Mackenzie Mortimer just wants to go home. An accident had
flung him into the far future where he had an incredible adventure in The
Tomorrow Paradox yet now he longed to return to present-day Serenity
Valley, USA. But something had gone wrong. He looked around. This wasn't
Serenity Valley, or even America. Mackenzie found himself in occupied Belgium
in-between the Nazi invaders and the Belgian Resistance. Lost in a dangerous
world where life is cheap and death lurks around every corner, the 21st century
teenager finds his modern suburban values at odds with a world at war. He
arrived as an innocent boy but, if he survives, can he leave unchanged by the
horrors of war?
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She knelt, pulling a knife from her boot, and pressed the
sharp blade against Mackenzie’s neck. “Or, I can slit your throat now.”
* * * * * *
“Don’t get any ideas. I’m a light sleeper and I sleep with
my knife under my pillow."
* * * * * *
The tip of a black leather shoe poked Mackenzie in the
shoulder. He awakened, chilled by the cold floor beneath him. Mackenzie’s eyes
followed the black patent leather up from the shoes, along the black trousers,
and up to a brown shirt accented by a black scarf secured through a leather
knot and a black cross strap running from the right shoulder down to the left
hip. A badge displaying the black Lion of Flanders on a yellow shield adorned
the shirt’s left cuff, and above it was an armband emblazoned with an
intimidating swastika.
* * * * * *
"He’s not a spy. He’s a young boy who will blunder
right into the hands of the Nazis if he isn’t helped.”
* * * * * *
“I didn’t ask you to come. This isn’t a game. If someone
describes us to the Gestapo, they will hunt us down and kill us.
* * * * * *
“You didn’t have to kill him. I would’ve found a way to get
us out of here.”
* * * * * *
“You have a lot to learn. I hope you live long enough to
learn it.”
* * * * * *
“In this war, we are all soldiers... not everyone wears a
uniform.”
* * * * * *
"He’s been like a brother to me for my whole life, yet
he’s so brainwashed that he’d believe it was his duty to send the girl I love
to her death.”
* * * * * *
Flora gazed at her with hardened eyes. “There is no such
thing as childhood. Not in Belgium since the Occupation. Not in Europe since
the war began. Childhood is a time of innocence; the Nazis destroy innocence
wherever they find it. They trample it beneath their jackboots as they march
across the continent.”
* * * * * *
“Innocence, once lost, can never be restored. My childhood
is gone forever, as is the childhood of every boy and girl who hears the sound of
a storm trooper’s boots.” Flora shook her head. “No, Monique, we fight for
their unborn children so they might grow up in a different world, in blissful
innocence, unable to imagine what we are living through. We fight for the
future; the present is damned.”
* * * * * *
"Maybe where you come from, people can stand on a
street corner and say whatever they want. But not here; not in occupied
Belgium. Here, there are consequences for speech; serious consequences. People
who say the wrong things disappear. These are scary times."
* * * * * *
Flora looked away. “There are times I try to recall what
life was like before the war... those mundane days, when the littlest of things
would seem like the end of the world. We got upset over the most unimportant
matters, yet I know there were times of unbridled happiness... even if I can’t
remember what such joy felt like. Each day the war goes on, it steals the joy
from our lives until we have nothing left.” She stood behind his chair and
placed her hands on his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mac.”
* * * * * *
“Oberführer Trommler, I am Finn Peeters and this is my
friend, Jan Martens. We’ve uncovered a suspected Resistance member in our
midst. He is an American teenager living in Antwerp. His name is Mackenzie
Mortimer.”
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All the Time in the World: Some people have it, and some don’t.
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