Disclaimer

I do not hold the intellectual property rights to the Strike Witches franchise, or any other book, comic, song, movie or other work of art I reference. Original Content created by me is copyrighted by me alone. All brand names are property of the respective parties owning rights to them. This disclaimer is valid hereinafter and won't be repeated in the following chapters.

Hi there!

This is another one of my projects, a compilation of shorts NOT related to The Chosen One series. So yes, you can freely read all of this without even bothering with my original series (why would you do that? ;_;)

Strike Witches

The Eighth Child

If your life is ending, what will you think about?

The feeling of air smacking my cheeks – it hurts. But it's nothing compared to my overall situation right now.

Right now, I'm falling from over five thousand meters, somewhere over Britannia. Actually, I think I see the white cliffs of Dover.

How did it come to this?

My name is Georgette, and I'm a Gallian witch. I was slightly over ten years old, living in a village North of Lyon as the eighth daughter of a family of farmers. Eight daughters – not a single son. My parents tried hard to have a son, but Dieu had another plan it seemed.

My childhood was rough. At any given time, there were more than five sisters to feed, at least until they slowly started leaving house and wandering off into the world. I went to a school at a nearby monastery. The nuns were very strict, and for each and every error our bums were flaming red from their Discipline, as they called the plank they used to punish us.

However, one day, it all changed. A few days after my tenth birthday, I met a fox. The fox was weird, because it disappeared into thin air once I touched it. The same day at supper, my eldest (at the time) sister, Jeanne, threw a rock at me. She didn't like me because she blamed me – because I was born, the food portions were thinned out even more than before. The rock flew toward me, but instead of hitting me it stopped midair after hitting a transparent, blue… something. Jeanne immediately ran to our parents and dragged them out of our small house. They asked me to tell them what happened, so I told them. They fell to their knees and started praising God. At the time I didn't know what that meant, but I later figured it out.

The next day, Papa prepared the wagon, and we rode to Lyon. He led me to a building with a propaganda poster on the door. We met with a nice lady, and poof, I was enlisted into the Army–as the first and only of my family. My Papa was proud, but I saw something else in his eyes – greed. Then I understood. He wanted me to send my pay to them, so my family could prosper. I was (of course) to be fed, clothed, and housed in the army, so why would I need money?

The lady from the recruitment office told me that I would be going to Britannia for training ASAP, since I'm a natural talent. I asked her why am I supposedly talented, and she replied that "manifesting magic at this age is a talent of its own". I found myself in a big transport plane, almost entirely by myself, if not for the two men in the… cockpit I believe… I always found that word somewhat indecent…

The plane was flying over the Britannian Channel – I think – when suddenly the whole front of the plane exploded in a sea of redness. The back tilted over, and I fell out. I saw a black-red shape briefly.

Now I'm falling down, and the only thing I see is blue. The water is coming to me… Or am I coming towards the water? But I know what this will mean anyway. I learned enough in my short life to know the consequences.

I wonder if my eldest sister is already married. She's almost eighteen now. I think she can do it. She was always the brightest.

My parents are probably dancing around, knowing that I'll be supporting the family for the next… few years. Well, I'm sorry. I feel my tears streaming across my cheeks. I'm sorry, Mama… Papa. I heard that the families of deceased witches get a compen… something. It's money from what I know. At least I'll be useful. They'll live another month, maybe more thanks to my death. Maybe they'll finally have a son.

I already smell the saltiness of the water... I can hear the waves crashing. It's coming. The cold depths. I turn around towards the blue, cloudless sky and reach my hand up toward it.

God, will I become an angel?

How are you holding up, dear Reader? I got the idea for this ficlet when I was watching Drop Zone in TV, and I wrote it in like twenty minutes.

And Doran Maya had to read through this first huehuehue :3

Make sure you pop-in on our Discord server! We have other Strike Witches authors, and more! Link in my profile.