MapleSAP Special: Justice Arrow
Part 13: Life Sentence

+This part talks not of the JA, but of alarming side issues.

The only way for a visitor in Henesys to not attract attention is never leave the Victoria Road strip, and don’t stay any longer than two hours in day time. If one must stay overnight, they are to leave at dawn. Stay with your group and don’t go off alone even if its just to the general store. If you are alone and you need to pass through Henesys to buy supplies,
get your supplies and get out. Plan your trip well so you don’t end up in Henesys at nightfall. Appropriate attire for visitors or passers by: Plain dim colored bottomwear and topwear. Don’t wear anything that might upset the residents.
If you end up in a conversation with a preacher, NEVER break the conversation. This endless list of suggestions, which would be advised to anyone going to [North Korea], are the Victoria Tourism Office’s safety guidelines for people traveling in southern Victoria. They were drafted this fall when SEA Landers were permitted to go to Ammoria, the wedding village only 150 Km outside of Henesys. Florina and Lith are popular vacation and honeymoon hotspot. To get there they must take the southern road from Ellinia, and go through Henesys. Reports showed that people who didn’t meed these guidelines fell into trouble quickly.
Visitors pass through Henesys daily during the peak seasons. It is the only rest and supply stop. A few hotels and general stores and restaurants fit the needs of the travellers.
The people of Henesys stare at them in a hostile manner. If someone is there longer than an hour, the JA men take notice. If he is there long enough, the bowmen question him. Forget time limits if you catch the attention of a preacher or any resident. If they want to talk to you, you have no choice but to chat with them. If you don’t it is a major disrespect, and the rangers will be on you fast.
Many visitors are arrested, and interogated by the JA. The JA demand where they are from, where they are going, why and other related questions. In one interrogation session alone, you entire life will be pried open, even if by painful force.
Then the JA decide if the person’s reasons are legitimate enough for him to a: leave Henesys and continue on, b:be thrown in jail and put to the slave work for a period of time, or c: be forced into becoming a resident.
Even foreign people who have served assigned jail and slave time are not allowed to leave, instead, the people; be it the church, the JA or the general folk, will forcefully assimilate you into their fold.
Brainwashing and intense persuasion are common practices in Henesys.
One man I talked to, said he lived in Henesys for two years after serving 9 months slave time, and instead of being ‘cleansed and faithful’ he is disgusted, outraged, and frightened by what he saw.
“I have dumb moments where I do really stupid things without thinking. I’m a civillian graduate of Ludus University, and I work construction in Ludi and Kerning. 24 years old, and that well educated, I should have been smart enough not to be called a noob. Used in this context, it meas ‘absolute idiot’.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“I was on my way home from Lith where we finished a major project, and the bus stopped here for the night. The driver told us to keep away from the people. After I got off the bus, this lady, who I guess was with the Jalonska Church, came up to me and began drilling me with questions on my religious views in an offensive manner. I know this religion here is crazy, and these people would do whatever to convert you. I told her to go away and she got pissed and hammered more questions at me, and, hell, she popped me one in the face. I got pissed and shouted and told her to..fuqk off or something like that, and some rangers heard me and came at me. They slammed me to the ground scolding me for telling off the preacher, saying I was denying the holy word of righteousness or some snailcrap like that. They threw me in the slammer for a few days and then I at interrogation they just kicked the crap outta me for a good few hours. I got 9 months of labor and worked that off.
When my 9 was up and I said I wanted to leave they threatened death by fire. I don’t wanna die, so I reluctantly took the other choice they offered me: Take up their religion, work construction here, get married, and live here as a permanent resident.”
“So you got married here?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeap,” the man said. “The day I got off the fields the guys said they had a bride lined up and everything. The lady’s family wanted me because the father, a bishop and construction master, wanted me to work for him, so it was with the wedding I was added to the family.”
“What has life been like for you here?”
“Not pleasant. My wife Corella, she’s a monster. One of those 6’5” women who can 400 pounds without breaking a sweat. My first year, I felt safer at work than I did at home. Corella hammered me brutally in every way she could to to change me from my former self into one of the home grown guys here. I’m good at faking it now. We built our house in a month, and in the second year, we had a kid. “
Like almost all of Henesys’ foreign based residents who are married, he was shocked with how severely she beat their kid.
“My 2 year old son stuck his tongue out at someone while we were having supper, and she leaned over and stuck a pin is his tongue.”
“Stuck a pin in the child’s tongue?”
“Yeah. She said she was surprised at me because I thought nothing of it, and it happens in her family,”
I interjected, “Under Maple law, that is an act of violence, and abuse. Don’t they know that here?”
“No. If they did they wouldn’t care. Corella saw that not as violence, but as a mean to break the child’s will.”

Not only kids are guided by strict physical discipline as whippings or beatings, but grown men and women are subject to it as well, even if they didn’t break the local law here, their spouse is required to get them back in line.
The man, who didn’t offer his name, showed me scars on his arms, neck, and back. He said his wife would beat him to the point she was too tired. in some cases, spouse vs. spouse discipliary measures are a two-way policy encouraged by the local government, as a tactic to ensure both of them are in line. However, in many cases here, it is one-way abuse, especially against foreign based spouses.
“There are lots of women here who were married young and end up beat frequently on a daily basis by their husbands. They are scared and end up submissive, recessive, shy, timid and don’t beat back. It creates an imbalance that can only be cured by the family.
“I’m not the kind of man to beat my wife. Even if I was angry, I would express it all with words, not my hands. I don’t see how the hell these guys can do this!”
Fortunately, Henesian women come to the rescue of excessively beaten women. Angie Jodine, who was kidnapped in Kerning at age 15 and married a week after she arrived, was whipped brutally by her husband, a 29 year old farmer.
She would go to work and break down and cry right in the textile shop in front of the other women, whom she was scared to talk to.
“At first th-they said I deserved to be whipped every day because I was a Kerning heathen, and I thought this was my life sentence. Last we-last week I went to work with this fuqking whip scar across my face, and they demanded what I did. I said I did nothing, and I tried hard to do what these psychos want! This scary woman-,I swear to Zakum she’s on hardcore steroids, tore off my (already shredded) dress and she saw my back- it looks like burnt Ligator skin now because of all the scars and scabs!”
As she breaks up into tears, I asked: “What did she do then?”
“She and her friends locked me in a sleeping room at the shop and told me to rest. They gave me new clothes, and some tea, and they all went to my house, attacked the guy and fuqking beat his ass! When I saw him next, he was crippled; his feet were twisted, arms wrenched out of their sockets, and he had a crick in his neck!”
“What was the outcome of all this?” I asked.
“I dunno. The town council’s talking about it. People hate me now, and I might have to live with the butch woman’s butch sister on the farm out in the fields! I so hate this town! I wanna get out! They just condemn you and fix you up with a life sentence of whatever! Some guys brought in are castrated for Minerva’s sake! The Church demanded it because they wanted altar boys and kid servants!”

The testimonies are an alarming alert of what might become of me and the team. Hank, Rannbo and Maria have formed bonds with their host families now, and the families might take measures to ensure they stay, regardless that we are journalists on assignment. Several media companies; NCH, Urban Rust TV, Maple Radio, KTV9, even KLON all admit that their crews ran into these problems while in Henesys. In Maple Radio’s audio programme, they claim that Henesys’ women needed good husbands, and they lost three of their guys to the town. MR says they have regular contact with the guys since they aired their documentary 8 years ago. URTV’s crew lost half of its members to a burning because they denied the so called ‘life sentences’ of church hood and servanthood. KLON fully denies the difficulties its crew went through here. While KLON lost no employees to Henesys (thanks to their contractual partnership with the Justice Arrow), they said in a press conference that they refused to let go any of their crew, and forced them to leave Henesys, ‘despite they wanted to live with the loving families and potential mates that wanted them to stay,”
According to underground sources in Kerning City, after the documentary was done, some of the people in the crew deserted KLON.

The Greenfeather family has hardly viewed me as any more than a servant, and several times they remarked that that was all I was good for. Hank and Rannbo’s families have warmed up somewhat to them because of the boys’ efforts on pretending to conform to this society. Of all of us, Maria is at the greatest risk. She fled a childhood of pain, abuse, harassment, and a potential slave-servant career at age 9 and lived in Kerning. If she is forsaken by her new family, she faces possible death.
The family holds onto her tightly. She is with the red-haired woman almost all the time she is off work, and spends weekends maintaining the home, cooking, sewing or knitting. Last weekend, she participated in a ceremony praying for a pardon from the Migrator for leaving Henesys.
Contact with Maria is very slim. All we get from her are letters on her progress here. She has been spending almost all her time serving the Bow Masters.
I talked to her mistress, the red haired woman, and she said that a marriage was arranged with a Bow Master’s family, and Maria was to be married to the groom, a 28 year old hunter raised on the core of the morals and disciplines.
As for the rest of us, we are to find out….

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
crap this was long.
2 hours well wasted
I was watching a video on youtube that motivated me to write this:

youtube.com/watch?v=a4uMHvKb7Qw&feature=related

u might have to copy and paste

anyways peace and chicken grease