I guess I knew it was inevitable, maybe even something I wanted, but I never thought it would happen this way.
The way it usually works, is that we send messages back and forth with lights. I have a decorative lantern that changes color, which Franz can see from the palace using his telescope. He's got a similar one that I can see with mine. If my lantern is on, he can see that the coast is clear on our end, and likewise with him. When we see each other's lanterns, we change the color. Once both are the same color, Franz begins his trek to our farm. Sometimes I can make out his silhouette on the cliffs. He's more brave than he thinks he is. Even if he seems fragile.
But that's not the way it happened this time. Franz's lantern changed back and forth a few times. He was trying to send some other kind of signal. Then it turned off. I kept looking out to see if it would come on again, and then I saw him, climbing down the cliffs. I saw him fall. I went out to the edge of the farm, Maxie following behind, and we found him, not far past the cliffs, crawling, bleeding all over. It was horrible. Maxie patched him up, but he still looks pretty bad. He isn't talking much.
It wasn't the fall that made him that way, either. Whatever they're doing to him... it's worse than I thought. It's got to be some kind of torture. But why? I don't understand, and Franz won't tell me anything. He's almost catatonic. All I can get him to do is watch holos and sip juice.
When he saw Franz's condition, Maxie flew off the handle. I've never seen him this upset. He launched us immediately. It's just sick, what they do to us, and even their own children. We're going to try to escape Plutonia. I can't live this way anymore, and it doesn't look like Franz will live much longer if he stays either. So either we escape or we die trying. We owe it to ourselves to seek out a better life.