May 23rd, 1919:
Today is the day that I have to take charge of Brightingling along with my boyfriend Elijah Wright, Jason Lamont, Emily Caspian, and Naomi Hatin. I didn’t think that I would find myself here at 16 years old and ruling over what is considered the Ankiran capital town Brightingling. It is not like I can just back down from the position. For one, people are expecting me to do my job and secondly, I made a promise to Elijah that I would be with him for the rest of time. Leaving would just break the promise and my heart.
Whatever happens, I just hope that we can make it through as the first oligarchy in the Ankiran semi-short history. It feels weird to make the potential history books, but it is what I longed for ever since I was a kid. Especially since this is out of my control.
May 24th, 1919:
Elijah had taken me out to the marketplace yesterday while we were moving our things. He has no self control when it comes to buying things since he will buy anything that catches his eye, so I have to be there and physically drag him away from everything before he goes broke again.
Besides that, I had gotten to know the others better. Jacob Lamont believes that he's a descendant of Aldren Lamont, the man that made "The Saturn Star Sweeper" in the 1700s. I can see why: they share the same last name and there's not much known past his parents. He's the oldest out of all of us, being around Clint's age. Jacob also seems to have some kind of "history" with Naomi.
Emily Caspian owns a small garden and she's just a year and some older than Elijah. She decided to move it from her small backyard to the more spacious garden just a few minutes' walk from the town hall. She took me to see it since she saw I had nothing else to do. I will admit, the flowers and plants she had grown look magnificent. I can only imagine how long it had taken her to grow them. Emily admitted that during the relocation process, I believe one or two of her plants had died. I reassured her that she still has the ones that she managed to take care of here and I think that that had helped her a little bit.
Naomi Hatin is the one that I mentioned with Jacob. Naomi's the second oldest out of all of us. When I went to go talk to her, she barely said anything except her name, the year she was born in, and just some yes and no mumbles. I eventually left her alone after the fourth question. I don't know if I did something by approaching her or if she was already in a weird mood beforehand, but I didn't want to push it. I learned that that's not the best thing to do with introverted people. Take Elijah for example.
Despite seeming like an extravert, Elijah's an introvert or at least an ambivert. He'll mainly be talkative around people he knows/is comfortable around, like me. The first few times that me and him talked, he barely said a full sentence around me. I kept asking him what was wrong because I wasn't sure how to properly talk to a shy introvert and that set him off. He got up and walked away. One of my friends told me that maybe I should try again tomorrow, so I did. He just said that he doesn't talk a lot, which is why I asked him what was wrong.
Anyways, I think Elijah's finally waking up. I need his help to go through what can be unpacked right now and what can wait.
May 29th, 1919:
The week was slow. Nothing too bad except for the usual complaint about a small argument. I quickly learned that Emily was the best at defusing situations like that. I just wish that her power could've been used to help out with whatever's going on with Jacob and Naomi.
Last night, they had gotten into a fight. None of us know what it was about and they both refuse to tell us. Emily tried to get them to stop, but nothing worked. Eventually, Elijah did the stupidest thing that somehow worked: he threw the book in his hand at them and yelled at them to shut up. I looked at him with a strange face, but it worked. Jacob and Naomi stopped fighting and just walked away from each other. Okay, so he could've gone without throwing an 135 paged book at them, but at least it stopped them from blowing my ears out. How are we supposed to get anything productive done with them constantly arguing everywhere they go?! Exactly: We can't.
The worst part is that their rooms are next to each other. It's so stupid. Emily offered to swap rooms with one of them, but they ignored her. Well, that makes sense considering that they were in the middle of fighting over a board game. Yes, a board game. Which one exactly? "Swanso". Fucking Swanso. Whatever, I just hope that they stop this stupid fighting at some point and come to terms with the fact that they'll be living together.
May 30th, 1919:
I should probably stop putting the year at the end of the dates since it all takes place in the same year, but whatever. Today, me and Elijah were taking a walk through the woods. I decided to name them "The Whispering Woods" from the way that the wind whistles through the trees. Elijah liked that name (of course). We were about to turn back when we heard someone - or some people - coming through. We both got a good gander at whoever it was.
From the looks of it, it was the shortest man I've ever seen on a horse with two tall men in uniforms walking next to him. They were talking about Brightingling and finding someone suitable for "the job". I don't know what "the job" is, but me and Elijah slipped away from their view and got back home.
I should probably mention that talking about what seems like a 4'3 man is going to make anything serious become un-serious and stupidly funny. How do I know this? Take Naomi. When I told her and the others about this, she laughed and called me "a hallucinating liar". She got kicked by Elijah in the shins after that remark.
Lo and behold, the shortest man ever came knocking at our door, demanding that one of us come with him. Jacob got quite the laugh out of this. His exact words were, and I quote, "You weren't kidding when you said he was the shortest man ever! He looks shorter than a baby!" I don't think Jacob's ever seen a baby before. If he has, then we need to talk about what kind of baby that was.
Anyways, after laughing his head off, "General Tenuis" as he called himself, kicked Jacob in the knees and stepped on his foot, climbed up onto his horse with help, and rode off. I was not expecting that, but then again, I wasn't expecting a 4'3 man to even exist.
Another thing: I overheard the general mention a strangely familiar name: Nathaniel. I don't know a Nathaniel personally, but the only person that comes to mind is Nathaniel Meadownneli. In case you don't know (who am I talking to?) who that is, Nathaniel Meadowneli is the one that overthrew Alexander Halakeno and then was killed by Alex three months later. I shouldn't get too ahead of myself and just think that every mentioned Nathaniel is the one that caused chaos before I was born, but it just seems weird. I'm keeping it in the back of my head for now.
May 31st, 1919 (12:43 AM):
So...I've just come back from dowsing a house and a wheelbarrow in some water because apparently...they've caught fire. Nobody knows how this happened, but something was lit on fire and it spread. Now, I have to let the clothes I slept in dry from the water I spilled on them and from the water I used to try and wash the burn marks out of.
I wonder if the general has something to do with this.
Whatever. I'm tired and I need to go back to sleep.
June 1st, 1919:
Naomi brought a random guy into the town hall and claimed that he'll be staying with us. In all honesty, I have never seen this man in my life and, with fair reasoning, Jacob was pretty skeptical of him. In fairness, she did just bring a random guy named Norin here when there's a perfectly great hotel just down the road from here, but whatever.
There's also something going on with Jacob. He seems more tired than usual. When I say "usual", I mean that maybe he woke up earlier than he wanted to and didn't get as much as he had hoped, but now he looks and acts like he hasn't gotten a wink of sleep. Emily kept asking him if he had slept and Jacob just shrugged. I don't believe that that's a valid answer, but he doesn't say anything about his situation.
There's something strangely off-putting about Norin's presence. I always get this strange etching feeling of dread. It feels like I have to be conscientious about whatever I do. It's like he's watching my every move.
June 3rd, 1919:
I just heard that Clint had woken up from some coma-like trance yesterday. In all honesty, I thought that they were still in control of Adameana, but I guess not? But if they were asleep, then who was watching over Adameana? Was nobody in charge? Nobody that knew about Adameana's situation could recall what happened in the period that Clint was gone.
I heard that Henry Dimini. went to go and check up on Clint today. Apparently, Clint recalls not being able to remember what happened prior to their coma. Besides that, they're doing alright. A little dizzy and weak, but they're able to at least stand and walk in a straight line.
I've been telling Elijah that it feels like something's been going horribly wrong ever since we came to power. I mean, just a week after we've been declared officials, Tenuis shows up and then all hell breaks loose after that day. Are we missing something or is Brightingling just doomed to fail?
Elijah told me that whatever happens, we'll get through it. I just hope that he's right.
June 8th, 1919:
All hell really did break loose. See, this is what happened.
I was basically dragged out of bed by Elijah. He was panicking and told me that something caught fire downstairs and the whole place was starting to catch fire. That's enough to wake someone up. I immediately got up and managed to salvage anything of use: clothes, shoes, personal belongings, the works. Anything that held some kind of value was coming with us just in case.
When we got downstairs, chaos erupted. Things were lighting up in flames. I'm not sure if there was anything that could've been done, but we got out of there. Jacob and Emily were outside, trying to put out whatever flames they could, but the fire was quicker than they were. The town hall couldn't be salvaged or saved.
And that's where shit really hit the fan.
Naomi had emerged from the darkness and gave a rattling speech. This is what I remember:
"Don't bother with trying to save this shit of a place. Here is where I draw the line. You all have caused me suffering from day 1! I hated being here, especially against my will! Especially being around you, Jacob. Now, none of you get to have the life that you planned!"
Jacob had gotten extremely aggressive and...pushed Naomi into the fire. Emily had gotten really pissed at him and ran off with Jacob trailing behind him, leaving me and Elijah alone. He asked me what we were going to do and I wasn't exactly sure. We did have somewhere to go in the meantime: my adoptive mother's house.
Caroline Merrick lives in the far southwest end of Brightingling, just barely on the edge of the woods. That's where we stayed in the meantime until we figured out exactly what the hell to do.
Elijah couldn't sleep whatsoever. As much as I had loved it when he met my mom, it also made me upset. I wanted them to meet at a different point in time instead of during the current crisis we were in, but I couldn't change that. He hadn't moved from the chair next to the fireplace for a few hours and at first glance, he looked like a statue until you saw him breathing.
What are we supposed to do?
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