The Historically Unhistorical Work of Historical Fiction

Chapter 21-November 17th, 1495

November 17th, 1495

As soon as I opened my eyes, I was greeted by what seemed like a million voices at once.

“She’s awake!”

“I thought she was dead!”

“She’s alive!”

“Somebody get Eliza!”

I sat up and was immediately pushed back down by a lot of hands. Someone’s hands went on my forehead but I wasn’t sure whos since I wasn’t fully awake. A thermometer went into my mouth and it was silent while it was measuring. Someone sighed, sounding relieved and the noise was echoed across the room.

I rubbed my eyes and mumbled, “What’s goin’ on?” I felt like I’d been asleep for ages. When I fully opened my eyes, I was surrounded by at least 5 people. That was more people than I’d ever been surrounded by intentionally at once. There was Joel, the captain, Peter, Eliza, Herat, and another of my friends from school. Everyone looked worried but I was pretty sure the only thing I had been doing was sleeping.

“What’s everybody doin’ down here?”

Joel was the first to blurt out something in the silence, “You’ve been asleep for four days!”

“What!?” I jumped out of bed, what happened with the supplies? I’ve never been asleep for that long. When I stood up, I was dizzy and would’ve fallen over if Eliza hadn’t caught me and shoved me back down onto the bed. “Eliza, what’s been going on?”

“Okay, so after you went to sleep, I went to find someone to do the supply check. I found an older guy who was pretty smart and he said that he’d be glad to do it. So he got to work and it looked like he was doing pretty well. I left him in there for an hour and when I came back, he had helped himself for a fourth of the food stock!” My eyes widened and I knew that this was all my fault for getting sick, “That’s not all. The whole crew had been getting smaller rations the next day and they’re started to complain. After complaining for that day, the next day they started fighting each other to get more food. It’s turned into a battlefield up on the deck.”

“What’s worse is that you’re fever skyrocketed by the end of the second night,” Joel spoke with a truck-load of concern of worry in his voice, “You were mumbling in your sleep and the 3rd night,you coughed up blood in your sleep.”

“Woah,” I replied, “But why’s everyone down here?”

“Well, we were al worried and,” the captain paused and glanced at Joel breifly, “and Joel told us of your… Situation.” Those were all the words I needed to hear to known that joel had spilled the beans once more. I wanted to punch him, but before I could, Peter spoke up.

“It was more like a confirmation of our suspicions though.”

“What?! You had suspicions all along?” Everyone nodded, even Herat and my other classmate, “Well, that’s kind of embarrasing.”

“We kinda’ understand why’d you do something like that though.” The captain said, grabbing my shoulder and smiling, “But right now, there’s a crisis that needs solving upstairs and I believe that you are the only person who can do anything to help.”

I slid out of bed and nodded in agreement, “I’ll see what I can do.” After sleeping for 4 days, walking was a little hard but I managed to keep it under control by the time I reached the deck. Complete chaos had broken out up here. A ring of crew members had formed around two fighting people. There was so much desperation in the air, these people were filled with useless greed. Just seeing this stupidity made me angry beyond belief.

I knew that stepping in the middle of that fight wouldn’t be any good for me, so I tried to think of someway to get between them. An idea came just as the brawl that was going on ended. Before more people could get up, I ran to the center of the circle.

Gathering up my courage, I yelled, “Who’ll take me on! An all or nothing battle! If I win, you stop this nonsense, if I lose, then you’ll all die a cowardly death because you’re fighting over something stupid!”

                I could feel the fire burning through my veins and even though I had been sleeping for so long, I felt like I had been awake just for this moment. A short boy stood up and I readied my fighting stance. He charged towards me with a foolish yell and I easily side stepped his sloppy movements and kicked him in the back. The boy fell to the ground and didn’t get back up.

That was how it went for at least an hour, people would stand up and charge me with bursts of determination. Sometimes there were two or three at once, but they were all weak and careless with their movements. Older men were harder to beat, but they were ridicoulously slow. I was getting tired around the last person but I still tried my best. It was a tall guy and he looked really strong. He ran towards me and actually landed a kick in my leg. I fell back on the ground but sprung right back up. When he charged me again, I blocked another of his kicks with my hand and used my leg to kick him where the sun didn’t shine.

I had beaten everybody who had joined in on this stupid fight.  Cheers rose up from where Captain Nyle and the others were. I blushed from the praise and then the countless battles caught up to me. Falling to the ground, I let out a sigh of relief and fell asleep on the deck.