The Jazeldians

We come from the country Jazeldi. Our country rose to power by violence and it was the strongest of them all. Or at least we thought.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Bye, we'll miss you," our neighbors called to me.

My family was moving. We were tired of the violence, but sometimes violence was necessary. That's what made us the strongest. Still, we were nervous to move. We didn't know if people would approve of us, since we had Jazeldian blood. 

It would take two days to get to our new house. We were traveling by plane, hoping it would get us there the fastest. We were eager to leave as soon as possible.

During the plane ride, I asked my mom a few questions. 

“Why do people hate Jazeldians so much?”

I knew the simple answer. It was because we were violent, or at least had violence in our blood. Jazeldians started many wars and took many lives. Our country was violent, but I felt like there was a better answer. That was the answer we learned in school but sometimes, school isn’t always exactly right.

“They hate us because we are violent,” my mom told me.

“Yeah, I know that Mom. What I really want is a better answer. Why do they really hate us?”

“Because they’re scared of us. They fear us. Everyone knows we have the power to wipe them out and that we can do it whenever we want,” she said aggressively.

I wondered what was up with my mom. Almost everyone had pride in their country, but our country was founded on murder, I don’t know how anyone can be proud of us. I needed to ask another question.

“But why us? There are many countries in the world that are powerful.”

“We have the power to take on the whole world. We have bombs big enough to destroy an entire continent. That’s why we moved.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your dad, I know we haven’t talked about him much since his death. With him being a military officer, it was his job to transport the nuclear bombs. Since he died, it’s our job now. We have to transport them and soon, we will set them off.”

This was a lot for me to take in. I didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t think I could move to France knowing that we would destroy it soon. I didn’t really have a choice in the matter though.

“Why are we blowing France up?” I asked.

“Actually, we’re going to destroy all of Europe. We need to do this as a symbol of our power. To take everyone else, we need to show them our strength.”

“What do you mean ‘take everyone else’ Mom?” I asked.

“I mean, we’re going to rule the world. The world is too peaceful. We have the right idea. People say violence doesn’t solve problems, it only creates them, but there are no problems that violence can’t solve,” she told me.

I was shocked. My mom had never talked like this before. She was very passionate about our country sometimes, but she had never acted like a murderer. I knew immediately that our Jazeldian blood had kicked in. I definitely didn’t support this, but as I said earlier, I had no choice. Jazeldi was not worth killing all those people for.

I didn’t want to tell my mom this. I was afraid of what she would do to me. She was usually a good mom, but after seeing this side of her, I didn’t know what she was capable of doing.

I spent the day reading my book on the plane. They gave us trays of food and we ate. Airplane food didn’t taste that good, but at least it was something. When night fell, I fell asleep in my seat while my mom stayed up. She had insomnia, which made it very hard for her to get to sleep.

I slept well that night and when we woke up in the morning, they served us each a frittata, which is just a fancy name for an omelet. The rest of the day was boring. I continued to read throughout the day. We went to sleep that night and in the morning, we were there. We were in France.

The plane stopped at the next airport. We grabbed all our luggage and got off. We then hailed a cab to take us to our new house. When we arrived, I was stunned. This was my first time seeing the house and it was beautiful.

It was painted white and had a window in almost every room. The front door was brown and the roof was slanted at an odd angle. We used to live in an apartment. I had been living there my whole life and this was going to be my first time living in a house. First, we had to do the worst part, unpacking.

We spent the day unpacking our bags and boxes. I also picked a room and began to decorate it.

That night I slept poorly. I was so nervous because my mom insisted that I start school the next day. What kind of kid starts school the day after they moved? We weren’t even fully unpacked yet! Eventually, I fell asleep. My alarm clock woke me up early the next morning. I dressed, brushed my teeth, and grabbed a Pop-Tart for breakfast. Then I packed my book bag with school supplies.

“Bye Mom, I’m going to school. The bus is here.”

When my mom didn’t answer, I left. I went to the bus and when the door opened, I boarded it.

Everyone stared at me when I got on.

“Isn’t she the new girl?”

“I wonder where she’s from.”

I heard their whispers and ignored them. I sat down in an empty seat and hoped no one would sit beside me. I wasn’t ready for their questions just yet. On our last stop, a small boy boarded the bus. He had brown hair and matching brown eyes. He was very short and skinny. He sat down right beside me.

“Hi, I’m Liam. What’s your name? Where are you from? Why’d you move? You wanna hang out sometime?”

I sighed. Liam sure was a talkative person.

“I’m Julia and I'm from, ummmmmm, Germany,” I said, not wanting to tell him where I was really from. “We moved here because we just wanted a bigger house.”

“That’s strange, you don’t have a German accent. Whose class are you in?” he asked me.

“I’m in Ms. Horne’s class,” I said.

“Cool, me too,” he said.

We drove to the school. When we got there, I saw that, like everything else in this town, it was beautiful. We entered the school. I spent the day introducing myself to everyone.

Whenever they asked where I was from, I told them I was from Germany. When I got home, my mom was waiting for me.

“Hi, Julia. How was your first day of school?”

“It was decent,” I said. "How was yours?"

"It was horrible. I got bombarded with neighbors asking where I was from. I told them I was from Scotland and they brought us a whole lot of sweets."

“The shipment is here,” she said, completely changing the topic.

I knew exactly what shipment she was talking about. The bombs were here.

“Come with me,” she said. 

I went with her outside where I saw a huge truck. Inside was a giant crate that had a hazardous sign on it. The man driving the truck started talking to us.

“Here’s the stuff. Be careful, it could blow any second. We tried to make it as safe as possible, but it’s still a big hazard.”

He and my mom started to lift the crate from both sides. I heard a huge boom and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground. I saw the driver and my mom lying in the street.

There was debris everywhere and it was hard to breathe. The bomb had blown.