Victim of the City [Niall Horan + One Direction]

Once upon a time ...

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Francesca Alaina Sturridge. She was born in London on December 18 1993. Her mother, Alaina Marie Jones-Sturridge, was a successful layer and her father, Peter Sturridge, was sailing the seven seas as a captain on one of the world’s largest container ships, Emma Maersk. Francesca had a brother called Joshua Peter Sturridge who was four years older than her. The Sturridge family was a wealthy and happy family and they lived in a country home just outside of London. When they needed to get away for a bit they would drive all the way to their holiday home in Italy.

Francesca had a really good friend called Amanda Jules who she had got to know through school. The two spent a lot of time together and they always had each other’s back.

When Francesca had turned 18 she had done her military service and she had moved to Manchester to attend Business School, but her time at Manchester Business School was short. Only six weeks after she had begun studying her parents and brother were killed in a car accident. Francesca dropped out of school and moved back to London where she moved into her parents flat in the heart of London. A two bedroom flat her parents had bought for her mother when she was busy or working late. It was a very pretty and elegant flat with a nice view over London. Francesca got a job in a very posh restaurant in Mayfair, which helped her take her mind of things. Francesca thought that this was all life would ever be for her until one day in November 2012, when she was at work, a group of nine walked in. A group of five boys and four girls and one of those girls were Amanda. The two, who had lost contact, began hanging out again and through Amanda Francesca met Niall James Horan. The boy who would make her see the world through different eyes. The boy who would wipe the tears of her cheeks and put a smile on her face. Despite the short time Niall and Francesca had known each other Francesca knew that Niall would always be there for her or at least that was what she thought until one day when it all went wrong and he couldn’t be there for her, because Francesca wasn’t anywhere near him. 

Frankie opened her eyes and the white walls almost blinded her. She looked around the room and saw that it contained four beds and three of them were occupied. She was occupying one of them. Everything was a blur to her and she wasn’t sure where she was or why she was there. Her head were throbbing and her vision blurry. She looked up when a man walked into the room and she immediately recognised him. It was Jeppe, a Danish soldier who she had been patrolling with sometimes.

“You’re awake!” He said enthusiastic and sat down on a chair next to her bed.

“What happened?” She asked her voice a bit shaken.

“Your vehicle was hit by an IED. JP and Holmes are dead.” He said and Frankie remembered everything. They had been on patrol in Kandahar province when a loud explosion had hit the vehicle. Everything was shaking and it had felt like her head had been blown off. She didn’t remember much after the explosion. Suddenly Jeppe’s words hit her. JP and Holmes were dead. JP was driving the vehicle and Holmes kept him entertained in the passenger seat. Normally Frankie would sit in the passenger seat when she wasn’t driving but Holmes had wanted too. They were always two drivers when they patrolled and it had been JP’s turn to drive because Frankie drove on their way to Kandahar province. If she hadn’t switched places with Holmes it would have been her.

“It coulda been me,” She told Jeppe.

“Did you carry the flag I gave you?” He asked and Frankie nodded. Jeppe had given Frankie a tiny Danish paper flag a few days before they were hit by the roadside bomb. A lot of British soldiers carried a Danish flag in their chest pocket because they seemed to believe that the Danes were sheltered with luck. Frankie had carried the flag in her chest pocket the day they were hit by the IED. She couldn’t help but think that it was the only thing saving her. Would she have switched places with Holmes if she hadn’t carried the flag?