Inheritance

And Sometimes the Consequences are Awful

Aunt Anna led me through a series of tunnels before stopping at a door. A sense of foreboding, that had entered my gut ever since I had a glimpse of my aunt's feral smile, increased a notch. Aunt Anna opened the door and led me inside. The view of the room stunned me. Not in bad way, which is surprising considering my alarm bells were ringing from aunt's expression. It was a spacious room with workout equipment to my right and the left wall was filled with weapons. There were so many of them! I'm pretty sure they had every weapon that ever existed.

Aunt Anna led me to the weapon wall. "I'm pretty sure you still kept up with your workout, even after I disappeared, so that part is all good and well. I want you to continue doing them every morning. This place has more than enough equipment for you. What you do need training in is weaponry. We'll start target practice tomorrow. Today, I want you to choose a weapon. Go with your instincts. This weapon you choose will be yours for the rest of your life." She looked at me with warm grey eyes. I glanced at Alex, who was behind us. He gave a small smile and nodded to the wall. I took a deep breath. A weapon, huh? My eyes darted from weapon to weapon. Sword, rapier, dagger, scythe, bow and arrow... Wait, Scythe? I dragged my eyes back to the Scythe. It's stem was black with silver designs that looked almost fire-like. The blade itself was Silver with black symbols carved into it. All in all, it looked terrifyingly beautiful. I walked to the weapon and touched it. And suddenly I knew. This was the weapon for me. I turned around. My aunt raised an eyebrow. "Can I take this one?" I phrased it like a question but everyone in the room understood the underlying implication. I had made up my mind and would not change it. She frowned. "I know how to use many weapons but I'm afraid a scythe is not one of them. And there aren't many people who can use a scythe..." "I can teach her, Madam Ardwick." Alex's soft but strong voice broke through her musings. Aunt Anna looked at him and he looked distinctly uncomfortable with the attention. Suddenly, she clapped her hands and smiled. "That's all set then! Now, you need a secondary weapon. She led me further down the room and slowly the weapons on the wall changed to various knives and daggers. "Knowing how to use knives and daggers and having on your person will help you in case you've lost your weapon or have been forcefully parted from it." She explained. "It's always good to have secondary weapons. Choose one of these and we can move on to your firearm training." She said as she motioned to the wall. I walked closer. I took one of the daggers and felt it's weight. The weapons were a work of art. Beautifully crafted but light enough to give agility. I looked through the other weapons as I felt the dagger. A bunch of throwing knives caught my eyes. They were all silver with black handles which had strings attached to them. I replaced the dagger and took the knives. They were light enough to aim easily and their handle gave the perfect grip. But the strings were what confused me. I turned back to my aunt with my eyebrows scrunched. She looked at the knives in my hands and smiled. "The strings are generally roped around your hand so you can control them mid-air and they can return to you if you pull them." I flipped the knives. They were easy to handle and perfect. I nodded to myself. "Wonderful!" Aunt Anna's voice startled me from my thoughts. "Now we're going to be doing firearm training. We'll start with a handgun." She smiled like a maniac and tossed a handgun at me and explained how to remove the safety and how to aim. I listened to her absently as I aimed. BANG! The recoil startled me but I kept my hand steady. When I lowered the gun, I was shocked to see the result. Bull's eye. I turned to my aunt and smirked. She looked at me in shock and then at the target and then back at me. Finally, she shook her head and then smiled frighteningly. "I have just the perfect thing for you." I gulped.
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Turns out, the perfect thing for me was sniper training, which was soon added to my schedule. Over the next few days, I fell into an odd sort of routine. Hand-to hand combat with Aunt Anna and firearms and sniper training. It's been almost a week since I arrived and tomorrow was initiation. Initiation meant that I had to kill an exuro. I had to kill a fellow human being.