Vote to Support!
Six Fifty-Five am. Sean sat in his normal seat, third from the front in the aisle furthest from the door. He had the dark blue jeans Mistress picked out for him along with a loose fitting custom t-shirt. On the back of the shirt was one line in red letters ‘See me?’ The classroom was empty but the hall outside was crowded. Class started at seven yet no one was willing to go inside, not even the teacher or staff. Something terrible happened yesterday to the exact person in that room. He was caught on camera, bleeding out with his girlfriend Lilly bending over him. It was all over the news.
Sean sat oblivious to everything outside in the quite room behind him. His body didn’t move as he continued to stare forward, still. The door opened—a blast of noise penetrated the crack before it shut once more. Sean didn’t even twitch. Swift shuffling moved across the room until something clunked into a desk in the next row just behind him. A bag crashed into the floor. Everything went quite again. The crowd outside watched.
“What happened to you?” A male voice broke the silence. A single brave person had entered the room, maybe to prove nothing was wrong or maybe on a dare.
Sean turned around his black eyes connected with the brown opposites—sucking them in. Blond hair—green t-shirt, blue shorts, freckles, Sean didn’t know his name but has seen him around the school before. “I don’t know,” he responded plainly.
“School was canceled when you… vanished… lockdown. Then that video of you and your girlfriend showed up on the news. You have got to know something.” The blond haired boy continued.
“No, I was here—then I was in a hotel, watching that clip. Then I’m here, sitting, waiting for something.” Sean’s voice was flat, slow and distant, as if his body was in the room but his mind wasn’t.
“What happened there?” The boy asked pointing at Sean’s neck.
“I don’t know.” Sean made no move for the white bandage on his neck.
“Take it off.” The boy wanted to see what was underneath, if the video was real or not.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I was told not to,” Sean said, monotone and uninterested, his head going back to the front of the room.
The boy reached for the bandage himself. Sean made no move against him. Some commotion erupted outside, several armed men in dark green cameo, red berets, and American flags sewed over their shoulders pushed to the front and broke the crowd up shoving it away from the building. He pulled the bandage off as at least ten guns locked onto Sean through the window. Neither of the boys noticed.
Blood, the bandage was covered in it, soaked. Past the blood were four tightly sewed deep gashes. The rush job on the fix was obvious and the deep wounds dug far into his neck. They were still soft, fresh. They looked like they had not healed at all. It was gruesome. The boy jumped a bit in his chair but tried to keep his cool, “Does it hurt?”
“I was told not to feel it.”
“Will it heal?”
“I was told slowly.”
“Was it a vampire?”
“No.” The boy stopped his questioning. The door to the room opened slowly and shut without a sound. Sean heard it but paid no attention, “It was something so much worse.” Sean pressed his hands against the desk. His knuckles went white with the pressure. He vanished leaving black smoke. The guns rotated in a hundred directions trying to find him again. He appeared behind the man trying to sneak into the room just long enough to touch him and jump, this time bringing the man with him.
Outside. He ended up outside in the sun, in the grass behind all the soldiers. He shoved the man forward and the man stumbled, his beret fell onto the grass as he crashed down on top of it. The man forced his body into a tight huddle and squeezed his hands over his head in pain. The brain freeze.
Sin jumped again, in front of the classroom, in front of the guns. His attitude had changed in a second, he was no longer confused. He suddenly knew his goal—to taunt until his beloved Mistress showed up. He opened his mouth in a dark smile shinning his white teeth. The berets looked for fangs, but he had none, they didn’t know what they were fighting against.
Sin stood still with guns locked on him and continued his observant smile. He slowly glanced down the hall and turned his head 180 degrees to the other side. Twelve of them, sixteen police, he also caught a glimpse of several cop cars on the distant road. More coming, he was a threat.
The well-aimed guns followed Sin with skill, ready for anything. He shifted his hand up and pointed at one of the guards near the middle, “You,” the black hell he had for eyes drilled upon the poor man. Sin didn’t blink, he didn’t move, the man started to scoot back. The man’s breathing increased, his heart started pounding. He forced his face away from Sin’s eyes and looked at the ground for some relief. Whatever was attacking him kept at it. The feeling of fear and pain crashed into his body as Sin’s frozen eyes pounded down on him.
The man screamed. A gun fired. Sin’s concentration broke and the man let out a gasp while trying to swing his body back up into an offensive stance. He couldn’t. Sin moved his hands with similar speeds as his Mistress when she was sewing—the bullet flung past him. His rapid dodge of the bullet forced it into a slight curve. It sped past him and cracked through the window on a direct route to the freckled boy. Sin jumped and appeared inches in front of the boy. With a single rapid gesture he ran his fingers out and caught the bullet in midair. It was less than six inches from the frightened boy. Sin waited for the smoke around him to clear and dropped the halted round. As the bullet clicked on the ground Sin jumped back outside to his original spot. He didn’t speak a single word as the stare off continued.
But this time something was behind Sin. A gloved hand with a long black sleeve reached out from behind him and wrapped around his chest. He didn’t move. The smoke around the pair faded. The hand stretched within the glove as if experimenting with it then pushed up against his chest as a head peaked out from behind him. She was the other one from the clip that hit the news a few days ago, the murderer. She also fit the description of several 9-1-1 calls last night before. She was dangerous.
The girl glanced past several guns to a woman followed by a man wielding an oversized camera. The reporter was marching closer to the circle, the camera on.
She pulled her arm off Sin and with three steps moved herself in front of him. She had black denim jeans and a thin black jacket—the jacket had a hood she didn’t have on and sleeves that were noticeably longer than her own arms. The hand she didn’t have wrapped around Sin wielded a single black top hat—its brim exactly four inches wide and in complete unison around the entire hat. The hat had a slight gleam to it as the fuzzy fabric reflected the dim morning light.
“Good Morning!” she lifted both hands into the air, one of them with the hat, and slowly turned, looking at all the men and taking a quick glance at the camera before deciding to pretend she didn’t see it. “I’m Mistress Damned, but you,” she locked her eyes on the nozzle of the camera, “can call me by whatever name you see fit.” She glanced at the circle of guns, “Put those away, you can’t kill me with them. Him maybe-” she pointed at Sin, “but not me.” None of the guns budged.
She flung herself into smoke and reappeared in front of one of the red berets in the center of the circle. She let her aura explode outward as she growled in a more threatening tone, “Put your guns away.”
Twelve guns lowered to the ground as she jumped back in front of Sin. “Thank you.”
Lilly, grabbing Sin’s hand pulled him forward, off the concrete walkway and into the grass. She intentionally and slowly walked the pair past the rolling camera. Lilly stared at the camera letting it suck in her pitch black eyes. She wanted everyone who watched the clip later to be afraid of her. She gave a wicked smile as she crossed the woman and her camera, letting it record her backside. Lilly suddenly turned around and faced the lens once more.
She spoke to it, “Mr. President I want to meet you. You have twenty-four hours to prepare yourself,” she slipped the hat onto her head, “my appearance may be a bit dark, and my past actions, memorable, but my intentions are good. I want to help you. Twenty-four hours.” She pulled the hat off her head, deciding it was not her style and handed it to Sin who gladly took it. While he was holding onto the hat she jumped taking him with her, no longer hiding her abilities.
***
Lilly and Sin landed back in her hotel room. She moved into the kitchen, the TV was on but muted. Sin stood patiently only for a moment before turning and walking out of view and into her bedroom. She raised the volume a bit, not too interested in him at the moment, as she opened the fridge. It was news, again, a woman’s voice, “Another 4,000 plus people were found dead in Central Russia this morning. This is the third town attacked in the last two days; the attacks look to be moving east, who or what is attacking is still unknown. Russian authorities are baffled by the sudden and destructive attacks have started pointed fingers at other countries. Its latest target the United States.”
Lilly closed the fridge finding nothing of interest, “We believe that these attacks are organized from another country. Most likely the United States trying to destroy us once and for all,” Now a male voice was coming from the TV, it had a decent Russian accent. “These attacks will not halt the might of Russia! If the attacker is not called off we will declare war on the United States of America. I urge the American’s to call off whatever monstrosity their evil scientists have created before it’s too late.”
Lilly wipped over to the TV and tapped the power button. She turned around and moved into the bedroom to see him sitting without a clue on the bed, “Now, we wait.” Lilly went to sit down next to Sin and wrapped an arm around his ridged shoulder. She rested her head next to his and sighed.
The news reminded her of a history class two years ago when similar, pointing fingers, were discussed in length just like the Russians were doing once again. It was during her sophomore year. A history class she remembered only because Sean was engaged in the discussion that day. Her clothing was different back then too, her personality was different much lighter. Her sophomore year was before her dad’s drinking got too bad, and before failure after failure with relationships.
At the time her hair was light brown with blond streaks. She had blue jean shorts that were so skimpy they hardly passed the school’s dress code. On that particular day she remembered having a yellow blouse, one she liked quite a lot at the time. She recalled day dreaming during the class, when a question bounced out of the teacher, “Can anyone tell me the involved parties?” Lilly scribbled down a few words on the paper in front of her, completely out of context: ‘involved parties’ it sounded important at the time.
A voice she recognized answered, “Mr. Carter, they were the UN and Redeme against Firo and SF,” it was Sean. She glanced up from her paper, forgetting to jot down the names. At the time his hair was dyed black, it was rumored he had lost a bet, but she never figured out why he didn’t change the color after a few days. In that class Sean was normally the quite kid who scored well on the tests. Other than his black hair everything else matched his persona, he had light blue jean shorts and a green shirt—he was a fairly happy kid, just like she was back then. There was nothing in him that said he would ever fall for the dark, creepy, and depressed vampire girl years later.
“Correct!” Mr. Carter announced, “The United Nations lead by the United States, and Redeme, formally known as the European Union, against Firo, the South and Central American powerhouse, and the SF known as the Slash Federation in the Middle East. Those were the parties involved in the Third World War. When did the Third World War Start?”
“2013,” Sean said.
“Wrong, that was when it was declared, when did it officially start? What made it possible?” there was no answer from the classroom, “2011,” he answered his own question, “We went over this last month.”
“The economic collapse!” someone shouted without raising their hand.
“Correct! What else?”
“Dooms Day!” the same person shouted.
“Yes, 2012,” Mr. Carter said, making sure everyone knew what Dooms Day meant.
“The War on Terror,” a girl said behind Lilly. The class went quite. There were no more answers left anyone could think of.
“The Drug Wars,” Sean said after the momentary silence.
“And does anyone know how all these were connected? What happened?”
“The terrorists garnered trade routes with the wealthy drug lords, money for guns. It fueled both sides immensely,” Sean said, keeping the discussion alive.
“And what made that possible?” Mr. Carter looked at Sean, who stayed quite. Lilly was frantically writing down notes, she didn’t know any of this. “The Economic Collapse! Dooms Day! The economy fell apart in 2011, upwards of fifty percent of the populations in Europe, in the United States, lost their jobs. Almost forty percent of the population in China, other parts of Asia losing nearly eighty percent of all jobs. Dooms Day. People thought the world was ending for sure, super computers had hard facts even the best scientists couldn’t argue with. And what do jobless people with no hope for the future leave? Chaos.” The lights in the room dimmed and the overhead projector flickered on. There was a bullet-point list on the screen.
“But how did that start the war?” Sean asked.
“But how?” Mr. Carter mimicked. He flashed through two slides and to one with a diagram, and he pointed at it, “This shows the control governments had over their own countries,” he followed the line as it dwindled down with a laser pointer, “Most countries had a hard enough time keeping their own people in check, they couldn’t afford to send troops to quell a brutal take over in South America or the loss of structured pro-western government in the Middle East. The economic collapse fueled the start of the war by doing simply nothing at all. It let these small, easy to squash problems grow and grow, and not just over a few months, but for years. Unemployment also spiked the recruitment to the SF and Firo. While every other country slowly grew poor, its people starving, the soldiers of the SF and Firo swam in oceans of wealth. It was appealing to the unemployed. Soon the mercenary army of Firo was larger and better equipped than the United States Army. And the SF had so many troops it outnumbered Russia’s troop advantage during World War Two.
“But the number of people they had under their belt didn’t matter one bit, because it wasn’t the people that fueled the expansion of the SF movement and the Firo Company, it was money—massive mercenary armies on both sides. And that money was possible due to what treaty?” Mr. Carter changed the slide to the next one.
A girl near the front of the classroom read the answer off the screen, “The Arms Treaty of 2012.”
Mr. Carter looked at the screen then back at the classroom, “Maybe I’m making this too easy.” He got a few chuckles from the class, “But yes, that is correct. The Arms Treaty. Which did what!?” he moved in front of the projector to block the answer. He got a few more chuckles.
But the girl in front was quick at writing down notes, “Firo, which had an abundance of money traded the Slash Federation, which had an abundance of weapons.”
“YES! Free market trade 101! The perfect example of economics at its best! Firo was able to equip its army with the best weaponry while the Slash Federation had plenty of money to pay and feed its massive army,” he moved away from the screen, “entire countries fell apart within the boundaries of the SF and Firo’s power, millions of people became hostages of brutal regimes. And with 2012 presenting almost certain doom, no one cared. They freely grew but what happened? And not you Emily!” he snapped at the girl in front, “You’re taking away all my fun,” he joked. A few more laughs.
“2012 didn’t happen,” Sean answered this time.
“Of course it didn’t happen! We’re still here! The economies quickly picked up after Dooms Day didn’t happen, when people realized how stupid they were to believe in the bullshit fed to them for the last two years. But by 2013 it was already too late. The entire world realized how badly it screwed up. Firo had its own private army better equipped than the United States Special Forces, with over two million troops, and the SF had a staggering twelve million troops. With Firo threatening the sovereignty of the United States, and the Slash Federation’s idea of world domination, the world had to make its move. May 14th, 2013. Write that date down. It was the day the UN met with Redeme in France, and it was the day they united against Firo and the SF. The day marked as the official start of World War Three.
“Okay, brief overview of the war, I know you guys know something about the war, it ended when? Two… three, years before you were born?” the class was quite, most of the kids were writing down notes from the slide. Mr. Carter flicked off the overhead and repeated, “The war, what happened? No specific events, just tell me what happened.” A hand went up near the middle of the class, “John?” Mr. Carter pointed at the student.
“Uhm, nothing happened,” John said.
“Stalemate!” the girl next to him added.
“Spying?” a third voice questioned.
“We won,” someone said.
“That’s a little vague Jamaal,” Mr. Carter said, “we may of won the war, but at a great cost. I wouldn’t exactly call that a win.”
“We still won,” Jamaal argued.
“No, we really didn’t.”
“Yes we did,” the entire class watched Jamaal.
“Moving on,” Mr. Carter switched directions as he turned the projector back on and switched it to the next slide, “Yes, from the first day it was a stalemate. All parties involved had nuclear weapons, and they all threatened to use them. It was like the Cold War all over again, but with four sides instead of two. So all four ends turned to the only thing that could be done during a stalemate: espionage. Espionage was pretty much the only form of warfare, sneaking spies across enemy lines to disable nuclear warheads, assassinations of leaders, ripping apart armies from within. Without looking at the screen, how long did the stalemate last?”
“Three years,” Sean said. Lilly was still too busy with the notes, she hadn’t kept track of anything that had to do with World War Three, history didn’t interest her.
“Three years, from the middle of 2013 until 2016, majority of the deaths during this time of the war were from boarder scrimmages, no official major battles took place during the three year period. But for once, time was on our side,” he switched to the next slide, “By 2016 Firo began to collapse in on itself, the war forced heavy ocean and land barricades on the company—and without trade the company was unable to make profit, and without profit it was unable to pay its private army. By the end of 2016 the US fleet moved away from its barricade of Firo controlled ports and land routes as hundreds of company executives were thrown into the streets and executed by their own people. Hundreds of relief efforts flooded into South America, freeing the people from the harsh rule of Firo. The company ended just as fast as it was created, drug dealing and profit was its massive success, but at the same time fast expansion and greed for more profit was its ultimate downfall.
“After leaving the barricade the US fleet and troops moved to support the effort against the SF. During the last three years the battles on the SF borders had been more gruesome than the battles in South America, leaving tens of thousands dead, unlike the few thousand killed in the Firo related battles. But the SF was unable to spread, the entire world fought effectively against it. Soon the SF’s strategy of infiltrating governments and electing their own people to office turned against them. The SF’s members couldn’t even trust their own party. SF power slowly dwindled, until several leaders were assassinated and it was revealed that all remaining party officials were actually UN operatives. The UN operatives peacefully surrendered for The Slash Federation after its leader was killed in 2019. But 2019 didn’t mark the end of the war. Many countries infiltrated other countries during the six years of war, all claiming to be counter spying to make sure the other governments were not corrupted by the Slash Federation and planning an invasion. When the UN tried to officially end the war and request the spies to expose themselves and move their assets back to their country of origin, only two of the UN nations complied—the rest denying the use of espionage. Unable to achieve the full removal of spies, when did the UN finally mark the end of the war?”
“2020,” Sean said, not letting anyone else get the answer first.
“The war officially ended with a treaty during the start of 2020. But the spies… the spies—what happened with them?”
“They’re still there, to this day, spying.” Sean said.
“Yes, Yes—and do you know any of the famous captures?”
“Two America spies were discovered in Russia, a bit after the treaty. Miss Fanny Govosich and Vice Jekins Vince.”
“Ha ha! The lowest point of American history to date! The Vice President of Russia and the First Lady, American spies planted almost five years before the war! A sticky situation!” A bell rung, it was the end of the class, as the students packed their bags Mr. Carter shouted out a final reminder, “Tomorrow is about the details of the stalemate and Firo, Thursday the conflict on the Slash Federation side. Friday going onto next week is about the spies and the anti-nuclear shield. And don’t forget! Friday in two weeks is the exam….”
Her memory concluded, ever since that incident with the First Lady and Vice President no one’s trusted America—the entire world has been on thin ice ever since and now with mass murders in Russia things can only get worse. What was she getting herself into now? Lilly pulled Sin back with her and lied on the bed—he silently obliged as she stuck a quick kiss on his cheek. She still wasn’t sure she liked the new Sean, she changed him—he was so cold and robotic.