Spark of Rebellion

Spark of Rebellion - Chapter 1

By popular demand - here we are! And of course, I started with the most emotional, rip-your-heart out moment. That's me all over.

1914 - Tessa is 10 years old.

They were going. She had known they would, but having them say it was... shattering. It felt like someone had picked her up from her bed, and thrown her out of her window. It felt like her bones and skin and insides were laid out in fractals on the road.

Tessa barely registered that she had stood up from the table. Didn't feel the hand try to pull her back or her name being softly called. She just walked, right out of the door, past her dead body on the road, and down through the terraces. They were empty, and silent, and full of people dying before they'd even left.

Someone was crying.

No one paid attention to the ten year old as she found herself at Charlie's yard. They were in their own heads, in their own hells. People were going to die. Families, just like that, would be torn from each other. Dads would die. Brothers. Uncles. Granddads. And she couldn't do anything about it.

Tessa looked up at her nook. There was plenty around her to stand on but she didn't want that. She didn't want it easy and painless. Instead, she retreated far enough so that her back was pressed against one of Charlie's sheds. Then she kicked off, ran, and jumped up. Her hands didn't manage to grab the ledge, as she knew they wouldn't. She felt the skin on her palms and knees split against the wall as she fell, landing on her back in the gravel.

The air was sucked from her lungs, leaving empty space in its wake. The emptiness solidified.

She couldn't breathe.

She stilled.

Then gasped, and slowly, dragged in a breath. With painful effort, she sat up and looked up to the nook. Hopelessness pulled on her gut. The whole thing. The whole fucking thing. Hopeless.

Holding back tears, Tessa dragged over a few empty containers and used them to get up to the nook. She climbed over the edge and shuffled to the furthest corner. Rainwater trickled from the balcony above, pooling at her feet. It didn't make her feel any better.

That was when she started to cry.

They weren't gonna come back. Of course they weren't. She'd heard what war was like, and she bet what she had learnt was tame compared to reality. As she grew older, Tessa found that often the case.

Her dad was going to die. And her uncles. They would be laid in the mud in a country that wasn't even theirs, and die in agony. While she was sat at home.

No. It wouldn't be home without them.

The unfairness of it all weighed heavily on her. She was ten years old. She was too young to be an orphan, too young to lose everything. She didn't want to see the day her family wouldn't come home again.

Her sobs grew harder as the rain thickened. In tune with each other's pain.

Tommy didn't panic when his daughter stormed out. He hadn't put too much effort in pulling her back either. He knew where she would go, and knew that was how she needed to cope. And he was a coward. He didn't want to see her cry.

But it was getting dark and after making sure Ada, little Finn, and Pol were composed enough, Arthur and John went to The Garrison while Tommy went down to Charlie's yard. He knew exactly where she'd be. Sure enough, boxes had been piled up to Tessa's nook. He climbed up and looked over the edge.

Tessa was curled in a tight ball in the far corner. Her wet hair covered her face. If he didn't know better, Tommy would have said she was sleeping.