Intuitons of War
Chapter 2: The warning
Harper pushed open the door and walked into the familiar pub he had been visiting since the age of eight, the Turtle Bay. He looked to his left, where the bar should be.
As usual, Mr. Sams was standing there, tending to the customers of the pub. Harper smirked, and continued walking until he reached the stairs that lead to the second floor. He went upstairs, and turned right.
To his right was a long hallway, with doors on either side. Each of those doors was a room where someone could stay if they paid enough money. Depending on the amount of money paid, how long you stay will vary. Of course, you could just leave if you want.
Harper simply slumped down against a wall, and was planning on waiting for around thirty minutes. Around that time, Mr. Mason and the rest of his fisher gang would surely be drunk, and that'd be when he could sneak in and take some food.
The only reason he came to the pub was because he didn't feel like waiting around outside, as it was a bit too cold for him. Besides, if it was only thirty minutes, he was sure that the pub owner would let it slide.
'Now that I think about it, why don't I just steal food from the pub?' Harper thought to himself, but immediately realized it would be futile. He had tried it before, but it wasn't nearly as easy as stealing from the fishers.
For one, the people who are working here probably weren't drunk, and there was only one door into the kitchen, unlike Mr. Mason and his fisherman gang who were just outside in the open. Secondly, this pub was probably all about its profits, so they would surely get mad if he stole some food that could result in them getting a profit.
'Yeah, I'll just wait it out.'
--- sequence 2---
Thirty minutes passed by very easily, or so Harper thought. In reality, he didn't know time at all, but from all his experiences in the past, thirty minutes was generally around this long. He stood up, and began going downstairs.
Thankfully, it seemed like nobody working at the pub had an issue with him staying this long, as he was able to walk out without any issues. He began strolling through the streets of Newgate, towards the docks where the fishermen should be drunk and dancing around by now.
As expected, he arrived to find that they were dancing around like buffoons on ice skates. One of the fishermen was even lying on the ground belly up, which the other fisherman took advantage of to jump and stomp on him.
'It's nice that they can enjoy life like that.' Harper was somewhat envious of them, to be able to enjoy life like that. Meanwhile, he was barely skimming by life, much less growing up to become something.
'What am I thinking about, this isn't the time!' Harper immediately became harsh on himself, because he knew that right now, he just needed to get some food to eat.
"Well, time to make a move." Harper began walking towards them, with a wide grin on his face. Nobody took any particular attention to him, so he just kept strolling past them. Of course, that was until Mr. Mason caught sight of him.
"I thought I told ye' to get outta 'ere, you damned leech!" Mr. Mason was clearly still in a disapproving mood, but Harper knew that he was drunk enough to convince.
"Mr. Mason, should I get you more food and drink?" Harper asked in an innocent tone, still concealing what he was truly planning on doing.
"Huh, planning on doing something nice for once, 'ey? Fine, here ye' go." Mr. Mason dropped a couple of coins into Harper's hand, which Harper happily took.
'If he isn't drunk enough to let me eat the food here, I'll just use this coin to eat food elsewhere.' Harper, using his devious mind, concocted a sound plan against a drunk fisherman of this caliber.
"Yes sir, I'll bring the food right away!" Harper ran into the streets of Newland once again, the last thing he heard being something about bringing good meat.
'Alright, time to head back to the pub. Actually, they might get a little suspicious, considering I left for a bit only to come back right after with money on me.' Harper realized that it isn't the smartest thing in the world to just walk into the same pub he left with coin this time, so he stopped there and thought about where to eat.
"Maybe Gloria's? Heard she had some nice meat on her." Harper decided on where to eat while drooling, and began a mad dash to get to the restaurant. Although he wasn't strong when it comes to the upper body, that just let him run faster with the smaller weight.
After running for a while, Harper turned a final corner and found the new restaurant that had just been constructed, Gloria's emporium of meat.
"Emp.. erium? Whatever, the name doesn't matter right now." Harper decided to give up on pronouncing the name, and just walked in. It was a nice looking restaurant, people sitting here and there, a little stage in the middle where someone seemed to be whistling a tune.
'I could get used to places like these.' Harper thought to himself, and began walking forward. He reached the counter of the restaurant, and dropped all the coin he had onto it. The lady behind the counter quickly noticed the loud sound, and immediately walked up to it.
"Give me as much meat as I can afford with the coin." Harper also didn't know how to do math, so he simply left everything up to the people behind the counters and bars when it came to eating out.
However, for that sole reason alone, he was always scammed and given much less than what he was actually supposed to receive. Of course, he wouldn't know that, since he couldn't do math or tell numbers very well.
'As long as I get the meat, I'm fine.' Harper took a seat at one of the tables, and began waiting. While waiting, he did what he thought was called 'twiddling', which was where he just spun his thumbs around each other, or so he believed.
"Surely there's a better life than this, having to rob a damned fisherman of his money just so I can eat?" Harper asked himself, disappointed with life. Yes, he wanted to live. No, he didn't want to just remain like this for the rest of his life.
'Should I just run off and enlist in the war? Actually, now that I think about it, I tried lecturing Wyatt on the importance of guns and the rest, but I myself don't know how to use them. My brain would be blown out after the first battle I'm in.' Harper immediately rejected the idea of going to war. He just wasn't the type of person to fight out in the open, against a humongous amount of enemies.
'For now, I'll just keep living the life I've had until I have an opportunity to cha-'
*BOOM*
Out of nowhere, an ear shattering sound came out, and sent everyone within the restaurant into screaming with pain, including Harper. He was currently rolling around on the ground, covering his ears with his hands. Before he hit the ground, he unluckily hit his head on the table, causing his ears to bleed.
'What in the hell was that?!' Harper thought to himself, confused at what was happening.
*BOOM*
Before Harper could even begin to understand within his mind what was going on, more bombs seemed to be going off outside, and more pain entered his mind. Though, he still knew he had to get out of here.
'if it's the situation that I think it is, I won't last long while staying here, a public restaurant.' Harper quickly noticed that staying in such a public place surely wouldn't help his chances of surviving, so he tried to stand up.
However, the pain in his ear and his head was so much that he just couldn't manage it. However, another person managed to stand up and run towards the door.
"Oof!"
However, right before he could leave the restaurant, a leg appeared from the other side of the entrance to the restaurant and kicked him down, right on top of Harper.
Right after that, a bunch of people who seemed to be soldiers began storming the restaurant, and shooting every person in sight. The lady behind the bar, the people who were enjoying themselves, everyone.
The man who landed on Harper tried to stand back up, but he got shot the second he got back up, and he dropped onto Harper again, as a body this time. Blood stained Harper throughout thanks to the man's body, which wasn't a very delightful feeling.
'It feels like I've pissed myself, except it's throughout my whole body that I pissed myself, and it's really heavy…' Harper, still struggling to get out from under the man's body, was wriggling as much as possible.
'Wait, should I be wriggling? If I drop down and act like a dead person, could I somehow make it out of this alive?' Harper suddenly realized that standing up might not be the smartest thing to do in this situation, and that he should instead stay down.
He stopped moving completely, and just laid low, below the man's body. Thankfully, it landed on him and was protecting him, so he had some cover to get away with.
"Vérifiez les corps!"
Suddenly, one of the soldiers within the restaurant yelled out some gibberish that Harper couldn't understand, which was probably another language. However, right after that weird sentence, all the soldiers began to kick the bodies on the ground and roll them over.
However, something besides the language gave them away. Harper saw the colors, and knew who they were.
'The damned French…' One of the main enemies in the war, the French, were the people invading Newgate.
'Shit, they're checking the bodies!' Harper immediately noticed the situation, and the anxiety within him bloomed like flowers during the spring. He didn't know what to do, what to think, what to anything.
'There has to be a way out of this, there must be…!' Harper realized that the situation was out of his hands, and no matter what he did, he would be screwed. The best hope he had was to stay down and hope that they didn't realize he was alive.
After a while, the soldiers finally reached the body of the man above Harper. They turned the man around, and saw his face with a bullet hole in it. They simply stared at it in dead silence, and continued to check the bodies, including Harper.
One of the soldiers flipped over the body of Harper, who tried his hardest to conceal his grunt of pain. The soldier checked Harper all around, who was covered in blood. Yet, he couldn't find any bullet holes in him.
"Comment est-il décédé...?"
The french soldier wondered aloud, not understanding how Harper was dead. Then, an epitome hit him right in his mind, and he aimed his gun right at Harpers face.
"Ce gamin n'est pas mort!"
The soldier yelled out some more French gibberish, which immediately gained the attention of all the other soldiers. However, they seemed to be halted by the one standing at the door, as he personally came towards Harper and the soldier while holding his hand out to the rest.
"Laissez-le vivre, nous allons faire un exemple."
The man muttered out some words, and walked out of the restaurant. The soldier who found out Harper was alive lifted Harper up, and hit him with the back-end of his gun.
'Damn it…' Was the last thought Harper had before hitting the ground, unconscious.