I’m sorry. It feels like it’s been too long since I last wrote. It’s only been a couple of days but it feels longer. Too much has happened since last time but I just didn’t have it in me. After they took Peggy and Cory, it stopped seeming so important. Peg had a better memory than any of us and she was the one who suggested I wrote this once we started getting worried about... This.

We were worried this exact thing would happen.

It’s just Cas and me are left now. He’s been trying to rush me to finish this. We know they’ll be coming for us soon. I think I’ll be next but Cas thinks he will. They’ll take me before they take him, I know they will. It’s like back in the prison, they beat all of us up before they went for him. His dad knows how much it hurts him when his friends suffer for him.

I really don’t know why I’m writing anymore. Maybe I just wanted to tell our story. To fill in the blanks from the official report? We aren’t as evil as they said. We were just kids. That’s why I included all that earlier stuff. It felt important — like it might show who we were and why we did what we did. That’s what Peg thought anyway. The more recent stuff didn’t feel as necessary. I tried to write as much as I could in the time we had left but honestly, after they started taking us I stopped being able to write as much. It stopped mattering as much. It won’t change anything.

It can’t bring them back.

I never got to fly with them again. There’s so much we still wanted to do. So much we still wanted to see. It’s stupid the kind of thing that gets stuck in your head when you know you’re going to die. The regrets you have. Like, I know I caused the death of so many people including my crew but the one thing that I keep realising again and again is that we never got to go to the botanical gardens on Sphoreia. Peggy told me about it in our first year. She said that sometimes the blossoms burst in such bright colours and rain down as you walk underneath. If you get the chance, can you go please? For us?

If you’re reading this then there’s a good chance you already know what happened. I knew they’d be coming for us. We all did but we hoped. We were stupid. Cas was right. I’d hoped they would be satisfied with what they did to us but he said they’d never be satisfied as long as we were free.

Andy found a way to let us be free for a couple of weeks and he suffered for it. Maybe he knew what they would do too and hoped that he could protect us by promoting us. Or maybe he just wanted to let us have some fun before they started coming for us again.

It’s my fault he’s dead, I know it is. I caused the death of too many people. Chal, Andy, Leo, Taury. Hells, the list goes on and on. I’m haunted by it every day. We should have done everything differently, we should have stayed with Aquila after everything happened on Irision and then at least Andy could have played dumb and he’d still be alive.

You know, at first, I wanted to hope that there would be some sort of a resistance coming to save us and that’s where the others are. Maybe Aquila or Chal or somehow even Andy organised it but I know that’s not the case. Chal still hasn’t gotten back to us and Plend was too smug looking last time we saw her. She and Harvey are probably celebrating our deaths already. Cas’ dad said he’d win in the end so I guess this is him winning.

Fuck.

I tried to include everything, not just to explain what we did but also to explain who we are and what we went through. I’m hoping this will be enough. I don’t even know anymore. I just wanted to write what I had to before I get taken too. That’s why I decided to end it there. It’s more important you have something to read rather than you hear about how we tried to talk Gem down after we woke up without Cory there or how she punched Plend’s smirking face when we went to see her.

She really didn’t handle them taking Cory before her well. The noise that came out of her mouth when we woke up and he was gone… It was inhuman. She stormed into Plend’s office, demanding answers or vengeance and when she got neither… Well, we weren’t surprised when the countdown started on Cas’ wrist monitor pretty quickly after that. She and Plend were both furious. We hid in one of the disused classrooms in the outer buildings after that. We thought we’d be safe but we weren’t.

I don’t know what’s happened to her but I bet she took down a few of those assholes with her. I hope she did.

Fuck, we should have done more. We’ve failed so many people. Sammy, if you ever get a chance to read this, we really wanted to help you but some things are too big for us to tackle. The Council were too powerful for us. Keep your head down, don’t make trouble, get out when you can. That goes for everyone reading this really.

I’m sorry, I was trying to explain everything. I got off track. My brain does that a lot these days, I’m too consumed by my mistakes. I guess I’m just trying to do what I can to clear our names. Maybe not even that. It’s too late for us. Maybe, I just want to hurt the Council. Or to show the universe what they’re doing is wrong. I don’t even know anymore. It’s not going to help us. We’re going to die either way, I know that. I accept that. Peg showed me how to put this online, publish it to those illegal sites she first found out about Irision on. So I guess, this is kind of coming full circle.

Death doesn’t matter to me anymore. Most of my crew are gone and it was my fault. I couldn’t save them. It’s only me and Cas left now. Thank the Gods he’s alive. If I were alone, I don’t know what I would do. Something terrible, no doubt. Maybe I’d finally find a way to kill Councillor Harvey. I dream about it sometimes. About wrapping my hands around his throat and watching the life drain from his eyes. But then I wake up, clutching Cas with no one else in the room and the fight leaves me. We don’t know what happened to the others. There’s no official report, we checked. We’ve tried reaching out to them, shouting as loud as we could but our mods are silent. They’re dead. They must be.

I can’t keep doing this. I’m going to lose everything that has ever mattered to me. They took my crew, they either took all of the tutors or they fled. They took my family, they took my home. All I have left is my life and I’m willing to give it. I’m just ready for this to be over.

I wanted to finish this whilst I still had time. I think I do. Cas hasn’t received the latest countdown yet. They only took Gem yesterday so hopefully, that means they won’t come for me for a little bit and I can have another day with Cas. We don’t do anything anymore, there’s no point in going to class or going to meals or leaving the room. I mostly just spend all day holding him and trying to tell him I love him as much as possible. You know, fit a whole lifetime’s worth into a few days. It won’t be enough. Has anything we’ve done ever been enough? I guess that’s why I’m putting this online. Maybe someday people will read this and they’ll see that at least we tried our best. Was it enough? I don’t know.