Part One: Annika and Kijé (3)
Like so many other people in their world, Annika and Renton at first only knew my story as—well, as a story.
The Sunderlands Saga, it was called. Written by a man, a certain William Hayden, who told the story of Kijé, her comrades, and her nemeses across three books: The Orphan’s Rise; The Lord of the Ashlands; The Queen in Exile.
Kijé, the orphan girl; Kijé, the soldier; Kijé the exile, the rebel, the hero among heroes. The one whom many aspired to be, but also the one who refused to have her name made into a mere idol.
To many, the stories were nothing more than words on paper. A pleasant enough way to fill a corner of their minds with something other than the dullness of the day.
But a few read the words, and recognized there was far more to be found beyond the page.
Behind every story, even the most outlandish tale, there is truth. The truth we see in the story, we recognize it as we might our face in a mirror. To recognize it so brings it life—or rather, it brings to us the life that lies dormant behind it.
This was how at first a few, and then over time a great many, saw The Sunderlands Saga. When those few looked within the Sunderlands, they saw reflected in it so much of what went absent from the world they ordinarily knew. The honor, the courage, the striving for great things—all chance of truly knowing those things were robbed from them, perhaps even long before their births. They came to resent how the world given to them provided them with no real avenue to be creators of greatness. For that, a better world was needed.
At first those readers merely admired the book for embodying those qualities. So they spoke of its wonders, passed it along to others, made it better known. But in time they came to see it as something more than an entertainment. The sense of it being a door that could swing open, to admit real things into this world, grew in time. Sunderlands was far more than just a tale—or rather, its power as a tale was in instructing us, not simply amusing us.
But we few who knew this were also aware of how great the resistance would be to such a message. It would not be enough to merely proselytize for the sake of making the story better-known; the story could scarcely have been any better known. Merely speaking of it, encouraging it to be read, was no longer enough. That other, better world could no longer simply be imagined. It had to be willed into existence, lest it petrify in dreams.
What was lacking, we slowly learned, was a proper embodiment of its principles. If what lay dormant in Sunderlands was to be made real, then it needed to be made real through us, and within us, and beyond us. And to do that we would need to become the embodiments of all that the story promised.
We would need to become the living spirit of the story—to become its words made flesh.
This, in time, is what Annika came to see, and what Renton did not.
* * *
http://anti-sunderlands.blogzone.com/about
About The Anti-Sunderlands Diary
Some of you know of Sunderlands as a harmless game that has appeared in many big cities and a few smaller ones as well. Well, it’s not a game, and it’s not harmless.
Sunderlands is a dangerous cult that spreads lies, encourages delusional, dangerous, and self-destructive behavior. It may seem like a game to the uninitiated, and in fact that’s just how it presented itself the first time it appeared, but those who have been burned know better.
The sad truth is, even after everything that has happened with Sunderlands in the last few years, there are many who don’t know what this group is or what it’s trying to do. I started this blog as a way to document the group’s activities and show the world that they are not just a bunch of people clowning around in costumes. They mean business.
There won’t be a lot of personal information about me on this blog, except that I live somewhere near New York City. That part shouldn’t be hard to figure out, since most of the activities I’ll be documenting are centered in the city, and that’s where one of the game’s biggest cells are located.
But don’t ask me what I do for a living, what neighborhood or township I live in, or anything else that might give people clues as to who or where I am. I’m not posting any of that stuff here, not least of all because it isn’t relevant. But mainly because I’ve heard too many stories about how people who have poked their nose into Sunderlands have gotten it chopped off. This is to say nothing of people who left Sunderlands on bad terms and were “encouraged” to keep their mouths closed.
My research is based entirely on events in the public record; they speak for themselves. You can decide for yourself how honest or upfront I am. If you feel me drawing a curtain of anonymity around me makes me untrustworthy, so be it. You’ll only have yourself to blame if you believe Sunderlands over me.
For some basic starter information about Sunderlands, read my post: What Is Sunderlands?
[This page was last updated October 21, 201X, at 8:41 p.m. (-05 GMT).]