365 Days of Hetalia
Day 7
I own nothing except the idea of this concept.
Okay peeps. This one has some fems in it. Yay! If you don't like don't read, the next one will be normal…I hope…we sharr see. Anyway I wrote this for my creative writing class so here ya go.
(sorry for any OOC-ness)
And just in case no one knows:
Madeine – fem!Canada
Amelia – fem!America
Alice – fem!England
Julchen – fem!Prussia
Emily – Mama Native America
And I think that's all of them
Sixty Years into the Future
July 8, 2073
I woke up and was alone in the tent; my dad must have already gone out with the others to look for food. I crawled to the opening flap of my tent and looked out. I sighed as I took in the scenery, all white, like every morning. It had snowed again last night, but at least the sun was shining today. I shivered and wrapped the blankets around me more; good thing I had animal skins on the ground so it wasn't lying against the ice like some people. I made sure my clothes, thick wool pants, wool shirt, and a three layer coat with a big furry hood, were fastened tightly together to keep out the cold and keep in the warmth before I crawled out of my tent and made my way to the fire one of the older women had made while waiting for the men to come home with whatever food they managed to find. Call it sexist or whatever you wish but when it came down to it the men were stronger and could hunt longer and the children need women more than men so they would stay with the children. I didn't have a problem with it and neither did anyone of the others, well, if they did they didn't tell it to me.
I sighed and sat near the fire, trying to get as much heat from it as possible, with a few more girls my age. One of them, my best friend Amelia, was telling a story to a group of younger children; with nothing better to do I listened as well. They were all dressed the same as I was, everyone had to, it was the only way to stay warm.
"A long time ago, about sixty years, the entire world was different" Amelia said beginning her story. "There wasn't snow everywhere, and there were roads and these huge machines called cars drove on them. You could get from one place to another in just minutes; you didn't have to spend the whole day walking. There was also this country, it was called the United States of America, and it was the land of the free and the home of the brave!" she said proudly and all the kids stared at her wide eyed. "So like you could also just run to the store and buy whatever you want, you didn't have to go find it and make it. Also they had these things called restaurants; you could just go and get food there!"
One kid, Francis, one of the older ones that was about seven, then interrupted her by saying, "that is so not true. There was nowhere like that ever." He stuck his tongue out at her.
"It is too!" Amelia said and crossed her arms.
"No it's not!" most of the kids replied now on Francis's side.
A smaller child, one that was about three, Arthur was his name, stood up and ran to the elderly lady that was tending the fire. She had been listening to Amelia's story and was smiling slightly to herself.
"That's not true is it?" Arthur asked and looked up at her. Granny, (who every one called her since that's the only thing she would allow us to call her, even though her real name is Emily) scooped up Arthur and carried him back to the group.
"It is true" she said and smiled and sat down with Arthur in her lap.
"How do you know?" another kid, Gilbert who was also seven, asked.
"Because I used to live in that world, I'm one of the only people who survived from that time. Amelia got all of her stories straight from me" Granny said and all of the kids stared at her in amazement.
"So the United States of America was real?" asked another child, Antonio who was six.
Granny nodded. "Mhm. And we're in it right now. Do you want to know where?" she asked and all of the kids nodded eagerly, a few nodded so much their hoods fell down. "We are in the forty-eighth state, Arizona. It used to be so hot here that bush fires would start all the time."
I droned out the rest of their talking while staring at the fire and wishing it would be bigger and warmer. I was suddenly dragged from my thoughts as I heard a loud scream. Everyone looked towards the tent where it had come from.
Granny and many of the other women, including myself, got up and went to the tent to see what happened while Amelia stayed with the children. Granny went into the tent and I stood closest to the flap since I was the designated healer beside Granny herself. Granny motioned for me to follow her inside so I did.
There sat a woman, her name was Julchen. She had just moved to this area a few years ago when moving to find more food. She lived here with her husband and new born babies, twins, which were born a few weeks ago. Julchen was crying as she held one of her babies to her chest while the other one was lying on a bunch of blankets, but it was wasn't moving, not even the small up and down motion of its tiny chest as it breathed.
I stepped closer to make sure I wasn't just seeing things. I felt as sick feeling in my stomach as I realized I wasn't wrong, the baby wasn't moving. Its skin had a blue color to it know and it's lips where almost black, the poor baby had frozen to death.
This really wasn't surprising news. It happened often to newborns and children and well, anyone. People died mostly now from freezing to death and from lack of food. We have heard that before the world became covered in snow again that thirteen billion people lived on the world. Now, since everyone has been dying off so fast, the number has reverted back to one hundred million. It still seems high but you would never guess it was by just looking at us.
Soon a man, Julchen's husband Matthew, pushed past the group of ladies surrounding their tent. I looked at him as he took in the scene before him. His face went through different emotions. He went through confusions, to shock, to agony, to anger, then back to agony as he broke down and silently cried while holding Julchen as she held their surviving child.
Granny ushered everyone away that hadn't already left and she went back to helping the others cook whatever the men had brought back.
"Hey Madeline" I heard someone say behind me. I turned and saw my father. His name was Alfred; my mother, Alice, died when I was about three. We were taking a walk in the looking for the few edible herbs that grew when a large bear came up from the bottom of a hill. My mother saved me as using herself as a shield between me and the bear. She told me to run, which I did as fast as I could go, back to the village for help, but by the time they had gotten back to help her all that was left was a trail of her blood from where her dead body had been dragged off by the bear to be eaten.
I shook my head to get those memories out of my head. Even though I was only three at the time the memories are very vivid.
"Something wrong?" my dad asked and walked up to me.
"No, nothing other than one of Julchen's babies died" I said and frowned a bit.
"Ah, I see. I'll go talk to Matthew later" he said more to himself. Dad and Matthew were best friends, they hadn't known each other long but that doesn't matter to them.
"Find anything good?" I asked and he smiled.
"Yeah, we did. There's a camp set up not too far from here. We sent a spy around to get information about them and it turns out that they planned on attacking us tonight!" he said and grinned.
"And that's good?" I asked and raised an eyebrow.
"Of course it's good! So instead of them taking us by surprise we are going to be ready for them."
"But that means that we'll have to fight" I said and frowned. "Hasn't there been enough death for one day?"
"It's either we fight them or they kill us. Take your pick" he said and patted my shoulder. I sighed and grumbled under my breath.
"Just don't get yourself killed, the tent will be too cold at night if it's only me in it" I said and he chuckled.
"Okay, I promise I won't get killed" he said and walked off to go see Matthew.
I sighed and headed back to the main fire.
"Hey, Madeline" I looked up and saw Elizaveta coming towards me while holding a dead rabbit. "I need you to prepare this rabbit for me."
"Got it" I said and took the rabbit and pulled a knife that was made from a very sharp rock from my belt and began to skin the dead rabbit. Once the fur was taken away to make clothes for the babies and the guts were out of it I handed it back over to Elizaveta. She smiled at me and cut it up before putting it into a pot that hung over the fire.
About an hour later lunch was ready. Everyone lined up in a single file line as bowls of stew were handed out. We didn't have to worry about water, so that was pretty nice. All we had to do was put some snow and ice in a pot and hold it over the fire until it melted.
After lunch the men sat around and sharpened their weapons that most of them had made. A few people were lucky, like my father, and had weapons back from before the snow covered up everything all the time. He had a sword; it was a lot nicer than everyone else's homemade weapons.
Granny sighed watching them before going into her tent. I was curious so I followed her.
"Something wrong, Granny?" I asked and sat patted the spot next to where she was sitting for me to sit down as well. I did and she smiled sadly at me.
"When I was little people didn't use to do this" she said and I furrowed my eyebrow in confusion.
"They didn't fight with each other?"
"Well, they did but it wasn't like this" she asked and looked at me. "When they were killed they didn't take the dead bodies and have a feast with them."
"Why not?"
"They didn't need to. There was enough food to go around and besides…it was morally wrong."
"Oh…. But things are different now…" I said and started at the fur covered ground.
She put a hand on my knee and nodded. "Yes, things are very different now. Also people didn't fight like this. They had guns, and nuclear weapons."
"I've heard you mention guns before but what was the other one?"
"Nuclear weapons. They caused mass amounts of death and destruction. Trust me they weren't pleasant. I read somewhere that 100,000 people died in one bombing. A bomb is one of those nuclear weapons."
"Oh, I see… Um…what's reading?" I asked and looked to see her smiling at her.
My cheeks flushed with embarrassment a bit, since I was asking all these questions, I feel like a little kid again.
"Reading is when you can understand words written down on paper."
"What's paper?" I moved my gaze back down to the ground.
"Paper is thin material that you can write on. Now, we can write on cloths but no one remembers how to anymore."
"Can you teach me?" I looked at her again and shock was on her face.
"You really want to learn?" she asked and I nodded quickly. She smiled and said, "Let me get a few things from the chest."
She moved over to this box type thing that was made out of some solid material, I think it was called wood. She opened the chest and pulled out many different things before coming back over to me.
"This," she held up this thin material that was practically see through "is paper. These are pencils" she said and held up a bunch of yellow things with sharp tips.
"They look like small spears…are they weapons?" I asked and took one to examine it.
She laughed and shook her head. "No, you write with them. Okay, first you're going to learn the English alphabet before I teacher you how to read." I nodded as she began writing strange symbols on the paper with the pencils.
When she was done she handed the paper to me. I looked it over and studied it. "What is this?"
"It's the alphabet. This is an uppercase A. This is a lowercase A" she said and pointed to what she was walking about. She continued on from A to Z. "Back in my time children learned these things when they were four or five."
"What?! I'm nearly eighteen and I can't do it. How can they?" I asked and looked at her with wide eyes.
She shrugged. "It's just the way it was. Now take the paper and a pencil" she said and handed one of each to me. She showed me how to write each one of them. "Turn your paper over" she said once I had written the alphabet. I'm pretty sure some of Francis's drawings in the snow looked better than my writing, but she assured me that it would get better with practice.
"Now, on the back of your paper write an uppercase M" she said and as I looked at the paper she originally wrote the alphabet on I wrote an uppercase M. "Now the rest of the letters I tell you to write are going to be lowercase, okay?" she asked and I nodded as I ready my pencil to write more. "Write an A" she paused in between each letter to give me time. "D, E, L, I, N, E."
When I finished writing the letters I put down my pencil and looked at it. "What does it say?" I asked and looked back and forth between her and the paper.
"Now, you get to read it" she said and pointed at the M. "Repeat after me. Mm."
"Mm."
"Ah"
"Ah"
"Duh"
"Duh"
"Lie" she pointed to the L and the I at the same time.
"Lie"
"Nn" she pointed to the N and the E at the same time.
"Nn"
"Madeline" she finished and looked up at me.
"Madeline…Madeline! That's my name!" I shouted and looked up at her, smiling widely.
She nodded. "Yup, that's your name. That's how you spell, write, and read your name."
Soon we heard battle cries and Granny sighed. "So they're here. Just stay in here with me, I don't want you by yourself and it would be dangerous if you tried to go back to your tent now." I nodded and looked at the piece of paper in my hands.
As we sat there waiting for the sounds to stop she pulled out of the chest three huge things that looked like a bunch of paper bound together.
"These are books" she said and placed them in front of me.
"Books?" I asked and raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, books" she said. I picked one up and opened it. The pages were filled with a bunch of those letters that she had written down on the paper that she made me copy. "What does it say?" I asked and looked up at Granny.
"One day you'll be able to read it all. This one" she held up a black book, "is the Bible." I took the book from her and looked it over.
"What's this one?" I asked and picked up one that was practically falling apart.
"It's Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. And this one" she picked up the other book "is a complete collection of Edgar Allen Poe's works."
"How come no one reads or writes anymore?" I asked and set the books down.
"Well, when there's not any paper to write on or books to read it just kinds of dies out. When we had to moves from our homes to get to higher ground while the snow covered everything people only took what was most valuable and so not many books survived."
I stayed silent as I thought about this. I was only pulled out of my thoughts when I heard noises that sounded like shouts of victory. My dad quickly came into the tent and smiled when he saw me.
"Good, I hoped you were in here when I didn't find you in our tent" he said and ruffled my hair since my hood was currently down.
"How did it go?" I asked and noticed he had blood splattered on his coat in various places. "That's not your blood is it?" I asked and looked at him skeptically.
"Stand down. It's not my blood" he said and put his hand up defensively but he was joking. "Were you two safe during the fight?" Granny and I nodded.
"Oh! Dad, guess what! Granny's gonna teach me how to read and write!" I said excitedly.
"Really?" he said and nodded. "What does that mean?"
"It's the way people were educated back when I was her age" Granny said and smiled.
"See, these are books" I said and handed him one of the books, "and this is paper and these are pencils!" I said and showed him everything.
"You're really excited about this, huh?" he asked and smiled at me when I nodded quickly. He chuckled and sat down. "So what can you read?"
"Not really anything yet… Oh! I learned how to write me name!" I said and grabbed the paper with my name on it.
"Hey, that's pretty cool, kiddo" he said and I smiled widely. Granny smiled as well.
We talked for a while until dad stood up and stretched. "The food should be ready now, let's go eat."
I stood up and put my hood back up. Dad went over and held a hand out to Granny to help her up.
"I'm not going to eat that," she said and shook her head.
Dad shrugged, "Fine. Suit yourself." He and I headed out of the tent and to the fire where people were gathered. He ran over to them and I ran behind him.
"Save me a thigh!" he yelled towards Matthew who was towards the front of the group.
"No, if you can't get your butt out here in time to get it yourself then you won't get any" Matthew shouted back and everyone, including myself, laughed. I patted dad's shoulder as he pretended to pout.
Finally we got to the front where the meat was.
"What part do you want?" Belle, a lady around Elizaveta's age, asked me.
"Part of the thigh, please" I said. She nodded and began cutting the meat. I looked down at the meat she was cutting; it was a right leg of one of the fallen men from the other group. Say what you will but I don't have a problem with it. Food is food; I don't care where it comes from. Granny says it is cannibalism, whatever that means.
Once she handed me my meat I went and sat down near the fire. As the sun went down it began to get colder and I really did hate the cold, which really sucks considering it's never warm.
After we finished eating everyone went back to their tents. Once back in my tent I laid down and pulled blanket after blanket on me until I was just this huge lump of fur. The weight of the blankets hurt sometimes but being warm is more important than hurting in my opinion.
Slowly I drifted to sleep, dreading to wake up to another snow filled tomorrow. At least for tonight I can dream of the United States of America, with blue skies, grassy plains, and a whole year of no snow.
There we go all done~ Please review.
