The Difference Between You And Me {Petekey}

Chapter sixteen

As for myself and Gerard, we have been told that we are expected to be shipped off to Europe within six months. We are trying to get it so that we will be in the same  platoon so we will see each other every day. I would be incredibly disappointed if we were to be separated.  This Gerard (or Neo-Gerard, as I refer to him sometimes) has become almost as close to me as my actual brother.

That is not to say that I do not miss my brother; I would give anything to be with him right now. But Neo-Gerard has proven to be an acceptable substitute.

I have now taken up chess again. Most pf the men here are better players than me, but some of them have offered to teach me some of their tricks, which has allowed me to become a better player. I recently won a box of cookies in a match for the tournament, all of which I have already eaten. Still, it feels good to know that I have developed a skill here that has become good enough to be profitable. It gives me hope that I can do this, that I can go to war and come out alive.

I know that a good portion of American soldiers did not survive this war, but is it wrong for me to have faith that I will not be one of them? Should I be hoping for the worst or what I think will happen, deep down? Because some people did survive this war. Could I be one of them or is it bad luck to think that I have a chance?

I have realized by now that there's no way to know what the true outcome of this war is, since I have messed up the timeline of events. Maybe Adolf Hitler will reign supreme. Maybe all of history will be rewritten because of a stupid decision I made on the fly, two hundred years ago. I am just as clueless and lost as everybody else in this camp. I can only hope for the best.

Mikey wished he could write more, he wished he could document every little thing that happened onto those sheets of paper so that whoever found it could fix the timeline and bring it back to where it was, exactly. But that obviously wasn't possible. Mikey was doing the best he possibly could by writing the important things down.

That meant that there was a chance - a small one, but a chance nonetheless - that he had confused the timeline beyond repair, and though the thought terrified him to no end, part of him wanted it to be like that. If he was going to go through hell, the world should know.If everything just went back to being the same as before he left, it would be like his suffering never happened. But it did, and Mikey would probably spend the rest of his life regretting that night and that decision. It would only be fair if the rest of the world had to suffer like he did. 

Mikey wasn't a sadist or anything, but it was likely that if he returned to his own time, nobody would ever understand everything he had to go through if everything was fine for them. Because being in an Army training camp in 1934 wasn't something that they'd ever experience. 

Maybe when he got back and told his story, people would be more considerate towards the people in the times they visited. That would make Mikey even happier than them suffering as he did. 

As the months went on and the day Mikey and Gerard would go off to war, Mikey's mental health got worse. He knew there was no way to prepare himself for the things he would have to go through, which made his fears even worse. At least with the 'people from his time might find him dead' thing, he could write the letter and help them figure things out. But there was nothing he could do for this except do his drills, and even then, he couldn't be too good at them because then his plans to leave the training camp with Gerard would be ruined, and that would be even worse for his mental health.

So instead he spent time with Gerard and Frank (he tried to pay special attention to Frank, since he was leaving so soon), which definitely helped. He still wished there was something he could do, actively, that would visibly help him, but hanging out with them was still helpful. He still played the chess tournaments, usually scoring mid-high, which made him kind of known around the camp. Sometimes the players he beat would offer him a friendly handshake in the cafeteria or right before drills.