each other lovingly. Not that a twenty-year-old kid, in the prime of his life, had lost the love of his life in an alleyway. Making a promise that he would do everything in his power to protect their only child, an infant who had barely been born less than twenty-four hours ago. He stayed there for hours, crying, curled up next to my grandmother, until one of the other members of the organization who were looking for them, found him asleep in the alleyway, curled up next to my grandmother, his face still red with tears. Till this day, my grandfather did everything in his willpower to protect my mother, because all that was left of the love of his life was the child that she had given birth to the day before she died. “
~?~
    “My mother told me this story when I was a kid. Not as a way to make me fear the government, but as a reminder of our history, and as proof that even today, you have a chance to change your future.” I stood up, looking down at the two girls sitting on the couch in front of me. My two beautiful daughters.
    “Tell it again Daddy!” One said jumping up and down on the couch.
    “I can’t. Your mom would be furious. Now you two had better get to bed before your mom finds out I let you stay up past your bedtime.”
    The two girls rush down the hall to their bedrooms, and I would check on them in a minute. Turning around and looking outside, you could see all the changes that had been made. The walls were slowly being taken down, and there were more and more differences in the city being spotted as time went on. It wasn’t the same almost robotic looking city as it was before.
    Nearly ninety years after my grandpa had started his expedition, and here I am finishing it. If only he could see the progress I have made.
    “He would be proud,” I mumbled under my breath to myself as I set down the makeshift book my mother had made of the story for me when I was a child. I lifted up the only known picture of my grandparents to this day, one that is black and white, and one I kept next to the book. “But I am just getting started on his vision.”
~?~