Selcouth

The Beginning

It had been quiet down here in the bunker. Hardly anyone spoke. The lights that hung from the ceiling were so dimly lit that we could hardly see each other's faces. There were at least twenty of us down here. Now, I'm not so sure. The explosion tore through the twelve inch thick concrete wall to my left. I was about a yard away when the stone came flying at me, a block the size of a small dog hitting me in the shoulder and another one the size of a base ball hitting my head. The stone to the head had caused a ringing in my brain, but the blast of sound made it hard to hear anything but the pounding in my head.

The sudden light hurt my eyes so I squeezed them shut like a kid trying to hide from the chair covered in clothes in the corner of a dark room. Faintly the sound of running foot steps and muted screams echoed around me. Multiple gun shots rang through the air to my right and I curled into an even tighter ball on the concrete floor, covering my aching head with my uninjured arm.

There was a loud crash that shook the surface beneath me and flashes of the previous explosion crossed my mind. Before I knew what was happening I was dragged to my feet and pulled in the direction of the hole in the wall. I opened my eyes to see the bodies of the people I was with littering the floor in pools of their own blood. Shock began to settle in when a thick pair of metal cuffs were clamped around my wrists. An empty feeling wormed its way into my chest and I looked down at the cuffs.

"What's happening?" I asked to no one in particular. I never got an answer and instead was thrown into the back of a large black military-looking vehicle. There were only three other people in there with me when the strangers slammed the doors shut and the truck started moving. I looked to the others and saw their defeated expressions. The one closest to me was bleeding heavily from her head. I lifted my hand and gently touched it but nothing happened. Panic started to swell in my stomach and the girl gave me a sad smile.

"It's the cuffs," she explains quietly. "They're keeping us from using our abilities somehow."

My hand drops into my lap and I stare at the floor for a few moments. The aching in my shoulder started to creep up on me and I tried to keep it from reaching my face. Sharp pain stretched from my collar bone to the middle of my back. I leaned back against the wall of the vehicle and closed my eyes. I tried to concentrate on anything other than the pain that was beginning to become my main focus. But all I could think of was the dead bodies of the people who had cared for the four of us. They risked their lives to protect us and what do they get in return? The gift of death.

Every so often the truck would hit a bump in the road and send sharp pain to my shoulder. I winced the first time and have tried to keep it secret after. The windows in the back of the truck were covered in a thick film that made it almost impossible to see outside. I could faintly hear the engines of other vehicles around us. I looked around at the three people who were kept alive with me. Kate had finally stopped the bleeding from her head and was trying her hardest to stay awake. Thomas was trying to help her too and has been quietly talking to her about any and everything. And Cameron was picking at the skin on his hands while staring blankly at the metal floor. He didn't talk much, even before the attack.

I can remember the day all of us met for the first time. It was a situation much like this, except we had been expecting it. A gang of people who spent most of their adult lives hunting down people like us had been chasing the four of us individually and some how managed to corner us all in the same place at the same time. Before any of us had said a word we knew why the other was there. We were different. And those people hated us for it. I felt bad for what we ended up doing to them, but it was an act of survival. Us or them.

My thoughts were pulled to reality when the truck came to a stop. My body tensed at the sound of the engine cutting off. The front doors opened and slammed shut. Multiple pairs of foot steps could be heard coming around the vehicle and surrounding it. The double back doors swung open and we were met with guns in our faces along with weapons I had never even seen before.