Dad is weird today: it seems like he's trying to avoid me, and I don't understand why. Yesterday I helped Mom with the gardening, listened to him and socialized with the neighbors. I also went to the market with him so he could teach me a few things about money and stuff. I even took a few minutes to play dolls with Mia!

I did everything he expected me to do, but he's still not satisfied. Maybe something happened between him and Mom, but I've never heard them argue, unlike many of our neighbors. I also don't remember seeing a letter from the Academy or a bill from the mayor, so the situation is confusing.

His movements are stiff, his posture has changed, and Mom is nowhere to be found. She's always with us, so Dad's strangeness combined with her absence is suspicious.

I approach Dad and ask him if he needs help. It seems like he's surprised by my intervention, but he quickly regains his composure and looks at me:

- Thanks for asking, Nyr, but today just relax, and if you want, go play with your sister. She likes you.

I just nodded in his direction and went to my room where I sat down on my bed. It seemed like talking to him made some of his worries go away, but he is still different from the norm. After thinking for a few minutes, I got up and joined Mia, whose room is right next to mine, to play some games.

I played, or rather, I tried to guide her through some of the games she gets to play. Mineswaper, an old classic from the past era, and Tedris, another classic from the same time. There are a few other games, but to be honest, they aren't a good stimulus for my sister's growth.

For a 5-year-old, she did surprisingly well: Mia managed to complete one of the easiest levels of Tedris. I also tried to make her play Mineswaper, but she didn't like the idea of playing with bombs. We returned to Tedris, but after a few more rounds she looked at me and said:

- Brother, do you want to play with the dolls?

- Sure Mia, which one do you want?

She took a few seconds to think and then asked me:

- Can you take the bulky Dean, the tall Marica, and the little Brume?

- For sure, I can.

After searching in the closet for a few seconds, I found the three dolls she asked for, set up the hologram table, waited for my sister to sit next to me, and gave her the little doll with black hair.

She started the play with a simple motion, running her doll through the doorway of a small room inside the holographic house. Now it was my turn, and I let the taller doll walk out of the virtual house and told my sister that "she went for a walk outside". I then shook the bulkier doll and waited for her turn.

After a few seconds, Mia pulled the little doll towards the exit, but I stopped her and told her that it was too dangerous outside and that she shouldn't go. My siter then changed the trajectory of the doll towards the bigger one, and after a while, she opened her mouth:

- What's wrong, big brother Dean?

- Nothing special, little Brume, my new outfit just... doesn't fit.

- Oh, then what happened to big sister Marica?

- Also nothing of note, she is just taking a different route for her daily walk.

After this conversation, Mia frowned for a few seconds, and then said in a slightly darker tone:

- Did you fight with big sister?

- No, of course not! I would never do that to someone I love!

This time she took a while to think about what I said, and when she finished, Mia said the following:

- Is the new path dangerous?

- Probably.

And this is where our little game ends. She has clearly understood the meaning of our masquerade: I can still see her shaking slightly. I gently patted her on the shoulder and told her that everything would be okay. Then I left the room to give her the time she needs to digest the information.

Later that day, Dad, Mia, and I sat around the table with a disturbing amount of food waiting for us. I wasn't opposed to it, and Mia, of course, wanted to jump right into it, but we waited. We waited for our father, who was slowly muttering his prayers, to give us the signal, and when he did, all hell broke loose. We ate like never before, and we took care to show our Father how much we appreciated his gift. We showed him that his distraction worked and that we weren't thinking about Mom, his strange behavior, or anything else of the sort.

We acted like the good kids he expected us to be, and it worked. He was happy to see us innocently eating all the meat, vegetables, and mashed potatoes he had made for us. He was happy that we fell for his illusion and didn't see what he was trying to hide.

But don't kid yourself: I don't hate him for it. He doesn't want us to know about his past, the before us. He has something to hide, something he will never tell us.

Two years ago, his first mistake was to give my sister a tablet. He hadn't expected three-year-old Mia to be able to bypass the settings, much less to be able to sort through information and understand it. It wasn't his fault: Mia is good at hiding her skills, a prodigy at playing dumb, and efficient at erasing her navigation data. Flawless!

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

While she was gathering information on the tablet, I was on the field, looking for the information she couldn't get. Since Mia couldn't go outside because of her weak body and was also deaf, she needed me to gather information about our parents: their activities, their behavior, and the reason for their strange actions.

My first task was to create interactions between me and the neighbors so that my parents would let me go outside more often. The plan was quite simple: wait until Mom was in the backyard, walk to the next house, and knock a few times. That part of the plan was done: We just had to wait for the news of my existence to spread.

From then on, a few neighbors asked Mom if I could play outside with the other kids, but she was against it, so I took matters into my own hands.

I told my parents several times that I wanted to play outside because it was boring inside all day, and after a few weeks they finally let me play with the other kids. That was their second and last mistake because now we had all the means to understand our parents' behavior.

But how could I communicate with Mia without alerting our parents? Well, I have to say that the dolls were another of her brilliant ideas and that using a game to secretly give her the information she needed was an eye-opener.

Now two years have passed and the signs are showing. We know something is going to happen because we have been waiting for this time. We have tried everything to find out who is after us, but we have found nothing.

The only thing we can do now is wait for them to either tell us what's going on or for their pursuers to show up. It's not like we have a choice: We're just ordinary children.

And we weren't wrong. Later that day, Mom finally returned with a small box she had just dug out. She opened it and gave me a small pendant with a black stone in its center. Then she asked me to go with my sister for a while and closed the door so we couldn't hear what they were saying.

After a few minutes, my sister's expression became serious: I typed on her tablet that I heard heavy footsteps from outside, the vibrations of possible explosions, and the sound of the barrier getting hit. I guess our enemy is stronger than expected...

We stayed in our rooms for three days, three days wondering about what was going on outside. Three days when we couldn't get a single piece of information. Three days in which our parents did nothing but feed us - until now.

I heard footsteps coming closer and closer to our door, until a woman, or more precisely Mom, entered with hurried footsteps, closed up, and hugged us. She then said in a shaky voice:

- Nyr, take care of Mia while Dad and I go see what's going on outside.

- Sure, Mom, I'll do my best to protect her.

She flinched at my words, then looked me in the eyes and smiled:

- We love you both, you know that, don't you?

- Yes, Mom, I know that both of you love us, isn't that why you lied to us? To hide us from the ones who are after you?

At my words, she teared up and said:

- Yes, you're right... we did it for that reason, but also because we wanted to stay with you as long as possible... we wanted to live a normal life, full of joy, longing, and beautiful memories, we wanted to be... like everyone else... or at least try to be.

She then paused for a few seconds and said the last words I'd ever hear from her:

- We've known that you guys were special for a while. We lied to ourselves and tried to pretend that everything was normal, that we were a normal family, with normal jobs, normal hobbies, and normal relationships... but our past had to catch up with us...

At that moment we heard the sound of glass shattering, and my mother quickly finished what she had to say:

- You probably know that I'm not going to tell you why we have such dangerous enemies. I hope both of you live a peaceful life, away from anything that could lock you from one... so please, take good care of your sister... and never forget that we both love you...

After her last words, I had no choice but to strengthen our embrace so that Mia could feel her mother's hug one last time. I wanted Mia to remember this moment because even if she can understand what we are saying, a hug has much more power than silent words.

Reluctantly, Mom finally broke away from our embrace and, after looking at us one last time, ran out of the room, locked it, and left the house. We then, as she said, did nothing. We just waited. We waited for the screams outside to stop, for the weapons to cool down, and hoped that someone would help us.

And after a few hours, or maybe even days, we finally heard something from outside. Hasty footsteps went around the house, but I wasn't afraid: from what I'd heard, our enemies weren't human. So I simply signaled to Mia that she would soon be able to go rest.

Shortly after, the door to our room opened, and the first thing I saw was the barrel of a plasma rifle pointed at my head. The soldier looked scared after what had happened outside, and he was so anxious that we could feel the stress seeping out of his body. But fortunately, not a second after the door opened, a hand slowly landed on the soldier's shoulder, and his tense shoulders slowly sank down. At the same time, a soldier wearing advanced magical armor slowly entered the room and said in a calm and gentle voice:

- Ilea, or Soldier 17, you shouldn't point your gun at children like that.

- Sorry Moni... I m-mean, squad leader...

- No problem soldier, just don't repeat the same mistakes.

After correcting her soldier, the squad leader said into her radio with a smile on her lips:

- We found two survivors... two children in the first sector, are you done with the captain?

After a few seconds, a voice answered, but I couldn't hear what they were saying, and after a while, they took us and headed towards the square. On the way there, I took my time to look around, and the only word that came to my mind was... Devastation. Everything, or almost everything, was dead, destroyed, impaled, burned, or crushed. Spines, brains, columns, plants, and memories. Everything was destroyed, and from what I saw, my parents are to blame, or more precisely, the demons that are after my parents.

But I don't criticize them. Like Mom said, they just wanted to live like normal people before getting found. They were probably tired of being hunted and wanted to feel happy before the end. Who could blame them? Honestly... probably most of the people who are dead or injured, or the owners of the place, or even me... but I won't do it. I won't because I honestly don't care.

Mom said that Mia and I are both special. My sister is really intelligent, more specifically, the greatest genius mankind has ever seen, but it is counter-balanced by her weak build and deafness. After all, thanks to her intelligence, she has managed to learn to lip-read at an age when most toddlers don't understand words, nullifying one of her birth defects.

My specialties are adaptability and a cool-headed nature, but for that, I've lost all feelings: love, hate, sadness... everything. Mom said that we're special, but I believe that everyone is born with something unique.

I learned that from talking and interacting with my neighbors. They may not have such strong specialties, but whether it's sociability, strength, speed, precision, intelligence, will, or charisma, they all have something that sets them apart from others. But even then, they're still called normal. Mom kept saying we are abnormal, but when I look at everything that has happened, I rather think that we were simply born that way.

After all, special people died alongside all those normal people.