The sun came up the next day, but it did not feel warm or happy. It was a weak gray light that just showed how sad and miserable life of the people of all four kingdoms were become.
The deep aching hunger that everyone felt during the night was now a sharp a biting pain that would not go away.
The creepy quiet of the night was gone. It was replaced by a new, and even scarier sound: the sound of many soldiers marching together, their boots hitting the stone streets in a steady and scary rhythm.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was the sound of the new rules.
The first new rule of the day was announced when the sun was just peeking over the horizon. The people's faces became thin and their bodies became weak from hunger. And now they were forced out of their homes. They were made to stand in long silent lines in the town squares.
In front of them were big wagons. But the wagons were not filled with the delicious feasts the revolution had once promised. They were piled high with small, dark loaves of bread. The bread looked rough and did not smell very good.
Puppet soldiers with their sharp eyes and voices stood guard everywhere.
"The Revolution provides for you," one of the soldiers announced to the big quiet crowd in the city of Fresta. His voice was flat and had no feelings in it at all. "You will each get one loaf of bread. This is the food you are given for your service to our cause. You should be grateful for it. Do not ask for more you are not living alone in this kingdom there is also other people lives here you should also think about them."
A soldier walked down the line, placing one small loaf of bread into each person's shaky hands. The bread was heavy and cold. It was not a gift to help them live but it was a leash, like one you put on a dog. It was just enough food to keep their bodies from giving up completely. It was just enough energy so they could suffer through the next part of Imu's terrible plan.
The people did not say thank you. They held the bread like a scared animal holds its food. They hurried back to their dark, empty homes and ate it in just a few big, hungry bites. For a moment, the terrible pain in their stomachs got a little better. But that only made the hunger feel even worse when it came back a few minutes later.
But they have no idea that this bread was only the start of the day's horrors.
Before the last crumbs were even licked from their fingers, a new announcement was shouted in the streets. Men who used to be town criers now walked through the city, shouting the new rules in the same robot voices as the soldiers.
"A great honor is being given to your children" the voices echoed between the sad quiet buildings. "The future of our revolution lies is in the hands of the next generation. All children between the ages of Four and fourteen will now join the Revolutionary Youth Brigade. They will be taken to special camps to be trained. They will become the strongest and sharpest sword for the revolution. It is your job as good citizens to give them to us. If you resist and say that your child does not deserve a great future then, you are a threat to the revolution"
"Every Child has a future"
For the first time since the soldiers had turned into monsters the real panic exploded in the streets. The thick wall of quiet fear that had covered the kingdoms was shattered.
Mothers and fathers screamed. They ran to their homes and started pushing heavy furniture in front of their doors. They hid their sons and daughters in dark cellars, in dusty attics, and under loose floorboards. They prayed that the soldiers would not find them.
But it was no use. The puppet soldiers, who used to be their friends and neighbors knew every house and every family. They started to search. Their work was quiet organized and terrifying.
They came to the blacksmith's small, dark house. The blacksmith and his wife stood together, making a wall with their bodies in front of their little grandchild. She was the last piece of their son that they had left in the whole world. The little girl, her eyes as wide as void with fear and hid behind her grandmother's dress, peeking out at the two soldiers who stood in their doorway. One of the soldiers held a piece of paper with a list of names.
"By order of the revolution," the soldier said in his droning, empty voice. "This child will comes with us."
"No," the blacksmith's wife cried and her body shaking. She was not a strong woman but she stood like a strong shield. "No you cannot do this. You have taken everything else we had. Please, I am begging you, not her. She is all we have left."
The soldier's face was like a stone mask. It showed no sadness, no pity, nothing at all. "It is a great honor for her," he said. "She will be taught how to be strong. She will serve a cause that is bigger and more important than herself. Do not be selfish and keep her from this."
Without waiting for another word, one soldier pushed the grandmother aside. She stumbled and fell to the floor. The little girl screamed a high terrified scream as the other soldier picked her up. The blacksmith, a man who had once been a mountain of power and could bend steel with his bare hands, could do nothing. He just stood and watched at this time his body is too weak from hunger to fight and his heart too broken by sadness to even try. He watched the soldiers carry his screaming, kicking grandchild out of his house and down the street. She joined a long growing line of other crying children. all being marched away by the silent empty-faced soldiers they had once looked up to as heroes.
Imu's evil plan was now working perfectly. With the children gone now the adults were next. New groups of soldiers went from door to door, this time with new lists of names.
"You have been chosen for important revolutionary work," they announced. All the healthy men, like the blacksmith were gathered and marched to the forges and the mines. All the healthy women were marched to the shipyards and the big factories where they made clothes. The four kingdoms, which used to be happy places to live, were being turned into one giant sad war machine.
In the kingdom of Sortis, the dark mines were now working all day and all night. The men were forced to work in the dark and choking dust with only their one small loaf of bread given to them as energy. They dug and dug, pulling ore from the earth to make new weapons for the revolutionary army.
In the kingdom of Lvneel, the women sat at long tables in big noisy factories. They were forced to sew thousands and thousands of revolutionary uniforms. Their fingers were sore and bleeding from the needles but they were not allowed to stop.
The reason for all this hard work was explained to them by puppet bosses who walked around to make sure no one was resting.
"These weapons and uniforms are not for us," a puppet foreman explained to a group of tired and sad workers. His voice was loud but empty "They are to help free our poor brothers and sisters in other countries. Your hard work and your sweat will help the fire of freedom spread all across the North Blue and the Entire World"
The people knew this was a lie and sooner or later other people will suffer from the same fate as they are suffering from it. They were being forced to build the tools that would be used to make other people as sad and enslaved as they were. Their slavery was being called a noble and heroic thing.