Chapter 2 History Session

The school bell rang at 8:15 sharp. Locker doors slammed, sneakers squeaked across polished floors, and half-awake teens shuffled into Room 214, where Hannah Carter stood scribbling the day's topic on the board.

UNIT 1: The Real History of America

"Where do we come from, really?"

She turned, facing a room full of yawns and sleepy stares.

"Okay," she said, clapping her hands once. "Let's wake those brains up. Today, we're looking at America's beginning. But-not the sugarcoated version. The actual one."

A few heads perked up. A couple kids smirked, sensing she wasn't about to hand them a textbook recap.

"So," she went on, "before this was America... who was here?"

"Native Americans," Noah said, arms crossed. "Obviously."

"Right. But we don't talk enough about how big that was. Hundreds of tribes. Cultures. Languages. All wiped out or pushed off their own land when colonizers showed up."

Olivia raised her hand, then didn't wait to be called on. "Why do we even call it discovering America if people were already here?"

Sierra jumped in. "For real. That's like me walking into your house and going, 'Wow, I discovered this place.'"

The class laughed.

Hannah smiled, even as her fingers massaged a dull pressure building between her eyebrows.

"It's good you're noticing that. Words matter. 'Discovery' sounds noble. But this wasn't a treasure hunt. It was a takeover."

Devon leaned back in his chair, chewing on his pen cap. "So then how did we go from that to now? Like, how do we just draw borders and say 'this land is ours now'? How is that fair?"

"It's not," Hannah said. "But power doesn't wait for fairness."

Olivia nodded. "And then we act like those lines-borders-are natural. Like they were always there."

Noah raised a brow. "But without borders, don't we just have chaos?"

"Or maybe connection," Sierra said. "Like... maybe we weren't supposed to live boxed in."

That sparked something.

"Okay, but-what about illegal immigration then?" Devon said. "Should people just come and go as they want?"

Bianca shot back, "Shouldn't they? I mean, most of us are here because our ancestors showed up uninvited. So who are we to draw the line now?"

"Because now we have laws," Noah said.

"Yeah, laws built on stolen land," Sierra muttered.

The room simmered. A debate was unfolding now, unscripted and loud enough to carry into the hallway if the door hadn't been shut.

"And what about leadership?" Olivia asked suddenly. "Like, who makes these decisions? The president just decides stuff-like pulling aid from countries, or deporting families-and that's it?"

"Some of them act like they don't even care," Bianca added. "Like they're completely numb."

"Did you guys watch Strangers from Hell?" Olivia said. "That K-drama? They said like 1 in 5 CEOs are psychopaths. No empathy, no guilt-just focused on control."

Hannah blinked at that. The word psychopath echoed louder than she expected.

Devon snorted. "So... we're ruled by psychopaths?"

"Not all of them," Hannah said. "But power does attract certain personalities. People who can make cold decisions. No hesitation."

"Like pulling out of treaties or rebuilding cities our weapons helped destroy?" Sierra asked.

"Exactly."

"They don't care," Olivia said. "It's like they don't even see the people affected."

The room felt tight now-filled with a kind of tense honesty. A discussion that had drifted from history into something deeper, rawer.

Hannah could feel the heat behind her eyes now, and the pounding in her skull grew harder to ignore.

She lifted her hand again.

"Alright. I love the passion. I do. But let's pull back for a second."

The class fell quiet.

"You're not wrong to ask these questions. You're growing up in a world that doesn't always make sense. But don't let the chaos push you to hopelessness. History's job isn't to fix things-it's to teach us how we got here. You're the ones who get to decide what happens next."

She reached for her desk, steadying herself.

"I want you to keep thinking. Keep questioning. Just remember... real change starts small. It starts in rooms like this one."

For a moment, they just sat with that.

Then Bianca, from the third row, tilted her head. "Miss Carter?"

Hannah looked up, blinking slowly.

"You okay? You've been kinda holding your head the whole time."

"Oh." She smiled, but it was faint. "It's just a headache. I'm alright."

The bell rang, but the sound didn't quite land right in her ears.

Students grabbed backpacks and phones, still buzzing about their unexpected debate. But Hannah didn't move right away. She waited until the last student left before she let out a slow breath and sat down.

She had told them it was just a headache. And maybe that's what she believed, too. But deep beneath the ache and behind her tired eyes... something else had started.

Something she couldn't see yet.

Something that would change everything.