Chapter 1

Silver finds herself surrounded by not-so-nice people in the middle of the night.

I wake up, but I don't move or open my eyes. I can sense them around me. Waiting for me to wake. The bad people.

My name is Silver. Or, at least, the name you'll know me by. I am thirteen years old, I have short, tangled, curly light hair, and startling ice blue eyes. I'm not the tallest, and I'm thin, naturally thin. I'm not very strong, and I'm not the fastest or most agile. Just good enough. I'm not very graceful, and most of my work is just barely passable as clean. To the very few people that know me, I am described as paranoid and sarcastic. They're pretty accurate. Paranoia can be a survival skill in this world.

I have woken up like this before, but usually surrounded by some inexperienced outlaws who haven't hung around in the dark alleys and eerie buildings long enough to know who I am. These people are different though. They aren't idiots. If I hadn't spent many days working on waking up like this, I would be caught by now, or worse, dead. I can hardly hear their breathing, so it makes it hard to estimate how many people are here, but I can tell there's many, and that I'm hopelessly outnumbered.

You know that old saying, “Never go down without a fight”? I feel these are not the best circumstances in which to apply these words. I don't want to be captured beaten up and helpless. I do the only thing I can do. I sit up straight in bed and simply say, “I surrender!” I say it clearly so they can all hear me. There is a moment of silence, like they weren't prepared for this. It lasts a brief moment, then the ones nearest to me grab my arms and pin them behind my back.

They shove me off my bed, which is a thick wooden board with the remains of what is supposed to be a pillow, and a moth-eaten blanket. They march me outside the nearly inhospitable building I had been camping in. It used to be an office building. The worn out and nearly unreadable sign nearby says Google Inc. on it. I wonder if they were important at one time. The bad people have a dark minivan in the ruined streets. Evil rides in minivans. Hee hee.

As I'm pushed over toward the van, stones and shards of glass scrape the bottoms of my bare feet. In the cold night air, my eyes adjust to the light just well enough so I can see my captors. They look like soldiers with black armor, not unlike that of ancient U.S.A.'s camouflaged armor. They all have Kranks. Kranks are guns, but somehow scarier than any other gun on the planet. They aim at you, and when you pull the trigger, it sends out a small, red laser that looks harmless. Then it burns right through your body. I would kill to get my hands on just one Krank. I could be safe for the rest of my life!

The inside of the van is smelly, and the seats ripped, but they have a vehicle, which is more than I can say for most people in this world. They shove me in the backseat, and I don't even struggle. All the people are in now, and the old minivan starts moving. I think they put me where the seat belts had worn away on purpose, and then go out of their way to hit every single bump in the road. Probably not, but it sure feels like it. The car hits an especially big bump, and I am thrown off the seat and onto the floor. It smells really bad. The rational part of my mind is thinking: How on Earth can you be concerned about the smell? Your going to DIE. The irrational part thought: But it smells like old socks! It's horrid! I've lived on my own way too long. My rational part really hasn't helped me enjoy myself. If it did, my life would have no interesting parts. When I would stay in an abandoned building for the night, my irrational part made me decorate a little, such as clean out some dust and spread my blanket out nice and flat on the ground, instead of sleeping in dirt on a blanket heap, which would be just enough to survive.

The van jerks to a halt, which did not at all help my efforts of trying to get back in my seat. The people start yelling orders at each other. I am still disoriented from my roller coaster ride in the minivan, and I only catch a few words. “... attack...”, “not scheduled...”, “...delays...”. All of them jump out, except for one who turns around and has their Krank trained on me. My heart leaps in my chest. Was I going to get shot?! “No sudden movements.” growls a deep male voice from the person holding the Krank. I hear explosions from outside. I want to look out the window and see what's going on, but personally, I'm scared of having laser holes burned into me. Maybe it's just me.

The doors fly open, and the next thing I see is blood gushing out of the deep-voiced guy's throat. He chokes and coughs, spitting blood everywhere. It's gushing out of his mouth, and he's foaming at the lips. He rolls out of his seat and I can see his body convulsing. While he's dying, two kids my age hop into the front seats, one holding a Krank. That explains how the man is dying now. The kids look familiar. There's a boy and a girl. No. I think. They're gone. They've been gone for three years. The girl is sitting in the driver's seat, and she starts the car, trying to move fast. The boy is yelling at her to go faster. A hole appears in the window. I shriek. The kids turn to me for a moment, looking like they were just realizing I'm there. They look at each other, and both give a me a half-smile. Then they turn back around and the girl slams on the gas pedal. I don't have a seatbelt, so the sudden takeoff flings me into the trunk. Minivans are built so you could climb from the backseat into the truck. I groan, seeing stars. I see one more hole poke through the trunk. My eyes widen and I gasp in pain and surprise as agony shoots through my left thigh. I pass out from pain, certain that I will die.

Author's Note

It's not as old as Hybrid's early chapters, but it's not exactly new, either.