What follows are selected entries. They have been lightly edited for clarity, but the roughness—the fear, the hunger, the fury—remains. “The shelf is still warm. Not from sunlight. From the fire two blocks away. I’m sitting in the children’s section—or what’s left of it. ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ is ash. But ‘Goodnight Moon’ survived. I’m holding it. That feels like a sign.
I don’t know how to fight. But I know how to keep a record. Someone should remember which streets still have water. Which rooftops have a view of the Bloc checkpoints. Which alleys smell like gas leaks. a record of delia's war
Delia Rojas was thirty-two years old when the Uprising of the Consolidated Blocs began. She was not a soldier. She was a librarian. And when the bombs fell on the Meridian Library, she picked up a broken radio, a pistol she did not know how to use, and a waterproof ledger book. She called her project A Record of Delia’s War —not out of ego, but out of the desperate need to put her name on something that would survive her. What follows are selected entries
Signing off. Delia Rojas, Archivist of the Ashes.” The metal box was found in 2189 during the reconstruction of the Meridian Cultural District. The oak tree had grown around it. Inside: the ledger, the children’s book Goodnight Moon , and a rusty spoon with a bent handle. Not from sunlight
So: Day 1 of my war. My war is not the generals’ war. My war is about bread, batteries, and bandages. I’ll write it all down.” “The Bloc soldiers move in groups of four. Never alone. But they are lazy at dawn. I watched them from the third floor of the old garment factory. Two smoke. One reads something—a letter, maybe. The fourth just stares at the sky.
We didn’t rescue her. She escaped. Walked twenty miles through a marsh at night. Killed a Bloc sentry with a sharpened spoon—I am not joking. She showed me the spoon.
Before the war, I returned library books a day late and felt guilt for a week. Now I’ve taken a life—not directly, but I helped Lin drag a wounded Bloc deserter into a sewer. He died there. Infection. I held his hand. He said his mother’s name. ‘Maria.’