Young Blood (PART ONE OF THREE)

Born to Lose

1. Born to Lose 

Vaan never would have thought it would come down to this. He stood in the infirmary surrounded by students, bleeding and broken. Nurses flew past him, speaking quickly to their patients and working fast to try and save the ones closer to death.

The thing that bothered Vaan most about the scene was not the blood or the fact that some people's bones were sticking clear out of their arms.

No. What bothered him was that none of them were a day over eighteen; and they'd spent months fighting a battle that might wage on for centuries.

Just look at them, he thought. They all moaned restlessly and ached for the sweet relief of being healthy again. Vaan watched as a girl stepped in to the room and looked around until she spotted what she was looking for. She walked over to a boy who was probably fourteen at the most, and she cried out to him. His eyes were closed, his brain locked in a state of repair. The girl looked around the room frantically and when a nurse began to pass her she locked her fingers around the nurse’s arm and shouted, "Please! Help him! He's bleeding!"

Vaan hadn’t noticed the pool of blood forming around the boy on the bed. He'd been cut somewhere around his stomach, but Vaan couldn’t tell exactly where as the boys shirt was stained a permanent maroon.

He was suddenly struck with this sadness he couldn’t explain and he forced himself out of the room and in to the hall way where the smell of blood faded in to the fresh night air.

He gasped it all in and sat down on a bench just outside. He looked around at the building that had once been a beautiful school. It used to be a brilliant place, filled to the brim with kids of amazing qualities. It was a school for children who weren’t human; children who'd been blessed with powers and abilities beyond measure.

But now half the school was turned to rubble, and there were bodies scattered around the city. New York State had been turned in to a war zone. The people unwilling to fight got the hell out and ran south. But there were plenty of people prejudice against the nonhumans.

They were jealous, all of them. Mad because they didn’t have the ability to fly or change in to a furious lion whenever the need arose.

A voice came from behind him and it laughed uneasily. Vaan turned to find his best friend, Song.

"You went to the infirmary again, didn’t you?" was all the shape shifter said. Vaan looked down at the grass, "Perhaps."

Song rolled his eyes. "How many times have I told you to stop torturing yourself? You can't help them."

Vaan nodded his head. "I know, I know."

The two boys sat on the couch in the lounge and watched the news report. They watched as the woman on the screen talked fast, her voice breaking from being so nervous. On the edge of the screen you could see the shadow of someone’s arm holding a gun pointed toward her.

“Look,” Vaan pointed at the screen and frowned. “They’re feeding us lies so we won’t know what’s going on.”

“No, they’re smarter than that. It could be the truth, what the reporter is saying,” Song disagreed.

They listened to the reporter. “The Agency has agreed to, um, stop the fighting for the remainder of the week due to soldiers being injured. It’s only a matter of, ahem, time before we win this war,” She said. She turned to her left and said, “Now let’s go to Damien on the streets with our special guest.”

A flamboyant man appeared on the screen, a fake smile plastered on his face. The reality of it all was there in his eyes though, he was more scared then the female reporter had been.

“Thank you, Susan,” He said, the grin still lingering. “Well, ladies and gents I have a super special surprise this evening. Here we have our very special guest, Samuel Aerin, leader of The Agency.”

The camera panned over to the right to show a very dark man. His skin lightly tanned, his hair a shiny black, and his suit was pressed neatly without a single wrinkle. He had broad shoulders and a fierce demeanor for a man who was truly spineless.

“Greetings, my lovely humans, it’s good to be here on this fine evening,” He said with a voice that could make a child cry. It was so low, so filled with hatred.

Damien’s fake smile grew, “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Aerin. Now may I ask a few question sent in by the audience?” Samuel nodded. “Alright,” Damien said as he pulled out a stack of flash cards from his pocket. “The first question is ‘What are your plans for after the war?’”

Samuel didn’t even hesitate. “I believe this world has gotten out of control. We need order, and I intend to grant that order first by becoming the leader of the entire world.”

Damien looked excited, “Oooh! Exciting. Okay, next question-“ Song turned the tv off and looked over at Vaan with concern.

“We have to get rid of him. He thinks he can really become the ruler of the world?”

Vaan sighed. “Well, if he wins the war people would worship him because they’ve been under the impression WE are the bad guys. And by riding the world of us, he would be worshipped.”

“Which is exactly what he wants,” Said a blue haired girl who sat next to Vaan. Her name was Eclipse, and god, she smelled of dog. Vaan immediately knew she was a werewolf, but there was also another smell there. Like, elf, possibly. But that was physically impossible. Well, supposedly, anyway.

“I thought he wanted all of our powers to himself?” Song asked Eclipse.

Eclipse smirked and said, “Ever heard the saying ‘two birds, one stone’?”