Welcome in England

did you fell in love black man ?

The room was quiet, dark except for the soft glow of the lamp. Kahlil stirred beside her, reaching for her trembling hand.

“It was a nightmare,” she whispered, pressing her palm against her chest. “Just a nightmare.”

But when she turned on the television, she saw it: a sea of flags in Trafalgar Square, chants rising in the cold night.

Her nightmare was not gone. It was waiting.

And then the square. Trafalgar Square, drowned in flags, chants rolling like thunder. Cole’s voice blared from screens: One nation. One destiny. Isla squeezed Ellie’s hand, but her face was blurred by the light.

The crowd surged. Ellie tried to scream, but no sound left her throat. The banners snapped louder, the chants closer, her vision closing in until the world was nothing but noise and colour.

She gasped — and woke.

One evening, sirens wailed closer. Boots thundered on the stairs. Isla and Ellie clutched one another in the dark, breath shallow, waiting for the door to burst open.

“Promise me,” Isla whispered, “if they take us, don’t let them break you.”

Ellie pressed her forehead to hers. “I promise.”

The door shook — then silence. Only the wind howled outside. They held each other tighter, as though bodies alone could shield them from history.

Still, fear lodged itself in every corner. In the stairwell a neighbour disappeared overnight. At work Isla’s case files were erased, her desk stripped bare. “You’re reassigned,” her superior told her curtly, sliding a new badge across the table. The word Compliance gleamed where Protection once had.

Ellie too was dragged into the machinery. At charity galas she was paraded as proof of unity, her presence used to mask the regime’s cruelty. She smiled on command, but at night she cried into Isla’s shoulder, wondering how long they could keep pretending.

By day they queued for rations, surrounded by posters: Protect the Family. Purge the Threat. By night they listened to the radio in secret, foreign stations whispering of protests abroad.

One afternoon, returning from the market, they saw a line of buses rumble past, windows covered with steel mesh. Behind them children’s voices cried out, muffled. Isla collapsed against a wall, shaking. “That could have been him,” she choked. “That was him.”

Ellie pulled her close, her lips trembling against Isla’s hair. “They want us afraid. That’s their power.”