.oOo.
"Everything's ruined! Everything!"
.oOo.
Caiomhe Bryne, 16, British Isles Female
She's been on her knees planting the last field of wheat next to her house, and if she can't get a drink of water from the well right now, the whole farm can be damned to the deepest, darkest region of Hell that she can think of. And she doesn't care if her mother would faint if she heard Caiomhe say that word. She just wants to end this cursed thirst!
Caiomhe walks into the house, ignoring the glares from her mother Eilis, currently working on the bread for their meal tonight, and Caiomhe quickly takes one of the old, painted clay cups for the water, making sure not to knock any of them off of the ledge as she turns back around to the door. The well was on the other side of the house, and if she has a chance of getting a drink of water before her father noticed and yelled at her to help finish the last few lines of wheat in the field, she has to move.
She's about to pour the water into the cup from the bucket that she's hauled up from the well, filled to the brim, when her sister races into the yard, the horse she's ridden on to the farm heaving for breath. Catronia jumps off of her horse and rips off the saddle, tossing it down and pulling out the newspaper that she had carried with her from the town. "Mum, Britain's surrendered."
Caiomhe drops the cup, the clay pieces shattering onto the ground as her hands tremble uncontrollably. "Wh-wha-what did you say?"
Catronia turns towards her little sister, her eyes filled with a light that both thrills and scares Caiomhe half to death. "Mr O'Sullivan says that they've burnt the Tower of London to the ground, and Mrs O'Sullivan says that they've made all of Ireland part of Britain once more."
Caiomhe's mother gasps inside of the living room, crossing herself impulsively as she stands up and runs - Caiomhe's mother never runs, not even when Collen died five years ago - to the door. "Ó mo dhia, they've made Ireland a state of Britain once more? No! They can't do that! But only Northern Ireland is theirs! Only Northern Ireland is theirs! Cad a thagann an domhan?"
Caiomhe is the one to notice her mother collapse, rushing to grab her shoulders before Eilis smashes her head onto the side of the doorway. "Mum? Are you alright?"
"Only Northern Ireland is theirs..." Eilis murmurs before slumping back down onto the ground, and Caoimhe grits her teeth in effort as she lifts her limp mother from the ground. "Catronia, help me!"
Catronia helps to lift Eilis quickly up, and the two sisters carry her to the couch, positioning her into a lying position just as their father bursts in through the door. "Why is Catronia back so early from the town? Didn't you have to go get supplies for our crops?"
Aofie taps his foot as he waits for her response, not noticing his unconscious wife lying unceremoniously on the couch. It's Caiomhe who speaks up to her father, wringing her hands in fear and terror as she starts to speak. "Germany's taken Britain and Ireland and they've made us into one country once more and they're going to kill us all and they've won and we lost and, and, and… oh, everything's ruined! Everything!"
Catronia calms the trembling Caiomhe, squeezing her hand tightly. "It's not that bad. Mr. O'Sullivan's said that the Germans are leaving us alone, we're just under their rule. As long as all of us can keep our heads about this, we'll be fine, Da. Caiomhe's just lost her head a bit about this whole matter. We'll be fine, honestly. It's just… Mum's kind of fallen down."
Aofie looks over at the couch, his eyes widening in terror as he runs toward his fallen wife. "Eilis? Eilis? Are you okay? Oh, Eilis, are you hurt?"
Eilis begins to stir, her eyes opening as she looks up at the terrified face of her husband. "Aofie? But the… fields haven't been planted… yet..."
"I think she's starting to go into shock, Da. Can you get cold water and soak a towel in it, Caiomhe?" Catronia takes the hand of her mother and feels her pulse, smiling gratefully as she squeezes the palm of her mother's hand. "She's still breathing."
Caiomhe flies to the well, hauling up a bucket of water and drenching a spare towel in it as quickly as humanly possible as she races back towards the house, bursting through the doors and running towards her fallen mother. "I've got it!"
Catronia takes the towel and places it on her mother's forehead, Eilis stirring once more as she tries to resist the cold touch of the towel. Catronia holds firm the towel, making sure that Eilis can't shake it off. "She's going to be okay, Caiomhe. You don't need to think that Mum's going to die. She's going to be perfectly fine."
Caiomhe lets out a small sigh of relief, wiping the sweat that she had just noticed off of her brow. "But… but what about the Germans? What are they going to do now that they have Britain?"
Aofie comforts his crestfallen daughter, holding a shuddering Caiomhe close as he rocks her back and forth. It's something that he only did with Caiomhe when she was a small little girl and was scared of something, but Caiomhe doesn't resist, instead embracing her father as he strokes her hair. "We're going to be fine, Caiomhe. Patrick O'Sullivan can be as bad of a gossip as most of the women in the village. Why, I think he only got the job of postman by talking the first one out of town! We don't need to listen to him, Caiomhe. If I'm right, the Germans will leave us all alone. We're going to be perfectly fine. After all, why would they want us now that they've taken over? What more could they possibly desire?"
But as Aofie rocks his daughter back and forth, Caiomhe doesn't notice the uncertain look in his eyes.
.oOo.
"It's always better to do something than to just stand there and do nothing."
.oOo.
Norman Bennett, 14, British Isles Male
Norman doesn't know what he should do with the unexploded bomb that's just fallen from the sky like a bird. The dogs are furiously barking at it, Carlisle even daring to snap at it with his jaws before backing away, whimpering slightly as he runs back to Norman. The dog has sense. He knows that this can only bring death. But will it?
Norman steps closer, the initial shock of the bomb falling in front of him, whistling through the air and crashing into the dust and grass of the forest ground, having finally faded away. It hasn't made any sounds to worry Norman - yet. Should he leave? Should he try to remove it from the forest, or should he just run?
Jarrow whimpers nervously, and Norman pats his golden head as he backs slowly away from the bomb. "Should we run, boy? Or should we stay here and try to do something about this bomb?"
Jarrow barks, almost as if he's gesturing Norman away from the bomb, but Norman stands in his position, picking up the bow and arrow that he had dropped in the falling of the bomb. The bow is still intact, and only a few arrows had spilled from the pack he had dropped on the bag. He picks them up and slowly stands up, still eying the bomb. It was a pity too, he had been close to shooting a sparrow nesting in the bushes behind the bomb. It had surely flown away in the shock; Mother Nature always knew to warn her creatures in the event of a threat. But he still wasn't sure what to about this bomb. It wasn't every day that his life was threatened like this.
"It's always better to do something than to just stand there and do nothing," Norman whispers to himself, and he snaps out of his shock. "Come on, Jarrow, Carlisle, we're leaving. We've got to tell Richmond about this."
The dogs bark in agreement and race ahead of Norman, pausing every so often in order to let him catch up with the two. Norman had always been quick on his feet, having ran around the farm since he was a small child, but he certainly wasn't as fast as the dogs. They run through the forest, dodging and weaving through the large, ancient trees in order to reach the farm. And just as Norman's starting to gasp for breath, he must have gone further than he thought from the farm, there's the golden fields filled with wheat and grain and he knows that he's safe. The bomb can't reach him here, even if it does explode.
He races through the front yard and bursts through the door, panting from his frantic sprint, Richmond opens his eyes from the nap he had been taking, and the brother leaps to his feet. "What's wrong, Norman? Did someone get hurt?"
"Bo - bomb, " Norman gasps, and Richmond leaps to his feet and runs towards the door. "Fuck, this is bad. I'm getting Bradley and Heath. We've got to find Da. He'd know what to do. Oh, if we only lived closer to town!"
Norman nods, and Richmond disappears through the door, sprinting towards the fields where Da, Bradley and Heath are busy fixing one of the broken fence posts that a tree crashed onto last night. Of course, Da would know what to do, after all. He was Grandfather's son, after all, and Grandfather had known everything. They would fix it all. They would fix everything. And maybe, just maybe, Norman wouldn't have to worry about it again.
He stands up and walks over to the unprepared venison on the counter, starting to chop up the meat and get it ready to cut instinctively, but the worry that he should be out helping his father and his brothers with the bomb keeps on gnawing away at the back of his mind. Should he help, or should he stay? What should he do? What was the right thing to do?
"Norman? Are you okay? Weren't you in the woods this afternoon?" Norman spins around to hear the worried voice of his sister, Caroll, and she stares at him in confusion as she walks towards the dining room. "And where are Da and the other boys going? I know Mum's gone to town, but why would they need to go into the woods?"
Norman throws the knife down onto the counter and runs towards the door, stopping as he reaches his sister. He places her hands on her shoulders and talks quickly, pointing at the window. "I've got to go help them. You stay here, Caroll. You can't come into the woods with us. Do you hear me?"
Caroll nods quickly, still confused about what's happening, and Norman doesn't waste any time in sprinting out of the house and towards the woods. He sees where he had vanished into the woods and runs there, the dogs following him excitedly. Norman stops and points back to the house sternly, watching the dogs with an authoritative eye. "Stay."
Jarrow and Carlisle whimper sadly, walking back to the house and curling up under the shade, and Norman keeps running into the woods. He needs to find them… he needs to find them… he needs to find them… he needs to save them… he needs to run faster!
He bursts into a clearing and shouts to the figures of his family, screaming at the top of his lungs as he runs towards them. "Stop! Stop! Stop!"
They do stop, looking back at Norman with confused gazes before turning forwards again. And that's when the bomb chooses to explode, causing a wave of energy to fly through the air. Norman steps back, startled by the blast, and he strains forward to see his family. Are they safe? Are they hurt? Did they die because he was too much of a coward to stop them before the bomb exploded?
And when the dust clears, when the burning leaves tumble towards the ground, and when the sound of the explosion stops ringing in his ears, Norman can clearly see the scared, yet unharmed figures of his family. They're safe. He saved them.
And as the thought tumbles through his head, Norman collapses onto the ground.
.oOo.
"How could he be so foolish, so stupid as to run into the soldier?"
.oOo.
Marius Alain, 15, French Male
The little girl that he's just found in the barn is wailing once more, the tears streaming down her face, and all Marius is able to do is pick her up and hide in the barn. Hide, and hope that the German soldiers don't look through the barn for him. Because if they find him, he'll be executed immediately. After all, that's what happens when a fifteen-year-old boy from the middle of France shoots a German soldier posting up the terms of surrender for Britain and Russia. They get killed as soon as possible, and if the two can't hide immediately and pray, just pray to God that they don't get found by the German soldiers, they might be able to survive this night.
The little girl whimpers as he scrambles into the hay with her in his arms, and Marius gives out a silent cry of horror as they nestle in the middle of the pile. They can't be found by the Germans, they can't! They can't! If they're found, it's all going to be over. There's no way that he'll survive if she keeps crying. But he can't smother her, that would be as inhumane as the soldiers marching closer to the barn by the second. He has to convince her to stay quiet.
"Mon ami? Bonjour?" he whispers, and the little girl turns towards him in the warm, almost smothering darkness of the hay pile. "Bonjour."
Marius breathes a sigh of relief, the girl has calmed down, and he puts his finger to his lip. "Mon petite amie, we must stay quiet. Do you have anything that you can think about to yourself while we hide? Do you like to do anything?"
The girl perks up, pointing through the hay to something that's in the direction that she's pointing in. "I like to play football. My brothers would be the goalies, and I would get to run with the ball, and I would score!"
Marius nods, and he remembers the happy afternoons that he had spent with his friends after school, kicking the football around the field and trying to score on his brothers. They usually didn't let goals in, Jean and Rainier were very competitive when it came to sports, but if Marius was sneaky and quiet enough, he could sometimes catch one of them off guard and score. But the happy afternoons, the springs of his life, had faded away into the smoke of the bombs that had fallen onto France, and Jean and Rainier had faded away with them. From what he was told, the two had both died during the battles of Dunkirk and the fall of France. The Germans had just killed them without a second thought for their grieving mother, who was currently bedridden due to the shock of losing not one, but two of her three young sons. They weren't hateful, they were more than that. They were despicable. And that was why Marius had become a rebel. He couldn't bear to stay at home and mourn, so he threw away his football and traded it in for a gun. He had attended meetings under the guise of study sessions, learned how to sabotage cars with a pinch of sugar in the gas tank of the car, and how to blow up bridges with explosive putty and a rope. And it had led to this. Would he have traded his rebellion against the German Reich for freedom, for his life, for the chance to live yet another day?
No. He would never dishonour the memory of his brothers like that. Jean and Rainier wouldn't want that. He had to keep fighting, keep living.
The little girl sneezes, and Marius is shocked out of his memories. Horrified, he covers her mouth, but the damage is done. He can already hear the trudging of footsteps into the barn, and he bites his lip as he hears soldiers searching through the barn. They can't find them, they can't! He can't die, not after all of the time he had spent living!
He hears a German soldier walk towards the haystack the two are under, and Marius holds the hand of the little girl. Will the man find them? Or will they manage to survive to the end of the day?
He hears the swoosh of a pitchfork going into the hay, and before the cold, cruel metal prongs of the pitchfork stab into their flesh, Marius grabs the little girl's hand and bursts out of the hay. He can see the surprised look on the faces of the searching soldiers, and he takes the opportunity to run with the girl and out of the barn, away to freedom, away to life, away from the - Wham!
He crashes into a soldier and collapses, the little girl running a bit further before getting swooped up by a soldier walking past the barn. The man looks down at Marius, a cruel grin spreading over his odious face as he brings out his gun. "Well, well, well! Was haben wir hier?"
Marius spits onto the shoes of the man, the German Reich be damned to hell, and he bites his tongue so hard that he draws blood. How could he be so foolish, so stupid as to run into the soldier? He could have just disappeared into the wood on the other side of the barn! But no, his foolish legs had decided to carry him towards the soldiers. Jean would have laughed at him if he saw Marius in this position. A rebel should never be this stupid! He deserved to die for this. Why couldn't he think before he acted?
The man slaps Marius in the face and is aiming his gun at Marius' heart just as the stern voice of what cannot be mistaken for anything other than a commander rings through the air. "Müller, nicht schießen. lass ihn sein."
The man scowls and points his gun down towards the ground, still cruelly scowling at Marius. Marius shivers at the pure hatred in the glare and looks away, watching the little girl. She's being carried back to Marius, but she's screaming at the top of her lungs for her grandmother. "Grand-mère! Grand-mère! Aidez moi!"
The commander stares at Marius, his hands fingering the gun at the side of his belt. He speaks in broken French, watching the young rebel squirm in the hands of his soldier. "Let him… go. He can home, he go now. He will have time to die in competition."
And as Marius squirms away and runs into the forest with the little girl, he can only hear the words of the commander ringing in his ears.
.oOo.
"God forbid that she makes a fool out of herself now of all times!"
.oOo.
Gabriella Meier, 14, French Female
She's finally decided that learning how to knit is useless when they've just found out that the German Reich had just won the war. Why would someone want to learn how to repair her stockings that she ripped last night walking home from church when her country's just been taken over by the very empire that has killed her cousins, her uncles, her friends? How could Gabriella manage to sit down and learn household skills when her life is crumbling down around her? She can't sit still, she has to move and find a place where the pieces can't hit her. She needs to go see if her parents have come home yet.
She stands up and swats away the white kitten that's been swatting at Gabriella's ball of yarn for the past five minutes. She walks past the kitchen and leans in to see her Grandmother working diligently away at the dinner for tonight. It's a beautifully prepared chicken, one of the only ones that the family has left, and it's only been killed to celebrate her brother's birthday. "I'm going to the station today, Grandmère."
Grandmother looks back at Gabriella, a look of pity forming behind her small glasses. "You know that they won't be back today, Gabriella. Even if that Schnee has promised to return some prisoners of war to our region for complying for the most part to the war effort, it doesn't mean it will happen today. They might not get back, sweetheart. Ooh, if I could only get a hold of that Schnee! Now that, that would be a good present for Victor's birthday."
Gabriella chokes back a burst of laughter as her Grandmother viciously carves the chicken, likely envisioning Schnee under her perfectly sharp blade. Grandmother had diligently kept track of the war effort every month of the war, planning out defense lines across Southern England and France for the Allied forces to fall back upon, deeming Paris as having no military significance and reminding the grieving family that Dunkirk only meant that the Allies were battered, not broken. It had likely hit her the hardest when the news that the Allies had surrendered and that Canada and the United States had bowed out of the war, but Grandmother was the strongest in the family. She had been the one to comfort her husband, not the other way around. It had been that strength that had let her accept that four of her children had been killed in the fighting, and that they had truly lost the war. Gabriella couldn't have possibly made it through the war without Grandmother.
She walks out of the door and into the streets, past the battered houses lining her neighbourhood. Her house is only one of the many who were affected by the bombing last year and, if she looks closely enough, she can spot broken windows in some of the abandoned houses. Those are the houses who didn't have their owners come back. Perhaps they died in the war, perhaps a squad of German soldiers found them in the streets of one of France's cities, but it makes no difference. Those houses will never be filled by their owners again.
Gabriella starts to break into a jog, only stopping once she sees others walking through the streets. She might be, in the words of her teacher, a demon who couldn't stop talking, but Grandmother had managed to drill into her head that a proper young lady always walked through town, not run. Even if her parents might be arriving on the train in minutes, she still had to walk. God forbid that she makes a fool out of herself now of all times!
Gabriella walks past the shops in the middle of the town and bites away a wave of revulsion as she sees the Nazi flag draped over the town square. The Germans had destroyed the statue of Marshal Foch in the time that they had invaded the town, and now a swastika and a statue of Schnee replaced the old war hero. It was… was… almost sacrilegious, what they had done to the town. She knew that the Germans had done more than just kill the men of her town. They had taken the women as well.
She walks past the church, thankfully still intact from the German shells, and past the rest of the shops towards the train station. If she looks closely enough at the train tracks, she can see the incoming train on the edge of the horizon. Oh, if only it carries her parents as cargo, she just wants to see her beautiful mother and her strong father once more. She needs them back, especially after the end of the war. Even Grandmother can't keep them all in high spirits for long.
The ticket master smiles as Gabriella marches towards the bench and seats herself down, tossing her a hard candy. "Why the long face, mon amie? Your kind won the war, did they not?"
Gabriella nods sadly and starts to suck on the sweet, watching the train come closer to the station. "Grandmother and Grandfather Hermel say that it doesn't matter who wins, as long as we can live in peace. Oh, but I do hope that Mother and Father come home today. Do you think they will?"
The ticket master starts to speak but is drowned out by the sound of the large, black, train, puffing and heaving as it pulls into the station. Gabriella watches it screech to a halt and gives one last sigh, almost as if it is relieved to have finished its journey. Perhaps it is.
Gabriella watches the people file off of the train, coming onto the platform one by one. There's an old gentleman walking out of the train, and a troop of German soldiers marches out, muttering something to themselves as they walk into the town. Gabriella sighs, getting off of her feet and turning away from the station. It looks like her parents won't return today.
"Gabriella?" She turns back to see a man and a woman holding each other's arm, the woman with only one arm and clad in a nurse's uniform, and the man clad in the khaki of the French army. She stares for a second and screams in delight, running into the arms of her mother and father. They're home! They're home! Oh, nothing can hurt them now that they're all reunited. Her family is one once more.
Hello! Finally finished the first intros, and I'm glad to be done! Only six more to go, so tell me what you think of these tributes! Do they seem interesting? Any cool world building? Leave a review and tell me what you think! Until next time, TheAmazingJAJ