In the current of darkness under the moon, people could watch town still and silent in the shadows. They could watch the soldiers tramp across alley after alley and street after street. If anyone dared to leave the relative safety of their own home, they might get caught and killed, torn to shreds by their 'protectors'.
In the day everything was bustle and life, no one dared silence, because silence is thought, and thinking is dangerous. People were caged in the walls for their own protection against the Kingdom. Protection at the cost of freedom is always safer, isn’t it?
Everyone hoped they didn’t stick out, and didn’t disappear for the town’s ‘protection’…