I'm at that fragile point in my life where I'm racked with insecurities, self hatred and, of course, body image issues. When a day has been too hard on me I like to close my and transport myself to a different time, to 2010.

In 2010 I am 15 years old, about to start my first year of high school. I tell my younger self to relax, to enjoy this period of my life. I tell younger me that everything will be okay, in the end everything finds a way to work itself out. I tell myself that he will break my heart, but I will survive, that I should take risks and I be confident. Then I ask my younger self what she thinks of me.

I imagine she says that I'm beautiful, that I'm everything she wanted to grow up to be. I imagine she says that I am her role model, someone she wants to emulate in appearance and attitude.

I open my eyes and return to my current time. I feel better about myself. Better about the young woman I became. I remember everything I went through in those five years and gain a sense of pride. Look at myself through different eyes, kinder eyes.

I sling my bag over my shoulders and step into the cool lobby. The doorman looks at me in surprise. "It's only 7:45, James!" I smile and wink, heading straight for the elevators. I press the thirtieth floor button and wait patiently. The doors slide open with a whoosh to reveal a large open room partitioned into dozens of offices. Once at my office, I put down my bag.

"James!"A voice calls out. I turn to find my boss and cousin, Fiona, headed right for me. Her usually cheerful face is pinched with anxiety.

"Yes?"I say, turning on the computer on my desk.

"Actually, you're off from that today,"Fiona leans over and turns it off. "I need you to do something for me today."

"What do you want me to do?" I lean back on the counter. She usually doesn't ask for favors, but judging by her face it's something important.

She hesitates, and then says,"The discs ran out and we really need to burn some of the information before tomorrow, when the inspectors come. Usually I'd ask Olivia, but she has a cold and didn't come today." Olivia was her 20 year old niece that worked here as an intern. "Could you go to that store down the street that sells them?" I instantly agree. Her face lights up, and she says joyfully, "That's great, we'll need 40 of them!" She presses money into my hands, and before I can protest, has shoved my bag into my arms and steered me forcefully into the elevator. "Be back as soon as you can, we need all the time we can get!"She waves as the doors close.

I stride down the street, quietly admiring the Empire State Building not a mile from where I was. Inside the store I ask the cashier where the discs are located. She is busily packaging pens, and absently says "Aisle 7" without looking up. I nod and move away.

Searching for the disks prove to be difficult, but in the end I walk to the counter triumphantly holding a box of discs. "That will be $20, please." I wince at the price, but hand over Fiona's money. Staggering out of the store, I immediately notice that something is wrong. There is a crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk staring up at the sky and exclaiming in shock. I follow their gaze and almost drop the box. An airplane is headed straight for the Twin Towers, where I work and my colleagues are. I start running, but almost as quickly stop. There was no way I'd get there in time. I instead cross my fingers and hope that the pilot will come to his senses. But he doesn't.

A deafening boom sounds as it crashes into the tower near the floor that I work in. A cloud of smoke and fire erupts almost instantaneously, and I know with absolute certainty that there is no way Fiona or any of my friends survived. Alarms go off and the sidewalk descends into chaos as everyone flees toward safety. Well, almost everyone.

I stand there, holding a box of blank discs that will never be used. I wonder what would've happened if I had told Fiona to come with me, or had her ask someone else. Maybe more lives would've been saved.

It doesn't matter. I'll never know.

The top of the building begins to separate from the structure with horrible, grinding screeches. As it cleaves off and falls to the ground with a crash, something deep inside of me breaks.

I wonder what I am going to tell Olivia.

ALL RELATIONS BETWEEN ANY PERSON IN THIS STORY AND SOMEONE LIVING OR DEAD TODAY IS A COINCIDENCE. IF YOU ARE OFFENDED IN ANY WAY, I SINCERELY APOLOGIZE.

If I could go back in time, I'd go back to when the Twin Towers were destroyed on 9/11. I'd try to warn everyone inside or close by and get them away from the buildings. Preventing as many casualties possible would be my highest priority that day.

"The days are as long as they are hot. The air is dry but spirits are high for the booze is plenty and there's harlots a-many. People out here make there own happiness amid the squalor and dust. Oh the dust! It coats everything and everyone, kicked up by horses and gusts of wind off the open plains. It's a breeding ground for debauchery and mayhem. It's the Wild West." The exotic woman dressed like a bar-wench practically sang it like a chant.

"You warn'n me or try'n'ta sell me on it dar'lyn?" The gruff older man asked in a slow-draw southern twang and weary smirk.

"Depends on what you're here for, partner." She quipped back with lullyby eyes and a pop of ruby-red lips.

"I'm hunt'n." He said with a charming smile and casual lean back against the post of the Saloon's front porch. His right hand smoothly brushing his coat aside so he could rest his palm on the reversed hilt of the long colt holstered on a belt slung around the narrow of his hips.

"Well then I'm selling you on it sugar." The woman coed with a winked smirk of her own. "My name's Bajiel Razna, Baji if you please." She held out her seemingly delicate hand in introduction whilst she continued, opportunistically suggesting his hand away from the pistol. "I'm what people around here call, The Acquirer. -Who- or what ever you're looking for, I can get it." Still her husky vocals chimed like she was a siren singing him her song.

He shook her hand firm and held it firm until he felt her tug it back, just in time to emphasize -who- like she knew he wasn't hunting game. He did her the favor of tucking his thumb in the brim of his pants where his shirt was loosely tucked in. "What if that who is the local Sheriff?" He asked plainly but casually enough he could have been kidding.

"It's the Wild West." Baji slyly punctuated with an arch of her brows, as if that was all the explanation he needed.

|| another-proser ||

PART ONE- SICILY, EMIL JONES

I am Emil Jones, native of New York, USA. This is my story.

"Hey."

A throaty whisper.

I turned. Gilbert Adler was hovering next to me, his narrow amber eyes glowing in the near-darkness. "Hey, Gil."

My eyes widened as I spotted the red drenching his chest. "Gilbert!"

Gilbert tried to smile as he collapsed, amber eyes still wide open, "Don't worry about me, geliebt, you keep on fighting with the others. We'll overcome those nasty Nazis, won't we? Especially now that we have you." As his eyes slipped closed for the last time and I screamed for a medic, he whispered, "Auf Wiedersehen, mein Emil, mein geliebt. Win for me, ja?"

It's 1943, and I had been transported from my home in New York to Sicily as a part of Operation Husky more than a month ago on July 9th. It's now August 16th, my twentieth birthday. A whole month since Gilbert died.

We've heard that the Wops are retreating their soldiers and so are the Krauts, but we're still fighting and men are still dying. It's horrible why people would do such a thing, but look who's talking?

Emil Jones, that's who.

A boy - or man now - that lives to kill, lives to die for his country, for democracy, for killing the killers.

That's me.

We're fighting here in Sicily, and we're almost there. Soon we'll have the island under our control, but at what price?

I can't stop thinking about Gilbert and what he sacrificed for this war. It's the same every day - soldiers crying when their friends, their lovers, are shot or ripped apart by bloody shotguns and tanks on the streets. The dead are brought back to be cremated or whatever they do, and the barely alive are brought back to die or even left there on the beaches and cities to breath their last breath, staring at the grey sky, thinking about their family and friends and crying.

I'm glad Gilbert was able to make it back, to say his last words to a man he loved.

I want this. I want to fight for liberty, to take revenge on those who had injured the ones I loved, the ones I still love, and the ones I will love. I can't let them take over.

What is one man's life if it is the cause of many men's deaths?

PART TWO- OAHU, AMELIA ALAKA'I

I am Amelia Alaka'i, a native to Oahu, Hawaii. This is my story.

I heard the explosions, I saw the planes, I was cut by the things that rained down from the sky like the rubbish of a god.

I was there when we were attacked.

I awoke late in the morning, at almost 9:00. I was awakened by the booms and the screams coming from the peaceful Hawaiian morning. Racing outside, I was met by a terrifying sight- the mighty battleships in the harbor, one flipped over, another caught up in flames, the ocean burning up, bullets falling from the smoky gray sky like ua. Like rain.

It was as if the world was ending.

A bullet landed next to me and I screamed, jumping to the side. My thoughts raced. I had a younger sister and two brothers inside the home. If a bullet caught my hut, they were good as dead.

I sprinted back inside the hut, hoping desperately no harm had befallen my family. Thank Maui that my parents were off on a business trip to the mainland! I called upon my favorite legend, Maui, to save my siblings and I. He was an ancient Hawaiian hero who stopped the sun to help his mother. I wanted to be like him, with my last name meaning "leader".

I took by youngest brother in my arms and held the hand of my little sister, racing downstairs to where Father said the safehouse was. My older brother followed me downstairs and shut the metal trapdoor. We were all breathing hard as we heard the bullets raining down outside. Little Brother was crying.

Many years later, when I was older and when Older Brother had already perished in the war, I still remembered the sound of Little Sister's voice whispering in my ear, "Amelia, the people who bombed the ocean are bad people."

I used to agree, yes, the Japanese army were bad people, but now I know. They weren't bad people, it was just that they harmed us for a greater good.

Was it worth it?

Even now, as I lay on my deathbed with my younger siblings by me, I still think back to that day. The day that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

______________________________________________________________

Author's note: Emil Jones and Amelia Alaka'i represent me in this story. Gilbert Adler and Amelia's siblings were made up for the sake of making up characters.

I sincerely apologise if anyone is offended by this.

WWII was an interesting period of time and I felt that I would like to know more.