Times Advantage

Chapter 2

Rose awoke with a start, she was feeling much better. Rose leaned over and switched on the lamp that sat beside her bed. Looking around the room she noticed that she was in her bedroom of the small house that she lived in when she was in her early twenties. Am I dreaming? Rose thought to herself. Rose stood up effortlessly from her bed and walked towards the door that stood a few meters away. Her bones usually ached when she woke up but today she felt different. There were hardly any words to describe how she felt, but different seemed to fit perfectly. Rose shuffled across the room and peered out the doorway into the darkness. I must be dreaming... Thought Rose again.

She was walking back to her bed when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror of her vanity. Rose gasped out loud, in the mirror she saw her 21 year old self looking back at her. Slowly she approached the mirror, astonished by what she saw. Rose looked down at her arms and saw glowing wrinkle free skin. A calendar hung beside the vanity with the date of October 1944. A scream from outside suddenly interrupted her thoughts. The screams led to the sounds of loud plane engines roaring in the sky. Rose ran to the window only to see the German war planes soaring above the city. Her hometown was under attack.

Rose remembered the cellar that the builder had added for food storage. She sprinted out of her bedroom and around the corner, finding herself near the end of the hallway. Rose didn't dare turn on a light, she didn't want to attract soldiers to her. Rose found the door to the staircase fairly easily and ran down into the pitch black. She felt along the walls until she came across the door that led to the cellar. Rose took a few step down into the cold cement room. Her sharp breathes could scarcely be heard over the deafening explosions and gunshots.

Rose found this whole experience familiar... She had lived through this event before. Then Rose remembered looking at the calendar minutes before. It was the date the Germans had stormed into her hometown, destroying everything and claiming many lives. This was the day that Rose met Henry.

       Rose has had dreams about the war before, but never so vividly. Never so realistic. She hadn't had a dream about the war for awhile so it was odd to her that it would pop up so suddenly. Rose was aware she was dreaming the whole time, which she also found odd. Rose knew this wasn't real but that didn't make the whole thing less frightening.

      Rose sat huddled in the corner of the cold, damp, cement room that couldn't have been more than the size of a small closet.  The explosions vibrated the whole ground, left ringing in her ears and frightened Rose to death. It didn't stop, it felt like hours and hours before the bombs stopped falling. But when they did and Rose heard the roar of the engines leaving she continued to sob. She didn't even notice she was crying until she felt the tears start to fall on her bare, cold feet. Rose waited hours in the dark, too scared to move.

      The door opened slowly and there stood an American soldier with a worried expression on his face. He held his hand out and helped the young woman up to her feet. That young American soldier was Henry and that was the beginning of their story.