Chapter 5: The War Between Monsters and Men

She attacked on June 2nd, my Grandmother once told me.

I sat idly at the table, finishing my homework for that day as she bustled around her cramped kitchen. It was a relatively quiet evening, save for the sound of birds chirping and the scratch of my pen against the notepad. When she first spoke, I

thought it was a trick of my imagination but then she continued.

"I was thirty-five and your grandfather and I were divorced at that point. Your father- Nicholas- was staying at his friends house that weekend and I was left all alone," She grabbed a pot from the cupboard and a bundle of vegetables from the fridge.

"It happened as I stood in this very kitchen, the news was playing in the background," She began to mince the vegetables with expert precision, her hand moved at the speed of a hummingbird's wing.

We learned about the war in History class. Just like we learned about World War I and II and the Cold War and every armed conflict since the inception of the United States. Wars happened all the time. We were still fighting with the Middle East and Russia and half of Asia and those wars began way before my grandmother was even born.

"The newscasters stopped mid-sentence. I can't remember what they were talking about but it doesn't really matter now," She threw a basil leaf into the pot. "They paused for a good five seconds, which I thought was strange because the news people do love hearing themselves talk and then suddenly it was chaos. I remember one of the News Anchors tried to warn us. He said, 'We don't want to alarm anyone but the pentagon has just been attacked.' Well, naturally, everyone freaked out."

I remembered that man. We watched the taping of the broadcast in class. He was a relatively attractive man with salt and pepper hair and a thick beard which concealed his strong chin. The woman beside him sat frozen in her chair, her mouth hung ajar, eyes wide open. They thought it was a terrorist attack at first. Those happened from time to time, nothing to sweat about. But, then a video surfaced from one of the bystanders. It was a video revealing, her.

"She stood on top of the burning building, her ebony curls twisting and snapping around her face like the snakes of Medusa. Her eyes were as black as coals and fire engulfed her fists." Grams wiped her hands on the apron tied around her waist. She was staring at the bubbling pot, with a vacant look on her face as she were no longer in the kitchen with me.

"They called her Lilith- the mother of demons- because it was like all of hell had escaped."

The State Department and the Capitol Building were attacked next. She rampaged throughout D.C., attacking any and all who stood in her way until she reached the White House. The west wing was practically burnt to the ground when the news broke about the President's death. She killed him, herself, my teachers said.

"Why are you telling me this Grams, I know all about the war."

They called it the war between Men and Monsters. The monsters had crawled out from the shadows, following Lilith's lead, in an attempt to claim their 'rightful place' in the light. At least, that's what they claimed. The humans pushed back, frightened and angered by the attacks. The two continued to fight senselessly for another two years until Lilith went into hiding. And then, eventually an agreement was made between both sides and a resolution passed at the United Nations, instating HOSCA. The Human and Other Species Control Act. The Monsters, or Others, as they were now referred to as, had forged a home in the void of reality, bending both time and space. It was entirely too complex for my thirteen year-old brain to comprehend but I liked to think of it as an alternate dimension.

"We must always learn from our past, Phe. Whether we like it or not, the past will always influence our future." She turned back to her pot and neither of us spoke for the rest of the night.

——————-

The transfer buses were equipped with state of the art artillery, bulletproof windows and a siren that vaguely resembled a banshee's scream. The walls were made of steel, as were the benches and the floor beneath our shackled feet. My cuffed wrists were bruised and bloody from my countless attempts to break free. There were twenty-four of us packed into the chamber, twelve one side and twelve on the other.

"You're going to break your hand if you keep doing that," said the girl who sat across from me.

She watched as I struggled against the restraints. Her black hair was chopped short, as if she had done it herself with a pair of kitchen shears and the fringe of her bangs were colored 'traffic cone orange'. She didn't look very... clean. Like a gutter rat who just escaped from the sewers, her leather jacket was caked in mud and practically unraveling at the seams.

"I need to get out of here," The chains jangled as I pulled at the cuffs.

"And go where?" She sneered.

"Listen! I'm not one of you, I can't do this." Twenty-three pairs of eyes turned and stared at me. Even the girl who had been sobbing in the back took a break from her pity party to look at me.

The girl who sat across from me curled her lip, "One of you? What's that supposed to mean?"

I bit the inside of my cheek.

"It doesn't matter who you are or who you think you are, as long as you have the 'Other' gene you're one of us. You don't get a choice."

Her words managed to make to make a crack in my armor of denial.

"No one in this truck deserves this fate but it's happening and you're only going to make it worse for yourself by pretending like it's not," She slumped against the metal wall and stared up at the ceiling.

Her face twisted as she saw her reflection in the polished steel but she didn't look away. I couldn't empathize with her because I knew she could survive this mess. There was a fire that burned within her eyes- people don't just wake up with that kind of hell within them. She had probably gone through a lot more than I could imagine. If she had survived all of that, she could survive whatever came next.

The same could not be said for me.

My life wasn't perfect. Far from it. But I had everything I ever needed and plenty of opportunities to get what I wanted. I never woke up wondering whether I could eat or where I would sleep. Nor did I ever worry about clothing or school. Those were guaranteed.

"You should probably listen to her," the boy beside me said.

He wore a baggy shirt that reached his knees and even baggier pants. His skin was dark, not tan like the girl who sat across from me, but a deeper, richer pigmentation. His hair was several shades darker- almost black in the dimmed light and it was cut so short, his natural curls were all but invisible.

"My cousin had the gene too. I visited him twice. He looked worse each time." The boy's shoulders grew heavy with the weight of the memory. "They're going to put us through hell. It doesn't matter what you believe, you can't run, you can't reason with them. You have to be able to fight in order to survive."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. That was another thing that was once a guarantee for me- the right to live.

Nobody ever returned from the OSCF. It just didn't happen. The centers appeared suddenly, spreading throughout the country like weeds in a garden. Miles of barbed wire surrounded several, white buildings. In each corner, a watchtower made of steel jutted from the ground and loomed over the prison. The government refused to call the OSCF a 'prison', they preferred to call it a Youth Camp but everyone knew it was a prison. The only difference between the OSCF and a prison, was that prisons got TV and basketball.

"They're going to kill us." One way or another every person in the back of that truck was damned. Either they killed us at the center or we would be sent to whatever Hellhole the Others dwelled in and die. The former, I thought, sounded more appealing.

"They're going to try," The boy agreed.

He didn't seem the least bit worried, I noticed. His head was held high in the air, defiantly. He too, I realized, would survive. Not because he had suffered like the girl in front of me but simply because he wanted to.

"What's your name," I asked him.

He offered me a crooked smile, "Does it really matter?"

It had yet to occur to me that when we reached the OSCF I would never see these kids again. Not the wailing banshee in the corner, the gutter-rat girl or the boy with the kind eyes . Later, I told myself that they all survived but statistically speaking, I knew that wasn't possible.

There was a one in one-tenth chance that a teenager could possess the gene and only one third of those kids survived the Aptitude Trials.

**Hi Guys! I just wanted to let you all know that this book will be updated every 2-3 days. This is a bit of slow-burn book but I promise that it does pick up. I didn't really want to throw you guys into the deep-side of the pool without getting your toes wet first. It's important to pay attention to the italicized anecdotes because they contain really crucial details to the development of this world or to the character of Ophelia. This story is a "Coming of Age" story or a "Survivor's" story so it's important to keep in mind that the character you are becoming acquainted with now, in these first few chapters, will seem completely different by the end of the book. Personally, I love these kinds of stories because once you finish the book, you have the chance to re-read and look fondly upon moments that you previously felt the character was being annoying or too naive. I hope you guys are enjoying the story so far and I will see you guys in the next chapter at Garrenbuck.

XOXO,

Ro**