UNDERGROUND

Grandpa Louis never talked about the Vietnam War and how he was a medic. Crazy Uncle Tom, well, you couldn't get him to shut up about being a special forces man and how jumping out of airplanes is the only way he could ever feel alive.

Dad was a cook. Or is, if you want to get technical. Every time someone asked him about his service you would get the same answer, "All I did was keep everyone fed, dammit. Stop asking for war stories that I don't have or ask Tommy for his stupid adrenaline junkie ones." He left for months at a time, but always brought back lavish gifts from countless countries and pictures of my favorite places.

The day they took me underground to the poison rings I found out Daddy was a damn liar. The only thing he ever cooked were the bodies of other people, because he was the warlord of the northern rings. The rings the government could never disband, because they moved quicker than they could be found and spread across the continent with a blinding fury. It was a place where either you died or became rich. It only took five trials and five little bottles of poison to see who could make it out before their last breath.

Daddy never intended for me be taken underground to the grandest of them all. A sacrifice worth millions.