Briar Preparatory Academy

Woodthorne

Prologue

Fifteen years ago, there was an explosion that rocked the small town of Woodthorne, Alabama. This particular small town had a population of roughly eight hundred people. After the disaster, only 689 people remained alive or severely wounded. You see, Woodthorne was a town built around one large factory that produced fire arms for the armed forces. In 1936, a man by the name Thomas Woodthorne left the largely populated New York City and set off to build a new life that was more private. Three years later, he opened a factory which later became known as Woodthorne Factory. It started off slow at first, but people eventually began to move in and build their homes around this factory, and it became a small town. The people named it after Thomas, since he technically started the town up by building the fire arms factory. So the town was named Woodthorne, Alabama.

Now, 64 years later, the factory is one of the most successful fire arms producers in the country. The town is bigger than where it began, but it is still very small. A large amount of the people that live in Woodthorne work in the factory. But they were all deceived by the quiet life they thought they had in the hills of Alabama. As mentioned earlier, this factory produced fire arms for the armed forces. So naturally, bad people targeted it. Enemies of the United States of America who wanted to see its downfall so desperately would kill unknowing souls who were merely going about their day-to-day business.

On October 14, 2000, a bomb was planted in the boiler room, which was hardly visited by workers. Now, 162 workers were currently on their morning shift at the factory, all assembling parts of guns in the common room. They did not know that their lives were about to end. They thought they had all the time in the world. Because don't we all think that?

At approximately 8:52 a.m., a group of four teenagers (aged 17 and 18) entered the factory. They were acting as workers of the factory, but they were not. They were on a confidential mission, a very dangerous mission that they were not prepared for. One of these teenagers' name was Jacqueline Vegas, aged eighteen. She had a duty to stop a certain bomb that was planted in a certain boiler room of a certain factory in a certain small town. She had successfully reached this certain factory quite easily, but she had not yet encountered the hardest part of her mission. And it was most certainly not a mission she was prepared for.

With the few minutes left on the bomb planted in the boiler room, and if it indeed went off on schedule, it would go off at exactly 9:12 a.m. Jacqueline (who went by Jacky for short) found the bomb with two minutes left to spare on the clock. Her three comrades, who were outside, covering her back while she tried her best to shut the bomb off, had no idea that there was no chance. How could they?

Needless to say, Jacky did not succeed in her mission. At exactly 9:12 a.m., an explosion went off in the small town of Woodthorne, Alabama. It completely destroyed the gigantic factory, taking Thomas Woodthorne's legacy with its destruction. Out of the 162 people that were working in the factory, only 16 lived. Two were on break, and the other fourteen still have the scars as memories from the fires that nearly disintegrated their lives within seconds. As for the other 146 people... well, let's just say they were much less fortunate.

Jacqueline Vegas, as well as her other three comrades, died. There was a memorial held for the 146 workers that were in the factory that did not make it. People mourned and moved on. But none of them knew about the four young people who had tried so desperately to save the factory. No one in the small town of Woodthorne, Alabama knew about the nearly graduated students from Briar Preparatory Academy, who were merely performing their last mission, or their final exam.

You may ask why this story is of any importance to you? Well, it is tied to a very important event that will happen in approximately 14 years from our current setting. This certain story that has just been told to you changed a man that you will meet later. He became bitter and angry at other certain people who are also important in this story. No, this story is not about him, but he is important to remember nonetheless. Because the explosion that took place in Woodthorne, Alabama on October 14, 2000 at 9:12 a.m. started something.

It started a war.