"Men are working the entire day like slaves just to die of hunger in the streets!

Children who have barely grown enough to be called adults are being shot for begging mercy from the king!

Women are losing their sons to hunger and disease like never before!"

And you just watched it all happen to this day!

"We are being stripped of our lives while the selfish nobles are eating the best meat there is inside their homes, warmed by a fireplace we could only dream to have!"

And aren't you doing the same thing at your home?

"Where are our rights to live? Tell me, people! Where is our freedom to choose both our family and the bread at night?"

Are you not ashamed of putting yourself beside those people when you clearly have that freedom?

"I ask of you! Why can't you? You can, right?"

I'm sure you also could truly help instead of telling them all to die!

"Who's blocking you?"

Julie was inside a room on the second floor of the house, sitting in a chair and writing another random story. The room, as always, insisted in being a mirror of itself the best it could, leaving a drawer on the corner of the room opposite from her's that, with a poor glance, looked just like the desk she was in.

She pressed her temples while trying to put that sudden, twisted inspiration aside. Her drive as a writer working against her and pleading for her hands to imprint all her emotions on the paper so that they could spread to the world, telling to everyone about her suffering.

She knew pretty well who that line of thought belonged to. That speech belonged to her husband, it was a memory to an already deceased noble, who tried to start an uprising by himself after coming to the conclusion that the king's presence would only further damage the country, one of many.

Julie was also conscious that something was hurting Andrew, not to the level of suicidal depression - not yet, at least -, but slowly tiring and stressing him out. She discovered it right after this damn uprising started, he would sometimes enter the room she was in with a distant look as if trying to jump straight to another planet without thinking twice.

She thought, at first, that it was because he was tired of work, but him focusing solely on the uprising, together with that rekindled face he made everytime seeing her and Anna said otherwise. When seeing them, Andrew looked like someone who found meaning in life after almost killing himself, it looked like without them both in this world, there was little reason for him to be there too, that scared Julie.

She was scared that he would stop caring about them both and outright end his life, scared that if something happened to her or her daughter, it would take Andrew with them. She was selfish alright! But did she not have the right to live a happy life with her family, with the two she loved the most?

But she was also thankful for Andrew, thankful that he, although determined to end the uprising that was causing all this damage to him, was taking all the time he could and spending it with them. Thankful that his expectation and reliance towards her company was, at the very least, maintaining his sanity.

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Now that Julie thought about it, she was always weak with expectations, trying to prove to her parents that they could trust her to make a perfect job with whatever they threw at her. And now, she was getting even weaker, as if the need her husband had for her company was spreading to her, and now, she was already missing him. God, she was weak to expectations.

Her drive to write disappeared along with Andrew's speech. She got up from the chair, stared at the paper with only a handful words written on it for a few seconds before leaving the room. Andrew should be done talking with Trevor, his father, she would simply wait for him on the side of the room.

Not long after, she reached the room Andrew and Trevor were in. Same old door with the same old decorations, the meaning of diversity seems to be foreign to the mind of the founder of the mansion. She almost opened the doorknob by reflex but was reminded not to just before touching it by the voices inside.

Julie decided to sit quietly by the side until they finished, the sound of two people arguing could barely pass through the door, so she waited while ignoring her ever increasing curiosity. Not much time later and Trevor came out of the room, even with his almost gray hair and small wrinkles he still seemed close in appearance to his son, it also didn't look like he noticed her when he left without looking back. Julie stood there, looking at him leaving, the man's back seemed as tall as a mountain, straight as the most perfect of roads, the man was filled with unwavering determination and will to risk everything he once had just to achieve a little more.

She came out of her trance after the scream of her husband echoed through the floor accompanied by the sound of metal clattering to the ground.

"DAMMIT!"

Her body froze in place as the cry seemed to slither through her spine, reaching all the way till her ears.

'What happened?'

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"What are you saying, father? Those people are thinking only about taking the opportunity in the most gluttonous of ways, it won't be long before they are found guilty! If you are seen as an accomplice of theirs what do you think it's going to happen?" Andrew snapped, the new workings of the kingdom were still fresh in his mind, far too many examples for him to not know. Now his father was showing this little consideration towards this unstable situation, he didn't know what to think.

"The decision has already been made." Said Trevor "This is the chance for our family to rise once more! Are really willing to stop this because of fear, of cowardice?"

"It's not about fear when things are bound to fail before they start, doing what you're doing now is wrong. What is your problem?" Was Andrew's answer.

"My problem? I'm seeing things how they are! We are just one small step away from prominence, just a few months away from being one of the most successful families of merchants right after this damn crisis, this is where we need to stand. Why do you deny?"

"Did you forget with who the power of the country really rests? What will be of us if you're caught? We will die because of your decision!" Andrew did his best to argue with reason but his father didn't seem to care about the true danger.

"With how you are thinking, our family will never come back to its feet." Trevor turned, opened the door and simply left. Andrew looked at his father leaving, his throat stuck with the words he was not given time to say. "With how you are acting, our family will be buried before long." They echoed in his mind, much like the voices of when he was seeing illusions, but much more solid than it.

And when was far away from the room, his emotions came punching. Like a giant wave assaulting the coast, his mind suffered from the anger of not having things go the right way and insecurity of not being able to change anything.

'Merchants can be just like nobles if given the chance, how could I not think of this before?' He thought as he saw the candlestick at the table in the center of the room, right beside him. Emotion took over, Andrew felt like he was unconscious for an instant, his arm swiping the candlestick to the ground as he screamed at the top of his lungs. Almost praying for the shout to cleanse his heart from the frustration while letting his unstable mood correct his previous beliefs.

"DAMMIT!"

Something was wrong with the world. But what exactly was it? And how could he fix it?