Author's Note: I have finally devised a story to fit an idea I've had floating in my head for a while. While not a direct sequel to my previous works, this story will be tangentially related. Hope you enjoy.
Every once in a great while, America visits an old mansion in the Virginia countryside. Being one of the first homes he lived in, the mansion holds a multitude of memories for the young nation. He spent much of his childhood there. He had turned it into a secret arsenal during the Revolution. He had entertained Congressmen and presidents there. And, during the Civil War, he had witnessed his own Union artillery destroy part of it during a battle.
The mansion was eventually restored, but ever since 1865, America has only come by on rare and brief visits. In the 1920s, he took Lithuania with him on one such visit, only to spend the majority of the time cleaning out the storage rooms. Some items, like a musket he had used in the Revolution, America decided to keep for sentimental value. However, many other items were thrown away, dismissed by America himself as century-old junk.
America would return to the mansion every few decades to wander its halls, and take a walk down memory lane. He generally explored the same places; the parts of the mansion that had the strongest memories for him. For instance, he liked to sit in the parlor, allowing his memory to recreate the image of a past president sitting in the chair next to him. On a visit commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the end of the Civil War, he wandered the part of the mansion where he remembered those artillery shells had struck.
But in all those years, America had neglected the storage rooms. Nothing new had been placed there, and that cleaning session from the 1920s had been a thorough enough job. There was no real reason to go in there again. And yet, nearly a century later, America felt an odd compulsion to finally re-visit that part of the mansion.
He parked his car nearby the gates of the premises, got out and spent a minute just staring at the 18th century plantation style architecture of the outside of the mansion. He let out a sigh and walked up to the porch.
"Maybe I'll turn this place into a museum…" he muttered to himself as he went inside.
He went rather hurriedly through the foyer, and past the parlor, not even giving it a second glance as he headed for the hall that would take him to the storage rooms. That didn't stop the wave of nostalgia from hitting him anyway.
"Then again… nah." He shook his head and went on.
Eventually, he reached the storage room door. He opened the door, and was instantly greeted with the dusty smell of a century's worth of neglect. By reflex, he reached in and felt along the wall next to the door, looking for a nonexistent light switch. Muttering a mild curse under his breath, America then reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone. Holding the brightly lit phone screen in front of him, America then stepped across the threshold and began to explore.
His eyes came to rest first on his Revolutionary era musket. During his last visit, he had done some repair work on the venerable weapon, and it still stood propped up against the wall where he had left it. America smiled, even as another wave of nostalgia hit. He took a few steps further in and turned his attention elsewhere.
Further in, almost in the corner, stood a six foot tall mirror. Its frame was so rusted that the original color was impossible to determine, and centuries' worth of dust obscured the glass. America went up to stand directly in front of the mirror. Unsurprisingly, the dust completely hid his reflection. Switching his phone over to his left hand, America reached out and brushed some of the dust off the glass with his right. His fingers left trails where the dust had been, but America repeated the process several times until enough of the glass had been cleared to the point where America should have been able to see his face at least.
America's rather careless handiwork revealed dark, discolored glass behind all the dust – another result of years of neglect, no doubt. Even so, America's reflection finally became visible. He stood there for a minute, staring at it. As he stood there, the room seemed to grow darker. However, America barely noticed, being too absorbed with the mirror. With some reluctance, he eventually tore his gaze away and looked to other things.
Next to the mirror sat a large, locked trunk. The key hung on a peg on the wall just above it. Even though he already knew what was in it, America unlocked and opened the trunk anyway.
Several uniforms, spanning several wars, lay neatly folded in one corner. On top of the uniforms sat a stack of letters tied together with a string. America picked up the letters, and frowned.
"Why did I keep these?"
He untied the string and set all but the topmost letter down. He opened the letter and began to read it. His frown deepened.
The letter opened with "Dear Mother", and closed with a name America did not recognize. It was dated September 20, 1862.
"How did this get in here?"
Setting that letter aside, America tried another one. Upon seeing this one was also written by and to people America was sure he didn't know, he sat back on his heels and took a brief glance around the room. Immediately, something was clearly off.
The musket, which America had not touched at any point when he entered the room, now lay on the floor. He frowned at it for a second, then quickly rose to his feet. He turned around to face the door. The door was closed. While that explained how the room got darker, America had not bothered to close the door upon entering the room either. Someone else must have closed it.
"I swear to God, Tony…" America said, going up to the door and reopening it. "You better not have followed me here to play a prank…"
He stepped out into the hallway and immediately froze at the sight that greeted him. A young man with blond hair and ice blue eyes stood just a few feet down the hall from where America stood. The man wore a light-colored suit, glasses, and was carrying what appeared to be a rolled up newspaper.
"What the hell?" America and the stranger said in unison.