Niam- What I've Done

One: In This Farewell

The field was dark and quiet. Nobody would ever suspect me coming here. Not even my mom. We’d gotten into another argument and I’d finally had enough. It was just too much to try and be around her, so I walked through the field I always went to when I felt stressed. I sat on the ground in the grass that was easily half a foot high, thinking deeply about anything and everything. For a while, I remained in that position, just pulling out strands of grass and not really paying much attention to anything until I decided it was time to go home. As I stood up to leave, though, I noticed something.

A troop of men in blue uniforms marched west, toward the capital city of my state. Terror flooded my veins, and the second they were out of earshot, I dashed the opposite direction, toward my own city. Cold air whipped my face as I ran as fast as I could, but I didn’t care. When I arrived at my house, I quietly opened the door and tiptoed to my mom’s room.

“Mom,” I whispered, shaking her gently to wake her up, because even though I was upset after our argument, I still loved her dearly. “Mom, the British soldiers are heading toward Sage.”

“What?” she asked, obviously still half asleep. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she sat up. “What did you say?”

“I saw British soldiers marching toward Sage,” I repeated, watching as she stumbled around blindly, trying to put on her shoes and a robe. “What if they find Dad? What if they-”

“Hush,” she snapped, pulling out her laptop. “I’m going to see if I can get ahold of him.”

Her words didn’t reassure me at all, but I sat on her bed quietly as she clicked on Skype. I could hear footsteps in the hallway and I prayed to whatever God was above that it wasn’t my little brother.

Fortunately, it wasn’t. It was my younger sister, Raine. She was sixteen, so I wasn’t as worried about her finding out as I was about Cooper finding out. He was only six, and I would give anything to protect him from knowing about the war.

“Mom? Niall? What’s going on?” she flicked on the light in the bedroom and her blue eyes clearly showed confusion as she waited for a reply.

“Shush,” Mom said, as my dad answered her Skype call.

“Maura? Why are you up? It’s three in the morning, you crazy woman,” he chuckled good naturedly and suddenly I didn’t want him to know what I’d seen.

“Niall just ran into the house and told me he saw British troops going to Sage,” Mom replied.

“Wait, what?” Dad asked, eyes darting up immediately. “He saw them?”

Raine gasped and held a hand to her mouth as she realized the severity of what was going on and I thanked the Heavens that they weren’t coming here. A single troop of British soldiers would wipe out this whole city- and mind you, this city wasn’t small, either.

It made me sad to think that America had grown so weak. Other nations used to fear my country, respect my country, but all that was over now. The continents had shifted, Britain had conquered the whole world except us. We were the last ones standing in the year 3856 and soon we’d be no more- sooner than soon, if the British troops reached Sage and forced my dad’s fellow soldiers to surrender. America’s continent wasn’t even attached to Britain, so it was baffling that the British had managed to capture over half our cities.

I wanted to fight and help our country, but I knew if I joined the war, no one could protect Cooper and Raine and Mom, because I was eighteen. The only reason I lived with them was to keep them safe. Dad had joined the military three years ago and became a general colonel in the Army six months ago.