Rise of the Fallen

Prologue

"Run Danny! Run!" my father yells as the house starts to burn. I take a long look as he takes his last breath. Coughing, I crawl to him, in a futile attempt to save him. As the smell of burning flesh engulfs the house, I can feel the blood running from his chest.

"Dad? Dad?" I say crying, "Dad don't leave me I need you. Mom's gone, and I can't lose you too. What am I supposed to do?"

My father looks up at me and rubs my head one last time and says, "Run, and live to fight another day. I love..." His lasts words to me are abruptly cut off by one last gunshot to his head.

Covered in my dad's blood I look up and see someone hovering over me with a knife encrusted in gold. As sweat drips down from my face, he squats down to my level and says in a raspy voice, "You're Danny, right? It's not your fault. It wasn't my intention for you to witness all of this...violence, but with me being who I am I have to leave you something."

He presses the knife against my right cheek and slashes me under my eye, then again across my cheek giving me a cross shaped cut. As my blood and tears begin to mix, he gets up and without a word vanishes into the flames. Sitting, there frozen, as the house starts to fall apart around me. I can still hear my father's voice telling me to run.

I get up and run to the closet where for a moment I thought I was going to join my parents, but a green light appears and starts to scan my face, "Daniel Leviathan Ross, Access Granted." The robotic voice from the closet says as I start to sink into the floor.

As I sit there crying the closet stops moving and the voice says, "Please step out onto the platform."

Sniffling I slowly open the door, it was pitch black with a breeze that sends chills down my spine. I walk around screaming and begging anybody for help. I didn't know if I was walking left, right, north, or south.

"Move and I'll kill you." A voice says in a cold soulless tone.

I stop moving completely and begin to cry and beg for my life. The lights flash on, and there was a tall man with the same cross shaped scar under his eye as my father, holding an engraved Desert Eagle against my forehead.

"How did you get here?" the man says I looked up to meet his piercing gaze, and for a moment I couldn't move, paralyzed with fear.

He asked again while cocking his gun. As I begin to tell him what happened, how the family I lived my perfect life with was murdered, I can't help the tears from flooding down my face. He puts down the gun and shakes his head.

"So, Jack's dead?" he says with a solemn tone. He takes a moment and sighs, "Look kid, I don't know how much your dad told you, but I'm gonna let you come with me. Ok?"

Nodding, I wipe my tears away.

"How old are you?" he asks leading me to a shuttle.

"Five." I say nervously as the doors slide open.

We get in and leave without looking back. The man didn't say anything. He never told me his name or where we were headed. All I remember is that he had these lifeless eyes and the same scar as my father. As we ride in silence, I slowly drift off to sleep not knowing what nightmares would await me.

"Danny, get up it's time for breakfast." A sweet familiar voice says in a French accent. I slowly open my eyes to see the face of my beautiful mother. "Danny, se reviler." She says as she picks me up, "Wake up."

"Mom?" I say groggily.

She looks at me with her almost sparkling brown eyes. "Oui?" she asks as she smiles.

"I miss you" I say hugging her as tightly as I can. She giggles as she picks me up and walks into the kitchen.

"I'm not going anywhere." She assures me as she puts me down into the chair.

"Mornin' Danny," My dad says as he walks past me, "Hmm, what did you make this morning beautiful."

She smiles and says, "I made you and your son's favorite. Bacon, eggs, grits, and toast."

I can smell the freshly cooked bacon as it fills the house. This is what life was like with my mom and dad. Waking up to the sweet voice of my mom and spending the day with my dad when he wasn't at work. Everything was right with the world.

After breakfast, my dad got me dressed and we were ready to go out to the field. "We'll be back babe." Dad says as he kissed her, "Tell mommy bye."

"Bye mommy." I says hugging her tightly.

She just smiled and gave me a kiss. "Bye baby be safe." She says as we were walking out.

As soon as dad grabbed the doorknob there was a knock coming from the back door. "I'll get it" my mom says as she makes her way to the door.

She opens it, and there, stood a tall man that I'd never seen before. I don't remember his face, but I could see them start to argue. My Dad puts me down and walks towards mom and the stranger. A couple of seconds pass and Dad finally told him to leave. He nodded and left. "I told you he was looking for the wrong house Cheryl." Dad says closing the door.

"I'm sorry Jack but go on and go Danny's waiting on you." Mom replied in a hurried tone.

He bends down to pick me up in his arms and starts to open the door and suddenly it was as if everything was moving in slow motion. I look behind him and see the front door beginning to break apart. It blew open violently. The stranger from earlier grabbed my mother by her throat and then BOOM!

I snap awake drenched in sweat. "You're finally up?" the man says as he steps out of the shuttle, "You had a nightmare?"

I nod my head and slowly got myself onto the platform. "Follow me." he says motioning me in his direction.

We walk into an elevator and go up to the surface. I had no idea where we were or where we were going. The only thing that gave me comfort was the smell of croissants making its way into my nose and eventually the amazing sight that I saw standing atop the Eiffel Tower. "Welcome to your new home kid, Paris France." He says looking out into the distance.

"Jaq!" an old wavering voice yells from behind us, "Who is this boy?" Jaq quickly turns around to see the wrinkled face of a man holding a cane.

"Master Ciel, C'est le fils de l'Ange de la Mort." He says quickly and fearfully.

I look at the old decrepit man and was confused to how he made a man like Jaq cower in fear. The old man slowly makes his way over to me and looks at me as closely and as intensely as he could. "Hmm, who gave you that cut?" he asks in a surprisingly caring tone.

Clenching fists, I put my head down and averted my gaze. "Don't lower your head child." The old man says, "Death is not an end but a beginning, the only way to make things right is to deliver judgment on the man who did this. So, get stronger, and wait until the time is right to exact that revenge."

I nod. I lift my head up and see that he had the same scar, although it had faded with time. He took my hand and led me to the railing and told me to look out into the city.

"I'll bring you in with us, I know that your father wanted better for you, but your chances are higher of surviving out here and we the only people that can make you strong" he says looking down at me with his glazed over blue eyes, "Repeat after me, Le karma est le karma, le destin est le destin, mais ceux qui changent qui sont à l'abri du plan de Dieu, nous faisons notre propre chemin, nous sommes le cercle des ténèbres qui ouvre la voie à la lumière pour briller."

I repeated the phrase that would become my only way of life. Karma is karma, fate is fate, but the ones who change that are immune to God's plan, we make our own path, we are the circle of darkness that paves the way for light to shine through. The words pierced my soul as I says them, and, in that moment, I knew what I was meant to do. I must avenge my parents by any means necessary, even if I have to destroy the world to do it.