The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

I Don’t Want Your Civil War
by Melissa R. Mendelson

When you unearth me, you will ask about the civil war.  My throat will be too dry to spill those words, but the numbers lasered into my wrist might say it all.  Or the scars in my skin, dead bruises and silent bullet holes.  Why am I wearing this dress or even this ridiculous crown?  Because I am a mockery of a civilized world gone mad, devouring lies over truth, and turning on anyone, if they dared to be kind.  Maybe, you do not want to know.  Just be grateful that you survived, and I hope that the world outside has seen the light again.  I never will, and I could have burned with the rest of them.  But I chose to be sealed into this tomb, queen of what was once and now no more, so maybe, you shouldn’t ask.  But don’t believe everything they tell you because people love to spin tales, tales that will suffocate history and blind the future.  The future.  What does that even look like?  Have we come to our senses, but my mind is gone.  It tried to survive, but it was too much.  It was all too much, and we all have our breaking point.  Most of us broke from 2020, and we should have seen the civil war coming.  But it wasn’t one giant wave.  It was in fragments, and only those like me pulled the pieces together.  But it didn’t end well for us, and that is what led me here to be buried alive while the madness reigned.  And I don’t deserve to be part of the world outside because they shut me out.  So please keep my remains as you found them.  Leave me in peace, even if I will never ever know it.  I hope you will.

.

Fiction © Copyright Melissa R. Mendelson
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

About Author Melissa R. Mendelson:

Melissa R. Mendelson is a horror, science-fiction and dystopian author and poet.  She has two publications with Wild Ink Publishing.  One is a prose poetry collection, This Will Remain With Us, and the other is a short story collection, Stories Written On Covid Walls.  She also self-published a sci-fi novella, Waken and a small short story collection, Name’s Keeper.

If you’d like to learn more about Melissa, you can visit her accounts here: www.MelissaMendelson.com