Tigers With Determination

Chapter 3

I am sitting in my old room. There are posters of my favorite video games and Fighters all over the walls. Mostly VR games and female boxers. Virtual reality has defiantly become something big, but not as big as people always think it is. Yeah, you can spend your time in a completely fictional world, but most people don't want to LIVE in it. So, the developers always assure a cutdown time if players are in it longer than a week.

"Valkarineeee,"

I turn my head towards my door. It has defiantly taken a few beatings of door slamming over the years. The wood has split in multiple areas. All because my parents were afraid of letting me learn how to box.

"Valkarineeee, come here now please."

I jump off my bed and open my bedroom door and look down the hallway. All along the walls are frames of family videos on loop in mute. From when I rode my first hoverbike, to when we got our dog Lucas, to when I got my first knockout. The videos are endless. I proceed down the hallway and walk down the stars into the living room. There sits my family ready to celebrate my birthday.

"We started to think you forgot about your own birthday!" my dad laughs

I look into his chocolate brown eyes. My mum always mocked him for always making her crave chocolate because of his eyes.

"I would NEVER!" I joke back. Everyone smiles.

"Now, hon, it's you 16th today. We want to make you feel really special! So, I hope this present does half the job for us," my mother chimes in.

Lucas, barks in agreement. My dad proceeds to hand me my present as my mother takes out her phone to film.

Just as I open the lid, the living room window smashes and something metal rolls to my feet. We all look at the floor.

BANG!

My ears start ringing and the whole living room fogs up. I try to scream out to mum, but my head hurts so much. I end up tripping over and find Lucas laying on the ground. He has shards of metal in his stomach. I drop to my knees and put my hand on his head. Slowly stroking it. Trying to calm myself down as well as calm Lucas down. I feel a hand on my shoulder and immediately look up thinking it's one my parents. But it's a guy in some form of gas mask holding a gun. He signals to me to stand up. So, I look back on Lucas and slowly find the strength in me to stand. He then grabs my wrists and ties them behind my back. I try to escape from his grasp. But he's too strong. He then pushes me behind him and points his gun at Lucas.

BANG!

I cry out in utter pain and shock. Who is this person? What does he want? Why did he shoot Lucas? Where's mum and Dad?

The guy grabs me by my arm and shoves me through the foggy living room. My ears are still ringing, and I am blinded by all the smoke. What is going on?

As we go though the front door, I can finally see. But in that very moment, I wish I couldn't. In my driveway, there was a black hover vehicle of some kind with men in black clothes standing around it. Near the window of the house were my parents. Except.... they were laying down... in the garden... not moving... and there were two man standing over them. With smoke coming from their guns. It suddenly hit me what was going on. I collapsed to my knees and started screaming.

"This can't be real! It can't be! I'm not one of them. I'm not a mutant!"

The guard puts the gun to my back

"move," he grunts. "Or, you'll be next."

I slowly get enough strength to stand up and let him lead me to the black vehicle.

"Now sleep," he grumbles as he knocks me in the back of the head.

I shoot awake.