The Elite Forces

Chapter 1

"You're dead." An automated voice tells me seconds after I'm blown to kingdom come by a camouflaged sniper I didn't see until it was too late.

Nice to know, I think to myself as I slam my fist against my knee. My knee winces, telling me it still feels very much alive.

The worst part, I have to admit, is losing my fancy new metal. The general only just awarded it to yours truly and it won't return when I do. Plus, I've still yet to reach level nine.
You know those computer games where you progress so far, only to lose all your points when you die? And then you have to start all over? Very upsetting.

I'm a gentleman though, and gentlemen don't curse so instead I mutter a line I picked up from Percy Jackson: "Braccas meas vescimini." (Which means eat my pants but the preteen at the computer next to mine doesn't realize that and gives me a look akin to most of his age's attitude toward teenage stuff- half horrification and half awe.)

I check my watch and see I have to leave before I can play another game because I need to buy a loaf of bread with my lawn mowing money (try that five times fast, I dare ya) before the only grocery within seven miles closes.

I jog over to the grocery, pick up the bread and jog back home again. Oh, by the way, home is a bench in Favre Park.

I meet my sister Thia at the bench and make eye contact with some passerby eyeing my home to let them know it's taken. The faded, peeling bench may not look like much, but, y'know, home is where the heart is and all that.

"Bread!" Thia seizes the loaf as though she hasn't seen bread in days. (She hasn't. We've been surviving on school lunches and the generosity of our day time neighbor, a vendor named Emmanuel, for the past two days until I managed to get a job mowing someone's lawn.)

I lean casually against my Safe- aka a hollow tree which holds all of mine and Thia's valuables. I check that everything is accounted for- it is-before divvying up the bread with Thia.

"Thad." Thia takes a bite of bread but I only see her in my peripheral vision since I'm a little distracted watching a shiny green beetle climb up the tree trunk. I hope it doesn't get into my sackpack in there.

"Thadeus Fallon Falk!"

At my full name, I snap to attention and look up at Thia.

"I'm going out tonight, don't wait up." Thia tells me around a hearty mouthful of bread.

"Yeah?" I murmur without really concentrating, tearing off a hunk of bread from my slice and chewing it with a sigh of content. This bread is good.

"Yeah, with my boyfriend." Thia adds and I'm suddenly concentrating after all.

"It's not that I don't approve of him, Thia," I begin.

"Yes I should think so, what with him being your best friend when he's not your worst enemy and all." Thia has to interrupt sarcastically.

"But really," I soldier on, "aren't you a little young to have a boyfriend?"

This could have come out all mature and big brotherly were it not for the fact that I start choking on my bread as soon as I finish speaking. Thia starts barking instructions from her health ed class at me and a jogger asks if I need him to perform the Heimlich maneuver on me. This is a con of having an outdoor home- no privacy!

I get over my coughing, Thia finishes her health ed shpiel and the jogger finally jogs on after I convince him that no, I don't need to see an EMT.

Nighttime creeps in on us and it's one of those nights where Thia and I can just enjoy the simple pleasure of watching the bright stars twinkle in the clear night sky. Thia leaves in middle so I now have room to stretch out on my back, hands behind my head, and watch the dark sky and its tiny pinpricks of light. I'm really enjoying the view, and thinking life is kinda perfect, when Thia returns. She doesn't come alone. A faceful of tears accompanies her.