Marcus nodded. But back then, they had movement. They had hope. Now?

He looked out the window, the city lights blinking in the distance. Somewhere out there, people were organizing. Quietly. Carefully. The risk was higher now, but the fight wasn’t over.

It never was.

10/10 She studied him for a moment. “You heard from Devonte’s sister?”

Marcus shook his head. “No updates.”

Miss Thelma sighed, leaning back, her eyes drifting to the bookshelf where her old civil rights era books still sat—hidden, but not forgotten.

“We’ve been here before,” she murmured.

9/10 At home, his grandmother, Miss Thelma, sat in her chair watching the news—state-approved, of course. The screen flickered with a smiling senator talking about “restoring America’s moral compass.”

“Baby, you eat yet?” she asked, her voice lined with the weight of history.

“Nah, not yet.”

8/10 He saw a police drone hovering above Peachtree Street and instinctively stepped into the shadow of a bus stop.

7/10 No one had seen him since. His sister tried calling lawyers, but legal aid was “backlogged.”

So Marcus walked, hands deep in his pockets, past the grocery store where prices had spiked after new “free-market reforms,” past the library where entire shelves had been cleared out.

6/10 Marcus had been careful. He kept his head down, went to work, avoided saying too much online. But even that wasn’t enough. Three months ago, his best friend, Devonte, had been arrested outside a voter registration drive. “Election security violation,” they called it.

5/10 Then came the community programs—gutted, defunded. The police budget ballooned, but funding for public defenders disappeared. A new “Civic Responsibility” law made protesting without a permit a felony.

The worst part? People got used to it…

4/10 When Project 2025 became reality, the changes started slow. First, the public schools shifted curriculum guidelines, removing books that “undermined national values.” Marcus’ niece, Layla, came home from school one day asking why her teacher said racism had been “largely solved” in the 1960s.

3/10 It used to be his sanctuary—a Black-owned shop filled with history, poetry, and ideas. Now, it had a “Closed by State Order” sign taped across its door. No one needed to ask why. The past two years had rewritten everything.

2/10 Maybe it was the way people stopped looking each other in the eye, or how the once-lively streets of Edgewood Avenue now felt subdued, like an old record playing on half-speed. Marcus pulled his hoodie tighter as he walked past the shuttered bookstore on Auburn Avenue.