Can you hear the drums begin, that sound echoing across the way?

It’s more than the chains and cages, more than the noises of all of those trapped around us. Not the metal that groans, or the vague noises I hear coming from your direction. There’s a change, a spark, something that looms across the horizon.

You’ll think it foolish, to cling onto the hope of freedom from these bars. I can’t say I’m surprised really. I’ve long since learned that things like hope and noticing change are almost sisyphean in task in a world of Arcadia. Facing off against you both have been challenges that reach into who I am. Why do I continue to go on despite the beatdown each time, broken again and again.

But when has anything good not come from trial and tribulation? You have to work for everything you want, and cling desperately onto hope like the bars of a cage if you want to even make it out alive. No matter what, you need that hope to keep going. Cling to it like an animal cornered in a cage with nothing left to lose.

In that, I should be thanking you more than anything else. In comparison to the two of you, I do have nothing. One of you held the hearts of the children, the other the stomachs of Arcadia in your hands. People listened to you, you had a purpose, and it felt like the world couldn’t be any more in your favor. Even when a kid in a costume came charging in to save the day, you just knocked him over to the side.

Can you smell it? That sickly sweet scent of cotton candy that makes your stomach curl just the slightest bit?

But you know, in the end it didn’t matter. You tried to hold onto that little bit of hope, carrying on despite harder and harsher challenges. And then it all came crumbling down didn’t it? Just watched the show crumble into nothing, the restaurant fall into ruin and left to rot. And then you’re there, just across the way. Trapped in the same cage, ambushed by the same men. In the end, it doesn’t matter where we come from. We all end up in the same place.

Can you hear that chanting, that deranged laughter? It’s drawing close now, isn’t it?

Don’t worry, it can be harrowing. Being thrown around by forces unknown, still searching for those answers as the chains begin rattling, feeling them shake. Just remember to keep your heads down, and chins up for the beatings to come. Because what’s new for you has been my own cage for ages.

It’s weird to have the metaphorical cage become literal, but nothing I can’t learn to get around. Just another step to survive, to thrive, to bring us all outta here. Keep pushing forward, keep clinging onto the hope, and we’ll make it out of here alive. Through whatever sick show this all is, it can’t break your hope.