The Next Superhero

Chapter 1

*Amanda's POV*
I'm standing in front of two crosses. My tears are silently streaming down my face. Continuing life is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. They were my parents. Not my real parents, but they were still family. It's been three years, and I remember the day they died as if it were yesterday.
~~~ 3 years ago

"Amanda, you need to go. Now." she had commanded me.

Mom was looking out of the window, and I could see the fear in her eyes. I had just come back from my combat training in the woods with Dad. I was only wearing a sports bra, sweat pants, and tennis shoes. I was not at all dressed for travel.

"Mom, what is it?" I asked. She was scaring me. There aren't many things that scared my mom, and there also aren't a lot of things that would cause such a sudden urge to leave.

I looked outside the window the same time as my dad, and we all shared the same fear.

I saw what I usually saw looking out the living room window. It was the same old forest we had been living in for eight months in seclusion, the longest time we had ever managed to stay in one place. But it was what was in the sky that caught my attention.

Only one hundred yards away was a dark, churning storm. Though, I knew it wasn't really a storm. It's the reason I've been hiding. The reason I've been learning to fight. Well, there was a much bigger reason, but he doesn't like to get his hands dirty. This was a small part of his army, living shadows that mutilate or convert you, and they were moving towards us fast.

They had never shown themselves in such a large group. My guess was the fact that only
animals would be witnesses.

"Amanda, go! We'll take care of this, " Dad told me. He began to bring weapons out of the armory. I didn't know what those would do. No one had found out a definitive way to kill shadows; at least, no one had told us if there was any way to do it.

I ran into my room and grabbed as much as I could put in my duffel bag. I grabbed all my weapons first; the two swords, the bow, the quiver, and my large collection of throwing knives. I then ran to my shelf and instead of being careful, I shoved all the books off the shelf straight into my duffel bag. I didn't care about clothes. I could always get some at a cheap thrift store. The last three items I grabbed were a framed photo of me of me, Gabriella, and Mark, three thousand dollars tied by rubber bands, and a small wooden box. It's the one thing I have left from my birth parents.

I ran back into the living room, thankful for my lack of sentiment. It made my bag much lighter. I saw my parents working on a wired contraption.

"What are you doing? We have to leave now." I stared at them in confusion.

The shadows were getting closer, and I could hear their ear splitting screeches. The sky was full of war cries that were a mix of an eagle's scream and a pig's squeal.

I looked at some of the chemicals they were using, and one of the labels read "Nitroglycerin".

"Are you building a bomb?" I asked nervously. If there was any weapon that had the most possibly unpredictable and dangerous outcomes, it was a bomb.

Dad looked up at me looking at them. "It's fine. We'll be out of the way when this thing goes off. But you need to leave, now."

Mom was attaching a timer to a bunch of wires. I hadn't been taught how to build a bomb yet. "There are more important things you need to learn," Dad always said when I asked about it.

I was still standing there, worried that something was going to go wrong the moment I left.

Mom glanced at me and noticed how I wasn't moving. "You know we'll never outrun them if we don't do something to delay their advance. This has to be done, and you have to get as far as you can before anything can happen."