The Call

by R. Raeta

When it starts, it’s only a whisper.

Joanna is (somehow) always in the right place at the right time. Some say she’s blessed—a bringer of good luck, blessed by God. Others say she carries the mark of the Devil—an evil omen that brings trouble wherever she walks. Jo isn’t so sure about the first, but she’s certain about the last. She isn’t creating the disasters she stumbles into.

You are made of greater things.

Jo learns how broken the world really is,

This is not a victory.

The words are painful, barbs on her tongue,

those phantom hands—will haunt her for much, much longer.

There’s more people. More good to be done. She searches out the right places at the right times,

“I would be here less, if you’d stop letting them go.”

but the way he focuses on blame instead of solutions sets Jo on edge.

The world gets worse.

The injustice of it burns, liquid and hot.

In the streets, people riot. There are no signs; they have traded peaceful chants for battle cries.

and the government can’t arrest a shadow—can’t beat down or silence an idea.

‘You are in the right place, you are at the right time.’

One word leaves her, so tangled with the voice’s that for a moment they are one and the same—an echo of every life they’ve saved. Every soul they’ve touched.

“Rise.”