This journal has been set up to prepare for NaNoWriMo 2009 as part of the October NaNo Prep 2009. It is the same story as the OTHER item called The Regime in my port, but different as well. I've turned what I wrote for that into character development for one of my protagonists (she started out as the main, but now she kinda shares that distinction with another character). Mostly everything is here.


America, 2368, 60th year in the reign of the Regime...

My family is dead. Burned as Witches, enemies of the State, their crisped remains scattered to the breezes or mixed with wine in a macabre, vile perversion of Cleopatra's pearls.

It's been eighteen years since they disappeared, pushing me into the snow and telling me to run- run as fast as I could- to the Family Altar. The Caves are destroyed now, burned by the hunters along with my family.

All hope of their lives is gone. And, with it, any vestige of innocence. Here do I swear, in ink brewed with my own blood, to be the undoing of those who stole them from me. Here do I swear to be the undoing of the Regime.

As I will, So Mote it Be.
Francesca Jasrin

It started with the Regime.

It holds the United States in a vice of their own devising; the Code, the American Way, the fool-proof plan to return America to its former glory and ensure that it never falls again. In the guise of Patriotism and the Collective Good, the Regime has woven its way into the American psyche, leaving the indelible mark of tyranny-by-invitation. The average American loves the Regime, and would sooner die than betray them.

But many do die. For at the core of the Regime is the American Code, the Constitution of the New American Way, a set of rules and bylaws that define what it means to be American. Tall, good-looking, healthy, wealthy, dressed properly, all-in-all 'proper conduct'. Any deviation, real or imagined, from this Code is cause for death. And, like the Witch Hunts of old, the deviants are burned alive at stakes or in chambers. As many real 'deviants' are burned as are the innocent. But no one cares and most are even happy to see their enemies go.

The streets are lined with beer bottles from constant celebration amongst the ranks of those loyal to the Government; the alleyways lined with secret bunkers for those terrified by that selfsame institution. But some of those hidden caves hide acts of sedition, of treason; and of liberty, freedom, and life as groups of American citizens fight to end the fear and burnings.

Whether 'Witch' or no, these people long to see a free America, hoping that one exists somewhere. And they're willing to do whatever it takes to see the Regime topple- even if it means America topples with it.

They're called The Coalition.