"Mama," I said, bringing over a food dish. "Will Albin being returning home for dinner?"
"I don't believe so, sweetheart." My mother's rich German voice calmed my nerves. "Can you get me a plate for the roast?"
"Of course, Mama." I smiled, bringing her a glass casserole dish. As I set it on the counter, I heard a loud crash, the dish had shattered to the ground, Mama had looked outside the window, the house across from our's, was in flames.
"Out of the house!" Our door was kicked down. A gun was pointed at my mother and myself, and I clung to her tightly. My mother nodded, putting her hands up, ushered me outside. I quickly grabbed my stuffed rabbit, only to get hit in the back with a gun.
"Mama!" I screamed, getting pulled away by the man. My mother reached for me, her arm getting butt away by another man's gun. She looked at me as I was sent into a separate group of only children.
As I was getting tossed into another group, with children much younger than I. I could see my mother being dragged away with some adults, parents watching their children with a mixture of mortified, and solemn looks. Most had accepted their children's deaths. I took a few of the kids into my arms, huddling them together on the snow covered dirt pathways. We were all freezing ourselves by sitting on nothing but frozen ground. There was no warmth but each other's body heat, which was dwindling by the second.
That's when I felt the heat of my own home being set ablaze. I felt hot tears begin to well up in my already wide eyes. I hid my face in the dirty clothing of the younger children sitting around me, crying quietly as I accepted my own fate. My little bit of hope was dwindling, I felt nothing but my home being stolen away from me by men that I had never even seen. Men that probably had nothing to do with me, and were burning down Eichenwald just to prove a political point, hurting innocent people and separating families who had most likely never even heard of their cause. That's how the world was in my day, where you thought you'd read about the horrors happening in other countries, and never considered someone else reading about the horrors in your own.
I felt a strong gust of cold air flick my hair around rapidly, an American flag was painted on the side, almost unnoticeable from my viewpoint on the ground. I heard the stamping of boots on the ground, and the men who had torn me from my mother rushed to meet the newcomers. I saw a small group of younger men, teenage boys come around the corner as the gunfire began. They untied a few of the bigger men and spoke what I assumed to be English.
A blonde boy came to me, his bright blue eyes looked at me as his fellow teammates helped the little kids to their mothers and fathers. He offered his hand, which I took, and allowed him to pull me from the dirt. My focus quickly went to finding my mother, and as I peered around, I didn't see her.
The boy, maybe a few years older than myself, followed my gaze to the group of adults. He spoke slowly, and I tried to make out what little English I knew, but there was one word I did know. Mother. I looked at him desperately, not remembering the bits of English my father had once taught me.
"M-Missing…?" I looked at him, hopeful I had the right word. He nodded, motioning for me to follow. I got onto the airship, where no other children were. No other adults, just me, wrapped in a blanket, sitting in the corner on the rugged metal of the floor.
I sat there until I heard the gunfire stop, men returned, some had bullet holes in them, bleeding profusely from their wounds. I was left in the corner, until a seemingly uninjured man looked at me, sitting next to me. He spoke German, with a harsh English accent, presumably American, but I managed to have a conversation with him. He asked where my mother was, I told him I saw her when we had been pulled out of our home, but I didn't see her again afterward.
So, after the city had been extinguished, and my mother hadn't been located, I was forced to go to the orphanage of the neighboring city, Neuses. I remember sobbing for hours after I was told I had to go, to leave my home in Eichenwald. I was on an American airship, with nothing but men, bawling my eyes out about having to leave home. I finally got myself under control enough to make myself stop crying, to stop looking weak, and I was dropped off outside the door of Neuses' orphanage, escorted by the same boy who found me. He offered me a simple smile, a look of fake optimism as he turned to go back to his airship with a brief sentence of words I didn't understand. But the blonde boy paused, tearing an American flag off his arm, placing his scrap of camo and embroidered flag into my hand. I glanced up at him, wondering what he had said to me. Was it words of hope? Or wishing me goodbye?
I kept that scrap of clothing, God only knows why, but I kept it on me at all times, It went from tradition, to habit as I grew older each year. I was the oldest child at that orphanage, and I grew up pretty quick with it. I got beaten up pretty much every other day by a group of brothers, a year older than me, and much bigger than me. I got so tired of getting black eyes and the trio teasing me for carrying a little scrap of fabric around with me, I just kept my mouth shut, and let them do whatever they wanted.
Then I went into Eichenwald one day, I was nearly fifteen, two years in the orphanage, and fetching a few important items for my "Mother," who was actually the woman who ran the orphanage. She was kind, and generally a good person, but she always turned a blind eye to anyone being beaten up, saying it was just "childish roughhousing." She was so blindingly polite, that it was easy to miss her menacing side.
That's when I saw it, a man, a big one, tried to mug a woman, a mother, who turned around and took her purse back and slammed the man into the ground. Out of his pockets, tumbled an array of knives, and I watched in awe as he just ran away. Is a man running away from a mother, a woman? It was simply unheard of. I picked up a book on self-defense, claiming it was for my brother's birthday. My biological brother, he was in India, with his wife. I knew that much. I would have contacted him, but I didn't want him to find me, I wanted him to stay in India, away from me.
I returned to my cot, squinting at the book in the darkness, hurting my eyes to read with nothing but the moon's light. I skipped dinner, just to have peace and quiet to read to myself. Turns out, I needed a partner to practice self-defense on, so, I waited patiently, for one of the three boys to approach me threateningly. Without a doubt, they did, and I took down their leader, a boy named Albert, in a matter of seconds. Mother, she saw this, and dragged me into her office, sitting me in her chair, trying her hardest to look angry with me.
"Clara," Mother began, sitting down in her large, luxurious chair. "Where did you learn something like that?"
I shrugged, looking down. I figured I was going to be punished, that I'd have to pay for standing up for myself.
"You're not in trouble." Mother quickly stated, leaning forward. "Do you remember Ashlynn?"
My eyes widened a bit at the name. A girl younger than myself by only a few months, she had gone missing after Mother had talked with her. She was never seen again, and Mother claimed that she was "adopted" and had gone to live with a family far away. I quickly nodded in response to the question, making Mother lean back.
"I was wondering how long you were going to let those boys punch you. I'm glad to see you learned to stand up for yourself. Ashlynn, she had a similar experience with a boy much older. He's moved out, but Ashlynn, she's still here. Learning how to better defend herself."
I tilted my head to the side. Finally, I straightened myself up and looked my "Mother" in the eyes. "What are you asking me?" I almost regretted asking the question.
Mother smiled warmly. "Would you like to be adopted?"
From that day on, I was "adopted" and by that, I mean, taken into the basement of the orphanage, a soundproof basement I later discovered. Girls of all ages were there, some working on large computers, tracking down vicious German criminals. This was all a government organization, a conspiracy, where young girls were taught to hunt down terrorists and mobsters, and kill them without public attention being caught. It was so unreal to me, that an organization like that could be run in the very home I had been in for nearly two years without my notice. Guns were being shot at the shooting range, at moving targets, holographic men with guns, you had to hide behind covers, and shoot when you knew it was clear. There were rock walls and pitch black rooms, where you had to work on your strength and other abilities to get to a target. It was like a whole other building, in the basement of some old, creaking, orphanage.
I should have asked more questions on what this "adoption" really entailed. I was first tortured. Literally. For three months, I was interrogated every day. Being hit and punched, made to bleed, to toughen me for if I was ever caught and asked for information. It was Hell. Until I went into physical training, instead of mental. I was a whole new person at that point, I was disciplined, knew how to take a punch, and knew just as well how to throw one back. Physical training consisted of learning how to fight. How to predict hits, and read my enemies. I quickly found myself able to fight my own teacher and take her down by nearly another year.
Before I knew it, my childhood had swept by me. I was being sent on more and more assassination missions, corrupt politicians was a popular category. But they became simple, mindless, tasks. I never did the killing, those always went to the partner of the missions, the "Killer" or the girl who had already killed before. They were predetermined by their psych evaluations, the girls with the higher chances of insanity, they were the ones forced to kill. My partner, the "Killer" was none other Ashlynn. She was ruthless, acting as if none of it phased her. The blood on her hands, or sometimes, even her face. On one mission with Ashlynn, I made the mistake to walk in on Ashlynn's job. She was grinning like a madwoman, slowly sliding the blade across the man's throat. It was brutal and almost made me sick. But when she appeared after her job was done, she was calm, looking like a drug addict who just took a hit after an attempted intervention. It was her release, murder.
Eventually, Ashlynn went completely rogue. She hit the level of insanity you couldn't go to therapy for. Not even a memory sweep could stop her brain from remembering the passion she had for brutal killings. We managed to detain the psychopath, and as I walked my rounds one morning to check on the prisoners, I found Ashlynn in her cell, holding a knife she somehow managed to smuggle to our Mother's throat, slitting it with pride and joy. While Mother was already dead, I knew the girl, the friend I once knew, was gone. After a brief tussle. I shot her down, my friend's blood splattering my face. I remember the sickening feeling I got, wiping the blood from my cheek and vomiting at the gruesome scene I had to witness. I remember crying as I saw her dragged out on a stretcher, almost dead.
Needless to say, the program was shut down, and I, nearly twenty, was out of work. I enjoyed helping keep people safe, and my set of skills wasn't going to get me a job working a desk somewhere in business. I roamed Germany for a month before I saw a sign, a mercenary group, one that helped out every man, woman, and child. I knew I had to go show them my skills, I knew it was a job I would thrive in. I knew that Overwatch was for me.