It was early. The sun had barley made a dent in the horizon, and the sounds of morning hadn't begun yet. It was warm for a Colorado morning, 70 degrees, with a light layer of fog. A fog that told you the day was gonna be good.
I looked around my cluttered room for my knife and glock, to put the finishing touches on getting ready for my day. The small hand gun was for protection, the k-bar was always, at least, in my backpack. School in my town was full of street thugs who were constantly trying to kill each other.
It was this reason I'd gotten my concealed carry license. The paper that let me carry my gun at all times. I had yet to pull it, but if I needed it...
BANG! Someone had just been shot.
I quickly hit the floor wanting nothing more than to just stay home, to be where I was safe. Home. Safety. Armed.
But I had to leave. It was time to leave. The world awaits. The world that's just killed someone or something. The world that forced a gun in my hands.... The bathroom.
I turned back to the bathroom and found my glock on the towel hook. The weight was all to familiar. I was barely 16 and I had already passed the advanced training. The world really took a hit when the bombs went off. When the UN fell. When the World Security Council fell. When the world fell. When everything was destroyed.
The Rockies, as barbaric as they were, was one of the last safe places... or so they told us. None of us remember anything. Our names were gone. Parents? Gone. Everything? Gone.
I looked in the mirror and saw a long face. My face. My long hair, brown in the low light, pulled up on my head by a rubber band. My scruff in desperate need of a shave, my lime green eyes, filled with pain. This is the face of my parents, whom I don't remember.
"ALVEREZ!" My ride was here.
As I walked through the empty cabin, I picked up an apple and made a cup of coffee for sustenance. The days in this hell-on-earth was too demanding to skip either of these things. It was too much for so many of friends, my... it was too much for them. That's why I'm alone.
As I locked the door, I noticed something moving outa the corner of my eye. I turned, gun ready. Trained too well. My best friend was at the end of the barrel.
"Damn it Wolf!" I was appalled by his carelessness. He knows better than anyone how accurate I am. He knows my workout schedule. He's my sparing partner.
"Sorry Al...." he responded in kind, "forgot we can't do that n'more."
The look in his venerable eyes. He was too kind to touch his gun, let alone pull the trigger. The one time he did, he cried for a week straight.
Wolf was barely 13 years old and already had my body. Well muscled from the five years we can remember. We spared, worked out, built motorcycles, trained, practiced, did archery, all of that we did together, everyday.
Wolf had it worse than anyone in the town. He was 8 when we woke up. The kids were in chaos. Bodies were found left and right. The sky full of fallout. Eventually the oldest of us made a government to protect us. We've lived as a disfuncional tribe ever since.
Wolf just sat there, anxious. His left hand was wet, stained, red. "You pulled the trigger..." I said astonished. "Who...? What..!?"
"It was that jerk Ibanez..." the look of a battle between horror and power was all to plain in his face. "He charged me and... I had to something."
I pulled him in close and embraced him. Envelopes him in my arms. His small but tame body shuddering. His hand still wet form - what i guess - a gut shot to Ibanez.
We sat there for maybe ten minutes before I heard the blood crack on his hand. I took him into the cabin and washed him up. It took a while but we scrubbed it all of his hand.
He looked to me, his golden eyes leaning more towards power every second. He was changing to suit this hard world. He closest person I have to family. To a brother.
"Today we will learn about how to properly take care of a small hand gun." Our teacher was a girl no older than me. Her frame was small but powerful and agile. Her fiery hair always in a braided bun. She looked scared.
"Where's Ibanez?"
"I heard that runt Wolf shot him."
"Little shit."
"The bastard never had the stomach... he's gonna be driven mad now..." this came from Ibanez's brother Roland. He rounded on me, "what are you gonna do if you find his body?" Wait for response. "I've got to kill the kid now you realize? He killed my brother. Then maybe I'll round on her... just to piss you off." He was pointing at Celestia... our teacher.
I looked from him, to Wolf, to him, to Celestia, to him. Rage filled me. Pumping through my veins and burning like all hell.
"You won't touch us." This came from her. Why did she get involved?
She was holding the small 6 shot revolver. Pointing directly at Roland, who was reaching to his side for, a rather large, knife while he spat "Unloaded guns aren't very useful teach... this however..."
The blade was on Wolf. The rounded edge an inch from his throat. Shining brilliantly with malice. Evil.
Before I knew what was happening I had him. Glock presses to Roland's temple, arm on his throat, chest to his trembling back, legs at the edge of a desk. He was, for the first time, scared.
"Don't you ever threaten those I love again!" It came as a low and controlled sound. Deathly serious and versatile.
Suddenly the sound of a gun enveloped the room. I felt Roland's head hit my shoulder and he slumped, soaking my clothes in blood. But it didn't stop there.
A shearing pain seared across my shoulder. That's when I saw it win. Those once fearful golden eyes, powerful and determined. Wolf was gone and Celestia was already loading her gun for what came next.
