This was a thousand times worse than what I saw in those war documentaries on TV. With modern day
weaponry, it was mostly a great big boom and everyone’s dead. With the army that I was confronted with, I had
the pleasure of watching them advance slowly knowing that I had nowhere to hide, while all I could hear was
their war cry. Let’s go back, shall we?
“
Relax, Tina,” I told myself, trying to calm down. “You have a thousand years of technology on your
side.” My eyes swept over the discarded pile of armour and weapons, and an idea popped into my head. It was
crazy, but it would have to work.
I ran over and slipped into the suit of armour. Thankfully, I was tall for my age and it was only a little
too long. I tried picking up the heavy long sword to no avail. Abandoning it, I went for the long spear instead.
Still, I struggled to prop it up against the side of the wall, facing the invading army.
As they neared the Great Wall, they slowed down and finally stopped in front of the city gates. Many
of them pointed up at me in a way that could only be explained as curious. It seemed that they were not used to
generals standing their ground instead of fleeing with their tail between their legs.
In an effort to make myself appear more confident than I actually was, I yelled at the top of my lungs,
“
I am the mighty Tina! I have come to destroy you all by commands of the… the… Keeper of Peace! I will…” I
faltered. Then I decided to take advantage of the language barrier and started to yell out words from the top of
my head, as if I were chanting. “3 times 3 equals 9! Energy is Time times Power! Franco-Prussian war in 1870!”
I warbled on, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. If my life weren’t on the line I probably would’ve been
laughing my head off.
From the lack of response, I figured I wasn’t doing such a bad job. Their silence gave me an idea. I reached into
my backpack and pulled out my MP3 player and my mini-speaker. I skillfully chose the theme from “Jaws”,
hoping for the best effect, all the while continuing to ramble off words. Hopefully, time travel did not have an
effect on batteries.
I turned the volume up to the maximum and crossed my fingers. The hair-raising music blasted out
from the speaker but it barely made it pass the first three rows. Evidently that was enough. I saw them starting to
mumble amongst themselves and soon the “news” had spread. So, I picked up the speaker and pointed at it.
Apparently they didn’t witness strange sounds coming out of tiny boxes every day and they were convinced it
was evil. Soldiers started to claw at their ears, even those that couldn’t possible hear it as they were too far back.
Finally, after around two minutes, the leader made a signal. The army started to retreat but that was
when chaos broke. They were all desperate to get away and caused a stampede. Those who weren’t fast enough
were stomped to their death.
With the entire army gone and the “battlefield” looking gruesome, my initial adrenaline was gone and I
collapsed into a heap, but I banged my head hard. The last thing I remembered was the pain. Then, I blacked out.
When I woke up again, all I could see were blurry shapes and a searing white color. Forcing myself to focus, I
could tell I was in an ambulance. “You had heat stroke, Tina.” My dad’s worried face appeared on top of me.
“
You also hit your head pretty hard… how are you feeling?” Not trusting myself to speak, I shrugged, then
winced. My head hurt so bad it felt like someone had stabbed it with a knife.
I knew from government commercials that one symptom of heat stroke was hallucinating. This means
“
my heroic actions” were never done, but it became a lasting memory — a new story, a new tale, of the Great
Wall.
* * *