Halo Squad

Chapter 1

"Argh!" Dominic exclaimed as he felt the burn of lava hitting his back. He really hated these devil monsters. "Shoot the bloody de-mons, Em!" he shouted to his sister, Emilia, "I'm trying to but I can't focus on aiming while you're shouting in my ear!". She hit about ten of them before they caught up to the siblings. "We're about to die, and it's all your fault" Dominic sighed to his sister, who was still trying to fight off the devil monsters. "Screw you, Dom" she replied. Those were her last words. He had to decide what he wanted his to be.

As always, he then woke up. He had been having dreams like these for a while now. They always started with him feeling dizzy before falling asleep. They plagued his mind and exhausted him before he was even awake. He tried to tell his mum about them and she just blamed them on him playing too many video games. But it felt like more than that to him. He couldn't help feeling like the dreams meant something. But he could ponder that later. His alarm clock said 8:20am, and his school started at 8:40am. "Why did nobody wake me up!" he called downstairs as he rushed to get his uniform on. "You're 16 now, you can get yourself up!" his mum shouted back. That may be true, but not really helpful, he thought to himself.

He ran down the stairs into his kitchen and grabbed a cereal bar, then turned around to see his younger sister sitting there, looking at him expectantly. "What do you want Em?" he asked through a yawn, "We need to go to school, duh" she replied. "Why the hell didn't you leave already?!" "I was waiting for you, obviously" "School starts in 15 minutes, you idiot!". Emilia's face slowly fell as she realised her mistake, "Oh no". The two of them quickly run out of their front door and sprint towards their school.

They ran through the school gates at exactly 8:38am, triumphant as they walked to their classes. "Thank God, another late and I would've gotten a det" Dominic said, panting, "Another detention? Mum would kill you. You've had 23 this year already" Emilia replied, also panting. "That's not that bad, it's the end of the year anyway" "Which means prom is coming up. You don't wanna get banned, do you?" "Of course I don't".

Dominic strolled into his form room, looking around. His friends at a table, some other classmates at another. Then at a third table, there were some girls, including the one he was looking for. His girlfriend, Lavinia.

She was beautiful in every way, appearance, character, heart, mind. He loved her pretty face, her deep chocolate eyes with flecks of green that he could get lost in for hours, her short-ish purple hair that he thought was about the coolest thing ever and her tall, elegant figure. He also loved how she was kind, warm, and friendly, but still had a great sense of humour that a lot of other girls just didn't have.

"Morning Vi!" he said to her as he sat in the seat beside her, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. "Good morning to you too, Dom!" she replied, clearly as happy to see him as he was to see her. She leant on his shoulder as he got started on the maths homework he was supposed to hand in first period. "Is there a rugby game on later?" she inquires to Dominic "Yeah, but it's a B team game so I'm not playing" "Ah, okay". Dominic had been playing for his local rugby team for 4 years and he had made it into the A team in his third year.

"Are you only just doing the maths homework?" Lavinia asks incredulously "It takes like an hour to do, you don't have that much time". Dominic simply laughed. Lavinia, along with most of the teachers in the school, underestimated the way his brain works. As long as he was able to do the problems in his head, he found maths questions quite easy. This was due to his mind's rapid processing and his imagination which allowed him to visualise and take apart problems. "Don't you worry about me, Vi".

The next 3 hours consisted of a maths lesson that mostly involved talking to his classmates instead of actual maths, an English lesson he slept through and an R.E lesson he forgot as soon as he left the classroom. It wasn't that he was unintelligent or lazy, he was just too smart for his lessons. He had spent all of his last school year slacking off, which meant he was placed into lower ability classes for all his lessons.

He made his way into the school cafeteria, to have lunch with his best friends. Sat at a long table were the guys; Gava & Japeth and the girls; Tamsin, Gemma and Baby. Gava is an average height Spanish boy, with brown eyes and short brown hair that goes up in a kind of quiff. Japeth is a tall English boy, 6 foot tall, as is Dominic, also with brown eyes and dirty blonde hair that goes down to his ears.

Tamsin is a short Italian girl, with blue eyes and brown hair that goes down to her butt. Gemma is a short English girl, with blue eyes and medium length blonde hair with pink dyed tips. Baby, his best friend, is an average height Polish girl, with blue eyes that have specks of yellow and medium length dirty blonde hair. All of them, as well as Lavinia (who was sitting with her friends), are 16 years old.

"Hey guys, how goes it?" asks Dominic, sitting down at the table. "Never mind that, why are you late to lunch?" Gemma inquires rapidly. She tended to notice that kind of thing easily. "I was um...talking to Mr Eddon?" he replied, sort of asking them for confirmation. "Dammit Dom, you're supposed to call one of us when you start feeling dizzy!" Tamsin spoke, angrily. "Why? It's nothing to worry about" "You passing out constantly, with no-one there to look after you, is something to worry about!".

For about as long as he'd been having the dreams, he'd also been passing out at completely random times. He knew when they were coming, thanks to the dizziness, but he couldn't actually stop them. Tamsin, being the "mum" of the group, wanted someone to be there to look after him. But Dominic, being a 16 year old boy with a ego problem, didn't like having to be looked after. "Whatever, Tam" he shrugged her off and began to eat his lunch.

After a physics lesson and a chemistry lesson that seemed to drag on forever, school had ended and Dominic had made his way home. As he opened his front door and walked through, he remembered times when he dreaded doing that exact action. See, he was adopted, and he had figured that out for himself from a very young age. His parents hadn't needed to tell him, he saw it whenever he looked in the mirror. See, he looked nothing like his parents, or his sister. His sister, Emilia, is a white, Irish girl with short brown hair (dip dyed lilac) and blue eyes. He, on the other hand, is a brown skinned, half-Indian & half-Nigerian boy with medium length thick, black, curly hair and extremely dark, almost black, brown eyes.

So for a while, he had struggled with not fitting in with the people he called family. It had taken a few years, but he now felt like he was as much of a Thornbush, his family name, as was his sister. "Hey mum, I'm home!" he called into the house. There was no response. "Mum?". He was very confused, she should be here. If she was going out she would have told him, and she doesn't sleep during the daytime. His instinct told him something was wrong. He slowly walked up the stairs leading to the bedrooms, and he started to hear a faint voice croaking "Dominic, help". He ran to his parents' bedroom, only to find his mum lying on the floor, with her leg bent halfway through her calf. She had broken her leg.

Dominic instantly called an ambulance, as he wasn't yet old enough to drive his mum to the hospital and his dad worked two hours away. The ambulance arrived about half an hour later and took her. He wanted to go with his mum in the ambulance but he was told that children were not allowed. Once the ambulance had left his house he made his way to the bus stop to take one of two buses that stopped outside the hospital.

He arrived at the hospital and made his way in to find his mother. He asked the receptionist where she was "I'm looking for my mum, Holly Thornbush, broken leg" "Ah yes, she's on floor 2 in the Carnglaze ward" "Thanks!" "No problem, love". He made his way to the Carnglaze ward where he quickly located his mother. "Are you okay?" he concernedly asked her, "I'm fine, Dominic" she laughed "It's just a broken leg, not a heart attack". "You couldn't even shout for help at the house, are you sure you're okay?" "I had lost my voice, that's all" "Okay mum, I'm just glad you're okay". A nurse then walked in "Holly, oh hello there! Dominic I assume" Dominic nodded "Yes, well Holly, it's time to go". "Go where?!" Dominic exclaimed "I just got here!". "Dominic" his mum replied "They're going to put a cast on my leg then we can leave" "Oh, that's good! So it's not too serious then" "No of course not".