Chapter One: Jukebox

The Freebird crew discovers an unexpected ally. Dreamer has to face his past. And Snake takes a hit.

Reading time: 29 minutes.

Prologue

Year 1422 A.P. ( After The Phoenix War)

It had been a great hunt for Gregor and his team of Cordic Rangers. A gang of trolls had ravaged the outskirts of the city state of Skiron for a couple of months; killing travelers and destroying small settlements. They had been a terrible nuisance, but after Gregor and his rangers had killed three of the trolls, the rest ran away and probably wouldn’t come back in a foreseeable future. Jim, a ranger with an excellent sniper-eye and a love for wine, had cracked open one of his travel flasks on the way back to Skiron and was already singing about this glorious victory, and how he single-handedly killed the trolls in one shot.

Sharon, the last member of Gregor’s team and a skilled swordswoman, enjoyed his good spirits, but Gregor told him to lower his voice; they were still outside of Skiron, so they were still in danger. The landscape around them was the overgrown ruins of a civilization that almost got wiped of the Earth more than 1400 years ago in The Phoenix War. The old civilization lived in enormous cities that covered most of the surface; their descendants now lived in small city states surrounded by the ruins of the old and technologically superior civilization. And in these ruins terror awaited. The old civilization had built biological warfare, called bionovas, in the shape of trolls, ogres and even dragons, who now roam free in the world without any masters.

Jim lowered his voice for a bit and then asked if he could take point for a while. Gregor nodded. He was a bit of a drunk but still one of the best rangers Gregor had worked with, since he joined the Cordic Rangers eleven years ago. Jim disappeared in the jungle ruins.

Annoyed with Gregor Jim finished his flask of wine after a few kilometers. He then opened his spare travel flask secretly while looking over his shoulder; Gregor and Sharon was far behind him, but you can never be too careful when it comes to opening the second flask. He took a sip, and when he lowered the flask, he saw a naked person lying close to the path up ahead. He snuck closer; looking around to see if it was a trap. No sign of an ambush. It was a woman and she was lying in fetal position with her back against the path. She had no hair on her head. Jim said hello, but there was no response. He looked back to see if the others were catching up; they were still far behind him. He poked the woman; still no response. He turned her over and saw that she had no hair on her body at all; not even eyebrows. She was fully grown but somehow looked… newborn. He listened to her breath, but there was nothing.

Suddenly she made a strong inbreath and her eyes flew open. She quickly hit Jim in the throat, so he started to choke; she jumped to her feet and gave him an axe kick to the neck, so he fell face first on the ground. She looked up and saw the two rangers approaching; they hadn’t heard a thing. She hid in the ruins.

Gregor spotted Jim lying face down up ahead, and silently ordered Sharon to prepare for combat. She nodded and drew her jagged iron sword. Her eyes turned completely red and fire emanated from them cloaking her sword in flames. Gregor drew his rifle and they closed in on Jim cautiously. Sharon checked to see if he was dead, but he was just knocked out. It was unlike a bionova not to finish the job. She heard a sound from inside a nearby ruin.

‘I got this,’ she said and went into the ruin.

Gregor had a bad feeling about it but didn’t have time to stop her. He heard Sharon scream her well known battlecry followed by the sound of metal hitting metal. The sound came again. And again. Then he heard  a series of blows and something heavy hitting the ground; then there was silence.

Gregor got nervous. ‘Sharon?’

There was no response. He saw something in one of the ruins' old windows and fired his rifle. He only hit the wall. Then something appeared in another window and he fired again and hit nothing. This seemed unlike any other bionova he had encountered before. He thought about throwing a grenade in the building, but he didn’t know if Sharon was still alive. He saw something in yet another window, but this time he didn’t fire. Then a bald and naked woman appeared with burn marks on her body. She jumped down from the ruin and landed perfectly before him and took a fighting stance.

‘What have you done to Sharon?’ he asked.

The naked woman looked at him with wonder as if she was amazed that he was able to speak. She then lowered her fists and said slowly and with some difficulty:

‘I need to find Yanik Gannon.’

Gregor was shocked. He knew exactly who he was. ‘What do you want with him?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly.

She was clearly insane. ‘I can take you to him, but since you have knocked out two of my friends, I need to give you these manacles on, okay?’

Gregor showed her the manacles and she shook her head and resumed her fighting stance.

‘No, no, no! Take it easy…’ he said, but it was too late.

The naked woman ran towards him. He fired his rifle at her; she dodged it by jumping unnaturally high up in the air and fly-kicking the rifle out of Gregor’s hands as she landed, so he tumbled to the ground. Gregor jumped to his feet. His eyes glowed red and covered his entire body in fire. He sent a series of blows at her, and she parried them with little effort. Her skin burned from Gregor’s fiery fists, but she didn’t seem to acknowledge the pain. She somehow managed to jump over Gregor while turning in the air. When she landed, she kicked him hard in the back, so he fell on his face. Gregor rolled to his back and fired two bolts of fire from his eyes. The naked woman dodged them both and hit him hard in the chest with her knee. The air vanished from his lungs, and his cloak of fire burned out. The naked woman straddled him, and the last thing he saw was a close-up of her fist. Then there was darkness.

Chapter one: Jukebox

One month earlier.

The magpie landed on the wreckage of an ancient airplane overgrown with moss and plants. It pecked a few times in the moss and found a fat worm. It chopped it over in half with it’s beak and ate the one half. Another magpie landed beside the first one and screeched; then it took the other half of the fat worm and ate it.

A sharp whistling sound was heard. The two magpies screeched and flew off. They flew over a lush landscape with trees, plants and flowers entangled in a chaotic wilderness. Underneath the wild vegetation the silhouettes of square buildings were visible as if the plants had overtaken a giant city; which wasn’t far from the truth.

Above the two magpies a giant scruffy-looking airship hovered in mid air. A thick cloud of smoke was coming from four large exhaust pipes and every few seconds a burst of fire was shooting out of another pipe. The sound from the airship’s engines was deafening and deep.
On the side of the greasy airship you could barely see the word ‘Freebird’ written in fiery letters.

In the landscape below, the two magpies got closer to the high whistling sound. They flew under a few branches and in a clearing they saw three well known faces. They landed on the shoulders of a young black man with long frizzy hair, who was the man behind the whistling. He had burn marks on the left side of his face, and his left ear was nearly burnt off.

He was known as Dreamer and was the first mate on the airship hovering above. Dreamer gave a treat to the two magpies and turned to face his companions again. One of them was the captain of the airship, Snake Ninefingers, who wore a metallic green full combat suit with a red snake painted on it. The captain was using an electric circular saw, which was part of the combat suit, to cut open an old rusty hatch in the ground. Beside the captain stood the airships mechanic, Kid, and worked on a small portable screen, called a spos. Kid was short, skinny and his clothes was covered in grease.

The captain finished cutting open the hatch and it fell down in the hole below with a loud bang, that made the two magpies fly away and land in a nearby three. The captain took off the helmet of the combat suit and revealed her long curly auburn hair.

‘If there are any functioning golbots down there, they know we are coming now,’ she said with a smirk and took a step back from the hole. ‘Do you take point today, Dreamer?’

Dreamer had been a member of Snake’s crew called The Misfits, since he was ten years old, which made him the oldest member even though he was only 21 years old; and actually the youngest person in The Misfits. He had taken point before when the crew was out on scavenging missions like this, but he always got nervous when Snake asked him. Somehow he still felt like a ten year old in her presence.

Dreamer fiddled with his right eyebrow. ‘Sure, if you’ll take the rear.’ He put on his mask, that had both night vision and thermal vision, a com link, so he could communicate with the the airship, and a breathing device, so he could breathe in the almost airless hole, and drew the two golden guns by his side. Kid also took on his mask. Snake put her helmet back on and wielded the rifle from her back. Dreamer walked to the edge of the hole and looked down. It was a ten meter drop; not a problem for him or Snake, but it could be a challenge for Kid.

‘There’s ten meters down, Kid. Are you up for it?’

Kid was one year older than Dreamer, so it felt weird to call him Kid, but he did look very young; and everybody on Freebird had nicknames. Kid gave him a serious nod. Dreamer turned to the two magpies.

‘Will you keep an eye out for bionovas, Tweek and Lucky?’ Both magpies screeched and started circling the clearing.
‘With all the noise from Freebird and the captain’s hatch job, this place will be overrun with ogres soon,’ said Kid.
Snake gave him a nudge in the back. ‘We better get a move on then.’

Dreamer took a deep breath and jumped in the hole. He landed perfectly. There was a long corridor that ended in a larger room up ahead. There were two doors on each side of the corridor. There were no golbots to be seen. Golbots were old robots created more than 1.400 years ago before The Phoenix War. They were made by the technically superior humans of the old world to be used as war machines, and some of them still function this day; forever trying to carry out the programming from long dead masters. He took a few steps in the corridor to make room for Kid.

‘All clear!’     

Kid jumped down and when he landed, he let himself roll over. He got up and brushed some of the dust of his greasy clothes. He didn't get a scratch. Dreamer gave him a comforting pat on the back, and Kid gave him a smile. Then they heard the sound of thrusters above. Snake hovered smoothly down in the hole using the thrusters at the bottom of her feet. Kid started to work on his spos scanning for hover engines, the old tek that keeps airships floating, but nothing came up on his screen.

‘There must be some interference blocking my scanning. I can’t see any hover engines in here. Maybe we should go further in and check again.’

They had been told by their client, Orson Montana, there was at least one hover engine in this area. They had already checked the other old ruins nearby and found nothing. This had to be the place. Dreamer started to walk down the corridor checking each door on the way. Three of them was blocked, probably because the room on the other side had collapsed over the years; and the last one was just a broom closet.

The room at the end of the corridor was a large workshop with all kinds of ancient equipment that very few people knew how to use anymore. Kid started to scan the room for hover engines while Snake and Dreamer searched the room for things they could earn a buck on. Dreamer had seen many of the gadgets in the workshop before on other scavenging missions, so he knew what was worthless and what was valuable; although he had no idea what any of the gadgets actually did. Kid on the other hand had a great understanding of the old tek, as the ancient technology was called, and he was able to use some of the things. Like the spos and the hover engines for example. Kid was also good at new tek, as the modern technology was called, which was a bit more rough and less sophisticated. Like the hull and the engines of Freebird for example and Snake’s clunky combat suit.

Dreamer couldn’t find anything worth taking. He started to wonder how the people of the old world lived. With all this amazing tek they could use as they saw fit, they lived in endless and safe cities with armies of bionovas and golbots at their disposal. It must have been a life filled with security; Dreamer couldn’t remember the last time he felt secure. Most of the time he felt afraid and alone. But that's just the price of freedom. Or at least that was what Snake used to tell him.  Dreamer spotted something lying on the ground. It was the skeleton of a man. What could have killed him so many years ago? Starvation? Old age?

He then saw something covered by a blanket near the skeleton. Nothing else in the workshop was covered like that. Dreamer holstered one of his golden guns and removed the blanket. It was a golbot. He took a step back in shock and accidentally hit a panel that started a high electrical sound and the golbot's eyes began to glow. Dreamer drew his other gun again and called Snake for help. The golbot was humanoid, had a smooth and milky white surface, like most old tek, and it’s face only had eyes and a mouth; and for now the golbot did nothing.

Snake got over to Dreamer with her rifle pointing at the golbot. ‘What happened?’
‘I somehow managed to turn this golbot on. I am so stupid.’
‘It’s all right. Kid, we got a live golbot over here doing nothing. Can you check it out?’
Kid came over and scanned the golbot with his spos. ‘It seems to be charging up.’
‘Then let’s shut this killing machine down before it starts to rip our limbs off,’ said Dreamer.
Kid turned to the first mate with eyes full of excitement.‘No. Let’s see what it does.’
‘I know what these metal b******s do. They kill people. That’s all they know. I’m shutting it down.’

Dreamer looked at the panel he accidentally pushed. He had no idea what to press to turn the golbot off, but in his mind it couldn’t get any worse. He started to push random buttons.

‘Wait,’ said Snake. ‘It’s too late.’

Dreamer pointed his two guns at the golbot. A thing he had seen kill dozens of warriors without taking scratch; a machine of war and death.

‘Well, hello there. My name is Ikaros Rex. Who are you?’ said the golbot with a high pitch voice. And what was that? Did it smile?

‘Hello Ikaros. My name is Kid. What is your programming?’
The golbots eyes blinked a few times. ‘I believe my programming is to help and learn. So how can I help you?’
‘Trollshit,’ said Dreamer and moved closer to the golbot. ‘You are a golbot, and golbots are programmed to kill. Cut the act.’
‘Well, if that is correct, then I can’t be a golbot. And I don’t have any acting functions, although I can change my appearance and voice.’

The white surface of the golbot turned darker and it’s features changed. It grew long frizzy hair from it’s bald head and got a square jaw and a nose. It changed until it looked exactly like Dreamer.
‘Neat, eh?’ said the golbot with Dreamer’s voice. ‘I even sound like you; Trollshit.’
Snake burst out with a short goofy laugh, but quickly covered her mouth with her hand. Kid just stared at golbot with his mouth open.
‘Change back, right now,’ said Dreamer through his teeth, and the golbot obliged.

‘Do you know if there is any hover engines in this room, Ikaros?’ asked Snake.
Ikaros stood up and said with excitement: ‘There is. And I know where.’

He walked over to a dusty safe nearby and entered a code. The safe opened and there were two hover engines inside. They were the size of a grapefruit, perfectly round and with the same white and smooth surface as Ikaros. There was a small socket in each of them and they had a bluish hue.
Kid grabbed both of them and put them in his backpack.
'There is also a spos in here,' said Kid and grabbed the small screen. 'Maybe there is a journal on it.'

He examined the spos silently for ten minutes. Then he said 'aha' and 'hmm' a few times and looked up at the others.
'This guy was a complete lunatic,' said Kid and nodded towards the skeleton on the ground. 'But also brilliant. Some of the data is coded and the parts I can access is mostly incoherent gibberish. But it seems like he found Ikaros Rex about 1.300 years ago, wiped his memory and instead uploaded a vast collection of songs from the 20th and 21st century, so he could use him as a walking jukebox.'

Ikaros Rex looked sad for the first time. 'Wow... all the years I have lost.'

A voice sounded over the com link. It belonged to Lux, the pilot on Freebird: ‘We got company, fellas. A pack of ogres are heading your way. And they look hungry.’
‘We got the goods and are coming up now. Tell Torch to cover us,’ Snake replied. Torch was the mostly silent gunner on Freebird.
‘Roger that, captain.’

'I'm taking the spos and the golbot back to the airship,' said Kid matter-of-factly. 'It could be interesting to do further examination.' 
‘Are you sure it is safe to bring that thing aboard our airship?' said Dreamer and pointed a gun at Ikaros Rex. 'We don’t know what it is capable of.’
Snake placed a hand on Dreamer's shoulder. ‘Freebird is a place for those who don’t belong. And Ikaros here fits that description perfectly,’ she said and addressed Ikaros with a crooked smile. ‘Come along.’
The golbot lit up. ‘Thank you. I’m glad to help if I can.’
‘Just try to stay on your feet until our pick-up arrives.’

They ran back through the corridor to the busted hatch. Snake fired a grappling hook from her suit and told the others to hang onto her. Ikaros refused. ‘It’s okay. I can jump.’

The wire dragged the three Misfits up and out of the darkness and into the light. They were met by the sound of cannon fire. Freebird was hovering above them firing blindly into the forest around them, crushing trees and sending dirt meters in the air. Snake and Dreamer readied their weapons and aimed them at the part of the forest, that was being torn to bits by the cannon fire. Dreamer took a quick look at the sky; Tweek and Lucky was circling safely above. Ikaros jumped out of the hole and hid behind Snake and Dreamer with Kid.

An ogre emerged from the forest. It was four meters tall, covered in metal plates and wielding a tree trunk as a club. It's skin was leathery and green, and it had two large tusks coming out of it's mouth. It looked fat but it moved with incredible speed. Dreamer and Snake got a few shots in before it swung the club after them. Dreamer dodged the club and Snake rolled between its legs and shot the grappling hook around its left leg. The stench of the ogre was horrible, like rotten flowers.

Dreamer kept firing at it while luring it away from Kid and Ikaros. The ogre followed him and didn’t seem to notice that he was dragging Snake along. Once again the ogre tried to hit Dreamer, but instead it crushed a tree behind him as Dreamer jumped away in the last second.

‘Keep him still, so I can get this wire around his legs,’ Snake screamed.
‘Easier said than done,’ said Dreamer and dodged another swing from the ogre. He then called Lux over the com link ‘Where is our pickup, Lux?’
‘Chef is heading your way as we speak,’ said Lux and added. ‘Oh, and I think more ogres are coming to join the party.’

Two hammer wielding ogres came out of the forest. Torch aimed the airships cannon at them and shot large holes in their flesh. But that didn’t stop them, it just made them angrier. They charged Snake, who was trying to ensnare the first ogre. Dreamer made a sharp whistling sound and Lemmy and Ziggy dived down from above and attacked the eyes of one of the charging ogres. They pecked out his eyes, while the ogre was trying to swap them of like flies. The other charging ogre hit Snake in the back with a crunching sound and send her flying through the air; her grappling hook was still attached to the other ogre’s leg, so he stumbled and fell. Dreamer pointed his two guns at the back of the ogre’s neck and executed him.

He then saw that the ogre with the hammer was running towards Snake, who was still lying motionless on the ground, to finish the job. He couldn’t get to her before the ogre did, and he knew that a few bullets wouldn’t change his mind. Dreamer took a deep breath and his eyes turned golden. A shimmer of golden light came out of nowhere between Snake and the charging ogre. The golden light became liquid, like golden mercury, and shaped out a wall of gold that then turned into stone. The ogre didn’t slow down and ran directly into a stone wall and crushed his own skull

Dreamer was exhausted and had to kneel down. He saw the small transport ship, with room for eight people and open sides, so it’s easy to jump on and off, picking up Kid and Ikaros and then flying over to get Snake from behind the wall. A dozen ogres then appeared from the forest, one of them wearing a full combat suit. Dreamer sighed and ran over to the transport ship.

He called the airships gunner over the com link. ‘Focus all firepower on the ogres now, Torch.’

Once again a hailstorm of cannonballs fell down on the ogres. Dreamer helped Kid lift Snake into the transport ship, then he tapped the side. Chef, a black woman with a undercut, a mohawk and two tears tattooed under her left eye, turned around from the pilot’s seat. ‘Let’s get the f**k out of here.’

While the transport ship took of, Dreamer removed Snake’s helmet. ‘How are you, captain?’
Snake’s hair and face was soaked in sweat and she gasped for air; there was still a smirk on her face. ‘It just… took… the breath out of me.’
Dreamer held her head and wiped the sweat from her forehead with his sleeve. ‘And probably broke a few ribs. But you’ve had worse.’
Snake tried to laugh, but instead she contracted in pain. Tweek and Lucky flew in and landed on the transport ship. Below the ogres were retreating back into the forest; except a blind one, who wandered around in circles.

‘I believe a have a song in my memory, that fits this situation perfectly. Well, at least your situation, Captain Snake. I have logged on to your com link, so everyone can hear it,’ said Ikaros with what looked like a smile; then the sound of Berlin's Take My Breath Away filled the ears of The Misfits.

(Hint: Play the song. If you want to stop the song, press the image again)

***

The worst part of this magnificent and almost abandoned city was the heat. You almost welcomed the weekly sandstorms just to get the temperature to drop a few degrees; even if it was just for a few hours. Dreamer had been in Dawning Root many times before. It was built some years ago by wealthy merchants from the tribes of New Africa on the northern coast of the continent to become a marvelous trade city close to the city states of New Europe. Around the same time another trade city, called Dragon Tooth, was built by the famous entrepreneur Kalis Kash. For a few years both Dawning Root and Dragon Tooth tried to become the number one trade city in northern New  Africa. But Dawning Root came out the loser. Now the once beautiful city with golden buildings stood nearly empty, except for a few renegades, outcasts and gangsters - who now called the city Yawning Root.

Dreamer, Torch and Kid had just delivered the hover engines to Orson Montana, the gangster who hired them, and he was very pleased, that they managed to get two engines on the scavenge. He even paid full price for both of them without haggling; which meant that he could easily sell them for twice that amount. Dreamer didn’t care, it was a lot of money for the crew. It could keep them going for a couple of months. They could even fix the engine problems (the airship didn’t have to shoot out fire every two seconds) that Kid kept babbling about.

Torch, the gunner on Freebird, came along for the drop off as a bodyguard. She was a hudroc, a human with dragon features, and had different shades of red, yellow and orange scales on her body. Instead of hair she had hornlike scales that resembled hair. She wore a custom made combat suit that didn't cover her claw like hands and feet. Or her tail.  Hudrocs was a rare sight in the Dawning Root, so people kept their distance in the streets; just the way Dreamer liked it.

When they returned to Freebird they found Lux and Chef talking with Ikaros Rex, who at that point looked exactly like Lux, in the mess. Lux, the well dressed pilot on the airship, was very impressed by Ikaros Rex’s ability to change his appearance. He ran his fingers through the golbot’s buzz cut and then his own. ‘It even feels the same way,’ he said and touched the nose on Ikaros. ‘And you got the crooked nose just perfect.’

Chef tried to open the golbot’s pants. ‘What about your junk, did he get that right?’
Lux pushed her aside. ‘Hey, that’s private.’
‘I am not a complete clone of Lux. I can just take on the features, I can see. If you want to, I can copy your… junk.’
Lux’s face turned red. ‘No, no. That won’t be necessary.’

Chef saw that they have returned and asked how the drop off went. Dreamer told them that Orson Montana paid full price for both engines, so now they were home free for a few months. Then he asked where Snake was.
‘She’s with a client. Some old fart in a blue robe. He looked like one of those Yandro fuckers,’ said Chef.
Chef was wearing a green sleeveless dress, so you could see a tattoo of a raven on her right shoulder and a tattoo with the words ‘What you see is what you get’ on her chest. And as always, when between missions, she was wearing high heels.

Torch seemed worried. ‘Did he look dangerous?’
‘Nah, just old,’ said Chef.
Ikaros Rex looked confused. ‘Excuse me but what is a Yandro?’
‘A Yandro is an energy-user,’ explained Dreamer. ‘He can channel Iva-energy to make himself invulnerable for some time or to create a protective force field around himself and others. The Yandros are also great diplomats, historians and judges. And they are pacifists.’
When Dreamer said the last word Torch snorted and made a snapping sound with her tail.
‘A protective field. Just like you created a wall to protect Snake from the ogre?’
Dreamer looked down. ‘No, that’s something different.’

For a few seconds there was silence.

‘We need to give you a nickname, Ikaros,’ said Lux overenthusiastic. ‘Everybody on Freebird have nicknames. But what should yours be… maybe… Changeling?’
‘Wow, I would love to have a nickname. Just like a real person. Changeling sounds great. Changeling. I like the sound of it. Changeling,’ said Ikaros and added. ‘I also like the name of this airship. It reminds me of a song. Would you like to hear it?’
‘Not right now,’ said Dreamer.
'How about,' said Kid. 'We call you what you were made to be: Jukebox.'
After a short discussion everyone, even Lux, agreed that Jukebox actually was a more fitting name.

The door to the captain’s quarters opened and Snake came out leaning on a crutch. She had high cheekbones and a scar on her chin. She wore leather pants, had bandages around her torso and bare arms. You could see that the ring finger on her left hand was missing. Behind her was a man in a blue robe with a wooden cane that had an owl as a knob. He had thin grey hair and a weather beaten face. He somehow moved like he was younger than he looked.

Snake looked concerned and serious. ‘Okay, Misfits. Listen up. This man has something he would like to say. And I think you should listen,’ she said and limped a step back to make room for the blue robed man. He let his eyes slide over the crew only stopping when his eyes landed on Dreamer and Torch.

‘Hello, my name i Jack Jarod,’ he said with a soft voice. ‘I am a Yandro from the city state of Skiron. And for the past few years I have been searching for a very special person. And today I believe i have found that person. His name is Yanik Gannon, and he is the son of the late Duke of Skiron, Constantin Gannon.’
The crew went silent and everybody turned their heads and looked at Dreamer, who slowly got to his feet.
‘I am Yanik Gannon. What do you want with me?’
Jack Jarod smiled. 'I want you to take back your father's old city. Your city.'

Jukebox opened his mouth in astonishment. ‘Wow…I have the perfect song for this occasion.’
‘No, Jukebox. No,’ said Dreamer, but it was too late. Jukebox was already playing Get Back by Al Green.

(Hint: Play the song. If you want to stop the song, press the image again)

Author's Note

Do you have enough information about the world to understand the story? Do you understand the characters? Is there some obvious problems? Do you want to read the next chapter?

Reviews

[Mostafa Wahied]

I have read the Prologue so far, because I checked the chapter and it was a bit too long.

The thing i like the most is the setting, its well thought of and well explained. I do understand the characters but i feel like i want to know more about them, like their thoughts or why they feel that way. A background story of each main character to be told along the story might work.
There are no major or small problem in your way of writing, it's flawless. And i definitely want to read more.

[Dreaming Ninja]

Thank you very much, Mostafa. The characters in the prologue is not the main characters. There characters in the first chapter will have a little more depth to them.