Sebastian Black

The First Mistake

     Sebastian looked up at the clock, nine thirty it read. Walking past the kitchen table, he saw his lucky quarter and the note. He pocketed them as he took a deep breath and stepped over the tripwire and outside onto the front porch. Looking around, he noticed a black Volkswagen EuroVan coming down the left side of the street towards his house. He stood at the ready. He watched as the van slowed to a stop and a man stuck his head out the window. Slowly, It crept towards his house and the man's eyes never left Sebs face. Suddenly the van picked up speed, went to the end of the street, and was gone.
    Sebastian was about to let out a deep breath when he saw two other Volkswagen vans appear on both ends of his street. At the same time, he heard bells go off all over his backyard. Hearing those bells made his heartbeat double. Seb left the back door open, in hopes that someone would be foolish enough to enter through it. Hoping someone would hear him and come running, he turned around, opened the front door, and yelled "I'M OUT HERE YOU OVERGROWN APES!" As he slammed it shut, he heard footsteps and a loud bang, a few seconds later there was another loud bang. A smile slipped onto his face as he no longer heard movement from inside the house. He looked down both sides of the street and ahead of him towards the woods.
    He stepped off the porch and slowly made his way across the street. The vans were halfway to him but Seb just stood there, patiently waiting at the entrance, as if to tell the people in the Volkswagens that he didn't fear them.
"I have to get them out of the cars; they can't catch me on foot," Seb said determinedly. The vans pulled up and parked maybe ten feet away from him. One of their windows slowly rolled down and the most gruesome looking face Seb had ever seen came into view. He had thin, patchy brown hair, that was going gray in the back, pulled into an untidy ponytail which revealed a severe widows peak. His left eye was bright blue, similar to Sebs, but completely hairless. Not a single eyebrow or eyelash hair could be found on this man's left eye. His right eye however, was milky white and had tufts of eyelashes surrounding it, but still no eyebrow. His face was deeply scarred and his nose looked as if someone had thought it was an apple, because there was a very noticeable bite taken out of it. Moving down past the nose, the worker had a hole right above the left side of his lip that let you see the fleshy inside of his mouth. His teeth were surprisingly clean as well as sharp. Looking down at his chin, Seb was shocked to see how nice and normal it looked. It came down in a wide point and had a full, well groomed beard covering it. Seb naturally assumed that the man's chin would be as scarred and disfigured as the rest of his face. The worker himself was the size of a huge gorilla and had arms and legs as thick as tree trunks. After a minute of staring, the mans face twitched as if he were going to speak.
"Get in, kid," he said in a scratchy voice that instantly made Seb distrust him.
"You the government? asked Seb pleasantly with a smile on his face.
"Yeah, that would be us," said the woman from the front seat sweetly.
"Just get in the car and no one will get hurt buddy," they tried again.
"How about you guys get out of the car? I can't make the same promise you made me though. I'm sure at least one of us will get hurt," said Seb to the government officials.
    Everyone in the vans immediately lost all pretenses of pleasantness. They were here on a mission and they wanted it done. The disfigured man stepped out of the car. He took a few paced steps forward and stopped, his boots crunching pebbles. Looking around, his eyes stopped on the woods behind Seb.
"You have some kind of plan set up, boy?" he sneered. "Something like that," Seb bounced right back. The rest of the workers piled out of the vans. Three came out of the second van, but only the woman stepped out of the first van. Everyone was eyeing each other when two men shuffled out of Sebastian's front door. They tripped over each other trying to walk down the steps. As they picked themselves up, they hollered over to the disfigured man and company and said "don't underestimate the kid." Them turning their heads was all Seb needed. He turned on his heel and ran into the woods.
    Sebastian had always been extraordinarily fast and nimble. His parents had told him that was why the government wanted him dead. That among other things. They said that some kids evolved to adapt to the century long war that had been terrorizing their world his entire life. The war was disastrous and everywhere. Nukes were dropped, diseases had been purposely spread, and most borders had been destroyed and forgotten about. All of those factors slowly prompted the adaptations that some people on Earth had been experiencing for the last couple of decades. Such as the strength of a gorilla, the agility of a cat, the eyesight of a hawk, or even the hearing of a bat. No one was sure what all kinds of adaptations exist, but everyone knew new ones were being introduced into our world everyday. The government worried that one day those extraordinary people, with their astonishing traits, would get together and overthrow them once and for all.
    To make sure this never happened, the government collected kids when it was about time for any special skills to develop, which was usually around eleven years old. They watched and studied them for a couple of weeks before either sending them home, trying to get them to join their organization, or disposing of them. Seb's cousin, Josh, had exceptionally quick hands and was offered a spot in the governments unit for skilled kids. They said he could join and be apart of something bigger than himself, or he could die. His last words were "I'd die before joini-" because they shot him through the back of his head. The government wasn't going to let anyone they couldn't control live and they'd proven that time and time again.
    As he ran through the woods and jumped over fallen limbs, Seb thought to himself that this wasn't going to happen like this, not this time. He was going to escape the threat of the government and not by dying or joining them. Looking over his shoulder, Seb noticed that the workers were far enough behind for him to break for a second. He pulled out a sandwich from his bag and ate about a quarter of it before washing it down with some cold refreshing water. Prepared as he was, he couldn't stay in the woods forever. He sat there thinking for a second and then dirtied up his clothes real noticeably and waited for the government workers to catch up. After about three minutes he could hear them panting at the bottom of the tall hill he was at the top of. He looked down and made faces at them as they began their journey up the hill.
   This irritated the workers and they started to move quicker. By the time they made it to the top Seb was standing a few yards away in his dirty clothes. They looked him up and down and one of the guys from the back had snickered, "have a nice fall did ya?" Sebastian didn't let the comment get to him. He took out his food and took a nice big bite and chased it down with a drink from his bottle. Everyone was staring at the food hungrily and licking their lips. They had been chasing him for a while now and Seb knew they must be hungry. All was going according to plan. Seb quickly held up the food and could almost hear the various pops and clicks coming from the workers necks from moving so fast to follow the sandwich. Seb waved it around just to make sure he still had their attention, and threw it right at the guy who made the comment. Hitting him in the chest, the sandwich had just enough force to push the guy back a couple steps, a couple steps was all Seb needed. The man stumbled off the hill and fell backwards to the ground, landing with a soft thud. He let out a loud groan and Seb took off running again. Changing directions, he thought he could hide out somewhere in town. After he made it out of the woods, and made up his mind, he set his course for the town square.
    It was around midday now and if he had been lucky, there would've been plenty of people busying themselves around the square for him to slip through. Unfortunately, Seb wasn't that lucky. There was almost no one in the square when he had finally arrived. He was losing hope when he noticed a school bus pull in on the far side of the square. Eyeing it, he noticed students started filing out of it, wearing dress clothes and backpacks. It was as if a lightbulb had turned on inside his head. As quick as light, Seb dashed behind a corner and changed his clothes. Leaving his old things, he ran across the square and got in the middle of the line while the teacher was checking off names. Right as he managed to get in line, the government workers entered the square.
    Sebastian tried to look as calm and collected as he could. He could see the disfigured man at the far end and noticed that he had put sunglasses on and thought to himself that they really quite suited him. The other men and women kept their eyes on the students as they drew nearer. They were looking at clothes and backpacks, not really paying too much attention to faces. Seb looked around and noticed a different backpack laying near him. Making sure no one was looking, he switched it out. He looked inside and said "score!" aloud as he pulled out a baseball cap. The workers walked up to the teacher and asked if there were any students present that she didn't recognize. Her mouth opened in aghast at the thought that someone would think she didn't know her students. She walked right up to shades and stared him down.
"You think I don't know my own students? You think I don't know how to do my job? The job that I have been doing for two decades? Her temper was starting to flare and her voice was noticeably rising.
"I've been doing this same job for twenty years and I have worked with all fifteen of these kids for three of them! You have no right to come up to me and ask if i've done my job correctly, no right at all," said the teacher with a huff. Shades didn't say a word. He silently looked over all the kids before turning his head back towards her.
"Ma'am, I feel like you're going to want to apologize for that very rude outburst," said shades slow and thoughtfully.
"Apologize? APOLOGIZE! What do I have to apologize for? You should be the one apologizing!" cried the teacher.
"You say you've been teaching these fifteen kids right here for three years? asked shades.
"Yes and what of it? retorted the teacher.
"Well I can't help but notice that there are sixteen kids here with you right now."
Seb's blood turned cold as he slowly looked up. The teacher looked shocked and counted the kids. Her eyes met Seb's and he sent her a silent pleading but apparently she didn't catch it because she called out "You there! In the cap!"
    All eyes turned towards him as he broke free from the line and started running back towards his house. He turned around and caught a glimpse of the workers behind him before he turned a corner. All he had to do was make it into his house and then get inside of the walls before they set foot on the street. If they saw him go back in his house it would all be over. Sebastian poured on the speed and crisscrossed through so many streets that he was sure he had lost them. Slowly and cautiously, he started making his way towards his street. After a few minutes he was back in the woods across from his front door. His house looked as empty as a drained pool. As silent as a ghost, Seb made his way towards the front door, but thought better of it. He turned and slowly made his way to the side of the house, thinking that the side door might make for a better entrance. Quiet as a mouse, he opened the door and stepped through. However, at the same time something fell from the door frame and hit Seb in the head with a mighty thud. He was out cold. Half of his body lay inside the house and the other half lay outside. Sebastian truly couldn't have been in a worse position. That was, until a couple car doors slammed outside his house, and a man walked up the walkway, crunching everything underneath his boots.