Prologue – Battle of JOSH-A
The soldier ran down the darkened hall, panting. A careless laugh floated after him, followed shortly by a bullet. The man collapsed, dead, falling halfway into the narrow crevice she was hiding in.
Her eyes widened in horror, taking in the blood, the white bits of shattered bone, the grey brain matter, the hole in the back of the man's head. She had to get away, step backwards, but there was nowhere to go. She bolted from the nook, suddenly desperately unable to stay and watch the blood continue to flow, but she slipped as soon as she cleared the dead man's body.
Her attention, previously only on the need to get away, became transfixed by the figure silhouetted by the emergency lighting from the main hall.
"Hoh? What's this?"
If she had been standing, she would have fallen now anyway.
"Papa's voice . . . . " She barely understood what she was hearing. Hope rose up, blocking her throat, until she remembered that no, her father could not be here, he was dead. She had seen it, just like she had seen the man next to her die. The man before her, even though she could not see his face, was not her father.
With more strength of purpose than she had ever used in her fifteen years, Flay snatched the fallen man's gun from the floor. She steadied her arm in the direction of the advancing figure.
But he was already too close. As her finger squeezed the trigger, everything went dark.