Proton (A Protogen Story)

Read the News?

Charlie's POV

September 2025

11th grade, 7th hour English - who's grand idea was it to have the longest, most boring, mind-numbing, hour at the end of the school day? I'd have to have a word with my counciler on that. Maybe get it replaced with P.E, or something interesting.

To make matters worse, I had detention after school... Crap! I have detention! Parking was available until 5 PM, not like that mattered since I parked on the red curb anyways.

"Yo! Ace!" I whisper-yelled to my friend at the desk across from me. "No talking, class." The teacher said in a monotone voice, almost sounding automated, before going back to reading a newspaper.

"What is it?" Ace replied, "I need you to take my car back to the house, my mom will kill me if it gets towed! Thanks for telling me to park there." I mumbled, A wide smile crossed his face and his eyes gleamed as I tossed him the car keys.

"It was the only spot available, I'll take care of ya car tho" he chuckled, I usually never trusted my homeboys with my vehicle, but I, unfortunately, didn't have much of a choice.

The clock struck 3:25 and the bell finally rang, I grabbed my bag along with the rest of the class and headed downstairs to my detention classroom, I shuffled inside, plopping into the nearest desk to jerk off and overall do jackshit for the whole 30 minutes.

Away from all the other hoodlums and trouble-makers who were also "doing time".

The teacher was as unenthusiastic about being there as my English teacher, sitting at his chair, scrolling through his phone, which was ironically what most of us were down here for. A 30-minute YouTube video timer was cast on the Smartboard.

You could probably walk right out and no one would notice, I wouldn't be surprised if someone already did.

I pull out my phone, The Newsbreak app had blown me up with notifications I had to clear.

"Pft thanks, sure glad I heard about this car-jacking in Florida... I'm in Colorado" I mumbled.

I swiped away several stories, some local, some national, until one caught my eye. Dated 5 hours ago.

"Durango Police investigate crashed UAP in San Juan Forest".

I clicked the article, Published by someone named "Sgmars", It was fairly long but made particular emphasis on the fact that not much information has been publicly released yet; there was body-cam footage linked. Which I played.

The video was pretty grainy; it showed several officers walking up to a smoldering crater of some sort. Dialogue was unintelligible over the sirens and loud droning sounds of what was in the crater.

The camera is panned over to the other officers who formed a defensive formation with weapons drawn, seemingly in a state of worry.

A loud high-pitched... screech? shook the camera, causing it to black out before a heavy barrage of gunfire and yelling rung out before the footage cut.

"Shit..." I thought, glancing through the article. Apparently, The officers disappeared after this along with the crater and what was in it.

I closed out of my phone, glancing up at the timer on the board to discover I had only knocked off about 3 minutes of time. I plop my head on the desk and groan in frustration.

If that wasn't enough, someone's paper airplane hit me in the back of the head, which made the other students chuckle to themselves. Of course, I was less than amused.

When the timer had gone off, we were dismissed from detention. Most kids bolted out of there, I was in no hurry.

Walking out of the school door, I got a breath of fresh air, trees swayed in the wind, and activity was minimal.

Though I did notice one of my classmates arguing with a Tow Truck driver to get his car unhooked. Glad I had Ace take my car home.

The walk home wasn't too far, I lived 4 miles away; I could drop by the convenience store and maybe pick up a bag of Skittles with the $4 on my Apple Cash.

My dad would've never allowed me to walk home back in his days, but thanks to recent police funding boosts and the POTUS' Decriminalizing Major Cities Act, it was safe enough to embark on the journey home.

I lived away from the hustle and bustle of the town, somewhat tucked into the forest. I couldn't shake that Newsbreak article from my head. Sure, it had happened over 100 Miles away from where I was, but I still had the feeling that wasn't enough.

I did manage to get that off my mind as I wandered down the road leading to our driveway; Birds sang a tune, leaves rustled, and the sky was a picturesque light blue with a single perfectly fluffed cloud.

However, upon getting closer to the house, I noticed my car wasn't in the driveway, My parents' cars weren't either, but that made sense, they were away at work in Denver.

I checked the garage and nothing. I pull up my phone about to chew Ace out for not bringing my car back and to stop playing games with me when I noticed I wasn't connecting to my WiFi either.

I turned on my Cellular Data only for the bars to be at "SOS", meaning I could only dial emergency services, we never did get a good Cellular connection out here. "God damn it, Ace, If I have to call the cops on you I swear! So you better come out!" I yell to no avail.

I had the first 2 numbers of "911" punched into the phone when something caught my eye. Our electrical box was open, and all of the wiring had been gutted out, actually anything with electronics seemed to have been rudimentarily taken apart, and a window on the side of the house had been broken into. Now I'm REALLY worried; maybe someone broke in.

I go over to a cabinet on the wall of the garage and pull out my dad's Sig Sauer; I pop the magazine out and grab the ten loose rounds that were in there with it, I place one directly in the chamber and set the gun aside In case I needed it then and now.

Then fed the rest into the mag with shaking hands. Part of me had waited for this moment all my life, ever since I'd been taught to fire a weapon, pulling it out like Rambo and smoking armed mercenaries or burglars like John Wick and be the talk of the town.

Now I was hoping to god nobody else was here with me; maybe that was wishful thinking?

I let out a breath and walked up to the door, big iron in my other hand, opening the door as carefully as possible, That's when I saw it.

What I could only explain as a giant black... dog? with a... steel? chest plate, as I moved my eyes up, Instead of a canine face I saw a rounded visor, with a red digital face.

Before I could even collect myself and raise the gun, my whole world went black as I was struck from behind.