This Is War

one

"How much do you want? I've got gold."

"Not gold," said Griphook. "I have gold."

His black eyes glittered; there were no whites to his eyes.

"I want the sword. The sword of Godric Gryffindor."

I gasped. The tension of this part of the book caught me off guard again. Even for the ninth time.

"Dion! Dinner!" My mom's voice broke through the spell. I stuck my Gandalf the Grey bookmark in between the pages, shoved the book into the boxed set and went to the table.

After we all served ourselves, my nine-year-old brother started rambling on about his basketball game.

"Then Jared was like, 'Conrad, over here! I'm open!' So you know, I passed to him. He dribbled up to the basket and. . ."

I tuned him out, I didn't want to hear about sweaty boys throwing plastic oranges at one another. I swirled my green beans in the butter thinking about how cool it would be if Harry Potter were real. I could find him, and Hermione and Ron, I would join them in the quest of defeating You-Know-Who. I'm not afraid to say his name, but it's rigged, so if you say it aloud, the Death Eaters can track you down.

I just wanted to go back to my bed and-

My thoughts were interrupted, along with Conrad's game, by a piercing scream outside. There was a brilliant flash and all of our lights and electricity went out. We all froze, six-year-old Leven's hand shaking. Sirens began to ring out, accompanied by more and more screams and shrieks. Rifles started to shoot and it sounded like something extremely huge and metal was walking outside. My whole family ran to the window. Outside, about a few hundred yards away, was a gigantic robot, using lasers to target people. He shot them down one by one. It was weird though, it seemed to only shoot adults. Picking up the teens and kids, it stomped closer to our house. I sprinted to my room, snatched my Harry Potter boxed set, my journal and pencil pouch and smashed it all into my old backpack. Swinging it onto my shoulders, I shot out into the room where my family was still immobilized in front of the window. I frantically shook my parents into motion, grabbed my brothers' hands and ran out the door, mom and dad following. The robot was super close by this time, and now I could see scurrying around the feet, dozens of overly large slimy gross looking creatures resembling spiders. They were much quicker than the robot and picked up any youngsters that it left behind, stepping on the dead parents. They rushed into houses, flushing the families out and I knew I made the right split-second decision of leaving home.

"What the hell?!" My dad yelled, "We better run!"

I held my sarcastic reply in and started to sprint in the opposite direction of the aliens, family on either side. We didn't make it very far when laser points targeted my dad's back. A second later he was on the ground, not moving.

"NO!" I yelled and stopped to help him up. My mom held me back though, "It's too late, Dion. We have to save ourselves." She turned back to my brothers, tears streaming down her face and lead them on. I followed reluctantly, but soon my mom was on the ground, too, not far from my dad. I shielded Leven's and Conrad's faces. I wanted with all my heart to go back and help my parents, but I knew I had to protect my brothers. I searched for a place to hide, I figured we wouldn't be able to outrun the freaks, and soon spotted a narrow alley. I herded Lev and Con towards it, dodging rubble. But Leven tripped over a toy truck lying in the street, stopping all three of us.

"Conrad, run to the alley, and stay there." I picked up Leven, but his ankle was hurt, he had trouble walking. I went as fast as I could after Conrad, half dragging Leven. Suddenly, his hand was jerked from mine, nearly pulling my arm out of its socket. I watched in horror as an alien took hold of Leven and reached for me. I ran out of its reach and so the hand veered to Conrad, who had come out the alley to chase after Leven.

"CONRAD, NO! I TOLD YOU TO STAY IN THE-" Something nailed me in the head, cutting me off. The alien hand snatched Conrad and turned around, him in one hand, Leven in another. Then something really extremely weird happened. All the aliens, and the robot, just stopped shooting, turned around, and stomped away. I stood there, dumbstruck, my hair all in disarray. My parents are dead, and my two brothers have been kidnapped. My whole city is. . . Is. . . most likely gone. My closest family lives in LA, a two hour drive from here. Who knows how long of a walk and I don't even know the way.

I was alone in a world of monsters.