Maid of the Seas
Every December without fail, he came. To any outsider, he was just another slightly annoying tourist, seeking the memorial to the tragedy that gained the small village notoriety. To the local people, however, he was much more than that. He was the mysterious stranger, who appeared all those years ago within days of the event, the first one with an American accent. It wasn't unusual; the jet was, after all, owned by an American company and carrying over one hundred American people.
They came each year, as well, trickling in slowly but surely, each one had a memorable face. The surly man with the thick eyebrows, the lady with the flowers in her hair, the strict soldier-type, the flamboyant romanticist… every year, the twenty-one tourists appeared. And with each passing year, not one of them appeared to age; each maintained the same youthful, vivacious face they had when they had first appeared in 1988.
The weather was drizzly and decidedly miserable that evening as the American ambled into the churchyard. He always arrived first, going inside the church, and read the book of remembrance until the others arrived.
The routine was the same every year. They would meet at the church, for prayers, and go into the churchyard outside to stand by the memorial for a while in complete silence before leaving tributes, and then leaving. What happened to his comrades after that was anyone's guess.
He for one always retired to his hotel room to ponder things. Usually he would work himself into a passionate rage over how people could be so cruel as to hide a bomb on an airplane full of innocent lives, and this would only end until the scar on his wrist throbbed in pain, or, on one occasion, he punched the wall with such a force that he left a large dent in the plaster.
It wasn't that he was an overly sensitive person; he just found it impossible to forget some things. Or rather, he found it immorally disrespectful. He had seen other nations simply stand up, dust themselves off and continue life as if nothing had happened.
He wasn't sure whether to find it cold or amiable.
He entered the church, removing his glasses to wipe the moisture off them. The church was deserted, save for a few flickering candles. It was a calming atmosphere which he appreciated; the soothing presence helped him control his emotion easier.
He strode through the building, footsteps echoing off the stone walls, until he reached the old book. Despite having memorised every name quite some time ago, he still read it every year. It had become a tradition.
He could still remember that December night all those years ago. Christmas was only four days away, and he was attending one of the many parties he had been invited to. The party had barely started when he had a strange hallucination of a jumbo jet majestically soaring into the sky at take-off. Putting it down to the jet-lag after his flight from the US, he shrugged it off.
It wasn't long later when he had another vision of the same white and blue aircraft roaring through the skies. He recognised it from the name proudly inscribed on the airplanes nose.
Clipper Maid of the Seas…
By this point, he was feeling uneasy. Nations only had visions like this when something bad was going to happen. He remembered having similar visions eleven years earlier.
He still wasn't expecting what happened next. The way the skin puckered out, tearing itself into a massive starburst of brilliant flame. Watching hopelessly as the beautiful airplane tore itself apart, the cockpit torqueing backwards before tearing off completely, striking the inner right engine and tail as it careered into the night. What remained began to nose-dive, the wings tearing off, the rest disintegrated, raining debris and aviation fuel below.
That was when the vision ended, for him anyway. Having collapsed in a hysterical heap on the floor, he was unaware that simultaneously another nation had a vision, of burning objects raining down from the sky…
He wiped a tear from his eye, sniffing deeply as he carefully turned each thick page, silently praying for each name, even those who weren't his people.
Two-hundred and seventy people he would never let himself forget.
Aha! I figured out how to make notes! Sorry about the last one, leaving you all in the dark ^^; My bad!
So, I did it again with the plane-crash related disaster art fiction. This time, I decided to opt for a relatively well-known disaster: Pan Am flight 103, aka, the Lockerbie bombing. I'm pretty sure most of you will have the gist of what happened, but if you don't, here's the brief.
On December 21st 1988, a terrorist bomb exploded on a passenger jet (named Clipper Maid of the Seas, hence the title) carrying 259 people. The debris fell on a Scottish village, killing a further 11 on the ground, bringing the death toll to 270. Most of the deaths were American, but there were about 20 other nations who also lost citizens, the flags of whom are featured on a memorial window in Lockerbie town hall, hence the mentions of other characters.
To date, it is the worst air accident to occur in Britain, and the tenth most deadly plane crash in history (excluding 9/11) From then on, the whole situation gets very complicated, but the person responsible was released from jail on compassionate grounds because he had cancer, which he later died of. If you want more, check out some of the documentaries about it on YouTube. There are loads!
A Personal Hetalia Headcannon- Prior to a major disaster which will result in the deaths of a lot of their people, nations will have brief visions leading up to, and during, the event. The "eleven years earlier" bit is referring to the Los Rodeos runway collision in 1977. Coincidentally, one of the planes involved was owned by Pan Am.
On another note, this hasn't been beta-d (neither has my other fic), so is anyone wants to be my beta, I'd be more than grateful!