“They’re here!” someone shouted. Bells began to ring throughout the island, causing the room to erupt into chaos as people scurried about carrying weapons.

Two hurried men with gray, bushy eyebrows unraveled the painting, but the woman with the wooden necklace stopped them.

“We’ll do it. It needs to sense us,” she said with certainty.

Even with footsteps thundering around us, we unrolled the canvas as if it were an artifact thousands of years old. Once it was stretched out, we pinned it to the wall. Without hesitation, the woman stepped into the painting.

“Don’t you want a weapon?” I asked.

She continued without answering.

I looked around at the frantic movements of the resistance, took a deep breath, and then stepped inside. Just like before, it hit me; my senses flared like sparks off a live wire. Colors danced in front of me.

When my senses finally settled, I looked around. Up ahead, the woman moved quickly through a meadow of unnatural neon grass. With every purposeful step, the blades parted and sealed shut behind her.

Above us, a warm breeze lifted pollen into a spiral. It hovered for a moment, as if it too sensed the urgency, then sped off toward a towering elm tree in the distance.

Within minutes, we were under the ancient elm. I looked up at the impressive branches as my companion pressed her palm to the cracked bark.

The elm responded: “Red shapes will show you the way.”

I stumbled back. “That thing just talked?”

She nodded but hurried forward. I wanted to listen to the elm again, or lie down beside the clouds that slept on the grass. But we had a mission. We had to keep moving.

Eventually, we reached a long vine-covered wall. Red shapes pulsed across its surface like cells in a living organism. The mysterious woman leaned in and whispered something I couldn’t hear. The shapes shifted, merging into a doorway.

She turned to me. “Beyond this door is the State’s broadcast headquarters,” she said. “All screens. All frequencies. Across every city in your world. Show them the painting.”

I hesitated. “What if—”

She touched her necklace. The wooden carvings shifted under her fingers. “Let me handle any resistance.”

I nodded then jumped at the crackling roar of fire. We both turned to witness the largest inferno I’d ever seen. Flames leapt like whipped horses, torching everything in their path.

“The State has taken the island. We will not have a way back,” she said, sadness flickering in her voice.

She stepped through the door. I followed. As soon as I entered, gunshots rang out.

Detective Mertens. Final entry.
Do not destroy transmission.

Our boat struck land today.

When it did, I looked up to watch thick fog roll back as if by an invisible hand, revealing what I thought couldn’t exist. Color. Everywhere. Buildings painted in reds, greens, and blues filled my vision. Sunlight bounced off windows and spread over rooftops, a crown of photons on top of the city.

Then, I noticed them. Thousands of people. Some moved with purpose. Others strolled, unhurried, as if the State had never controlled their lives. Maybe it never had.

So this is where the rebellion lives.

Back in the State, I’d heard rumors about this place. Tales passed around by bored coworkers over shitty coffee. We treated them like fun fairy tales. We were wrong.

To my right, a woman coasted by on a bike, groceries in front and a toddler in the back. To my left, children raced across the street, laughing, while two men inspected a sunhat, judging its quality.

In my thirty-two years on Earth, I had never seen anything like this place. The sense of freedom was unbelievable. No cameras overhead. No one looked over their shoulders. No hushed voices. It felt strange and magnetic.

I stepped off the boat. The silver-armed people said nothing to me, only pointed up the hill and began walking. I followed, the painting still tucked under my right arm, a precious artifact I would guard with my life. Even in a place like this.

At the top sat a yellow building. It looked simple, forgettable. Like a town hall forty years aged. Modest and quiet. But the way people moved around it, you’d think it was a temple.

When I walked inside, people stood and nodded, smiling. At the center of the room, a youthful-looking woman with long silver hair sat cross-legged on a carpet. Her necklace of strange wooden carvings nearly brushed the floor.

I studied her. She felt ancient, as if she’d lived several lives. The same kind of ancient I saw in the woman who had painted the original. I wondered if they were related.

“Detective Mertens,” she said. “Nice to finally meet you.”

I held my breath. “How do you know who I am?”

She smiled gently, “We’ve been watching you for years. That crude sketch you found during your inspection wasn’t placed there by accident. You were chosen.”

“Chosen?” My voice cracked.

“Your curiosity. Your rank inside the State. You were the perfect conduit.”

I shifted. The rolled painting suddenly felt heavier in my arms. “So this was all just a way to get the painting? What if I had turned you in?”

“We knew you wouldn’t,” she said. “We needed you to, not deliver the painting, but to feel it. And you did. Now you understand.”

She was right. Dammit.

I set the canvas against the wall carefully. My hands shook like the criminals’ hands I had interrogated over the years. “Well… here it is.”

“You’re not done with it yet. You’re going to help us restore what the State erased. Emotion. Art. Humanity.”

“How?” I glanced down at my Vox-Coil. “You think I can take on the entire State with this?”

She laughed. “Not with weapons, but with truth. We don’t need a soldier. We need a signal.”

“You want me to go back there?”

“Yes,” she said carefully.

I looked at the painting, then at her. I was afraid. I wasn’t a hero. Or a rebel. Most of my life, I lived by the Chinese proverb: “The bird who sticks his head out gets shot.”

“You’ll enter State headquarters and broadcast to the world what they’ve lost through oppression, control, and fear,” she said.

“But I’m wanted. Cameras will spot me the second I step foot inside.”

“No. You won’t go back the way you came.” She turned to the painting. “You’ll enter through that.”

I didn’t speak. I just stared at the canvas, still rolled, leaning silently against the wall. Its frayed yellow edge pulsed in the dim light, like it was breathing. Like it was alive…because it was. Sort of. This was my door back into the State.

She stood. “And I’ll be going with you.”

That's what I remember. Detective Mertens. End entry. Destroy transmission.

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Friends always told me I needed to make sacrifices for love. I never thought that meant packing myself in a bag and traveling from L.A. to Paris in the belly of a plane.

The person of my dreams is patiently waiting for me in the City of Lights, but nothing seems to be working for me in the City of Traffic. It’s the bag he sent me. It’s small. I asked if I could travel in a regular seat, but he said no. The bag was the only way.

So, I discarded clothes at the Goodwill, sold my blue hatchback, and teared up as I said goodbye to a childhood train collection. I never thought I’d get rid of those trains. The child who took them promised to cherish the railcars forever. I reasoned she would abandon them in a year.

With possessions gone, I stepped in, legs first, but that left my chest exposed. I tried curling into a fetal position, but my knees wouldn’t bend to my chest. I went in head first, but pulled a muscle and had to call out of work for a week.

Then it dawned on me. I could leave behind ambitions of becoming a writer, toss nagging feelings of doubt, and discard advice from close friends. But that still left my head poking out. Determined to fit in, I put aside my sister’s discontent, handed my best friend Kerry to another friend for safe-keeping, left my brain with a coworker, then placed my soul in a box and buried it behind a 7-11.

I’m mostly in the bag now! Damn, there isn’t enough room for my nose. Not to worry. C'est la vie, I will keep trying.

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It’s on the lapel of the detective’s tactical suit. He triggered it. Shit. More will come. I unpin the painting and roll it fast, careful not to let it touch the wet floor.

I scan the room. There’s no clear exit, just an instinct to protect the piece. Protect humanity. Wait. There. A door. I enter. Inside, a family kneels on the floor, praying. They don’t look up as I pass. Not even a flinch. It's eerie.

At the back, a screen door creaks as I push it open. I slip out and into a narrow alley, walking fast. The sky above is pitch black. Soot rains down from the State’s production lines. It’s always fallen over the Well.

I cough. The air’s thick. Bitter, chemical. How do people live like this? I want to leave, but I can’t risk stepping into the State’s world. Up ahead, a passageway that may lead me out of the Well and away from the city. I approach. Then, I see her.

A girl with bright messy orange hair, like a crayon melted over her skull. She stares, then points to a camouflaged opening in a long rocky wall.

I follow. What choice do I have? I enter a room filled with others like her. They all have orange hair, silent stares, and silver colored arms. A cult? No, a rebellion. No one speaks. They just point to a hatch in the floor. I step forward and look down.

An underground river, fast and dark. There’a a boat tied to a small dock. Minutes later, I’m in it. Four others climb in after me. Then dozens of gunshots echo above. It sounds like the State has mobilized a small army against me.

A man no bigger than a bar stool starts the engine. It sputters once, then twice, then catches. Thank god. The boat jerks forward. Soon, the city fades behind us.

Ahead: Open water and zero chance I’ll survive.

Entry 006. Private voice log. Not submitted for review.

I hate the State. Now I understand why they kept this from us.

Then joy hits. Pure. Immediate. This is what the old lady felt while painting. I’m riding the same current that moved through her hands. It’s like I’m there with her. It’s a rush. A drug. I’m addicted.

For the first time in my life, I’m alive. Switched on. The world flips from gray to chromatic overload. It’s almost blinding.

But I still hear the outside world. Faint. Bleeding in. Gunshots. What is that? Then screams. Death. Silence. Shit.

A hand breaks through. Then a body. A detective. I don’t know him. He’s rage wrapped in a dark tactical suit. A Vox Coil hangs at his side. His eyes burn with hatred.

He yanks me out of the painting. I hit the floor. Bodies surround me. Even the old lady.

“No!” I scream. “She was the last…”

He kicks me and yells, “the punishment is execution!”

“This is for the courts to decide!” I snap.

He growls. Moves to kick again. But I’m faster. I grab his boot. Twist. A hundred ninety pounds slams to the floor.

I’m up. My Vox Coil aimed at his skull. What am I doing? Too late. I fire. He’s dead.

I will be hunted. I will be tried. I will be hung.

But the painting survives. Even if I don’t.

Entry 005. Private voice log. Not submitted for review.

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Detective Mertens. Status: Recorded post-capture. Private. Not submitted for review.

I’m going to die.

Someone throws me across the room and yells, “he’s with the State. Kill him!”

“No,” says an aged voice. Calm. Dangerous.

I look up. It’s her. The Painter. She looks ancient and new. Like a child wearing time. She reaches for me. I take her hand.

“See for yourself,” she says. She turns me. I face the painting. It shifts. Breathes. Waits.

“Go in,” she whispers. The canvas swallows me as I step forward.

A wave crashes through me: joy, grief, rage. It’s too much. It’s everything. I think I’ve forgotten who I am.

That’s what I remember. Entry 004. Private voice log. Not submitted for…Destroy…

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Ropes secure me to a pipe. I’m in a warehouse. Flames rise from the center of the room. The air smells like burnt electrical cords. My captors huddle nearby.

A woman says, “Let him see it.”

“No,” a man snaps back. “He’ll kill us, then report it. We need to get rid of him.”

To the left; my Vox Coil. Resting on a table. Out of reach. Then I see it. On the far wall. The painting. I’d only heard whispers…what one might look like. But this…this is something else. It spans the entire wall. Large. Beautiful. Alien.

Bold red, yellow, and green shapes pulse across the canvas like ripples on water. The colors are intoxicating. Then the shapes begin to shift. I focus harder. First geometric, then something else. Animals? Humans? Neither. It’s familiar, yet foreign.

And then a man steps out of it. The painting goes still. He turns, looks at it and then to his friends. Smiles. Then laughs.

Holy shit.

That's what I remember. Detective Mertens. End entry. Destroy transmission.

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A shuttle drops me ten blocks from the target. No closer.

I descend fragile steps. The smell of decay hits: metal, sewage, rot. I’ve entered The Well. Once a sewer runoff. Now a dumping ground for the unstable. The State doesn’t fix it. It forgets it. They call it human sludge. They’re not wrong. But they’re not right either.

Shacks teeter, stacked like bones on paper. Alleyways made of trash claw upward. I stand out. My clothes too clean. My scent too fresh. People stare. A pod of three follow. Tight. Silent. Sharklike. I keep my hand on the Vox Coil; state issued.

I’m not sure how to find the painter. Only lead: she’s old.

Then a red light catches graffiti. A sign? I move to investigate, but something cracks against my skull. Everything goes black.

That’s the last thing I remember. Then…nothing. End entry. Destroy transmission.

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They trained us to forget. Trained us to overcome emotion. To become less human.

Every morning, I pass a mural; painted over, sterilized. But I still see a piece of it. Don’t look. That’s the rule. But last month, during a sweep...I found something. A piece of paper, duct taped under an old stove. Real paper. Soft. On it, a drawing of a horse. Crude. But beautiful. I should’ve incinerated it. Instead, I kept it.

That night, I unrolled it again. My hand shook. I could go to jail. Art’s been banned for years. It makes people unstable, they say. Really, it’s to keep us in check. In ten years with the state, I’ve destroyed: sixteen paintings and three textiles. I thought this week would be more of the same. But now... They say there’s a painter still out there. Alive. In The Well; a dangerous part of the city. She’s made something new. A painting you can walk inside of. A painting where you can feel again.

I will find her and destroy it. But first, I want to see it. To feel it. To immerse myself within. Just once. Then I will follow protocol.

Detective Mertens. End entry. Destroy transmission.

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