My Town Exiles One Family Every Year To Stay “Perfect.” My Father Just Got A Promotion, And Now We Are Standing At The Border With Nothing. But Someone Is Waiting For Us In The Dark.

The Resistance

But they were planning something else, too. They’d been documenting everything: the rigged votes, the stolen property, the deaths caused by exile. The FBI was building a case. The founding families had been committing fraud, theft, and manslaughter for 50 years.

“We’re going back,” the leader said. “But not as exiles. As prosecutors.”

The man who’d spoken stepped forward and held out his hand to my father.

“I’m Eli Napier. We’ve been watching the county line for 8 years now, waiting for families like yours.”

My father just stared at the offered hand like he didn’t understand what it meant anymore. Mom was still crying in the passenger seat, her face buried in her hands. I sat in the back surrounded by garbage bags of our clothes, trying to process what was happening. These people were here for us. They’d been waiting.

“We know what you’re going through,” Eli said, his voice calm and steady. “We’ve all been through it. Every single one of us got thrown out just like you did.”

He gestured to the other cars lined up behind him. Maybe 10 or 15 vehicles with people standing beside them.

“We built something better 40 miles from here. A real town where people actually help each other instead of stabbing each other in the back.”

My father finally took Eli’s hand and shook it, but he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. I could see his jaw working like he was trying to form words, but nothing would come out.

“Follow us,” Eli said. “We’ve got a place ready for you. Food, clothes, everything you need. Tonight, you’re not alone anymore.”

The New Town

The convoy of cars pulled out, and we followed them down the highway, our beat-up van rattling and shaking. Mom kept crying but quieter now, and Dad gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. I watched the other cars ahead of us and tried to understand what this meant. These people had survived exile. They’d built something new. Maybe we could survive too.

The drive took almost an hour, and with every mile, I felt something shifting inside me. Not hope exactly, more like the tiniest crack in the wall of panic that had been crushing my chest since they called our name in the town hall.

We turned off the highway onto a smaller road, then onto a dirt path that wound through some trees. When we came out the other side, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There was an actual town, not some sad collection of trailers and tents like I’d pictured in my head.

Real houses lined both sides of a paved street. A school building sat on one corner, two stories tall with windows that actually had glass in them. A community center took up a whole block, bigger than anything in our old town except the factory. Street lights lined the roads. Gardens grew in front yards. Kids’ bikes lay in driveways. This wasn’t a refugee camp; this was a functioning place where people lived normal lives.

“How did they build all this?” I asked, but my parents didn’t answer. They were both staring out the windshield with the same shocked expression I probably had on my face.