The East Pacific

Hyari’s shift had finally came to an end, and with work out of the way, he only had two hours to get to the city center before the march around the city would begin. With no time to waste before the traffic became unbearable, he left the parking lot of the shopping center in a hurry, not letting the middle fingers, blaring car horns and tire screeches stop him from getting there at least an hour early. Before he knew it, he was on an overpass where scenes of protest could be seen from over the bridge.

Hyari turned off the exit, where people can be seen crossing the street, walking towards the source of the loud, booming speech of what seems to be the lead organizer of the event. As Hyari slowly drove closer to one of the vacant parking lots nearby, in his rearview mirror, a massive Anarcho Capitalist flag with the Omonian coat of arms in the middle had fell from the overpass and over the city streets below. Other protestors had stopped in place to applaud the dropping of the flag, and others honked their horns in support of the reveal. Hyari, too focused on trying to park, ignored the event and reversed into a spot on in the parking garage a block away from the speech. Even with the distance, he could still hear various speakers coming up to the stage. Not all of them said much of anything eye opening, and as he turned the corner to continue his trek to the meeting area, a snippet of one of the demonstrators speeches could be heard from afar.

“...if we let him keep up his incompetence without showing resistance, we’ll be no better than Hart and his One Republic. We’ll be sanctioned to death by the rest of the world, our people will be unable to provide for ourselves, and our potential on this island and in this world will be diminished to a level we’ve never seen before.”

The audience erupted into applause after she finished that portion of her speech, and soon, Hyari would find himself in the epicenter of the massive crowd, waiting for what she was to say next.

“Before I get off this podium i would like to remind you all of one thing. You are marching to show that Omonia’s new future is not to be toyed with by people who hide under the guise of reformists, and only seem to be setting our nation on the track to more and more trouble. Always remember that.”

She walked off the podium, and went into the front of the crowd. As she stepped off, Hyari’s eyes locked onto her location, and after she found a seat beside the crowd he sifted through the massive crowd in order to get to her. And after a series of “excuse me’s” and rushed apologies, he made it to her seat, where she was seen watching the next speaker.

“Uh hey, can I talk to you?” He said nervously as he took out his phone, and opened Bleater.

“Yeah, what do you want?”

“So I heard the ending of your speech, and I wanna say that I agree with what you said.”

She nodded, and looked at him with a somewhat suspicious glare.

I’ve heard people say that before and I gotta ask” He turned the phone towards her, the messages from yesterday displayed on his screen “Are you the person who convinced me to come out here?”

She read the message history, and looked back at Hyari.

“Oh..” She looked, and cracked a half smile out the side of her mouth “so you’re the one who thought I was an agent.” She said jokingly “You’re convinced now, aren’t you?”

“Let’s see that wire first. I know you’ve got it somewhere…”

She laughed, “Whatever you say, leftie.”

Soon, the massive crowd of people could be seen moving into the street, and waving more and more Ancap flags alongside that of the Omonian one.

“Seems like the march is starting, let’s get into it.”

Hyari walked towards the crowd, the woman followed behind him.

“By the way, what’s your name?” He said, getting louder in order to match the tone of the chanting protestors.

“Liridia, Liridia Rosa. Yours?”

“Hyari Anderson”

“You a Charitian or something?”

Caught off guard by the question, he paused for a bit. “No i’m..part Myehnese”

“Oh..” She looked away embarrassed. “Sorry.”

The next few minutes were full of nothing but silence until they reached the overpass with the flag on it.

“What’s with the Ancap flags all over the place? You think these people actually want some kind of Anarchy?”

“Of course not, it’s more of a symbol of a free market rather than actually advocating for a lack of government, you need them for somethin’, don’t you?”

“Right, if only Ioannis wasn’t in charge of it.”

“Amen to that..”

The march was getting longer, but yet the spirit of the protestors ddn’t seem any less motivated to keep going. However, as they crept closer to the eastern park, more and more officers in crowd control gear could be seen lining the sidewalk, looking at the protestors with malice. Ioannis and one of the officers made eye contact, and he quickly looked away before any more issues can come about. He looked back at Liridia who was also somewhat concerned about the increased police presence.
“This seems overkill to you too, don’t you think?”

“Yeah..” She said nervously. “I doubt they’ll try anything though since-” Her voice would be drowned out by the sea of enraged shouting from all over the street.

“What?” Hyari said loudly

“I said, I doubt they’ll try anythi-”

Her voice was short by the sound of a teargas launcher, and the screams of those trying to get away from the police. The tight crowd soon became loose as people ran back towards the direction of the meeting area, as they ducked the bombardment of tear gas.

Hyari and Liridia also began running to cover, but before they could get far, a cloud of white smoke would engulf them both. Hyari immediately began coughing, and tried to find his way out. Eventually, he was grabbed by the arm and found himself out of the smoke. He was being pulled by someone with goggles and a mask on.=, and found himself in a store with a shattered window.

Hyari was gasping for air, and Liridia was taking her gear off.

“I knew they’d pull some sh*t like this…” she mumbled to herself as she sifted through her bag and pulled out some water.

“Hold your head back.”

“Huh?”

“HOLD YOUR HEAD BACK!” she yelled “You gotta get that stuff out your eyes.” She pulled his hair back and poured cold water into his eyes.

“You..you knew this would happen?” Hyari said exhausted.

“Doesn’t take a wise ass to know what kind of country we live in.” She put the bottle down next him, and looked out the shattered window.

“I think it’s clear, we should-”

Lirdia violently fell to the floor as the crack of a rubber bullet rang out. She fell on a shard of glass still attached to the window frame and shrieked in agony. Hyari rushed to her aid but she pushed him away.

“Just..get out, they’ll be coming to arrest me soon.”

As she said that, a massive group of officers would turn the corner and run towards the store they were hiding in. Hyari looked the officers in the face, but Liridia was still trying to push him.

“Get out!”

“Hyari bolted for the back door, and found himself immersed in the chaos once again. He turned down the alleyway and peeked over a corner to see a group of officers kneeling to arrest a demonstrator. One of the officers wold spot and point at him, causing him to run down the other end.

As he ran, the flashbacks of the incident in Dalesburg flashed before his eyes. Corpses of dead foreigners materialized in his mind as he looked around him, dodging officers and pure anarchy.

He survived anarchy once, why must it happen again?