➪I apologize for the Johnny cash joke in the title-
➪Fun fact: it was supposed to be the first one-shot of this book but I don't know why, I deleted it (probably because I found it unbearable to read. Yeah. Probably) but luckily, after an hindsight, I decided to write it again (and I was (still a tad) lucky, it was only a few words at first therefore I didn't had problems remembering what did I've written before)
➪Tw: Arson, slight gaslighting (I think), victim blaming (ish-), major character death and you may want to murder British Columbia at the end of this one-shot sorry-
➪I wanted so badly to put the language of people of Haida Gwaii but I couldn't find any site ot whatsoever that provided translation in English or something I would be satisfied with (to show how much I'm desperate-) therefore I needed to go with it and use English all the way, only stating from time to time in the text that a few characters were speaking their native tongue- if any of you find a way to find a translator or even if some of you speak Haida, please let me know and I will give you the credits you deserve, I appreciate it! 🙏🏾
Without further ado, let's dive into the story.
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-ˋˏ 1862 ˎˊ-
It was another day of the spring season and Haida was holding too another feverish infant in her arms, looking just as desperate as the mother who looked looked at her own child, feeling helplessness and frustration upon knowing she couldn't do anything about that damned smallpox.
The smallpox.
Lately, there has been a spread of this unknown flu who worryingly amount expanded in an abnormal way, most of its victims being children and young people in general. At first, Haida wasn't really that phased about it since symptoms vaguely looked like a spread of fever though she had a few suspicions ever since that ship (what was its name again? Sibling? Jonah? Brother Jonathan? No yeah it was Brother Jonathan) came in during that time of the year, its people on board from San Francisco in such peculiar state, as if the trip really worn them out.
At least that's what she thought.
Not even months later after they settled in Victoria's surroundings or Vancouver alongside with the encampment of Native American people, an unusual disease started to spread among the territory's inhabitants. Haida couldn't conclude that it was a new one nor something that people in Victoria was unfamiliar with. Well, for white settlers probably since the personification noticed how their part of the land was immediately control and supervisioned, almost as if they already knew somehow or someway that this would eventually come.
Then, there were the natives tribes of the country.
Most of them unfortunately caught the deadly sickness as well juste like the one who arrived on the land and it was exactly like white settlers: same symptoms, same torturous life when they were caught by the smallpox, same faith if it wasn't treated sooner.
However, the number of corpses weren't identical at all.
Indeed, no aid or whatsoever were given to them, no matter how actually desperate their situation was, even the most ruthless of the country would have a tug of empathy towards them. And yet? The only thing that non-native inhabitants have done so far were poor attempts of saving a very few people or families but the majority of the one who resided in the vicinity of Victoria claimed that it was futile and the best thing to do was to temporarily expel them and even the worst of them wanted to let the people from tribes to die and confine all of them, sick or not, in order to keep themselves safe.
Of course, that caused a few outrages from settlers, obvious that it was just too inhuman to think that way and that also led to a gruesome genocide despite the lack of violence. Unfortunately, even those who wanted to genuinely help native American had their complains deaf to the majority's ears as article who accused the cruel method unorthodox were ignored or in the worst case, censored.
