Renascence

                                                  RENASCENCE
         
          They came in the night, while most people were sleeping. I looked up at my clock to read the analog that usually depicted the time in bright red LEDs and burnt into my retinas. Strangely, no time was displayed on my clock. I figured the power must have gone out. I looked at my watch to see that it was 1:30 in the morning. I remembered that I had been woken up by a shout. I planned on finding out whose.
          It had been a man’s shout, almost a bellow: a challenge. At first I thought it had just been part of some dream, but then I heard it again. It was not coming from inside the house, but outside. In the dark, I fumbled to pull on a pair of easy-fitting jeans and my sneakers from under my bed. I put on a clean shirt from my closet, figuring I may as well get dressed for school since I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep now.
          I opened the door to my room slowly, checking the hallway to see if my parents were up and about. They never trusted me to not sneak out, even though I never had. When I knew the coast was clear of parental interference, I headed down the hallway to the head of the stairs. I peered down the unlit stairwell, trying to make out any shadows. I didn’t see anything, so I continued down the steps into the living room, and out into the front hall.
        There was a bright, fiery light coming from outside in the driveway, and I knew then that something was wrong. As I hurriedly opened the front door and ran outside, I found out why I hadn’t met my parents on my way out–they were already out here. My dad’s truck was on fire, and it was a fireball of angry orange light. My parents were standing there in front of the truck, looking ready for a fight.
        Before I could yell to my parents over the rage of the fire, three men dressed in all-black military fatigues came around from the other side of the truck. They wore matte black body armor, and held ghostly looking Spectre M4 submachine guns that they carried with an assurance that told me they knew how to use them. They looked like trained military troops, but they had no immediately distinguishing features. No rank insignias could be seen anywhere on their person, but I noted a small red patch on their upper left chests. I was too far away to make out what it was, but it looked like some kind of bird.
          I heard my father say something in another language. I was floored by the fact that my father seemed so comfortable speaking another language. I never knew my dad to speak anything but English. Even more surprising was the fact that my mom followed suit. It sounded like they were asking the three men something, but what they were asking I had no idea. The language sounded vaguely like Russian, but I really couldn’t know for sure. My parents suddenly switched to English again.
          “We won’t let you do it,” my dad said, “We don’t care what type of new order she plans on creating, we won’t be part of it.”
          One of the three men, obviously the higher ranking of the three, responded in heavily accented English, “Then I guess we have no choice. If you won’t accept destiny, then who are we to argue with her will? I’m really sorry Jim, I actually liked you. But orders are orders, and she won’t accept failure on our part or on yours. And you Lilith, I thought you of all people would understand.”
          This man looked not much older than myself. Maybe nineteen or twenty years old, and yet here he was, getting ready to shoot both my parents. My mother looked infinitely sad, as though there was something she had hoped to do that had just lost all hope of being accomplished. Despite that though, both she and my father looked ready to face their deaths.
          My mom brought her head up, and with a violent fury in her eyes said, “We don’t understand the destruction of entire continents just to put her into power. There is no need for such actions. There was a workable plan in place. There was no need for this violence!”
          “There is always a need for violence. When others don’t understand the Truth, you must make them understand,” one of the other men said. My parents just shook their heads, giving up their attempt to dissuade these men of their obvious strong convictions. What they believed in, I had no idea, but I had a feeling I was going to find out.
          As the men started to raise their weapons, I finally snapped back into reality. I screamed, “No!”
          The men, surprised, looked up to where I was standing, both my parents turning as well. The men, confused, didn’t fire for about five seconds. In those seconds, my parents realized that I was right in the line of fire. My mother ran to one of the men still surprised at my appearance, and gave him a roundhouse kick to the chin, knocking him on his butt. After he was subdued, she quickly swung his M4 around and began to open fire on the other two who quickly ducked behind my dad’s truck for cover. My dad meanwhile, pulled a Smith & Wesson 9MM out of a concealed holster under his jacket. As he and my mother opened fire on the two men, I stood there openmouthed.
         My mother took a second to stop firing and said, “Quickly Lena, come here,” and then continued to pummel what used to be my dad’s truck with gunfire.
         “Wha-?” I started, but I didn’t have a chance to continue my question. My dad shook his head, “There’s no time to explain, but we need you to trust us.”
         With no other choice, I shut my still-open mouth and said, “I trust you. What can I do?”
         My mom stopped firing again, but this time she pulled an envelope out of her pocket to hand to me. As she reached into her pocket though, one of the men came around one side of the truck firing, and screaming like a madman. My dad turned and shot him once in the arm, and then in the throat. The man fell, gurgling a scream through his ruined throat.
          The man had done his damage though, and my mom sank to her knees, two bloody spots on her white shirt near her abdomen. As she fell, she handed the envelope to me, and smiled.
         She took a last breath and said to me, “Everything is explained in there. We love you.” As she said this, she sank to her side, expending her last breath.
         I picked up the M4 she had acquired from the man now unconscious on the ground before me. I took the gun up to a firing position and fired across the spot I knew the leader of the three men to be. My dad suddenly stopped firing. I looked down at him and saw red blossoming from his chest.
         I could only manage a weak, “Dad!” before my dad too fell to his side with no life left in his eyes. I tried to fire the M4 again, but there was no ammo left. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man come out from behind the ruins of the truck. I scrambled to grab my father’s 9mm, but before I could pick it up, the man came up and backhanded me to the ground. As I was lying there on my back, he looked over the dead bodies of my parents. Before he could notice, I quickly shoved the envelope into a pocket at the seat of my pants. It was all I had left of my parents, and he was not going to take it if I could stop him. Luckily, he didn’t notice my movement before he turned to look at me.
           He smiled as he saw the fear in my eyes. He seemed to take joy in seeing my world destroyed from just three little metal slugs that now rested in my parents. I didn’t know what to do, but I did know what I felt. I wanted this man dead. I had never been a violent person in my life, but now I wanted to kill this man. I jumped up and tried to get my hands around his throat. I roared in anger and despair, haunted by the death of my parents, and desperate for vengeance. I saw nothing but the man’s ice blue eyes.
          The man was about my height, but he was built like a body-builder. He easily swatted my arms away and as I started to come back for another attempt, he turned his gun around and used the butt of the Spectre to strike the side of my jaw and send me dizzy back to the ground. My jaw felt like it had been anesthetized, and I was so dizzy I couldn’t stand up. While I was there on the ground, he took a few hard shots at my stomach, seemingly for insurance that I was really down. As I lay there struggling to get my feet under me, he took a can of gasoline from our garage and went into the house.
           I could imagine what he was doing, and for all I tried, I just couldn’t get up. At the moment, all I felt was adrenaline and pain. I had gotten to my knees, but the effort it took nearly made me retch. After a minute of struggling against the nausea, I was finally able to stand to my full height without feeling sick. As I came up from my knees, the man came out of the house again. As he left the garage, he poured the rest of the gasoline out in a line following him to the driveway. He looked at me and smirked as he took out a match and dropped it on the gasoline. I looked on in despair, knowing I could do nothing to stop it. The last part of my life was about to be obliterated just like my parents had been.
         “I’ll be back,” he said in his thick accent, “The New Order will overtake all, and no one will stop us. Your parents knew the risks, and failed to come through in the end. They got what they deserved for deserting the Truth. You too will understand the Truth soon enough. Everyone will.”
         With those cryptic parting words, he took off at a jog up our driveway. I knew that even if I wanted to, I was in no condition to chase after him. Soon after I heard the roar of an engine and saw red lights disappearing in the distance. I sat there in our driveway looking at the blaze of fire that was our house, and the bodies of my parents lying on the asphalt.
         I searched their pockets for anything that might be able to help me. I took anything that might identify their bodies, along with my dad’s 9mm and an M4 Spectre that had been left behind, along with extra magazines from the dead and unconscious men’s pockets. I dragged all the bodies as close to the fire as I could bring them, knowing that they would be burned when the blaze continued to spread. I took one last look at my parent’s faces, lovingly admiring them for the last time. I picked up the few things I had taken, and started to jog down the hill in our backyard. I was heading into the woods, away from the destruction, away from what would soon become the future of my existence.

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