The Angel Track

Chapter One - Battle Sight Zeroing

So the first 5 chapters were written when I was 14, so not some of my best stuff but I'm working on it, the later chapters are better in my opinion. Point is, bare with me.

Chapter One - Battle Sight Zeroing

   Arianne eyed the huge rat scurrying across the floor with disgust and reached for her trusted gun. Momentarily loving the familiar feel of it in her hand, Ari lined up her sights. The trick was to aim where it would be and not where it was at that moment.

   As she pulled back the trigger, she trapped her conscience in a sealed compartment of her mind and let the soldier come out and play. A split second later the bullet was cleanly slicing through the air. Ari squeezed her eyes shut but she still heard the dull impact of the bullet colliding with the rat.

    Trying to forget the barely audible squeak that escaped the rat as pain shook its body, she placed her gun on the table. Better it die quickly than the other way she could kill she thought to herself. The magic, the power, the mutation or whatever you wanted to call it, was both cruel as it was magnificent, it could torture and it could heal but more importantly it could start earth shattering wars. She was a Valen.

    The door to the dingy shack in which Ari temporarily lived burst open, a freezing chill forced its way in and rudely fractured her daydream. Without a second's hesitation, Ari snatched up her gun and pointed it at the intruder, her index finger delicately poised on the trigger.

   "Every time Ari, really? One day you're going to accidently shoot me and then what would you do?" Sam inquired as he raised his thin arms in a gesture of surrender.

   Ari lowered her gun and smiled apologetically at her little brother "Hey, wasn't your boy scouts motto 'Always be prepared'?" she asked. However, Sam wasn't listening he was too busy wiping his shoe on the carpet, apparently, his foot had found the rat smeared like jam on the floor.

   "Do you have to do that inside the house? And by house I mean filth ridden hellhole but still it's disgusting," Sam said. 

   He looked up at her, pushing golden strands of hair out of his dark brown eyes, his straight nose was scrunched up with revulsion and the thin grimace he wore dragged down the rest of his features. Ari was once again reminded how dissimilar they looked but then again, she thought to herself, they were only half related.

   She snorted "It's not my fault they keep gnawing through our food. Which reminds me you up for hunting tomorrow?"

   By way of reply Sam's mouth tilted up into a crooked grin as he pushed past her and murmured "Night sis." He disappeared into his room slamming his door shut but Ari caught something that sounded suspiciously like 'you crazy rat killer'.

   Ari sighed, from anyone else she wouldn't have taken it but Sam was the only person she didn't have to wear a thick, impenetrable mask around. Habitually, she made her way to the boarded up windows and peeped through the gap looking into the night. Nothing but pressing darkness met her unrelenting stare.

   At the door she raised her hands high to drag the rock like bolts into place. Her sleeves fell past her wrists, uncovering the strange markings sunk into her skin like cyan ink.  Seeing nothing else to fuss over, Ari dragged her tired feet to her unappealing bed and shucked of her boots just before she collapsed onto the mattress.

   No matter how tired she was, she would never get an entire night of blissful sleep. The nightmares made sure to torment her till she pulled herself from her slumber, like a person drowning in a crushing sea. No, she thought bitterly, there was no sleep for someone with a scarred mind. Even after four years she could still see flames as the world burned, the image imprinted on her eyelids even when she shut them.