My name is Ashley Georgeson and I’m the eldest in a poor family of seven children and a blind mother. Our father died when I turned 9 – he was an innocent person killed off by the government in a riot he wasn’t even part of. Since that time I have taken over our business and worked to get our family by as hard as I could. Before father died, our family excelled in the hunting. We even had our own business – the meat that father got from the woods would be sold and we could buy more food. After he died I had to take over the job along with school. After a year, I left, for it was difficult to keep up both my studies and work – I did a poorer job, caught less animals, earned less money. Mother couldn’t work because she was blind and was not accepted anywhere, and my little brothers were too small to work.
A week from today I will be turning seventeen – the age of adulthood. From then on, I will be free to leave my household, marry, or join the military. Neither of them seems appropriate. I can’t leave my household for I’ve got eight mouths to take care of – I would have to be heartless to leave my brothers and Mother like that. I can’t marry either. It’s the same thing as the last one. Finally, I would never ever join the military of my own free will. They killed Father and they wrote it off as duty to save the government. Ha, as if.
I woke up earlier than usual, and couldn’t quite force myself to go to sleep for a few more precious hours. Sigh, why does life do this to me? Getting up, I brushed my short curly hair (which, I must admit, is a useless activity since it’s always gets tangled up anyway) and put on my normal clothes - dark denim jeans, sneakers, and a white shirt with a V-neck collar. Then I went down to the kitchen – a really small place where a table and eight chairs barely fit in, not counting the fridge and the stove. Reaching up into one of the on-wall cases, I took a small post-it note and wrote that I was out early. Then, shrugging on a light gray windbreaker and stuffing a revolver into the holster on the inside of my jacket, I walked out the dark little apartment I could barely afford. A grown male huntsman is one thing. A barely grown female is another. You see, in our time, a woman in nothing. I heard tales of the past when women could drive cars could work in the government…Not here, no. We’re small little bits of dust in a huge orbit – a girl is a girl no matter how smart, beautiful, and strong she is. We can’t earn as much as man can either. Heck, we can’t even have a position higher than Major in military, navy, and air forces.
Lowering my head, I jogged around an old, half-crumbled building and kept going at such a pace until I came to a clearing with one small booth in the middle of it. A grumpy old man Pete was sitting on his chair with three legs reading a newspaper from two years ago. Preparing myself for another tide of bad mouthing and curses flying my way, I rapped on the window of the booth. The old fart looked up and immediately scowled at me, his mouth forming an insult. Sigh. What did I do to deserve this again?
“Oi, Pete! How is ye doin’? Now, you know what I has come fer, we meet here every flippin’ day!” I smirked at the old fart-face and extended my hand, waiting mock-patiently for the ticket that allowed me to hunt. It’s kind of similar to a pass, so that if I met a cop I wouldn’t be ridden off into the jail for a day or two. Ugh.
“Hmph. I’ve seen you enough to want to puke every time I see you face woman. Every day comin’ and demandin’ a ticket. Not today lassie, not today. Go fly off and bother someone else.” He waved a hand at me and closed the window. Staring incredulously at him, I rapped again, harder this time.
“Ne, go away you naggin’ runt! I told ye I ain’t givin’ you a ticket, so I ain’t. Can’t allow you in, I’m under direct orders ‘rom Dirrins!” He slammed the window shut and turned away. Baring my teeth at him, I yelled “You expect me to believe that!? One thing is you insulting me, another is declining me rightful access to the forest! Curse you old man!” I slammed my fist onto the window to make myself clear and felt guilty about it the next moment. He’s an old man. And Dirrins ordered him face to face not to let myself in. Pete’s not the one to blame, no matter what kind of jerk he may be.
>half an hour later<
As I neared our apartment, I turned pale. Police cars crowded around our house along with ambulances and…military? Elbowing and pushing through the crowd, I came around to the front where I was met with guards. Some guy standing next to me grabbed my elbow and told me to stand back – I answered with a scathing remark. It wasn’t one of my best choices of words. He was about to push me for talking back to him like that when one of the guards noticed us. He mentioned to one of the other guards and they came over.
“What do you think you two are doing? This is a crime scene, not a circus,” the biggest one growled at us.
“That’s my apartment you’re crowding around and I demand an explanation on what happened!” I snapped back, frowning at the police officer.
“And you are?”
“Ashley Georgeson,” I grabbed him by the collar, hissing into his face, “and you better stop playing with me. What happened to my family?” He looked absolutely flabbergasted, but nevertheless, he turned around and mentioned me to follow him. We entered into my apartment and walked into the living room. He stopped and, as I stared blankly at his back, stepped aside so I could see. It was the most horrible thing I have ever seen. I felt sick to the stomach and my head spun, I felt like I was going to black out. Mother was lying on the floor with her neck bent awkwardly backward and a huge gaping hole in her forehead. Blood was spilling everywhere. Mathew was lying half on her half on the floor with a slit neck. Fred and Hugo were half propped against the wall with unseeing eyes looking through me – their arms were torn off. As I took the whole scene in, I noticed with relief that Jake, Oleg, Ben, and Roy weren’t in the room.
“Where are my other brothers?” My voice was hoarse with shock, and stress, and horror. I felt sluggish.
“They’re in the kitchen with the other police men.” I rushed off at once. I burst into the room only to see the police – the very same police, aiming their guns are Oleg and Roy. Jake and Ben were already dead. I froze in the hallway – everything moved slowly, one of the policemen turned towards me with a surprised face, and was about to open his mouth when everything went black.
>a minute later<
I woke up as if from a haze, my gaze blurry with Roy and Oleg standing in a corner, hugging each other and sobbing. Seeing that was like a slap in my face and I immediately looked around. Jack and Ben were still lying on the table with holes in their heads, but there was an addition to their dead bodies. The policeman that was about to shot Oleg was ripped open with horrified glassy eyes, another’s body was bend backward in a spine-breaking angle. A few more policemen were dead. For some reason I felt like even though they were killed while I was out cold, there was nothing for me to fear. I slowly turned back to my remaining brothers; they hugged each other tighter and tried to get closer to the wall.
“Roy? Oleg?” I took a step closer. Oleg shrieked and covered his face. Roy stood protectively in front of him. What in the world? They were afraid of me, their older sister? Something wasn’t right, and I felt like I was a danger to my own brothers. I heard a click of a revolver behind me.
“Put your hands behind your neck and turn around Ms. Georgeson.” I did so, slowly. Standing there was Dirrins himself, dressed in a dark crimson military uniform.
“Get down to your knees and don’t move.” I did so and when he took a step towards me, I felt a shock run through my body and I blacked out again.
>a week later<
I was sitting in a chair with a table dividing me and Dirrins sitting on the other side. He was sitting in a relaxed position, smoking a cigar and looking at me with his albino eyes. I was tense and my arms ached. A long sleeved gray dress was put onto me and the sleeves were then tied behind me. I wasn’t crazy. Were these fools mocking me?
“I shall explain your position, and you shall listen, Georgeson. You are a rare species born every thousand years. You are able to sense danger and you are able to kill creatures ten times stronger than your mortal body. You are an Eranst – a creature that protects the world, but one that can turn murderous if without control. A week ago, when you killed off those policemen, you realized long before any of us that they were demons. You exterminated them, but were also very close to killing your own brothers. I believe this was your first transformation. But you have to learn to control it, else we’ll kill you, then your brothers.”
“You will go through special training and you will only live for the government and with the government for the next millennia. You will never see your brothers again, and your name will be changed. You will also be promoted to Colonel from here on. Is that clear?”
This was not something I wished to hear. I hate the government, they killed off my father and they refused to help my family when I asked for help numerous times. Not only had they ruined the chance of me ever become educated, but now they also made me their slave! I don’t want this, I never wanted this, and yet I always knew in my heart that my father was right – I am going to serve the government and I will live my whole life for this job only.
Author's Note: I'm sorry this is so late, and I don's really know if this fits under the criteria, but this is the one-shot for the August one-shot contest. - DraculaFan