Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 - 2017 | Page 96

“What’s the date?” I ask nervously.
“August 13, 1937.”
Chapter 2
I open my mouth to yell but nothing comes out. My brain goes fuzzy. All of my crazy thoughts plunging their way
into my head are like a wall, blocking my mind from telling myself to calm down. I shut my eyes and take deep
breaths, trying to isolate my brain from all those voices and thoughts, but they keep pouring in like a waterfall.
I think I blacked out from all that madness happening inside of me. I lift my head up from the crumpled sheet of the
pillow on my hospital bed, taking a look at the old clock beside me. It is morning. I get up from my bed, and I take
a walk around the spacious hospital room, thinking about what I had heard, the horrors I had been told.
Chapter 3
A sudden flashback powers its way into my mind. A computer pops up on the lap of an eight-year-old James
Tallahassee, me. The computer screen flashes a family tree website on the clear 2005 Window’s screen. Jamie
Tallahassee. My great-grandfather, an undercover agent for the newly renamed FBI. He lived a short life. A good
one though. On an undercover business trip to Shanghai, on August 13, 1937, the Japanese invaded. My
great-grandfather was killed.
I stop daydreaming. My great-grandfather isn’t dead yet. I can save him from the Japanese invasion, but how?
Chapter 4
That morning, I leave the hospital. From my Grandma Jenny’s stories, I knew that Jamie had landed in Shanghai last
night. I booked a flight for Jamie and me to England for tonight. I’m sure Jamie is at the Sannabereli Finance
building now, the only branch his company, Tallahassee Financials, have here.
I hail a rickshaw. The coolie pulls the bright, red rickshaw over. He is wearing a conical hat on his head. The seat
complains when I sit down. The coolie starts pulling the rickshaw and we race through the streets of Shanghai to
the office.