The Rootbreakers
A modern fable for a fading republic.
Once, in the Heartland—fractured but unbowed—there grew an Iron Tree.
No one recalled who planted it. Some said it rose from fear. Others blamed gold, or old grudges, or genocide, or hunger disguised as pride. But it grew fast. Too fast. Its roots cracked courthouses. Its branches choked libraries. Its leaves glinted with falsehood, whispering promises of order, purity, and safety—for the right people.
When it bore fruit—slick and venomous, shaped like silence—those who ate it forgot who they were. Or who they’d once stood beside.
At its center stood the Forever Regent. A man, once. Then a symbol. Then a sickness. He wrapped himself in flags he defiled, throned atop grievances he fanned. “Only I can fix it,” he cried. “Only I tell the truth. Only I matter.”
Many obeyed. Many surrendered. Some were taken. Some disappeared.
But not all.
Laney, a lamplighter’s daughter, lit her first torch the night her aunt vanished.
She wasn’t brave. She was tired. Tired of the lies. Tired of waiting. Tired of wondering if she’d be next.
So she lit the lamp on the corner.
Then the one on the square.
Then the one beside the courthouse, now choked in vines of propaganda.
“This is treason,” hissed the Tree.
“It’s memory,” Laney replied.
She was arrested. Paraded. Mocked. Spat on.
But when they locked her away, others lit lamps in her name.
Candles appeared in shuttered windows.
Floodlights painted the walls of detention centers.
Flickering halos rimmed the homes of the disappeared.
And soon, the light made the rot visible.
The Tree lashed out—deploying Fogcasters to rewrite, Ashers to erase, Jackals to hunt. But none of them could scrub what people chose to remember.
Then came the Great Reckoning.
It started not with fire, but with truth—recorded, repeated, broadcast.
Whistleblowers sang.
Journalists dug.
Survivors spoke.
Judges unsealed what had been sealed.
And the Regent’s empire, built on lies and cruelty, began to fracture.
People filled the streets—not with weapons, but with receipts. With evidence. With names.
They marched not to destroy, but to reclaim.
The Tree trembled. The sky darkened. Its roots surged to crush the truth beneath concrete.
But the people did not run.
They dug.
With shovels and words. With ballots and books. With unity forged from pain.
They unearthed every buried law, every censored voice, every redacted truth. They pulled the Tree’s lies into daylight.
And then—together—they ripped it out of the ground.
Its roots screamed. Its bark shattered. The Regent howled as his throne cracked beneath the weight of exposed crimes.
He tried to flee.
But there was nowhere left to hide.
He was found in a room lined with televisions, shouting into disconnected mics. His voice was no longer broadcast. His face, no longer feared.
The people put him on trial.
And not just him—his advisors, his enforcers, the architects of cruelty and division.
No scapegoats. No shrugs. No “just doing my job.”
The people remembered. The people demanded justice.
And justice came.
Those who vanished were named.
Those who harmed were held to account.
Those who helped the Tree grow were made to see what it had truly been.
And when it was over, the Iron Tree was gone.
Burned to ash.
Its seeds scattered to wind.
Its roots sealed in history.
In the years that followed, a new tree grew. Not iron, but oak. Its trunk was carved with names. Its leaves whispered never again. Around it, the people built—not monuments to power, but gardens of memory, education, and light.
Laney, older now, taught others to light the lamps.
She told them: “It wasn’t one torch that ended it. It was all of us. Lighting. Refusing. Digging. Speaking. Standing.”
And across the Heartland, the lamps never went out again.
For the Weary
This is your story too.
The rot can be cut out. The tyrants can be tried. The future can be reclaimed.
But it will not come from waiting. Or wishing. Or hoping someone else will act.
It will come from you.
Your voice. Your truth. Your refusal.
Every lie you confront. Every injustice you document. Every light you pass forward.
That is how we win.
That is how we uproot the Tree.
That is how we make sure it never grows again.
Light your lamp.
And dig.
The soil is ready.
The time is now.