Souls of Courage

Chapter 1

I peered out the window, carefully. That was the problem with living in Neutral, some people just saw it as “unclaimed.” I didn’t mind though, not too much. I sat back down and opened a can of beans. This would be my first can this week. I hadn’t had much time to do scavenging, so my rations were running a little low. I also had no good land on which to scavenge. The Angels had everything to the north and west, and the Spirits had everything to my south and east. I lived on the very delicately drawn line that is Neutral.

After the government fell and local governments came to power and failed; our city, like many others, fell prey to gangs. The only difference between our city and the others is that there are only two major gangs. We have the Angels and the Spirits. There is a thin line, maybe one or two streets, that consists of Neutral. That’s where I lived, in some apartment building above what used to be a chinese restaurant. The food was long gone and some of the windows busted.

I sighed, there was little to no food left and I’d have to go out and get some. Angels had all the good growing territory, stealing from them would be suicide. The Spirits had all the grocery stores that had tons of canned food that they somehow keep getting a hold of. Going after any of them would be stupid.

I gingerly touched the black wing tattoo on my right wrist. It’s just a simple pair of raven black wings, extended forever on my wrist. Marking me for something that I gave up a long time ago. I used to take pride in showing people that mark, they feared me for it. Now it’s just a mark of shame, a scarlet letter that will never come off. It reminds me of my past, like a black stain on a white cloth. It’s impossible to miss that tattoo and impossible to forget.

I went through my inventory once more. I had three cans of beans, a can of pineapple, a bottle of water that was half empty, a pocket knife freshly sharpened, and a small handgun fully loaded. Since I only ate a little bit every week or so, the food could’ve lasted me about two or three weeks if I’d stretched it. The knife was a gift from my late dad, he’d given it to me before I made the second biggest mistake of my life. The gun was something I’d picked up from a friend and, fortunately, never used against a human being.

My Dad was single, ever since Mom had passed away due to cancer when I was ten, and he’d cared for me a lot. I loved him as much, if not more so. We lived together in a house close to my school that was burnt down by the Spirits when they claimed it. After that we moved into an apartment, this apartment, closer to the police station. He’d actually been a part of the police force so it was convenient for him.

He’d given me that knife when I turned thirteen. He knew that the local government was going to fall and he told me to protect myself. Dad was smart. A lot smarter than me, he was right. The local government fell to the Angels and Spirits and he died in a shootout.

I got the call after school when I was doing my homework. A local kid called and told me that I should hurry down to the edge of Neutral. It took me a lot less time than I thought and I found him laying halfway in Spirit territory with some red staining his pristine white shirt. It almost looked like a rose from really far away. He was already dead, but a couple of his friends helped me bury him in the local cemetery.

The phone rang and split the silence in the room. I jumped, surprised, and crept over to the phone. I picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hello,” a childlike voice came from the other end. It sounded so fragile I thought it was going to break. It was tormenting me with just one word.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“You don’t need to care about that. What you do need to care about is your supply line.” There were several snickers in the back.