Revolution was in the air. All around, in the Workers District of Reykjavik, people were gathering; in coffee shops, in the streets. There was a murmur, the whisper of a thousand souls; the workers were gathered, prepared to fight and die. A man, tall and imposing, a dark silhouette against the gleaming star above, stepped up and began to speak.
Comrades, brothers, workers of our glorious Icelandic motherland! My name is Johann. We have long suffered under the ropes and chains of the bourgeois have bound us with. We have made sacrifice after sacrifice, to work for a cent an hour; to give us enough krone to feed our wives and children while we toil away. We have had to endure through the long hours, the searing temperatures, the blinding agony of our limbs being ripped by machines. And yet we sit here, complacent, as we starve and our families descend further into the stygian darkness of poverty. Now, I call upon you, my comrades, my brothers and sisters in arms; my companions through our dark and perilous days... I call upon you, comrades, to rise up against the bourgeois, to rise up against those who would think of themselves as your master! Throw down your banners of the filthy slaver, the one who would rule over you without consent - who would collect the wealth for himself, and leave us in the dust. Rise up, brothers, comrades - and throw down Christian XI!
Johann fell silent, as the crowd below him erupted into noise. From the sides of the streets, military police began to filter in. Clad in their pure black uniform, units of twenty led by a mounted officer; there were nearly 10 of these units, blocking the crowd of 500 or so from leaving. The cornered crowd, looking with various feelings of anger, fear, and surprise, began to violently throb, as those on the outside tried to push deeper into the crowd for protection and those inside pushed outwards to escape. Some tried restoring orders; Johann, in particular, was attempting to calm down the unruly crowd, giving commands, to no avail. The soldiers looked on, emotionless. One particularly gaudily dressed officer brought out a megaphone, and shouted the order. Fix targets, he ordered. The soldiers brought up their rifles.
Fire.
