Draft 2

Samuel Temple woke up for the third time that night, agitated. It had been only two days since Caine Soran had raided the town and stolen from their dwindling food supply, with the help of Drake Merwin – a deranged psychopath with the mind of a sadist. Kids were starving out there, and many had been murdered by Caine and Drake when they decided to have a little 'field trip' from their base at Coates Academy. Sitting up in the dark, Sam reached out, as if going for a light switch, but he wasn't. He extended his arm to its full length and thought of light. There it was. Floating, about an inch off his hand was a little ball of light. No poof, no big explosion, nothing else abnormal except a sixteen year old boy forming light with his mind. But it wasn't really abnormal anymore, not to Sam, not to any other kid in the FAYZ. The world had changed forever, around 3 months ago, when Sam had been in history class, fifth period.

Listening to the teacher drone on about the First World War, blah blah blah. In that lesson Sam would have given anything to be in a world without adults, but now he knew better. Because in that lesson, 3 months ago, the teacher had disappeared. The chalk clattered to the floor. The o that the teacher had been writing was not finished off. He had just gone. Gone.

After that, all the kids had realised that there were no adults anywhere, and so all chaos broke loose. Some went crazy, raiding all the stocks of things that were 'forbidden'. Eating cookies for breakfast, playing on video games all night, no school. But others had taken it more seriously. There were children, some of the smallest only new-borns, crying on the streets for their mummy's, not knowing what was going on.

Then someone smart had figured out that there was a wall. Well, it wasn't exactly a wall, but it also wasn't anything that anyone had seen before. It was a vertical surface that circled the entire town, and it was guessed that it carried on up into the sky and down below into the ground to make a sphere, like a snow globe, except there were real children in there, scared. Many theories had been thrown around. The most believed in one was that all the adults were on the other side on the globe, trying to save the kids at this very moment, and all of their parents were safe on the other side.

But now three months had passed. Somewhere along the way, kids had begun developing mutations. No explanation. Just when some kids got angry, they made things happen. Not all of them, but that wasn't a good thing. Some of the 'normals' were starting to protest about the freaks being more better off, but when Sam threatened to burn a hole through anyone who discriminated freaks, that had shut them up. But, on the other hand, some of the normals were the nicest people in the FAYZ, like Sam's girlfriend, Astrid. 'Astrid the Genius' people called her, because she was. She was intelligent, beautiful, and the girlfriend of Sam, the most powerful person in the FAYZ, so she was envied by many of the other teens, particularly the girls. Although Astrid was 'normal' (though many people conspired that she had the mutation of a superior brain) her little brother was anything but.

Pete, his name was. A completely ordinary 5 year old little brother. Except the fact that he was autistic. Oh, and he was more powerful than Caine and Sam put together, although only Sam and Astrid had figured it out. Little Petey was autistic, so he couldn't communicate or understand anything very well, but when there was a loud sound or something he didn't recognise, he would have a panic attack. This would be fine, but Little Pete had been the first to develop powers.

Little Pete was sat in the kitchen. Daddy was making pancakes. Petey could tell from the smell. "Munchie munchies?" asked Pete. Daddy had turned around. Burnt his hand on the stove. He had sworn. Loudly. And then Astrid and Petey's mother had come into the room. She had shouted. She was loud. Daddy was loud. But Astrid wasn't. Astrid was 14. No-one under fifteen was loud. Then Petey's mind clicked. And then Mummy was gone. Daddy was gone too. So was Uncle Jim. So was everyone over fifteen. Little Pete had made a wall and teleported all of the adults away from him.

Petey picked up his Pokémon game and continued playing.

So Little Pete had created the FAYZ. But he didn't have the ability to explain how he had done it, and couldn't understand enough to be able to get rid of the wall. So people had mutated, and there had been wars.

Sam could shoot a beam of light that would burn through human flesh in seconds. Breeze, whose real name was Brianna, had nicknamed herself because she could run at almost 300mph. Taylor, she was the girl who could teleport from place to place in less than a millisecond. 'Bouncing' she called it. But the most valued person on the team was Lana. Lana had the ability to heal wounds, which, when you were going to fight people with mutations and machine guns, was a very useful talent. And of course, Little Pete, who could teleport himself and others without even realising it. They were probably the most powerful 'freaks' that were with Sam. But then there was the other side. Caine's side.

Caine himself, had tried to take over Perdido beach, where Sam and his crew were, back in the earlier days of the FAYZ, and had trapped, tortured and murdered many of the kids with his own power; telekinesis, and his squad up at Coates Academy, but he had gone after freaks especially, because they had shown the most threat to him. Sam had beaten him though, and Caine had vowed to get his vengeance. Caine had a 'girlfriend' too, but only because she was too frightened to go against him. She was called Diana. Diana wasn't too much of a threat, as she could only gauge a person's power. For example, Sam and Caine were the most powerful, at a 4 bar. Some of the others like Dekka and Taylor were 3 bars. Petey, if she ever got near him, would probably a 10 bar, maybe even more.

Caine's second hand man though, Drake, was normal. Well, 'normal' was soon losing its meaning. Drake was of a tall, stocky build, with short black hair. But what set him apart from the others was his arm, or more appropriately, lack of an arm. The left side of his chest and arm had been burnt away, flesh and bone together, by a very angry Sam in a fit of rage. This had forced Caine to retreat in the last battle, because he couldn't afford to lose Drake's skill of having no feelings whatsoever towards anyone – he was the ultimate killing machine. Without him, Caine was next to nothing.

So Caine had retreated to Coates, where he had forced Lana to – against her will – heal the flesh of Drake's non-existent arm. But with Lana being forced to heal him, her powers changed to fit what Drake wanted, which wasn't just any old arm. Blood red, with scales of a darker shade encompassing his shoulder. It was around twice Drakes height, and in the shape of a whip. It was around the width of his 'regular' shoulder at the top, with it slowly thinning out until at the end it stopped with a sharp point. And it was powerful.

This was why Sam was worrying himself to death, unable to sleep. They had Lana back, sure. But it just wasn't like the start of the FAYZ. Everyone was scared, the temporary Day-Care that they had set up was running out of nappies, the food supply was scraping the barrel, and no-one was working to harvest food out in the fields, or fish. Others were trying alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes, anything they could find that would push away the roaring lion of starvation. 5 year olds doing drugs on the street, no… No, Sam would have to put a stop to –

"HEY BRAH!"

Quinn was shouting at him, wha – where – Oh. Sam had wandered outside in his daydream and Quinn, his best friend before the FAYZ, who was also a 'normal', was running at him, shouting frantically. "Hey there dude, what's up"?

"Caine, dude, he's coming."

Quinn brought his volume down a level as he neared Sam, His ragged Plimsolls smacking the tarmac at a steady rhythm.

"But, how do you know for sure that it's –"

Sam was cut off as Quinn replied "Taylor. – And Breeze. Brianna thought she saw some figures walking towards town when she was out for a run, so Taylor checked it out. It's Caine, Diana and…"

"Drake." Sam muttered darkly. This would be the first time that they had fought a monster with a whip for an arm, and with no sense of moral or feelings. Great.

In a few minutes, with the help of Taylor and Breeze, the whole town had been alerted and was getting into positions for battle. It had become routine now. All of the kids that were too young to fight were herded into the day care, where they were looked after by Mary. Soldiers were situated outside of the day-care and around many other key points of the city. But the word 'Soldier' didn't mean 20 year olds with body armour and huge guns, no. It meant anyone who was able to hold a gun and shoot as fast as possible. It was just an advantage to actually be able to hit the target.

Most soldiers had guns, but when they had run out and bullets were rationed, kids had to be more creative with weaponry. One little girl had an oven door as a shield and was using a toy bow loaded with screwdriver parts to defend herself from a distance. Eight year olds were wielding metallic drainpipes, their eyes dull, mouths a grim line. It was wrong. So very wrong. If the FAYZ ended, no, Sam told himself. When the FAYZ ended, all of this would stop. He would be back with his mother, nothing to worry about…

Screams. Screaming from desperate children, wanting to survive. All around him was music. The music of death. Drake chuckled darkly; increasing the pressure around the seven year old girl's neck with his whip. Soon enough she stopped struggling and he let her go. Her lifeless body fell to the ground with a thump, and he sidled over to where the little girl lay. He carefully raised his boot over her skull and stamped down, giggling with glee, just to make sure that she wasn't pretending. Blood seeped from her crushed brains as he stood up and looked around.

He walked into the throng of the battle, hearing kid's ear-splitting yelps as they ran away from him, leaving a path of dead bodies for him to walk along, but as much as Drake loved the sight of dead bodies, he was after the one who was alive. Always alive. Sam Temple. The lone boy that had caused him more pain than he could bear, smelling his own charcoal flesh as his left limb had dropped off. He looked around, using his whip to push kids out of the way, dealing as much damage as possible. But then his eyes roamed over an image that Drake couldn't bear. Caine, stood, palm facing out towards the one boy Drake came here to destroy. Drake roared in rage and slashed his whip out, chopping a scared 6 year olds body in half by accident. But even that couldn't calm him down. Caine would not take Sam away from him. Sam was his. His to kill.

Brianna sped around the town, and stood stock still. The smell of blood had attracted the monstrous, starving beasts from the desert. The coyotes. But they weren't just normal coyotes, they had mutated. At least twice the size of a Labrador, jaws snapping at anything that moved. They were here to kill. She raised the machine gun in her right arm and levelled it to the plaza, where the coyotes were swarming in. One down, two, three. Another coyote fell. But Brianna didn't shoot that one. There were scorch marks around a bloody hole that sliced through its lifeless body. Only one kid in the FAYZ could do that. Sam. Where was he? If Sam went down then they would lose this battle, and Brianna couldn't afford to let that happen. Covering her ears from the screams, excited yips and the smash of rubble, she searched the entire plaza, eyes blazing as she found her target. Caine.

Astrid was panicking. No-one had predicted that the coyotes would come and join in the fun, and so they weren't prepared. She winced and spun around as Little Pete started wailing again. They were hidden away in the clock tower, because Sam knew that if Little Pete died in the battle then they may never get out of the FAYZ alive. And so Astrid was stuck up here too, able to watch the battle, but with no way of helping anyone. She heard the recognisable crack of Petey's Pokémon game hitting the cobblestone floor, and she bent down to pick it up. Feeling the weight of the metallic Gameboy in her hand, she stood up to give it to her brother. But he was gone. Gone. Astrid could only watch in horror as she saw Sam sprawled on the floor down at the bottom of the tower, facing a horrifically smug Caine surrounded by coyotes.

Sam tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't. Confused, he managed to crack his eyes open a little. He heaved a hand to his forehead, where a brutal pain originated from. Pushing his numb fingers into his face, he encountered a warm, sticky liquid oozing around his hand. Blood!? Sam shot bolt upright, ignoring the searing agony in his head, trying to push past his body's protesting against the fiery jolts of pain. Pulling himself up, he opened his eyes, coughing from the dust that flew up around him. Managing to see all around him, Sam's heart missed a beat. The recent memories came flooding back.

The coyotes were appearing from no-where, savaging everything in their paths, murdering without thought. In a frenzy of snapping teeth and bursts of burning light, he was surrounded by dead coyotes, and the smell of charred meat. How long had it been since he had last eaten? That would have to be at least two days ago, when he managed to shoot a bird that had foolishly landed in front of him. The gnawing lion of hunger roared awake in his stomach again, forcing him down to the coyote, down to that tantalizingly close meal…

Back in the present, Sam's eyes locked with his first foe; Caine Soran. He was grinning his best shark tooth smirk, eyes dancing with the happiness of victory. Sam growled, a deep rumble from the back of his throat, venom dripping from his voice as he spoke.

"You haven't won yet Caine – I'm still here."

Caine's grin grew wider, and creepier. His features turned wild, and for just a moment, Sam could see the madness of the little boy seep through the cracks in the mask Caine wore, before he composed himself, and once again plastered on his cool, superior demeanour.

"Ah, but you won't be here for much longer will you, Sammy boy?"

Caine drawled out the syllables and laughed darkly as Sam tried to get up, and failed. The gash in his head was making thinking extremely difficult, and so standing up was proving to be more of a challenge than he had first anticipated. The background clash of coyotes verses children seemed to slow down as Caine raised his arms. Sam could hear nothing but the creak of a house being ripped from its foundations. Caine opened his mouth to gloat in his victory, leering over Sam, as if he was death himself, but was stopped short of the final act.

The grotesque image of Caine's lower jaw crushing through his top jaw and into his own skull was engraved into Sam's mind as the unforgiving axe slammed down into the top of Caine's head at inhuman speed. Blood gushed out of his mouth and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. A well-placed kick crunched the back of Caine's legs, forcing his dead body forward, onto his own knees, and then down on the floor inches from Sam's feet in a submissive gesture. The deafening sound of rubble smashing back down to earth behind him filled Sam's ears, as he tried to make out who stood before him.

"Oh. My. God. Sam, your head! Hang in there buddy, I'll go get Lana."

Brianna sped past him at her usual 300mph, leaving Sam in the middle of a war, not only a physical one between mutated children, coyotes and a sadist with a whip for an arm, but also in Sam's own head. He had been put in charge because of his power. The kids around him were his responsibility, and they were dying because of him. The last thing Sam felt was a soothing feeling all through his body, dulling the pain in his head, as Lana's soft hands worked their magic over his body. Then he felt nothing.

Drake watched in horror as Caine lifted the old cottage up from the ground, shaking him to his very core. Sam was bleeding as he shook himself awake, because Caine had already knocked him out with a huge piece of rubble. Who was Caine to think that he could defy Drake? He started sprinting towards where Sam and Caine's showdown was taking place, using his whip-arm as leverage against the ground, pushing him further, faster. When he got to the scumbag of a 'leader' that thought he could go and defy Drake… Well, he would make Caine rue the day he was born. But he stopped short when a girl going the swiftness of a speeding bullet shot past him, knocking him off balance. Breath ragged, Drake watched her bash through his set course and leaped, wielding a woodcutter's axe up in the air, only to come down on the head of an unsuspecting Caine, cutting through his skull instantly. The girl pushed the dead body to the ground, gasping something, and then shooting off in the opposite direction with all the determination she could muster.

Sam was left, panting on the ground, mere metres from Drake. Chortling, he let out a malicious laugh as he sauntered over to where the victim of his dreams lay; writhing in pain that Drake should have dealt him. But that didn't matter now. Caine was dead, and no-one was left to take away this moment away from- Thud. His face chewed into the gravel, pieces embedding themselves into his flesh and modified arm. Too stunned to react, Drake could do nothing but lay on the round as Brianna swerved to where Sam lay, letting the girl on her back hop off and drop down onto her knees next to Sam.

Lana! Drake recognised her instantly as the girl that had healed him. Made him into what he had always wanted to be. Horrific. A monster of a man. Touching his arm with affection, Drake suddenly realised what was happening. He jumped to his feet, shrieking out obscenities at anyone and everything. The healer was going to save Sam.

Roaring, Drake sped towards Lana, intent on the kill. He was running, smacking the gravelled ground with his feet, using up the boiling anger that was bubbling out of him. He ran, getting closer, nearer to his prey. 10 metres, eight, four, almost close enough to touch… But then she wasn't. Lana was out of his reach. Drake ran again, the same thing happened. Getting frustrated, he stared at the healer. Did she have another power, one that was keeping him away?

"No, she doesn't. – But I do."

Drake reeled at the source of the voice, and came to rest on the burning gaze of a 5 year old boy.

"Ahh, the little Pete -tard. I didn't know that you actually spoke words. Last time I saw you, your sister was trying to get you to actually eat, before you starved yourself to death."

Drake dragged out his speech, to purposely annoy the little autistic boy that stood defiantly before him. "And where is your genius sister, hidden away by Sam's little puppy crush is she?"

That struck Little Pete hard; his sister was the only person that he had been able to communicate with before he had accidently created the FAYZ wall. The burning anger leaked out of Little Pete like a tsunami, and his limbs began to shake with power. The hand-held controller grasped in his hand turned on from the power surging through his body, and the recognisable Pokémon theme tune filled the plaza, silencing even the coyotes. All eyes turned to the confrontation between a boy and a monster, unable to look away.

Petey's feet rose then, and floated about an inch above the ground. Drake simply stared at him in shock as kids and coyotes alike scrabbled away from where they stood, well, floated. A cry tore from Drakes lips as he was lifted off the floor, before the pure resentment for the boy in front of him kicked in. Little Pete was the reason that he couldn't get to Lana, Little Pete was the reason that he couldn't get to Sam, Little Pete was the goddamned reason that he wasn't torturing Sam right now, forcing him to go through the same pain that he had when his own arm had been burned through the very bone! Focusing all of his energy on the autistic boy, Drake let loose the power that he couldn't reach before, his pure hatred for the world.

The two of them were at least 30 metres off the ground now, staring at each other with such intense hatred that it almost burned to watch. Astrid gaped as her only little brother, the one that she was forced to look after form a young age, who had taken away her childhood because he couldn't care for himself was floating high up in the air, facing a raging Drake Merwin, who had tortured her in more ways than one. He was kind of emulating a faint glow, a kind of rose-pink. Drake however, was turning green. Not as in the 'I'm going to be sick' kind of green, his eyes were now just florescent green orbs, scorching with nothing but unadulterated loathing.

Astrid's genius brain set to work. From what she knew, Drake was meant to be a normal, but he obviously wasn't. Searching around the plaza, she managed to find something of an answer. Caine's body was hovering just above the ground, reverberating with the music of a Pokémon battle, but it was radiating bright green light. The same green that Drake was… He was stealing power off of Caine! Her little brother was shaking now; the effort was obviously taking its toll. She could see the lines of concentration straining his face, whereas Drake, with his new power source was as good as ever.

"PETEY!" Astrid yelled out of the window. "Petey can you hear me?" The small flicker of her brothers attention confirmed her question. "Petey I need you to get me to Caine. NOW!"

In less than a second, her surroundings changed completely, and Astrid was totally disorientated. She fell onto something soft, but disgustingly rotten, and shoved it into the ground. Lifting up her head, she waited for her eyes to focus before jumping away from the dead body staring at her. "Thanks little brother" she thought dimly, before looking at what she had to work with.

As with most of the mutants in the FAYZ, Caine's power came through his hands, or was at least focused through them, and from down on ground level, Astrid could see that a green trail was leading from Caine's hands to Drake's body, where he was leaching up the power. She had to stop Caine's power from getting out, or stop it altogether, but how? For once in her life, Astrid the genius was stuck for ideas. Leaning back on her haunches, she was all ready to concede defeat when a hand rested on her shoulder. Flinching away from the contact, she was up on her feet and ready to attack who-ever had managed to tear themselves away from the show-down between Petey and Drake.

"Astrid calm down, I'm not going to hurt you. I know that I'm not exactly the person you look to in times of trouble, but I think I can help."

Before her was a very tired- looking, emotional Diana. She had obviously been crying, and Astrid realised that the girl had actually harboured some kind of emotional attachment to Caine, and wasn't forced into the 'relationship'.

"You know that I can gauge a person's power by holding their hand, right?" The nod she got from Astrid urged her to carry on. "Well, when I do that I don't only see how powerful a person is, I see a thing too."

"A thing? A thing!? You think that's going to help us stop a demonic, soulless monster!?"

"Astrid – just hear me out, do you have any other great plans? I didn't think so. So, there's a thing when I hold a person's hand, but it's different for everyone. I think it's their biggest weakness, or the one thing they couldn't bear to lose. When I met Lana it was a picture of her pet Labrador, With Breeze it was Jack, that computer geek she has a crush on. With Sam it was, well, you, and with Caine it…"

"It was you, wasn't it." Astrid said, finally understanding what Diana was getting at. "You think that if Drake went for you, then Caine's power would stop helping him, because he loved you…"

As Astrid was putting together everything that Diana had said, the tone of the music changed. Now it was getting quieter and quieter, and slowing down too. Looking up to where her brother was, Astrid screamed like she had never screamed before. The music stopped, and Little Pete fell. He crumpled in the air, losing his glow as he got closer and closer to the ground. Astrid ran like hell-fire then, to her brother, catching him only as he twisted in the air, towards her, snuggling into the fake-security for just a moment. Her knees gave way, and she cried into her little brother's hair whispering the same thing over and over.

"HEY DRAKE! Over here you idiot!"

The snarling feral figure of Drake warped round as the monster turned to the owner of the voice. Barely distinguishable as a human form anymore, the thing showed it's crooked teeth in an attempt at a grin. It flew towards Diana rasping and clawing, closer and closer to her. Astrid continued whispering to little Pete, oblivious to the screams of the girl she had just been talking to as Diana's flesh ripped apart with every blow of Drake's whip on her body. It lifted the whip up, and as the final blow was about to strike, Little Pete looked up at his big sister, and a wall was broken. The wall between him and the world, the wall that stopped him communicating with adults. The FAYZ wall also shattered. The pieces flew in only one direction. Drake – the invincible monster – fell. Down into the ground, but he didn't stop, he simply carried on through the earth, disappearing from sight.

Petey said only one thing as he snuggled closer to Astrid, hearing the things that normal people heard for the first time in his life.

"I love you too, big sis."