021 — Echoes Not Erased | Talon Z. Gray

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One moment, I was living my life, helping my family.
The next—I was taken.
Stripped of everything.
Forced into a nightmare I couldn’t escape.

I thought the factory job was my way out.
Instead, I was locked away.

Boots.
Every night—
the sound of boots.
They came for pieces I could never get back.

Some around me were so young,
they didn’t even understand what was happening.
They didn’t know where their families were.
Some... never even had a chance.

But they knew.
They laughed.
We weren’t human to them.

And so many—
they took their own lives.
Suicide as escape.
From indoctrination.
From the horror.

“You belong,” they told us.
“The way we want you.”
“You are a part—
a part of the design.
Give us your body.”

Walk to walk.
Year to year.
Through jungles, across mountains, on foot—
just to get back home.

Survival was never defined.
Internal death followed us daily.

Maybe it was memory that kept us going.
Or maybe forgetting had simply become impossible.

I made it back.
But the world had changed.
My world had changed.
I was forgotten.

And now—
they want to erase us from history.
They want to dance on our graves.
They want to laugh,
disrespect,
mock our suffering.

Try to delete the memory,
but a body left behind
keeps whispering
through the soil.

A tell-tale start.