To those brave souls who can't read War Storm just yet.
Song Suggestion: Safe & Sound feat. The Civil Wars and Taylor Swift
I was seven when my mother was carelessly murdered in front of me. Trampled to death in the latest riot resulting from the gang violence in Harbor Bay.
They weren't very frequent, but they weren't uncommon either.
Normally we'd do our best to avoid doing downtown, but my mother wanted to surprise me with something. But we never made it to where she was leading us.
It started off as a series of pops, a few screams and then before I knew it, I was alone.
It was my birthday.
What made it even worse was we got news that my brother was taken by the war just a couple months before. He was only nineteen.
Just like my father, he was blown away, his body spread across a trench along with so many before him.
But that is a pain I never knew, my father died before I was born. My mother and brother is all I ever knew.
After my mother died, I did my best to fend for myself. My father like so many other's father built our house long ago. A small shack with a semi-stable roof. I lived there for long as I could, but I had no skill or wares to sell and zero talent for stealing. And before I turned eight, I was without a home as well.
The violence in Harbor Bay never got any better. The officers never cared. Why would they? It didn't concern them. It never bothered them. As long as they got a little bit of entertainment out of it, at the expense of so many.
But should anyone try to steal a loaf of bread, that's when they would bother. That was easy. They even got a "snack" out of it. Where as for me. That bread meant food for the next few days. But of course they didn't.
I was never a fast runner and my footwork was something to be improved upon.
I remember the pain stinging in my palms and knees as I hit the ground. I remember doing my best to stand, to move, but then a sharp pain erupts in my core as an officer kicks me aside like a pebble. I roll for what feels like a mile, but must be couple yards or so. They were taking it easy on me. I splash in the puddles from the rain from the previous night. Mud rubbing into my wounds.
I close my eyes expecting more, but nothing else comes. I hesitate to open my eyes, but when I do they're already gone. I look over to the side, the bread now sitting in one of the mud puddles. A rat already making it's way over to claim it.
My once growling stomach, now with new forming bruises, no longer sees the appeal.
A part me wants to just to continue to lie there. To sleep.
But if I do some might mistake me for dead. And so with great effort I prop myself up with an elbow and then slower to a sitting position. The journey to my feet will take a lot, and so I rest for moment up against a brick wall
That's when I see her.
She must be ten or so, with chocolate skin and bright green eyes. She walks over to me and goes to a knee.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
My hand runs across my stomach and I wince.
"It hurts," is all I can manage.
The girl nods, "It's okay, I'll help. Here, give me your hand."
She steps back and holds out her again as she pulls me to my feet, she hooks an arm around and leads me out of the ally.
"It'll be okay, I'll take care of you. I'm Riley by the way."
"Alex," I say.
She smiles.