The Days We Remember [Requests Closed]

1/3 OF EUROPE IS DEAD (ft antisemitism)

I know Israel wasn't founded until 1948, but there's evidence that the Jewish community was not just a community of people within the same religion, but also its own ethnic group, so that's why I decided to write Israel into this for the later part- I was just thinking that Israel would have really been a personification or whatever way before Israel actually became a country in the twentieth century.
And my friend has an OC for Israel that I'm basing this one off of (shout out to @xXFallenHeroXx).

Messina, Sicily December 31, 1347

It started with a boat- a cargo ship, actually. It came from the East, but with each city it took and as it came further and further west, its strength grew monstrously; every death seeming to fuel its hunger.

Sicily can remember when the ship brought the disease to her her land. A cargo ship not unlike any other came to port, but this one lacked its crew- or better yet, a living crew. It came to port like any other ship had for a hundred years and more. When the ship first came ashore, Sicily quickly heard of it. They said that every man aboard was dead, that there was not a living thing aboard the ship; a ghost ship. Little did any of them know, they were wrong. The ship was carrying something that was very much alive, that had killed the crew. In fear, the ship was turned away, set back to sea. But damage had already been done.

It wasn't long before the ship's curse had passed onto Sicily. It was a fever first. Then, the fever developed into a flu that persisted and didn't leave no matter what treatment was given to the patients. And soon... black boils began to develop on the patients. They grew, black in color, to the size of apples, along their necks and under their arms and around the groin. They never lasted much longer after the black buboes appeared, and no one survived once the swelling began.

There was panic throughout the city and soon throughout the entire island as the plague began to spread like wildfire. Bells tolled as people fell ill, for every body that was buried three more needed to be. No one knew what to do or how it spread, and there was no way to stop the disease. Some people never caught it, never fell ill, and were left to tend to those who did. Sicily was not among them.

...

A blanket was put over him despite the heavy sweat that saturated his skin and made his clothing clamp to his body. A wretched cough built up in the bottom of his throat, but refused to be extinguished, no matter how many times he braved mustering the strength to cough.

A wet cloth was pressed to their forehead in a failing attempt to comfort them. He wasn't sure how many days had passed, he wasn't really sure of anything going on around him. They remembered falling unconscious and waking up once again, once to find a doctor all dressed in black examining them from afar. He would offer a small mixture of herbs and things that he said, might help. There was never a definite.

It turned out that the arrow that struck Sicily had not been infected. One day, they opened their eyes and the house was as it was, the sun was let in through a near window. His skin was wet from sweat, but he suspected this perspiration was from heat of being under a thick blanket this time instead of a fever. He slowly sat up, his head spinning and his body aching of exhaustion. He checked over his whole body twice, yet his hands felt only the body he was accustomed to; not one with any swelling at all.

Was that it? Had he survived miraculously?

He left his home and walked the street, a few people passing him casting wary glances his way. He had survived the death that had slaughtered so many. How?

-

People ran about, trying to evade others, running for their very lives. People thought they had poisoned the water, maybe they thought they had done something else as well- none of them were sure exactly. All they knew was that they were endanger and there was nowhere to hide, nowhere that was safe.

She couldn't get a break. Did she look guilty? The crusades had not been enough when whole towns had been slaughtered. It was not enough that her people were ostracized and made to wear clothing that made them stick out from the crowd.

Now she was being chased; her and her people massacred in a place that was supposed to be their home as well. Her heart beat in her chest and she could hear the blood rushing past her ears. She briefly saw children run into houses, other people running for their lives, that is until they were caught and dragged away. Desperate voices begging for mercy between cries and screams of pain and terror.

She could only focus on running. There were people behind her as well as ahead, but she had to keep going. She suddenly felt a sharp pull on her shawl. She quickly let go of the material, the unknown hand falling away with the shawl as she ran away. Her throat felt as if she were breathing sand and her body screamed in protest, but there was no way she could stop. That was then another hand reached out a yanked her back. Her momentum seemed to launch her into the ground before she felt a foot thrown into her back. It was followed by many assaults that didn't stop, even when she was dragged to her feet, barely stumbling over her own feet as she was dragged away and pushed onto a pyre of wood. She hadn't thought it possible to feel any more panic than she already had- that was before she was tied to the pyre.

God, she thought, where are you?

Salut, I am still alive (surprisingly).

This was requested by NotSaneInsane.
So, this wasn't my best work, but I wanted to try to put some specific aspects of the plague in here.

It's suspected that the plague originated in the Orient when Mongol armies launched decapitated heads of their enemies over their enemies' walls, and the disease began there and spread. It came to the west through Sicily first on a cargo ship. When a few people were sent aboard to check on the ship, it was found that the entire crew was dead. They quickly sent the ship back out to see, but the disease had already spread to land. The disease was first recorded in Sicily six months later in 1347. The disease began as a high fever that didn't go away, and as a result, many people thought it was an epidemic of a flu virus at first. Then, what are called buboes (a swollen lymph gland), would appear around the neck, armpits and groin; when they turned black, the patient would die shortly after. People were dropping faster than flies and this was a problem considering a majority of the population was christian, and for multiple reasons. One being that there were too many bodies to bury at once. They soon started to dig large pits where they would lie a layer of bodies down, put a layer of dirt, and then put another layer of bodies down in a sort of human lasagna. The other problem was (more so in Britain) that the plague didn't hit everyone; some people were immune due to a mutation gene. In some cases, this was noticed and that person was called out for being a witch, which went as well as you can expect.

The second part of this refers to what is known as the Cremation of Jews in Strasburg (modern day Germany, then the Holy Roman Empire) on St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 1349. Because the Jews were blamed for EVERYTHING, why not blame them for a disease as well? On this day, about two thousand jews were put on wooden platforms and burned at the stake in their cemetery. Some children were taken and baptized against their parents' wishes, and people who said they wanted to be baptized were spared. The rumor also was that rabbis had poisoned the water wells. Because of this, many rabbis were tortured until they have false confessions, and then were killed.

There was also this group of christians who believed the plague was punishment from God, so they went around whipping themselves and wearing crowns of thorns and all that stuff. They actually became pretty corrupt through that, because it was recorded that they started spending time with prostitutes, and drinking and they kinda acted like rockstars of their day.

If you're wondering how the plague got to Britain, it was on account of this merchant who brought over some cloth to England from Europe.

There's a lot of stuff that I could spend hours talking about on the black plague ("black death" actually refers to three similar plagues that went around about the same era). There are a few small towns in England that just completely quarantined themselves when the plague broke out, and afterwards, they were still there. Some people never got sick at all, and some people recovered- only getting the severe fever. There's a lot of stories, such as one when a woman who was sick with the plague and delirious, went downstairs for a drink and ended up drinking out of a pitcher of hot bacon fat, and survived.

The population in Europe dropped by millions of people, the percentage dropping anywhere from 25% to 37%.

Fun fact: The black death is still around today. Small pockets of it pop up in Eurasia and Asia occasionally, but each time the area is quickly quarantined until the disease is kaput.

Also, the nursery rhyme "rung around the rosie" was sung by children during this time. Why? you ask. What the heck else should they do? Basically,
"Ring around the rosie" - the ring that formed around swelling areas
"a pocket full of posies" - people often filled their pockets and garments with posies and herbs and sweet smelling things to deter the smell of rotting flesh
"ashes, ashes, we all fall down" - exactly what you think it means.

Hope you have a nice day!