Time Square

12:00 pm July 15, 20—
New York, Time Square

The smell of car exhaust hung in the air like fog and the stench settled onto the city like death to a gravestone. Crossing guards in yellow and orange aprons froze, white gloved hands told to cross but no one crossed, no one moved. Taxi drivers held onto the cool leather of the steering wheel so hard their fingers numbed and turned white. Even the babies were still. Sitting quietly in their strollers they watched the faces of their mothers, twist into awe then fear. The only sounds to be heard came from car horns a far distance away honking at the unknown and that of the pigeons unknowing the affairs of humans. All eyes lay on the largest television screen in New York, perched on the side of the gray block skyscraper—ThePeaceHouse.

The screen flickered on and off like an old television set but not enough so that a person could not see the image of a single man with stark features and short brown hair. His eyes were a dark brown with gold flecks barely touching the iris and a burning red scar that crossed his eye brow, barely touching his right eye before slicing across the ridge of his nose. His lips were drawn thin and stiff as if locked in fear but when he spoke his deep voice resonated on the walls and plagued your very being as if he were speaking inside of you.

“Citizens,” the man said. “It’s time to know the truth.” He paused as if waiting for a reply.

“First, know that you’re not the only ones seeing this. Everyone across the country is watching. With help I’ve invaded every television, every computer, every electronic devise you could possibly know of to finally have the chance to tell the world of an evil that has been hidden away for too long.”

“You can’t hide from the truth now and the government won’t be able to hide it from you any longer.”

The man on the screen closed his eyes and breathed in deep and long. When he opened his eyes, they showed a new emotion: anger and determination.

“Many of you think you know me but I’m here to tell you that you don’t. You know only what the government has presented to you about my life, about what happened to me. As you can already tell, it was all a lie because guess what? I’m not dead.”

The man paused again, this time for so long people began to stir with impatience. Finally he spoke.

“I had a beginning, just like everyone else in this world. But, my beginning wasn’t the start of my life…”

“My life truly began at sixteen, when I was kidnapped.”