Chapter 1: [I’m not sure how to feel about this…]

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Life is like a spark, bright and beautiful but gone in less than a second…

Quite a sad way to start huh?

Well guess who’s dying… Yep! Me!

And no I did not get hit by a truck

But I am surrounded by smoke…

…Smoke and human debris.

I can’t feel anything from the waist down and my right arm feels like its on fire… oh wait, it is.

I’m going to die now. I’m experienced enough to know there’s no saving me.

I just wish it wasn’t so painful…

Oh? It seems someone up there heard me for once, I’m going numb.

Unsurprisingly I’m not that sad. There is not much left for me in this miserable life of mine anyway.

Well I do hope that some of my mercenary buddies survived the blast and I do feel a slight regret at not drinking more with them.

Plus there’s my little bro, well he’s not really blood related but he was going to marry my little sister and we grew up together so it doesn’t really matter does it?

I’m not sure what he’s going to do without me… now he’ll be all alone…

???: ******!!

‘Hmm? Someone’s calling my name’

A shadow interrupts my clear view of the sky.

???: ******!!

Hehe, speak of the devil.

I smile slightly recognising the shadow. It’s my little sisters’ fiancé.

Or was my little sisters fiancé, she’s dead now, along with our parents.

Remember I said he would be all alone when I died.

~~~~~

Ours and his family have known each other for ages. Apparently our mums were at the same orphanage and went to the same school and university, where they met our future dads (who were also orphans).

Both mine and his father’s proposed on the day they graduated and they eventually bought houses next to each other.

I was the first born of the Chuha family (Mum looks Indian/Arabian but skin colour is much lighter than the usual and Dad is half Indian, Half English)

Two years later, our next door neighbours gave birth to the stupid blurry shadow named Aron.

Who is currently trying to move the debris crushing my legs.

‘I’m a dead man breathing you big cry-baby’

Anyway…

A year after he was born we found out my mum was pregnant and soon after she gave birth to a beautiful little girl named Ayne.

We had a nice upbringing together. I was the eldest so appointed myself the leader and big brother of the group, Aron was the cry-baby prankster and Ayne was the Little sister we both doted on dearly.

We all grew up leaning martial arts from my dad and Aron’s father who jointly ran a Mixed Martial Arts dojo.

We went to the same schools where Ayne the brain box got moved up a year and Aron got into trouble for beating up all the guys who tried to make a move on Ayne.

I went to a different University but Aron and Ayne went to the same.

However I did watch as Aron confessed his feeling to Ayne on their graduation, and proposes just as our parents did. I watched as Ayne said yes with tears in her eyes.

I watched when they told our parents and listed to them already thinking up baby names.

I was to be Arons best man at the wedding and was supposed to give a big speech.

It was perfect. I was happy.

But that’s where everything started to go bad.

My parents were amongst the first to die to the Andeli.

The Andeli; white 6ft tall humanoids devoid of any features, cloths or gender.

The faceless monstrosities came from meteorites, wielding weird glowing long-swords and shields.

They first landing was just off the coast of Croatia where my parents were on holiday.

They came ashore and started to kill everything in sight, including my parents.

It took three days to kill the five Andeli, yes five, Andeli that landed.

Not only were Andeli were pretty much immune to bullets shots from anything less than a sniper rifle at point blank, but they also had super human strength and speed. As well resistance to both hot, cold and poison.

They could not die to blood loss as they did not bleed, plus they could regenerate anything from scratches to lost arms or even crushed hearts. The only way to kill them was to blow of their head with something hard and fast.

It took two heavy Artillery strikes to take out the first two; the third one’s head was blown off by an anti-tank sniper rifle five meters away. Number four and five both fell to a tank squadron.

The death count in those three days was higher than the total number of deaths the entire country suffered in a normal year!

By the way, Andeli means Angel in Croatian.

Fucking bullshit.

After, I and Ayne now orphans, started living with Aron’s family. The wedding was cancelled of course, and replaced with a funeral and worldwide mourning. Of course it was accompanied by worldwide panic.

It was just two months after that Ayne and Aron’s parents died.

Aron’s parents decided to take Ayne out for a walk to try and cheer her up whilst Aron took me to the park.

It was in the shopping centre that Ayne saw the Andeli Cultists. A nutcase preaching that the Andeli was sent by God to kill all sinners and that those who died deserved too.

Needless to say, Ayne and Arons parents beat him shitless.

However a week later the same nutcase and his fellow cultists jumped Ayne and Arons parents, who were out on another walk, and stabbed all of them with poisoned blades. All three died in the ambulance.

Even now, just thinking of it my trigger finger itches.

The only solace I find in that incident was that Aron’s dad snapped all their necks before collapsing.

Now homeless, without family and chased by a load of cultist assassins’ hell bent on revenge against us ‘sinners’ . We both fell into the pits of despair, and made no move of trying to get out of it… that’s just how much the death of our remaining family hit us.

The only thing that kept us going was hatred for the Andeli and the stubbornness not to fall the stupid cultists.

In the end it was partly thanks to the twats trying to kill us that we found our new purpose. Thanks to them never giving us the chance of thinking of suicide we found it.

We found something we would strive for till our last breath… I and Aron worked for the only thing we could think off.

Revenge

~~~~~

In the few months after my parents died there had been six more Andeli appearances and thousands more deaths.

With the arrival of the Andeli there came a need for new fighting forces, people who readily threw themselves at the jaws of death; I.e. the Andeli.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It would take too long to fight our way up the ranks in the army so we paid for a crash course in military skills and applied for one of the many new mercenary groups.

In just three months we were off with our mercenary group, the Black Rats, killing the Kerubi; weaker 5ft versions of the Andeli, they wielded short swords or bows and arrows. Unlike the Andeli who only came five at a time these came in groups of seven per meteorite, and the meteorites came seventy at a time, In other words 790 per landing.

One of the worst incidents from the Kerubi was when they landed right on top of downtown New-York. The death count was the worst yet.

Also the Kerubi landings were much less rare than the Andeli, landing at least once every four weeks whereas the Andeli only landed every two month or so.

By the way, Kerubi means Cherub in Croatian. I swear, I want to kill who ever came up with these stupid religious names.

A year passes with us in the BR group (Black Rat group). There had been a few advances in the way we fought he Alien bastards.

The biggest difference was the reintroduction of swordplay and knife techniques.

Scientists researched the invaders weapons and discovered a whole new element and tones of new compounds.

The good news for us was that concentrated versions of this new element were extremely effective against the Andeli and Kerubi. It poisoned them rendering their regeneration useless and making them much slower.

However the metal was just too costly to give as mere bullets so it was forged into all kinds of swords.

The new element was normally white in colour and grey when concentrated. It had no known melting temperature and was named ‘Bane’.

I chose whatever sword was cheapest at the time and that usually ended up as a Roman Gladius Bane sword, I also kept a minimum of four throwing knifes.

The second biggest difference was the invention of Bane Pills

As you might have guessed, Bane Pills were pills mainly made of Bane that we(Humans) could ingest.

The result of taking one Bane Pill was super human strength and speed on par with the Kerubi for around an hour. Of course there were side effects, mainly extreme fatigue, diarrhoea and impotency (lol).

But it was worth it, the Bane Pills allowed us to swing our new swords with effective strength against our invaders.

Now you would think that with all these improvements it would be quite easy. And it was for a while. But then they started to come quicker, and seemingly start to land closer to populated areas… you can imagine the destruction and panic.

Moral was at an all time low. Soldiers who were fighting away to protect their families come home to find them dead anyway.

Riots were as numerous as the stars in the sky and new cults were as numerous as the fish in the sea.

Thus the world powers finally decided it was time to start emptying their own pockets created the ‘Bounty System’ and the ‘Guilds’ where you would turn in the bounties.

It stated thus

A relatively intact dead Kerubi body would earn £200

A damaged Kerubi body would earn £50 - £150

A living and restrained Kerubi would earn £1000

A relatively intact Kerubi sword or bow would earn £70

A damaged Kerubi sword or bow would earn £40 - £60

There weren’t any rewards for an Andeli weapon or body because they were all handled by the national army.

Anyway…

~~~~~

Time passed and I somehow survived to the age of 37.The previous head died I was his named successor with Aron as my second.

Under my command we rose to new heights and grew to be one of the best Merc groups in the world.

The government of whatever country we were in would pay us to go clean up the ‘infestations’ that they just didn’t have the man power to deal with, and we sold all our spoils to the ‘Guilds’ for even more money.

Our current job is in Croatia, where my parents died, where it all started and one of the most dangerous places on earth.

We got a request to clean up a beach where a load of Kerubi were camping

But before we left the Prime-Minister wanted to throw us a party. Where he got the food to throw a party when people are starving on his streets, I have no idea.

Frankly I found his behaviour disgusting, it was quite clear he was trying to suck up to us in hope of getting on our good side.

Actually it wasn’t just me, we all found him disgusting. So we decided to steal his food… right in front of him.

You know when mum goes to weddings or something like that and there’s a buffet, they will definitely stuff as much as possible into the tubs they prepared beforehand, and then tell you to get a plate of food and say it’s for you little sister or something. Plus! When they are getting things to stuff into their tubs, they will get you to go up and down to get the food because ‘It’s embarrassing for me to go get seconds’ or ‘It’s okay because you’re a child’. OR it it just me! NO it is defiantly not just me! There must me some people out there who share my pain!!!

… … … well I sorta went off on my own a bit there but I think you know what I mean… or it just me?

Anyways, that was what we were going to do. We named it: Operation Sticky Hands.

The plan was going well; he was getting seriously pissed as my subordinates blatantly stuffed their bags with food, I was seriously trying not to laugh at how the fat Prime-Minister looked constipated and Aron was ordering everyone to stuff their bags quicker… yeah it was hard to keep a straight face at that…

When suddenly… *BOOM*

And that brings us back to the present.

~~~~~

(Aron): ******** ****!!

Ow, ow, OW!

Jeeze that hurts…

Aron is currently kneeling by my side lightly hitting my chest whilst crying his eyes out. Normally the hit wouldn’t even tickle but when you got a crushed everything even a flying pebble would sting.

(Multiple ???s): ********!

A few more shadows invade my view

Oh? It seems some of the others are okay… well one doesn’t have an arm anymore and they are all exhibiting signs of broken ribs but I think I have the right to decide what defines ‘okay’ right now.

… fucking! How long does it take for a man to die god da- Oh, never mind its starting.

You really do start to get to some light… I heard it from some of the others who ‘died’ for a few seconds before getting resuscitated or whatever but I never actually believed it.

Ah well looks like you will be the last to go Aron… live lon- *BANG*

… … … Eh?

…Eh?… no really; What?!

…he just shot himself…

I’m not sure how I should feel about this…

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