Fateful Nightmares (The Story Of A Raccoon City Survivor Pt 1)

Prologue - The journey into raccoon city

"Ella, they should be back by now." The nervous voice of my little brother behind me pulled me out of my thoughts.
I let out a light sigh and looked over my shoulder at him. "Yeah.."

Aaron and I had been waiting for our father and older brother to return from work for hours. Our father was a chief at the Raccoon City Police Department, and my brother, Miles, worked with him at the station. He was the first among us to follow in our father's footsteps.

The two of them had gone out to help with a sudden outbreak of attacks that had been tearing through the city, and we hadn't heard from them since.

Just hours earlier, the four of us were enjoying a family dinner to celebrate my one-year anniversary of joining STARS, a special ops force that worked closely with the R.P.D. Now that I was nineteen and had spent a whole year as the youngest official member on the force, I was allowed to move out of our family home and attend a college of my choice.
But that dinner was interrupted by an emergency call from the city, sending my father and brother rushing into action, and they had yet to return.

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Sorry if I'm rammering on. By this time we were nervous, thinking about all the horrible things that could have happened to our missing family.
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Aaron was someone who almost never showed much emotion, so seeing him look so worried made me feel even more scared than I already was.
I stepped away from the window, trying to think of what to do next. Out of nervous habit, I started pacing back and forth. After a minute of indecision, I stopped and glanced at my reflection in the window.

I was dressed in a clean blue sweater and a neat black skirt that ended just above my knees. My black hair was brushed and tidy, and my gray eyes struggled to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over the freckles scattered across my nose and cheeks. Keeping calm under pressure had never been my strong suit.

In the reflection, my eyes shifted to Aaron as he stepped up behind me and placed a hand on the top of my head.
Despite being three years younger than me, both Aaron and Miles were a little taller than I was. But to be fair, Miles was four years older.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. My father had experience with the FBI—he was tough, so surely he was fine. And Miles had been looking out for us since we were kids, so he could definitely handle himself. Whatever was happening out there, they'd be okay... hopefully.

After a minute I turned to look at Aaron and spoke in the most confident tone my voice could manage. "I need to go find them."
He looked down at me and slowly nodded, his agreement coming as a slight surprise. "Yeah..but if you're going then I am too."
I shook my head quickly. "No. I have 12 years of training and a year of field experience. You don't have the same record."
"You may have more experience but I was taught by our father too. Even if it wasn't as much as you or miles. I'm not letting you go alone or leave me behind. Even if you say no I'll just follow you anyway. Besides, it'd be irresponsible to leave me here alone." I looked at my brother and sighed. And knowing that stubborn idiot meant what he said, I reluctantly agreed. We didn't have time to argue anyway. "Okay, fine. We need to hurry then, who knows what might be happening out there."

My legs quickly carried me through the exit door behind the dining room, heading away from our home. We lived in a large house, a little way from the city. Since the house was sometimes used as a safehouse for STARS meetings, it was situated in the woods, surrounded by security gates.I hurried past the main house and headed to the small building where my father had trained my siblings and me for many years.

It was just a large, empty room that we used for sparring, but it also contained a few things that could be useful. I hurried to the cupboard on the wall that held our emergency weapons.
Aaron rushed in behind me as I strapped a knife to my thigh and secured a gun holster around my upper body, just below my chest. The weight of the black pistol pressed against me as I dropped it into the holster, and I slipped a box of ammo into the other slot. I tossed a revolver and extra ammo to Aaron before we headed back outside.