IMPORTANT! READ:
So, this one is a little different. What I did is take some of our characters and put them in historical situations and tried to fit them to the mold because I didn't want my posts for this compilation of stories to become boring/redundant...so I tried something new. I hope you guys like it and I'll try to think of more ideas for my next chapter.
I repeated some historical events, but I did different takes on it so I hope you guys are okay with that. :) Oh, and by the way, they're all mundane. I'm not a huge fan of how it turned out... I think it didn't come out the way I wanted... :/ But oh well.
Jillessa Heronstairs's Characters: Emily, Ash, Addy
SilverJem5's Characters: Percy, Layla
My Characters: Cole
~~Emily~~
Trail of Tears
Emily was far from being Cherokee.
She enjoyed a great many luxuries: hot baths, cold drinks, light, linen clothes and imported food from Asia, as it was rare to come across. Not many of the immigrants from that area went to America, and Chinese food was harder to find than a free Native American. Almost impossible. After Andrew Jackson had become president of the 'United' States, it was clear that equality and luxury were words that could only be found in a dictionary.
So she had to give up her life of comfort when she was forced to travel to America, moving to a colony- a large town, really- to live with her cousin. But she was different from the others. Though her parents had forced her to be tough and talented, Emily found herself softened instead, taking pity and sympathy on those who were less fortunate.
Quickly, then, had she made friends with a nearby tribe of natives. They didn't speak much English, but they welcomed her and treated her better than her parents ever had. There was something about them that she admired. Perhaps it was the way they were proud and humble in their lifestyle, and so she instantly found respect in them. When she started spending more and more of her time there, she started to pick up on words. First just greetings, then sentences, as they were picking up on her 'english' too. She hadn't just found a new culture, but new friends that she visited constantly.
And then things had changed.
Having spent too much time with the Cherokee tribe, her town cast her out when President Jackson sent the natives on their long walk to find new land. So she had to go with them. But nothing had prepared her for the heat of the sun beating on her back. The smell of sickness and decay as the numbers of thousands thinned to hundreds. The pain in her chest as she breathed in the hot, dry air from the chaparral.
There were also the small, red bumps on her wrist. They had started out as a small cluster, but over the weeks, they grew. At first, all she noted was the fatigue. And then the fevers. The headaches. The blood. The headaches. The blood. The headaches. The blood. The headaches. And she'd keep walking and walking and walking and everyone would be walking past her like the dead and she hurt. But medicine was rare and they wouldn't use it on a non-Cherokee, no matter how good she was to them.
Malaria was her crime and the natives had signed her death sentence. But there was nothing left to do but move on foot in front of the other with the rest of the people.
And so she kept walking.
~~Percy~~
Science in the Industrial Revolution
If Percy was certain about one thing, it was that he was correct.
"It has to be true," he protested, "the chemical compound of the fossil shows that the amount the-". But he had been silenced. His predecessors had been wrong, he knew, and they had no right to tell him he was faulty. If they would just listen, everything would have been better.
Growing up, Percy was always told that the demand for scientists- especially scientists that wanted to study chemistry in all sorts of things- was low. His mother had found his innocent fascination with play chemistry sets and minerals and cleaning products adorable. His father was just disappointed. His father used to sit him down and chide him that, "There is a time and place for everything. But your passion for a useless form of science will remain homeless forever." But Percy defied him, becoming a scientist, even if he wasn't a very respected one.
But in the midst of the science and discovery, he was revolutionary. The world, he decided, had been created over millions of years and that it must have evolved to the conditions it was. It was that moment that he was proud and he rushed to write his book, labeling it 'The Corrections of Time within our Time'. The editors made him change the title, but it didn't matter anyway. They never approved it.
They scorned his findings.
It's faulty.
Shelter the people.
Don't you believe in creationism?
And suddenly God came into the equation and he didn't understand the factual point of the people. He couldn't measure the faith of creationism or the ideas of religion in a mathematical and scientific project
The controversies he had helped spark were 'reasons' the government shut him and his lab down. And he was angry. Angry that his life work had been erased. But in such a small minded world that pretended to be revolutionary, making a difference was near impossible.
Shelter the people.
Ignorance is bliss.
In God we trust.
~~Cole~~
Holocaust
Since Cole was a white-skinned European, it was almost good enough for the Germans.
Almost.
He wasn't pure and that had been his only problem. That, and he had been raised in France. It hadn't occurred to him until a couple days before being seized that the relations between France and Germany were worse than he thought and the Nazis were all too keen to throw him into one of the ghettos. It hadn't been bad at first, save for the occasional night filled with gunshots and screams. But Cole had numbed to the world.
There was a time when he had acquired a gun from German smugglers outside the fence that separated them. Up to his head he held it until he felt the barrel pressing against his hair and he put his finger on the trigger. If only to save a little bit of shame, he decided he would rather die than be bowed down under the Germans. The gun had been confiscated, though, after someone had intervened and taken it from him. That had been the worst part about his life until he had been shipped to the concentration camps.
He wasn't used to much hard work or the pain of starvation or the nonstop wails of the dying filling his ears until he could hardly hear them, they had become such a usual sound. Dead bodies littered the streets he worked on and they were left to rot, emaciated against sides of buildings. He guessed the only way he was still alive was because of 'friends' he had bribed in the higher ranks. The sky was mirk, casting a heavy shadow over the workers and one by one, people started to disappear and be replaced. The smell of blood and death was sickening.
Walking down one of the streets in a line of a few Jews and Polish, Cole looked around cautiously. It wasn't long into his time in the concentration camp that he and a few others organized a revolt. He was used to getting things easily. They had met a few times in the darkness of the night, risking discovery from German soldiers. He knew they would be successful. In his world of success and victory, he had no reason to fall.
But when they did finally start shooting and shouting for the others, fear took the people and they stepped back. Cowards. They were frozen. And with the rush of soldiers running towards them, he was forced back, slammed against the wall. He didn't dare give them the satisfaction of a cry of pain when he felt a crack, pain in his chest. And that was all it was. Pain. Pain. Pain. And the screams of people. Dried blood plastered the wall next to him and someone else was pushed next to them, red dripping down their face. The soldiers laughed something in German and they were all pressed in a line against the brick.
He felt almost deaf when the first shot rang a few people down and someone crumpled.
Another.
Another.
Another.
The person next to him let out a guttural cry and blood splattered the wall next to him. He felt it on his face. But the smell of the blood was suffocating. He could almost taste it. He didn't deserve the life in the camps, he knew, and when the gun was pressed against his head, it was then he was finally afraid. And they laughed again. And pulled the trigger.
It clicked. Empty. They pulled away and he could hear them reloading the gun. He wished it hadn't gone empty. And he had to listen as they breathed behind him, laughed behind him, and he gritted his teeth. Click. Click. Click. Another click and it was back against the back of his head. And perhaps it was then he started laughing, amused. They were almost doing him a favour. And it wasn't like it was the end.
He'd look forward to seeing them in hell.
~~Layla~~
World War II: Japan
Though women who were part of the Soviet Union were allowed to fight, Layla hated the Russians.
Layla hadn't a clue what 'arigatou' or 'konnichiwa' meant, but it wasn't important to her when she moved to Japan. After it had been imperialized by Western Powers, it wasn't terribly hard to find someone who was taught English, so she instantly found a flat to buy, much to the peoples surprise. What? Had they never seen a woman who could function without a man? Apparently, they weren't much better than Germany either when it came to the expectations of women. Despite that, she had settled down. And was happy.
That had been a year ago.
Now, she had changed.
Her red hair had been cut boy-short so it hardly brushed against her forehead and the back of her neck. Though her face looked like an average 'pretty girl', there was nothing delicate about the way she fought. In the trenches, her mask would irritate the skin on the ridge of her nose and she'd watch as the poisonous gasses dropped by the missiles landed on the enemy. Sometimes her breathing would grow tight and harsh as the remnants of the gas would seep into the mask and the binding around her chest would suffocate her, but it was the only way she could fight.
The Japanese didn't want to send women to fight, so she did what she had to in order to get to the front ranks. A few times, she had been called 'feminine' and 'short', but no one really thought that her appearance betrayed her biological makeup. After all, ladylike was nonexistent from every fiber in her body and...she liked being called 'Soldier'.
By the time aircraft carriers started to gain popularity, she was first on their list. They trained her in air combat incessantly. They trained her in important things, like how much to turn the wheel and what altitude to fly at. And they trained her in small things, like how to correctly buckle her seatbelt and that she had to push the little red button when it was finally her time to fly for real, but to never push it in practice. Never in practice. And they trained her on how to steer the rudder and how to shoot the guns on the planes. But they never taught her how to land.
So when she had to finally fly, she wouldn't admit that she was afraid.
She searched for instructions on how to land, but the only instructions she found were ones saying what to do: Head northwest to the American aircraft carriers, once you are above them, press the red button, await further instructions.
There wasn't anything she could do but obey. But when she finally did press the little red button after she had stabilized her plane over the ship, she realized that nothing happened. That nothing had happened except the small beeping the escalated in rhythm as she flew just feet above the carrier.
And only then had Layla noticed the label on the dash of her plane.
Kamikaze Model #5
~~Ash and Addy~~
World War II: Pearl Harbor
After Japan declared war on America, it was all over.
There was no denying that Ash and Nick were meant together. They were happy. Really happy in the way that everything was perfect and nice and even days at Church couldn't cleanse the sinful nights they had spent together. Ash was shameless. Her mother had been a flapper with a taste for nightclubs, and even though she had died early into Ash's life, their rebellious and scandalous behaviour almost seemed genetic. So she had flaunted herself and was regarded as improper.
Then she met Nick.
An unassuming, attractive general in the army who she had fallen in love with at first sight. It seemed like a story but their life was a twist of a plot. After getting married and having a child, they were the ideal family. Granted, he was often gone on calls but she didn't mind.
They were happy.
And then they had moved to Hawaii. A marvelous place with culture and lights and trees. Nick had to man a troop there and they had been forced to transfer locations. Their daughter, Addy, had screamed terribly on the ship ride to there but they had moved successfully nonetheless. After all, it was safe there. They didn't think that the Axis powers would want to take over Hawaii, as it was a small island, and peace settled easily over the town.
In the midst of World War Two raging, four year old Addy pressed her hands against the glass in the living room. Her mom had said something about 'Dad' and 'fighting' and 'dangerous', but she hardly understood. Ash had wanted her to retain her precious childish innocence, though it was difficult to keep her in the dark. It was difficult to tell her daughter that her father was risking his life and might not come home. That the world was purging itself and the seas would soon run red with the blood of millions.
So she just told Addy that there was a dangerous fight that daddy had to solve.
Addy seemed content.
Pulling away the curtains, she stared up at the sky, her big eyes glittering. The view was gorgeous, enough to entrance even a child. Pearl Harbor had always been a sight to see. With blue waters and skies, it was easily one of the prettiest places Ash had lived. Addy merely tapped at the window. Making noises, she laughed and traced the object in the sky on the glass.
"Mommy." She asked, giggling. Ash raised her eyes and Addy continued. "Why is there a plane with a big red dot on it?"
Confused, Ash had looked out of the window. The plane circled once. The bottom hatch opened. A large object started to fall.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
A ring pierced the air.
Nothing.
Sorry. This is pretty short. But I kinda lost interest in writing it so it's crappy. I think my ideas were better than what came out. If you guys have any ideas on stuff I can write in my next chapter, please say so.