2032-
Passing him on the street you wouldn't think much of Henry Junior. He looked like a perfect little observer-fearing, law-abiding citizen. The cheap suit he wore suggested that he had enough intelligence to rise above the inner-city sludge of underpaid labourers and construction workers, however the well worn look of it showed it was the only suit he owned. Probably not that well off then.
Getting to know him a little better would only confirm that first impression. He was a nice guy, sure, and he had come from a poor background, worked hard to get where he was. He was the type of guy that was mates with people but never really fully acknowledged, always in the background. He was handsome, smart and funny – Had he wanted to he could of been the centre of attention. But it was like he deliberately stayed unnoticed, something he had been learning to do since he was four.
He was a orphan, never knew his parents, however for the first 4 years of his life he had been surrounded by family. He lived those first few years of his life greatly loved and shielded from the harsh world. It was nothing more than a normal family, normal life but it was happy. Even though biologically he was not part of their family he was always treated the same as everyone else and loved them more than anything. Until that fateful night, when the observers tore that all away.
He remembered being huddled in a cupboard behind his big sister. Not daring to look as he heard the gunshots that took away his family, his happiness. He thought it was surely over when the door flung open in front of him, his sister screaming as she realised that this was the end. For her. For both of them. They would be dead, senselessly put down like dogs, before they even had a chance to live.
But by some sparse stroke of luck the observers had never thought to check behind his sisters body. A pathetic sigh of relief shot through it, before the sheer horror of what had just happened dawned on him. He crawled out from behind her. He couldn't believe it. They had killed her like she was nothing. They didn't know her. They didn't know what a wonderful, unique, funny person she was. They hadn't been the ones who had played with her, laughed with her, comforted her, be comforted by her. To them she was just something to be gotton rid of. Disposed of. It would have been her eighteenth birthday tomorrow. He sat in that darkness for what felt like a eternity. He was horrified by his sisters body but he knew it would be much worse outside. So he just sat in the darkness, crying silent tears for his dead sister.
Eventually he emerged, he expected the walls to be covered in blood with broken furniture and glass everywhere. But the bodies on the floor could of been sleeping, if it hadn't been for the bullet wound in their heads. In a way that was worse. He picked up the used bullet on the floor, its surface sticky with blood. It was amazing how something so small could take so much away from him.
He knew that his story wasn't special, thousands of people had been killed and there would be many people like him – people who had lost everything they loved. But that didn't mean that the death of his family would go unnoticed. They would not just be another number, another causality. He swore that night to make them acknowledge his family's death with the respect that they deserved.
And so , covered in blood and scared out of his mind, Henry was thrust into the harsh world of the observers.