Remember Me - By Kayleigh Richardson

Chapter 1 - We can get away from here

Darkness lay upon the town, a pure deep black sky weighing heavily upon anyone living under it. Redcoats marching through the inner parts of the city as many began scurrying inside of their houses, blowing out any candles. Locking their doors tightly shut. Coughs. Splutters. A woman sweeping outside of her house with a broom, humming a small tune as she went on her way to keep everything tidy. In front of her face came one of the king's men she wished to not see.
"Should you not be on your way, miss?"
"Of course... sir."
Stuttering and stammering, the officer of high station
made her rather uncomfortable, still he stood in front of her so he could make sure that she did go inside. She propped her broom against the wall, picking her items up from the ground, having placed them into a neatly woven basket.
"I will just be a minute... I will go inside. Just a moment, please."
Asserting his dominance over her, his voice raising over all. "You will go inside now! Everyone knows the rules! No exception."
"Oh... yes."
She grabbed everything she could in her area, with most things stuffed under her arms, her legs carrying her into her
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house, shutting the door quickly so he could not disturb her any more; a small nod of approval from the officer. Walking away proudly to join the rest of his men to torment more individuals who kept wandering aimlessly.
"Hmph!"
Across the street, a small house had candles lit inside, peeking out of the curtain, a young dashing young man shutting his curtain abruptly going back to the way he was before.
Rubbing his thumb on the glass of a picture, sighing unhappily, longing for the young woman in the photograph, someone he lost. Dust from the frame had been left in certain areas that he had not touched, the thought of everything that was bothering him, tormenting every living second he had.
"I miss her. It only feels like yesterday that we lost her." "It has been hard on us all, everyone misses her."
"The thing is, I never thought we would lose her... not
like this." A fair young woman stepping out from around a post, leaning against the edge of the door frame nearby offering William a gentle smile in an attempt to comfort his mind full of thoughts so brutal.
"After all this is not how she wanted to die."
"Nobody can choose how they die, some are much more fortunate. Depending on their situation."
"Why did it ever have to be her? My mother of all people."
Thoughts continuing to overlap in his mind, emotions mixing together as one, laughing hysterically, clearly lacking sleep. Screams of those around me, the screams of those I love as each of them started to pass away to the pain facing them. For so long the sight of others dying became clear to my eyes as people closer to me fell away into my arms. A way out of
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this dire situation brought me to the point of breaking, being the head of my household with a family to feed, there was no time for me to ever procrastinate or form ways we could be free of the deathbed set before us. Trapped inside a void of darkness with no help or call to a stop, we fell and fell until we never felt the ground beneath us. The East India Trading Company constantly coming back and forth between our ports in a triangle delivering masses of slaves, a triangle between three different places: Europe, Africa, America. Upper classes viewing this as a moneymaking affair, whilst those poor people had been forced to give up their freedom in the name of a bargain, in the name of money, forced to do labours the buyer asked of them, ending up bound in bonds at the end of the day with no way to move freely, no choice of what they wanted to do. Living or dying was never an option, working, performing gruelling labour was. People enjoying watching them suffer. We never subjected our children to such sights or ideologies, our thoughts were focusing on the point to never let them adopt that way of thinking in their lives... it was not right. You would never say such a thing or you would be classed as an 'idiot,' a 'fool', someone who 'did not understand what true business' was. I understood perfectly well what business was, how do they think I earn money to ensure my family had enough of the basic provisions? Food became harder and harder to find the longer this disease spread through, striking families in the centre of their home, cutting into two. We had no idea what was causing the spread of such a disease, what had brought on such a terrifying fate, the blood inside your body stopping still... not enough to go around. Blood came out from all avenues, mouth, ears and the rare case of it flooding under the eyelids. Sad to say, we had seen the
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