ID +0 Days

Tala learned to count days differently - and, she did not care if she was the only one in the whole wide world to do it so.

There were days before Integration, the day of Integration, or her ID day, and each day after.

Her whole life changed back then, in an instance, on that late January morning. That day… that day that was supposed to be something completely different, supposed to be the most important day in her life. At least that’s what she thought at the time probably because she was repeatedly told to think so.

And she was preparing for this special day for as long as she could remember, working and studying so very hard, sacrificing so very much.

It was the day of taking her college entrance exams. The event that was supposed to allow her to enter the promising school from which she could later advance to one of the very promising careers, earning her name under the sun.

Failure was not an option. She could not afford to wait another year, to go back to taking more prep classes, to juggle her parents, work, and study.

But then, things happened and what she thought of being the most important was revealed to carry no significance whatsoever. And that ‘special’ day became special for all sorts of other reasons.

The morning started very promising, as good as she could wish for. A good hardy breakfast with bacon and a truckload of cream cheese on a lightly toasted half-slices of bagel. Two-egg omelet with a pinch of black pepper and a teaspoon of green onions. And a tall glass of orange juice over ice cubes to wash it all down. Could not be better. The breakfast for kings, she called it. And to share it with her 3-years younger little brother? It could really not get better.

So, they smiled and giggled as they enjoyed every bite of it. Her parents were sound sleeping, and it was better that way. And the butterflies in her stomach had all but vanished.

Her brother told her not to worry about dishes and cleaning up, told her he’d take care of them all, so their parents who probably would be with a nasty hangover and fast to agitate once they got up would not have a reason to get nasty at them. Not that they needed any reason.

“Just go, sis, please, just go. Be there a bit early,” he whispered to her as he practically pushed her outside the apartment, “I’ll take care of it all. Don’t worry. My school bus is still more than thirty minutes away.”

“Okay, Chitto,” she said, suddenly remembering the pre-test jitters and a butterfly that suddenly appeared in her stomach again. She hugged him hard, taking deep breaths, trying not to panic. “Let me just do these exams and I’ll make it up to you.”

“Tala, don’t worry about a thing. I know you can do it. I know you will do great! Just kick ass and take no prisoners. Please. You owe that to yourself.”

Outside, the sun decided to show its meek face. But the air was chilly and as it filled her nostrils, she shivered, feeling not so sure about herself anymore. Yet she smiled and waved her brother goodbye. No reason to make him anxious as well.

She walked swiftly down her street to the main road and headed to the closest bus station, checking the time to see that she still had a few minutes before her bus would come.

“I can do this, I can so do this, for me and for you, little brother,” she muttered to herself, cheering herself up and suddenly having a strange and warm premonition that everything was going to be just fine.

But then, an unmarked tall, dark van passed her by, suddenly lost control, and slammed into a biker that was riding on its shoulder, causing the biker to fly over the sidewalks, flip over in the air, and disappear somewhere in the park, behind the low growth.

She could have pretended that she did not see anything. Could have just crossed the street and moved to the bus stop as her ride was only three minutes away. But… she did not.

It was a horrible accident and she decided to stop and see if she could help the guy, moving off the sidewalk and entering the park.

“What a freaky accident,” she muttered to herself.

Except it was not an accident.

She knew it when she saw four guys jump out of the van and run toward where the man disappeared, running through the plant fence, long strange sticks in their hands.

“What the hell?” she asked herself and activated her phone to call police.

She instinctively stepped behind the closest tree and watched as four of them approached the fallen man.

Then, she realized they were not the only ones. There were half a dozen men in suites already in the park, their hands holding funny-looking short rifles.

“What the hell is going on?” she said, leaning against the tree even though none of them seemed to pay her any attention.

Falling off the bike that was going forty miles per hour to crash against a tree trunk should have knocked the guy out. But it seemed that did not do the trick, as the guy jumped up, getting hold of the closest man’s hand and just using his whole body as a lever, he threw the man into the body of the other one.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The next second he rolled over the ground and closed the distance to the other two men, moving out of the way of the stick that sizzled with electrical current on one side, landing a punch into his chin powerful enough to lift the guy off the ground, then flipping over the air out of the fourth man’s advance but not before kicking him so hard with the heel of his boot that T. Was certain she saw teeth fly out of the black-suited man’s mouth.

As he knocked those four people down, the men with rifles started to fire at him. But it was not normal bullets. It was a bunch of small darts. A swamp of darts. He tried to do the best he could to dodge them, rolling over the floor, picking a blade from somewhere, and throwing the blade that that hit the closest man with a rifle in the throat.

Two dots landed on the man’s chest, but it seemed not to slow him down at all. He moved so fast that Tala was not sure if she was seeing it right.

Then an explosion happened out of nowhere, and the man’s body was lifted off the ground and slammed against the tree trunk again.

Tala looked around and saw a drone firing another missile at the man. Another explosion, even closer to her, sent the heat and splinters all around and she had only an instant to cover her face with her hands, protecting herself.

When she opened her eyes a second later, she was lying on the ground and picked two splinters out of the palm of her right hand.

Getting up to her knees, she raised her head and saw the man do something that was physically impossible.

He ran toward the drone that had just turned around and was scanning the area, rising up from the ground, jumping up like he could swim through the air, more than five, six meters in the air, above treetops, grabbing the drone with his hands. Without control, the drone spun out and crash-landed together with the man right next to Tala's feet.

She had a second finally to take a good look at him. White Caucasian, wide shoulders, lean and long face, cleanly shaved with very bright eyes.

He saw her too. His chest rose fast, taking in all the oxygen he could get.

“Help me,” the man uttered, still lying in a very unnatural position, his legs so twisted they had to be broken. He straightened them and started to crawl, his left hand extending trying to reach a small five-inch big black pod that was lying a step away from Tala's shoes.

She picked it up without thinking and walked two steps to place it next to his hand.

“Thank you,” he said, pressed the pod to open it, and picked a small injection from it, drilling it the next second into his neck. Then he took out a strange stone medallion out of it and played it across his fingers, suddenly looking at her, studying her, as if he was seeing her for the very first time.

“You look familiar,” he said his eyes squinting as he tried to see her better.

“Yeah, to you foreigners, we probably all look alike.”

He actually chuckled, but just for a second. Then he took another small syringe and injected it straight into his neck. A moment later, she saw him pull his body up as if it was not all broken up.

“What the hell was that?” she asked all stunned. “Drugs? I want some of those. That made you super strong and fast, huh?”

The man seemed to have felt good enough to chuckle.

“You a freaking superhero?” she asked again.

He chuckled again. “No. I ain’t no superhero. More like a killer.”

She looked at him confused. “What?”

“Just killed a guy,” he said nodding in the direction of the men that lay scattered around. “Should not have done that.”

“But… You had no choice.”

"There's always a choice.

In a quick glance, Tana saw quite a few of them not moving, some had broken limbs, and only one was lying down in a pool of blood, with a blade still stuck in his throat.

“I’m calling the police, and ambulance, mister!” she said with her cell phone already in her hands, cursing herself for not already taking it out and recording the dark van that hit the guy.

“No time. They will come back in bigger numbers now. Five minutes max.”

“But… you need help…”

“Thank you, but you already helped me. You are so mostly kind. So small, so… innocent… so, fragile”

“Dude, if you only knew me better, you would never say that.”

“It is too late for me now. My time here is over.”

“What?”

“I… am sort of glad. To in my last moment here, I have met someone like you… That my last memory will be of you.”

“What…?” she asked, not understanding why someone who looked like as if he was dying could be so calm, even smiling.

“Might be too late for this world, but… you, you have to go on and fight. Do you understand?”

He took his glove off, revealing what… should have been a hand. Yet… it did not quite look normal. For one, there were only three fingers on it, and they looked more like… complete animal-like. Twice as long as her fingers, twice as thick.

He extended that hand to her, even moved his body toward her. Instinctively, she put up hers, not even noticing the cuts there.

How he could raise his body up to do that was not completely clear to her. But she did not jerk back. There was no malice in it. Just a guy with an alien-looking hand who was a breath away from dying obviously wanting to hold someone’s hand.

She did not know why, but she accepted it. It felt warm, made her skin tingle, yet she did not move away, did not pull back. Just stood there mesmerized.

Maybe because of all the fun they made of her scars. Maybe that made her think of this creature here with some empathy.

“Yes, this is why I fight,” he said with warmth and calm inside his voice.

“Man, you need some serious medical attention,” she said, grabbing her phone again.

But his hand reached out and grabbed her again before she could dial anyone. “Thank you,” he said in the gentlest voice she ever heard.

“Thank you for this wonderful meeting in the end.”

“Okay,” was all that came to her lips, realizing what she was watching. “You’re dying, aren’t you?”

He sighed, even smiled, “No, thanks to you, I’m not,” he whispered out, and then for an instant, she blinked and saw him… suddenly changed.

His eyes suddenly were twice its size and dark as charcoal, yet, there was a light in them. His face became thin, skin to the bone.

But his voice was the same. “I have to go now. And you, you better run. Don’t let them get you.”

He said something that she could not understand. It sounded as if he was lapping his tongue against his upper lip. Strange. And alien.

Then she heard the human voices coming from behind the trees, and she realized the fog that had circled them had vanished, and there were a whole bunch of people in the black wandering around.

“There is no way anyone could live through that. But if you want proof,” she heard the voice behind her, and with dread she turned around to find a tall man dressed in black, talking on the phone, looking at her. “Shit… We have an infected,” he said and raised the phone to take a photo of her.

“Run now, girl!” the dying man said, and then the brightest light flashed in front of her, blinding her, and when she opened her eyes, the strange dying man was there no more.

And then she ran.