Into The Night (An MC Pack Fanfiction)

Chapter 1: The Note

Part I - The First Ten Years

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

__________________________

"Tomorrow night is the war."

Four-year old Mitch frowned, examining the scrap of paper. He had just found the note laying outside his house, and of course, being the curious child he was, he picked it up. He couldn't read very well, but he knew the last word was not a good one.

It meant people would end up dead. And he had already seen enough of death in his four short years of life.

Parents, brother, sister. All dead because of a war.

"Hey, Jerome!" Mitch yelled, waving his hand to call his best friend over. Jerome ran over on all fours, acting rather like a big, brown, furry puppy with razor-sharp claws and fangs.

"I was having fun!" he pouted. "What is it?"

"Where is Mommy?" Mitch asked.

Jerome shrugged, laying on the ground. "Find her!"

Together, the two boys got up, running to their house. It was empty, for some odd reason. Completely empty. No mom, no dad.

Mitch ran outside, still clutching the scrap of paper in his hand.

The other kids were in their houses. Mitch and Jerome ran down the street to Preston's house; he was sitting outside, and he and Lachlan were hitting each other with sticks, pretending they were swords. Preston's older brother, David, was watching them, reading a book in the grass.

"Lava P!" Jerome called out.

"Little Lachy!" Mitch yelled at the same time.

Both kids turned their heads to see Mitch and Jerome running towards them, out of breath.

"Look at this!" Mitch yelled, waving the small scrap of paper around wildly.

"I don't read paper," Lachlan frowned. He had only just turned three years old, and still had a bit of trouble speaking.

"David!" Preston shouted.

Preston's twelve-year old brother put his book down, walking over to the little boys.

"Mitch, can I have the paper?" he asked gently.

"No!" Mitch pouted, but handed the paper over anyways.

He read the sentence on the paper, and his eyes widened in fear.

"Mitch, this is bad," he whispered, kneeling down to see eye-to-eye with the younger child. "Where did you find this?"

"In front of my house," Mitch announced proudly.

David shook his head. "I need to tell someone..." he muttered, than ran off.

Preston, Lachlan, and Mitch watched him with wide eyes. Jerome had curled up into a brown furry ball and fallen asleep, his head resting on his tiny paws.

Most of the other younger village kids were out and about, playing in front of their houses with their friends. Many of them were hybrids that had come from other places, and been adopted and taken in by the families in the village. The only fully human children of the village were Mitch, Rob, Vikk, Lachlan, Ali, and Kenny.