Prologue
It was quiet the night everything changed. Not a dread-filled, loud quiet either. The normal, peaceful kind that makes you feel drowsy after a long day. The terror that followed was quite as well. Through a myriad of screams and black dust, there was calm. Amongst the calm stood a boy. Around eighteen, dressed in a brown cadet's uniform that was much too big on his malnourished body. He was a watching pole, stuck to the ground as if moving would doom him, with eyes darting in every direction. He stood there in the eye of the storm as clouds of red and orange erupted, sending rubble and people alike soaring like crows.
This is not his story, though he is of great importance. As the carnage fly, he has a goal: Get to the telephone.
He accomplishes this, but the journey is difficult, leaving him with three fewer fingers and a broken arm. The phone rang five terrible times before it was picked up by a tired, irritable man.
“Christ sake- Do you have any idea what time it is-”.
“Carlisle Cumbria! We’re under attack! Airships from the south! They’re bombing us left and right! Send help-”
“Whoa, whoa, Who am I talking to?”
“William Fletcher, Cadet!”
“Cadet? Where is your Captain?”
“I don’t know! God, just send somebody please! We're dying out here!”
There was a disturbance on the other line, somebody had burst into the room and spoke feverishly and loud enough for the boy to hear.
“Your Majesty, the border is-”
“Under attack.” The first man finished and snapped his fingers, “Leave those. Get whoever you can down there and guard the skies.”
There was the sound of falling paper, an effort to manage them, then finally a defeated “Yes your Royal Highness!”, and heavy footsteps darting away.
The King turned back to the phone, “Sending everything we’ve got available, hold tight.” There was no reply. The boy, along with the border town he’d been stationed in, was gone. Nothing came from the other end, said for the static beeping of a line that was no longer available. King Lewis stared at the pile of paper on the floor, and slowly set the receiver back down on his desk. He thought, ‘It was inevitable. But… It’s happening too soon…’ He moved around the desk and slumped into his chair, still staring at the floor. The door creaked slightly, and a woman stepped in, barefoot and wearing only a bathrobe. “Lewis,” She croaked, “I heard yelling. What’s wrong?” The King didn’t look at her. Instead, he grabbed the telephone again, and started rolling the clicking numbers furiously. “Leave me, woman.” He bit. She frowned, and slipped back into the hall.
Several notable things happened, and came to happen because of the events of a summer night in 1943. One: The unprovoked bombing of Carlisle Scottland by presumably, the British Empire. Two: The declaration of war on said British Empire, and Three: The crippling realization of Scottish courtsmen that they couldn't have been more unprepared for a war.
Though a disaster in the eyes of some, is an opportunity in the eyes of others. It just takes the right person to grab ahold of it.
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