The Tenth Year

Chapter 5 - Grayson

There were twenty-three of us in the truck, ten people that were soon to be turned into angels, ten people that were about to lose their loved ones, two guards, and the driver.

I scanned the people sitting in the back of the truck that was taking us to the field where the two angels would eventually pick up the ten people that had gone through the Change. My hand gripped my little brother's arm. I knew I was hurting him, but ever since he woke up with white eyes instead of brown I just couldn't let go of him. I was about to lose Tommy, the last person in this messed up world of ours that I could call my family.

Tommy looked up at me with those alien eyes. I could still see my brother in them. I forced a smile and then averted my gaze. It was hard looking at him, his face not exactly the same anymore, knowing that in a few hours or maybe days he would be gone forever. My other hand found its way toward the hilt of my golden sword and gripped it hard.

How did everything get so messed up?

I remember when the news of the Cursed first reached us. We were in our small New York apartment, my father, my mother, little Tommy and I. I was only nine when people started speaking about the angels descending to earth, recruiting us, unwillingly, for their war.

It was during the First year when the people in our neighborhood starting acting like the end of the world was nearing, which I couldn't really blame them for, since it actually was. It was becoming dangerous to even walk out of the apartment. With more and more people going through the Change daily, the city became a war zone. No one cared about rules when they knew they wouldn't matter in a few years.

Our parents were growing more worried than I'd ever seen them. Tommy being a one year old baby didn't help either. It was hard for us to find even the essentials to survive.

Before the end of the First year, my parents decided to leave the city behind and search for a better life for their family, at least for as long as we were still a family. One day we picked everything up and left. We drove for days until there was no more gas in the car and no place for a refill, but we had managed to reach Kansas. That was when our lives changed for the best.

In Kansas we met with a group of people that called themselves Nomads. People who didn't have one home, they would travel from town to town, from state to state, finding what they needed to survive. Always the optimists, my parents agreed to become Nomads. For once, it was really good to see people working together, caring for the rest of the Nomads, helping each other to get through those hard times.

For the first few years, we worked and lived as Nomads. Tommy had grew up and it was even easier for us to travel around. We either follow the big crew or from time to time travel on our own, but still we knew we always had a big family scattered around the world. It felt nice knowing we weren't the only ones out there that still had our humanity intact.

On the Eighth year things changed. One morning, I was carrying back woods for our breakfast fire, Tommy was walking with me talking nonstop about our next destination: Las Vegas. We had finally reached Nevada and along with some other Nomad kids and teenagers, we decided it'd be fun to see for ourselves the remains of Las Vegas. I'd never been out of New York and I was so excited to get a chance to see a huge city like Las Vegas. So far we had kept away from big cities and towns. There was more criminal activity there, making any attempt to walk through them extremely dangerous. But it was the Eight year. Most of the cities were now vacant.

Tommy and I were walking back to our camp when I saw a crowd gathered outside our tent. I heard the whispers before I could see for myself what was going on. "White and black," they said. I immediately knew what they were talking about. I didn't even know I was running until I reached out tent, the logs no longer in my arms. I pushed my way through the people, their sorry looks all the confirmation I needed to know that what I thought was true.