Short Stories Volume 1

How I died pt. 3

The boy is now seventeen years old. If I thought he was brilliant when he was just a child then he is now surpassed all of the former minds of the past. I may be biased, but if this boy was around when we needed the seed chambers built I have no doubt he would've solved it within a week instead of decades. I lived alone for quite some time, so I never thought about finding someone to care about let alone using seed chamber for a child of my own. But this boy has woven himself into my heart and I consider him my son even if he has never once expressed seeing my as his father.

Just like the boy aged, I did too. Although mine was slower than the average person, I still developed grey hairs. The sarcastic little brat of mine said it added to my character. We have done this a million times, yet somehow this time I must've gotten slow. I had failed to pick the scent of two bear mods that were in the town. When nightfall came and it was time for us to leave, it was like reliving that first night with the boy in my house.

Just how we had masked our scent, they did as well and used their stealth until they finally barged through the door. I had done every thing to prepare him for when a day like this will come. This is the first time though that he has to actually put what he's learned from our drills into real life practice. Leaving me to face off against the two, he takes off through the bathroom window.

I can't turn to see in which direction he's going in without exposing my neck or giving them the other advantage of my being distracted. The moment I hear his feet hit the ground running, I launch myself at the two. Growling in anger and pain as my fist collided with their jaws, knocking a few teeth out. The second man comes behind me and wraps his arms around me, caging my arms to my sides and squeezing me tight. The more I struggled and tried to breathe, the tighter his arms got.

Damn, python mod!

Instead of trying to pry his arms off, I kicked the side of the bed to push us back onto the wall with a lot of force. His arms loosened just a bit, just enough so that I can move one of mine and dig my nails into his forearm. Getting an even harder grab on it, my nails act like claws and embed themselves into his skin. So when he goes to pull it off he brings chunks of his arm with him. Now in even greater pain and bleeding profusely does he finally let me go.

Instantly I turn around and without any effort I snap his neck. I don't have time to catch my breath or check my ribs when the first man I had hit comes and tackles me. His strength is almost on par with mine. In a flurry of movements, he brings both fist down on my face, shoulders and torso. I start coughing up blood. When he brings his fists down again, I hastily grab one and bite him. Making sure to keep my teeth latched and break the skin. He grabs a handful of my hair to pull me off. I throw another punch to get him off me and give enough time for my venom to take into effect.

Shuffling back I stand as fast as I could and jump over him to get to the door. I don't need to bother finishing him off since by now my venom should've paralyzed him, in a few minutes that paralyzing agent would reach his lungs and he would suffocate. I can't even begin to look for my boy's scent since when I make it outside I see more men coming.

Running through the streets, evading the oncoming cars and the soldiers that are keeping up with me. Just a stroke of luck, I make it to south side of the hill that had a pier. The moment I got to the railing I dove over and straight into water. Being overheated by the adrenaline, fighting and running, the water came as a cold shock to my body. But I couldn't slow down. Not when I see streaks going through the water all around me. They're firing into the water. Thank god for my marine mods.

I burst through the water leaving them behind on the shore. Once I'm a few miles out, I head to our stored little boat on the southeast end. He runs just a little below the average male, so he should be getting there when I do. I pick speed when I can hear more gunfire coming from the direction I'm heading to.

When I get there I jump out of the water like a shark breaching to get the seal. More mods are surrounding my boy shooting not bullets but tranquilizers at him. They're focus turns to me when I start taking them out one by one. Relying on my adrenaline to counteract the sleeping drugs, I keep pushing through them yelling at my boy to get to the boat.

Once he's on, he takes cover behind one of the boxes and tries shooting at the soldiers. It was a blueish green liquid that he was always working on. I never knew what it was as it had no scent whatsoever, and he only asked me to never touch it in the beginning. All he ever did was take a small sample of my blood and put it into a separate container, until later he said that the substance wouldn't affect me. That it was safe to touch.

As soon as he fired and hit his targets, the soldiers would drop to the floor. Not dead because I can still hear their heart and breaths, but their scent was changing. There's not enough time to think about it now as more of them are coming, this time with guns that have actual bullets. Instead of fighting through them I ran back to the boat and dove into the water to start pushing it away from here.

One, two, then seven bullets enter my body. Normally I think I'd be ok. But after fighting multiple mods, shot by tranquilizers and now bullets, my body is slowing down. The waves aren't that big or strong but right now they feel like they're pulling me down. I can feel the warmth leaving my body. I dare not look myself over otherwise I'll start to feel the pain.

Using my the last of my strength, I give the boat one big push so that he's out of range for their weapons. I take one last look at my boy as he gets further away and slowly let myself sink to the depths. The last thing I remember before my eyes permanently close is what I heard just as I pushed him off. My boy called out to me and called me dad. I always called him son and even come to view him as my own, but I never thought he would call me dad or come to view me as that.

It's perfectly fine for me to leave with that memory. Only it wasn't my last. I come to with water splashing on my face. I'm somewhere on a shore, nowhere near the place I had been when I last saw my boy. My boy. Did he make it out ok?

Pushing myself off the sand, I see that my body is completely healed. All are left are slight bruising and pink marks where I was shot. Other than that, I was good as new. I should be dead, but I'm not gonna complain right now. To my left was another washed up body. One of the soldiers. He's obviously dead but his lingering scent is different. It was almost like my boy's scent, I couldn't detect any mods within him. This must've been what he was working on with that substance. A way to take away a soldier's mod.

It could be a stretch though.

I need to figure out where I am. Finding the first road I can, I follow it into the town. I was still in south America. Just instead of Mexico, I was in Brazil. Alright then. I taught my boy everything he knows, how to shake a tail, how to hide etc. First thing he's gonna do find shelter, a place where he can carefully plan his next move and see who is following him. He's also going to want to keep track about any reports about the soldiers. If my guess was right about that stuff taking away mods, then he could examine his substance and make any corrections needed.

All I have to do is figure out where he is headed. It shouldn't be too hard. As brilliant as my boy is he is also predictable. I should be there in maybe a week.

Time to go home.