Not In Vain- Lest We Forget!

Not In Vain Chapter 6

                                      

                                             Part of the battlefield of Verdun from ww1 today.

M: As we were about 30 minutes from the battlefield of Verdun or where it was, I started crying. At first, it was silent, but then I soon went into full blown sobs.

N: throughout the flight it had been silent up until somewhere near the end. That is when I heard what sounded like crying, and I nudged Judy and mouthed to her if she heard that. She nodded. I spoke into the headset, "Matthew are you alright?" There was an eerie silence that enveloped the microphone then he spoke, asking an odd question.

M: "Nick, Judy how old do you two think I am?"Judy answered with "What? Why?"

I told them just to answer the question. They both seemed to try to explain that they weren't sure other than based on voice because they had never seen a human before. Finally they said that my voice sounded like I was anywhere between 18-25 years old. I followed the question with "Can you guess why your species has never heard of my species, and why I was coming out of a building that was underground?" They both said "We have no clue.". This is when I asked them in a more sinister tone to "Imagine themselves being 20 years old already planning to get into a degree in history and then being contacted secretly by one of the worlds most important organizations, and being told you were qualified to be a person to be put in a tube to freeze you. Alongside being told that the world was going to be destroyed intentionally by a light brighter than a thousand suns and knowing everyone you love, knew or cared for and everything you knew would be destroyed". They seemed to go silent.

J: "I don't understand, why would they intentionally destroy the world?" Matthew answered saying a lot of things, but mainly due to pollution and overpopulation and basically that he and the 99 other humans were to sleep in a frozen tube for 14000 years and wait for the earth to naturally recover. He continued speaking, saying how this was not what he imagined life as a 20 year old would be like. He seemed to continue saying how in a way he did dream of teaching history, and then he chuckled saying "I guess in a way I am going to be teaching history but not to the audience that I expected. I assumed he was talking to us. Then the silence set in again for what felt like 5-10 minutes. Then he said "We are here." as the aircraft slowed down Nick pointed out that we were in the middle of nowhere just rolling hills of grass and with small forests interspersed throughout the hills.

N: As we got out, I asked why we needed to be way out here to learn why weapons like those vehicles as Judy had asked exist? He responded that it has to do with a word he used earlier that we did not understand - "War." He continued saying "To understand why those vehicles existed, you must understand what war is." Then he told us to follow him as he walked a couple hundred feet away from the aircraft, and pulled out a small device that looked like a small hourglass made of two triangular pyramids.

M: I told them that this will show some of the history that happened in the area we are standing. I paused and added that it was history that took place over 88 years before I was even born. I explained to them that what you will see will be worse than the most gruesome police that Zootopia has ever seen, but to not freak out that the device will be projecting exactly what happened here and that none of it can hurt you. I explained that It will show what is basically equivalent to a memory for the universe. I set it to the 21st of February 1918. Suddenly a bright dot started to form in the middle of the hourglass. Then It suddenly grew to where we were blinded!