Hello, my lovlies.This story takes place in 1917,. Hopefully, y'all like it!
Anything pertaining to Twilight and it's characters belongs to S. Meyer. any new characters and this p!ot are all mine.
This is also my first angst so be gentle... itll be a short story with chapter length varying.
Enjoy!
Bella's POV:
April 2, 1917
It is said that everything that goes up must come down, that all good must come to an end, but I never expected it to be so painful.
Life was good, perfect even, but that was once upon a time. Then everything changed.
First, the influenza struck here in Chicago. My aunt Myrtle and Uncle Sebastian were the first of our family to die in the first wave of the pandemic.
I was only sixteen when the first wave hit. We were all ordered to stay at home. Schools, churches, theaters, and public parks, places that were used to gather in, began to close first. Then came the small business until practically everything but the essential places were closed.
My uncle Seb had worked as a police officer within the local police station when he caught the influenza. My Aunt caught it from him. We lost them a few days within each other, just after they were hospitalized.
It seemed that more and more people seemed to be catching the influenza day by day. More and more hospitalizations each day. Things began to close down as people began to panic.
Things seemed to simmer down after a month of quarantine, but we were still ordered to cover our faces if we were to step out of the house.
It was just a week after the quarantine was lifted that my older sister, Lucia, aka Lucy, met Matthew.
Mother had sent us to buy a few essential things for dinner since Chessy was away visiting a sick relative in Ohio. She had originally been hired for us, as a nanny, after we were born but as we grew my mother realized we had gotten attached to her and instead had Chessy help her in the kitchen and around the house.
We had just exited the butcher shop, and we're on our way to get what was left on the list when Lucy ran into someone, who knocked her down.
"Pardon me, Miss, are you alright?" The young man asked, as he helped Lucy catch her footing.
I wanted to laugh at the stunned expression on Lucy's face, but only managed to snicker as I collided into someone's back before bouncing off and falling to the ground, losing the bag I held of groceries as I landed.
It was how I ended up meeting Edward Masen, and boy was it a meeting.
After Matthew helped me get to my feet, he apologized profusely for his pigheaded brother. To which I calmly replied that I was fine and quickly left to continue to buy the groceries mother asked us to get.
Lucy was sighing dreamily on the way back home.
That is how Lucia Murielle Swan met Matthew Uriah Masen. This is their story and the events and the aftermath of what happened after their departure.
Soon after the two met, they soon began courting with the permission of our father.
It was entertaining to watch the two interact, at first, Lucy would ask me to accompany her to the park, where the two would have a picnic or a walk within the park. Much to my disappointment, his brother would sometimes accompany him every so often.
After just six months of them courting Matthew and his parents came to the house one day, asking to speak to my father just before lunch.
I remember clearly the worried look on Lucy's face, as she paced the length of the parlor while I read a new book my father had gotten for me, while our mother knitted something for her friend's daughter who happened to be married and with-child, a concept she very much baggered us about.
Grandchildren.
When three quarters of an hour passed, father and the Masens walked out his office smiling delighted.
Once mother's eyes met father's, she let out a small gasp and squealed happily, dumping her needles and work onto the couch before rushing to him, and then to my sister.
After asking my mother to control herself, father announced that Matthew had asked for her hand in marriage, and he had accepted.
That very afternoon, Mrs. Masen, my mother and sister began planning a dinner party to announce the engagement, which would happen within two months.
Things, however, began to change when word was put out about the war that was occuring overseas.
It seemed Matthew and his younger brother, Anthony, were ready to put everything aside, including their mother's worries, and signed up to go fight in the war.
This caused my sister to postpone the wedding preparations, indefinitely. It was a brutal argument that occurred between them, and she nearly broke off the engagement, for good.
Before we knew it, summer had arrived, bringing along the calm before the storm. Or at least, that is how it felt to me. The number of people infected by influenza seemed to have decreased exponentially, giving us a false sense of hope. One which we enjoyed thoroughly, since everything began to open once more, and we all were allowed, once again, to leave the security of our homes.
Then summer passed, bringing the chilly winds and warm colors of the fall, along with the end of the war.
My sister had decided to have the engagement party in the last week of September, and what a massive celebration it turned out to be.
Colleagues of Mr. Masen and my father arrived along with their families. They arrived bearing gifts and congratulating Matthew and Lucia on their engagement.
It was wonderful, until it wasn't.
It was that night that I officially met Edward Anthony Masen, Matthew's younger brother, the man that collided into my life and changed it forever.
I can't say it was a pleasant experience, since my foot accidentally collided with his shin, repeatedly. He was a pigheaded, arrogant, egotistic fool who scoffed and limped away.
Lucia had forced me to dance with him, he was a year older than me, yet he acted a fool every chance he got. Teasing me, endlessly, and even going as far as to prank me every chance he got.
It was a vicious, endless cycle that started that day at the market, and wouldn't end until I finally got the upper hand.
Which still had yet to happen.
After everything happened my sister and Matthew disappeared one afternoon only to come back married the next day.
To say that our parents and his were angry would be putting it lightly, though my father would never cast out his daughter out of the house so mercilessly.
Instead, he chose to take the high road and help them get a house just a mile out from ours.
Just after the second week of October, Matthew and his brother had received letters to report to one of the local military offices.
It was then Lucy informed that Matthew had been drafted, and Edward had lied about his age and went to join the army instead.
Just weeks after they were sent overseas, their parents Elizabeth and Edward Masen Sr. caught the Spanish Flu in the second wave of the pandemic that hit.
Only days after the Masens were hospitalized, my parents followed.
My sister was stuck at home, in isolation, doctor's orders. So, it was up to me to visit all four of them. Sadly, it wasn't enough to visit.
Even prayers seemed to dwindle as death began to claim so many lives within the hospital.
Mister Masen was the first person that passed away just a few hours after being hospitalized. Then followed by my father only an hour after.
I visited them as much as possible, but restrictions prevented me from being with them for too long.
It was just a week after their departure that my beloved mother lost her own battle against the influenza, falling into a tired sleep which she never woke up from. It didn't surprise me, not really, their love was so deep that I knew once my father lost his battle, my mother would follow shortly after.
It pained me to inform my sister of their departure but I couldn't keep it from her. It would only hurt more if she found out later.
No other pain compared to seeing her face contorted in agony as I uttered those words. She spent days after bedridden, until I finally managed to bring her out of her catatonic state.
"How?" She whispered.
"Luc… the influenza took them, there wasn't anything either of us could do… they passed away in their sleep. They didn't suffer. Please, I'm begging you. Don't let their passing affect you to the point you lose that precious thing you are carrying. If you die too, you'll leave me alone in this world, is that what you want?" I asked, tearfully.
After that she burst into tears, her sobs wracking through her violently, and causing her to curl into a ball.
"We'll get through this. Just don't give up on me." I begged her, tearfully.
"I won't." She promises tearfully.
I sighed in relief, hoping she would recover wholly.
It was just a few days that I went to visit Mrs.Masen, only managing to get to her room after claiming to be Lucia.
"Isabella?" She whispered, thickly, when I finally did reach her bedside.
"I'm here, Mrs. Masen. I'm right here…" I whispered through the cloth I was told to fasten around the lower part of my face.
"Promise me…" She whispered, before breaking into a coughing fit. "Promise me you'll be there for him when I'm not… please don't leave him alone." she wheezed, as she took my hand into hers, squeezing them anxiously.
I could feel my eyes begin to water as I watched her lick her dry lips. I slowly sat her up and let her take a sip of the water, slowly helping her lay back down onto the hospital mattress when she had enough.
"Promise me." She repeated, clutching my hand once more, and staring at me with watery, green eyes.
" I- I promise." I whispered, as I watched her slowly fall back into calm, deep sleep.
It was later that night that Elizabeth Masen would lose her battle against the influenza, leaving me to deal with the aftermath of her sad departure.
Due to current regulations I wasn't allowed to have a large vigil for my parents or the Masens. However, since the first day I walked into the hospital, I became acquainted with one of the doctors working at the hospital.
Dr. Carlisle Cullen.
He and his wife, Esme, helped me plan the burials for my parents and the Masens.
With only Lucy, and I present along with Father Roger Carmichael.
My father and Edward Masen Sr. were close friends. Having grown up together, attended school and Law School together only to graduate then proceed to open their Law Firm together.
Masen Swan Firm.
They were so close that when they got married, they were each other's best man. Their wives Renee and Elizabeth became best friends as well.
So, it doesn't surprise me that my parents and the Masens' had burial plots and a will already in place.
Even though our parents were close, the Masens' boys and my sister and I never truly interacted until Matthew and Lucia officially met at the market that fateful day.
I felt numb as I watched my parents and the Masens get lowered into the ground. Lucy had chosen not to attend since Carlisle advised her against it after she fainted at the vigil.
So, there I stood under the rain, crying alone as I remember the last good memory of my parents and Masens' before Father Carmichael finished the prayer for the four of them.
"I'll miss you all. Promise to watch over us from up there. Over Matthew and Edward, wherever they are…." I whispered, looking up at the clouded sky.
The wind whooshing around me, let me know they heard my pleas.
Jeffrey Porter reads me the wills a week after informing me that Lucy and I are the heirs to the families fortunes until the Masen boys come back, if they come back at all.
I watched as my sister's already broken heart broke even more as she heard Mr.Porter speak.
A week before Christmas, we are in the sitting room, when she drops her knitting needles on her lap and stiffens, before smiling and rubbing her round stomach.
"Luc, are you alright?" I ask, setting my book down.
"I'm perfectly fine." She said, smiling widely as she rubbed her protruding stomach.
"What are you going to name the child, anyway?" I asked, smiling at her.
She hardly ever smiled now. It was rare. The only times she did smile were very far between. Mainly when she received a letter from Matthew or the doctor visited her.
"I think I like the name Gracie for a girl… Gracie Mae." She said.
"What if it's a boy?" I asked, amused.
"I like the name Jeremiah Matthew. Jeremiah or Edwin…" she finally said, unsure.
I smiled at her before we went back to our tasks.
It was just after Christmas that we received a letter informing us of the shocking incident.
Matthew was missing in action.