Acoustic Memoirs

Twang goes the guitar. The strings vibrate. The sound echoes, the skill continues throughout the family line.

"No Joseph! I told you! Keep your left hand there! Mum! He's not doing as he's told!" Sarah whined as her 5 year old brother laughed at her quick temper. Their mother came into the room, drying off a plate. She smiled, and shook her head.

"Sarah, he's too young to learn something like the guitar! He'll never remember all the chords" Their baby sister, Cherise, started wailing, so their mother stopped what she was doing to tend to her. The Wilson family consisted of the three sisters; Sarah, 10, Cherise, 1, and Rose, 13. Then there was 5 year old Joseph, and their mother Tanya, and the father, Slade. Slade was part of the royal navy, but also held his retired reputation as Death stroke, an infamous justice fighter who had his own ways of dealing with criminals. He had stopped this about 3 years before hand, when he wanted a family. They currently lived in Nepal, a busy city in Tibet, and life was going quite well. Tanya had just been promoted to headmistress at the local Middle school.

"Sarah, could you call your sister down please? Dinner's almost ready"

"Okay" Sarah got up, and ran to the bottom of the stairs

"ROSE! DINNER!" She then ran back, and grabbed her guitar up from Joseph, who was trying to break the tuners off of the end. He smiled sweetly, then giggled as she picked him up.

"Jeez kid, you're getting heavy!" Rose came into the room just as she said this.

"I'm sure he appreciates that" She said, rolling her emerald eyes.

"Besides, if you insult him, maybe he'll do the trippy eye thing to ya!" She joked, poking her brother on the nose. He squeaked with delight. Sarah looked at her brother, his turquoise eyes all big and bug like. Ever since he was born, Joseph had had the ability to take control of other peoples bodies through morphing. It was quite creepy when he did it to her, though he didn't mean to. She handed her father the child, and followed her sister into the dining room.

Half way during the dinner, the phone rang. Rose got up, and ran to get it. Tanya looked up in curiosity as her daughter came back through.

"Dad, it's for you" He looked quite surprised, but got up anyway. 10 minutes later, and he still hadn't returned.

"What's dad doing? Rewiring the phone?" Sarah asked, getting up slowly, wanting to know what was taking him so long.

"Sarah, sit down – he'll be back in a-Oh, you're finished?" She interrupted herself as Slade came back in, looking rather pale. Apart from Cherise and Joseph, the family stopped eating, and looked up at the man of the house.

"Honey, is everything okay?" Tanya asked, placing her hand on his arm. He nodded slowly, and sat down.

"Hey Dad, are you-"

"Rose...take your brother and sisters upstairs will you?"

"...Sure Dad. Sarah, grab Cherise will ya?"

"Okay" With that, all four siblings headed upstairs obediently, leaving the parents alone.

A month later, and Slade had been getting more and more stressed out, even more so when the phone rang. He jumped every time, and ran for it, so that it wasn't missed.

The family started to worry about him, but he told them not to. That there was just something going on at work. Joseph had actually been able to learn one simple tune on the guitar, much to Sarah's surprise and joy. Rose had got herself a new boyfriend, so the kids were mostly occupied. But one night would completely change this.

Twang goes the guitar strings. The noise, it fades, into the dim. Quick! Twang it again!

It was about 3:00 am, when it happened. A crash, then an explosion to shake the earth to its core. There was smoke first, and lots of it. Then the fire. Another two crashes came, followed by two more. More thick, black smoke, more flames that quickly devoured the top landing. Cherise was the first to go. Then Rose, after she got trapped in the kitchen, getting a drink. There were people in the house. People who shouldn't have been there. Slade ran to collect Joseph, who was hiding in the closet, bawling his eyes out. But before they could get out, one of the intruding men found them. While Slade fought them off, Joseph ran out into the landing, and got collected by Sarah, who wrapped them both in a blanket, and ran downstairs, and out of the burning house. She didn't get very far however. One of the men grabbed her, and smacked her round the head, making her topple over. The man then grabbed Joseph up, and ran into the night.

The string breaks. Damn. Have to replace it

I have to find my son. My family is gone, apart from Joseph. They've got him, and I have no idea where they are. That's not entirely true, but it's such a log shot. Who knows what they'll do to him. Maybe he's already dead...They wanted me, and they got everything but me in the end. They're probably holding him in that warehouse district somewhere. I'll try there first.

Joseph wasn't dead, but he wasn't well either. They had slashed his throat, enough so that it killed of his young voice box, but not enough to kill him. There was a lot of blood, and a lot of waiting. Slade didn't find them until two days later, until which time they had sent the child to an orphanage, after going into great detail with him how his parents were both dead. They'd sent him with his sister Sarah. As it turned out, she had followed them, gotten herself caught, and sent packing with her injured brother. When Slade got there, they were ready for him. They argued. This turned into a violent fight, in which got him blinded in his right eye.

"Where's my son?? What've you done with him?!"

"He's dead – if only you'd been obedient in the first place, this never would've happened. It's your entire fault Death stroke"

"Don't call me that you sick bastard! You killed my family! You destroyed my home! I'm going to make you pay for what you've done, but first tell me where my son is!!" His adversaries all laughed at him, at his bleeding face, his bruised hands. Their laughs pierced the night air as Slade sank to his knees. His family...gone.

9 years later, and all this was still fresh in Slade's mind. He had returned to the costume business. He designed his own mask to hide behind, and had moved to Jump City in America. Joseph, now 14, had long since changed his name to Jericho. He had perfect control over his powers, but had never really used them. He lived in the mountains, Still in Tibet, and had been raised by the owner of the orphanage. His sister, Sarah, had left him a long time ago to find her own life. But she had left one memory behind. Her old Acoustic guitar. Jericho used it as musical entertainment, and slowly but surely taught himself to play.

One day, Jericho was sitting on his favourite spot on top of one of the smaller hillsides. He was just enjoying his own company, and playing his guitar. He'd already written some of his own tunes, and now he just needed practise. The wind was cool, but the sun was hot on his face as he played, his blonde hair moving slightly in the breeze. The rock he sat upon was surrounded by lush green grass, and beautiful flowers of all sorts. But, it was during this day when something rather strange happened. While he was playing, he glanced up, and saw a green ram. At first he thought he was seeing things, but then something even stranger happened. The green ram transformed into a small green boy. He had pointed ears, and a fang poking out of his mouth on one side. He approached Jericho's rock, and started to speak very fast. His accent told Jericho that he was probably American.

"I told Robin we shouldn't separate but he sent up here and I just climbed up this big mountain and so here's your stupid communicator if the bad guys come you know what to do" He then fainted from lack of air. Jericho blinked at him, and patted him on the head.

The end! I'll probably write up the following episode soon, when I find the time. I hope you liked it!