Spastic Spontaneous Stories of the Short Kind

STORY EIGHT - The Worst War by @_WritingWithRuby_

The first thing she noticed was the cold. It was so cold.

She opened her eyes to find herself in an unknown place. The room was made of wood but it did next to nothing to combat the temperature. All she could remember was two things, her birthdate and her age. She watched someone walk in through a door, a boy, who looked about 8, only a year older than her.

"Who are you? Where am I? Who am I?" She asked, desperate for answers.

The boy merely said in reply, "When's your birthday?"

"July 27th 2057. But what does that have to do with anything? And who are you?"

But still he ignored her questions and only said one more thing,"All will be explained soon."

She soon felt exhausted and slept for what felt like days but couldn't have been more than nine hours. When she awoke the next time there was someone else in the room, this time a girl, who looked to be about 16.

"Hello," the older girl said quietly as if almost scared to spook her, "my name is Aurelia."

"Where are we? Why can't I remember anything except my birthday and age?" She questioned.

Aurelia answered patiently, "We don't know where we are, not exactly at least. But we're safe. And don't worry about not remembering, none of us do. Here at Camp you'll be given a name and taught until you are fourteen and then you'll get a job. You could become a medic, teacher, builder, scavenger or hunter. Do you think you can stand?"

She shakily rose off the hammock she had been lain on, not yet comfortable on her feet. She took a tentative step towards Aurelia who was encouraging her endlessly. Once she was confidently walking around the room Aurelia took her to get her new name. The elders of the Camp, seventeen and older, gave her a name.

They called her Adella.

Aurelia gave Adella a tour of the Camp, showing her where she would sleep and the bathrooms. She was shown the small rooms where classes where held for seven to ten-year-olds where they would learn about the Camp. Lastly she was shown where their boundary was.

"You aren't meant to go past this line if you aren't hunting or scavenging understand?"

Adella nodded speechlessly, and hesitated before speaking, "Why are there no adults here?"

Aurelia replied with uncertainty clear in her voice, "We aren't really sure, once someone reaches eighteen they just," She stopped hesitantly, taking a deep breath she continued, "they just disappear. Come on, now it's time for bed. The sun is setting and I'll tell you more tomorrow."

Adella followed Aurelia shyly, occasionally peaking around her to look at people and buildings.

Adella awoke in the morning. It was difficult for her to believe that two years had already passed in her time here. She turned ten today and she would be joining the senior classes where they started to see which jobs they would be good at. Her excitement dulled when she didn't see Aurelia at breakfast, they had grown quite close throughout the years. The excitement she had been feeling completely faded when she remembered that today was Aruelia's birthday too. Her eighteenth, to be exact. Her eyes began to water at the thought.

Her only friend, gone.

That day she was on scavenger duty. Adella had to try and find anything that would help sustain the camp and keep it alive, she focused her rage and did well at everything she attempted. Adella accepted Aurelia was gone but that didn't mean she had most likely died in vain. Adella did everything she could to make Aurelia proud. She became a scavenger at fourteen and by fifteen had provided an almost a quarter of Camp's equipment. That day she went scavenging, she found something. That something turned her world upside down.

It was a room. Out in the snow.

Inquisitive, she stalked closer to it, wary of traps or any danger. Slowly, Adella pushed the door of the cabin open. It contained computers and a variety of technology she had never seen before at Camp. She pushed buttons, unknowing what they would do. Shafts of light shot through a beam. After almost five minutes of agony, the pain stopped and so did the light.

She remembered.

Everyone was scared when the war began. The enemy was unlike any other Earth had ever faced (that's where she was). We called them Ventaros, we didn't know their real names. Adella remembered fighting. And death. So much death. She saw the soldiers taking the children promising to make them safe.

And that was when they made her forget.

Adella understood why they made her forget. Because if they hadn't then all those little kids would remember the pain, and she couldn't do that to them. So she kept quiet. Using the technology she had seen, she started to draw using spare bits of paper and pencils she had found in the cabin. She designed weapons and shields. She just wanted her home back, with her family, if they were still alive.

Adella knew that the army would come for her on her eighteenth birthday so she prepared, to the best of her ability. She didn't yet know how to make the weapons and shields she designed work but she hoped someone could do it, or at least show her the basics. She drew for a further two years, then they came. Adella had her drawings on her, and explained to the best of her ability why she thought they would work.

They sent her to be taught basic and complex physics and sciences. A year later she had built her first fully operational shield/weapon. Once activated it would encircle a group of up to ten people and protect them from practically anything. Adella used this device to save a lot of lives. Handing them to people directly was impossible, so she gave them to the front line soldiers who, in turn, gave them to the civilians.

She designed a various amount of tasers and laser guns. Then the base was attacked. Adella was always trying to be a hero. She had worked out a force field that would protect every human. She had to run as fast as she could to activate it. It worked. But at a cost. There was a single causality.

Her.

"I guess that wasn't in my calculations," she said hoarsely.

She had been shot in the chest. Seven times. She had no chance of survival. The force field Adella had created protected the rest of the humans and killed all the Venatores as soon as they attacked.

And humankind never forgot her, as she was what saved them all.