CHAPTER 44: Caught in Crossfire

"Daddy, why can't we turn on the TV?" Calla asked curiously to her father, who was flipping through the radio.

"Because the news has bad things on it right now, Darling. It's too graphic for your little eyes to handle! It's on every channel right now, so I'm trying to at least listen to something happy. Kade, take your sister! She's too energetic for me…"

He flipped through as different voices from all over the area spoke in jumble.

"*******ANNOUNCEMENT, ALL RESIDENTS MUST FIND SHELT-*******"

"*******HELLO EVERYONE, Just a reminder to be indo-*******"

"Serial killer 'Mantanda Fuego' has been reported to have started his killings again in another coun-"

"Get your credit score toda-!"

"I've always been happy and I've always been…" Finally, some music. The internet had been down for days, following the prime minister's informal declaration of war with the TA. To think that they had known about the origins of these disasters and kept it from them for so long. They aren't even allowing civilians outside the city for reasons unknown. Meanwhile, all of the representatives were nowhere to be found. Were they in hiding? Were they that scared? They swore… nevermind, guess it's all just a show. He wanted to flee this city, this country. So that his kids wouldn't be in danger. So that they wouldn't be locked up in this room just waiting until an inevitable attack. Ethiopia was not in a true war, yet it was already losing. The fact the prime minister described such a thing as a "conflict" is infuriating. This was no conflict, they were direct attacks on Ethiopian soil. Then again, if he did declare an official war, what would become of Ethiopia? Then, they wouldn't just be fighting the Ethiopian Outpost. They would be fighting all of them. Would the same thing happen to Ethiopia that happened in Russia, China, and parts of the Americas? Gone, annihilated, some of those cities were. In China, strange plants overgrown the cities within days, toppling towers and consuming the residents. In America, the flashing of bright white beams tore straight through entire counties and districts. All over Russia, it began to snow. However, raining down from the heavens was not ice but a peculiar white ash. It was soon discovered to be the worst kind of biological warfare to date, and thus was chosen as the forename for the Third World War. "The Year of White Ashes". Its name was so simple, yet it held the same if not a greater weight as "The war to end all wars". The fatalities reached over one billion and caused the fall of multiple countries. One billion people. Many cannot simply grasp that scope. 1 in 7 people on earth died in that year. Everyone from every nation and walk of life had a family member or a friend taken at least. Others were left with no one. The world and everyone's lives changed that year, drastically, and then this condition became the norm. Yet here he and his kids were, trying to live as normally as the other nations did now. He still remembered the first attacks on Ethiopia, how scared he was. Now he had two children to protect. He hoped, pleading, another world war would not erupt. How many lives would that one claim? How many lives, dragged through the mud? How many young men and women, being lined up to fight a war they'll know they'll be slaughtered in? How many civilian lives caught in the bloody crossfire? This was no fight with a developing country. This was no fight with a peer adversary. This was a dance with death, the one that always comes out on top. But for the health of his kids, he must remain strong.

"Come on now, It's time to eat. What do you want, Kade? We have spam, chili-"

"I want something fresh!"

"Sure! Just as long as we don't burn through it! Let's go see what we can whip up… Omelettes! What about omelettes? What veggies do you want in it, Kade? Calla?"

"Onions!" Kade demanded, the gloominess suffocating the room lifting.

"And peppers!" Calla added.

"Huh? Little Calla's being adventurous today?! Great! I'll go work on that right now! Kade, why don't you dig out those board games! They've been gathering way too much dust! You guys choose a game! Take your time to decide!"

The father cracked the eggs into the pan, and took his time dicing up the onions and peppers the little ones ordered. Mixing the diced contents with the eggs, he cranked the stove to medium. This was such a large glob of eggs! Hopefully this will turn out fairly well-cooked… He had been practicing for quite a while. But it was his wife that had a plethora of real talents. Now… just put the cheese in and fold… and time to wrap this up! The father came in holding two plates as the kids glanced hungrily.

"Aren't you hungry, dad?" Kade asked as Calla was already digging in.

"I'll eat some spam or something later…I'm not really that hungry."

"Tch. If you say sooooo…" Kade replied.

As the kids ate their food, the father handed out the pieces equally. Playing Sorry! should keep his mind off of things. Kade quickly took the lead, followed by the father. This game didn't have too much strategy to it, adding to the relaxation. The heavy bellow of a tank firing off in the distance caught everyone's attention. The father leaned in, and looked at the boarded up door and windows. Time slowed and his heart raced as he listened to his own parched breath for follow-ups. His chest shook with the firing of another much closer to where they were. His hands tingled with adrenaline and anxiety as he and the kids listened in. All of them knew to stay quiet, even Calla. They did not move, frozen in place as if someone somewhere was watching and waiting, peering through the solid wood blocking their windows. Calla started crying uncontrollably and Kade desperately tried to comfort her. The shots became more frequent. The crashing vibrations of tank bullets smashing through buildings and the ground jarred them with every anticipated hit. The father wondered, were they hitting their mark? The jolt and thud of something heavy banged in the distance. That wasn't the firing of a cannon. The sound of things cracking, breaking, and shattering in that large thud sounded peculiar. Was that a tank being destroyed? The father just noticed a hand on his. Kade's. The boy looked up at his father with strained determination.

"Let's keep playing." the boy whispered. "C'mon Calla, let's finish this game. Let's finish this game…"

The father moved his piece upwards, the tap of the piece touching the board being drowned out by the bombardment of all tanks and heavy weaponry this country had on hand. Was it really only a matter of time? Through the cacophony of battle, the father heard a faint something that terrified him above all other sounds of war. A laugh. Taunting and crude. Someone was enjoying this? He felt sick. So dizzy. He wanted to go to bed. However, this very well could be the last time he sees his kids again. If the apartment collapses, or bombs rain down like the last time, then death will follow suit. Why, again, were they at his doorstep? It didn't matter. He looked at his kids. He wanted to stay by their side forever. The clank of steel treads on concrete pattered into a loud echoing howl as a tank zoomed down their street and fired, splitting their ears with the blast and causing a raw shockwave that hit through them. It was too dangerous even being in the same room as the front door. The father looked around their first-story apartment. Which room would be the safest? It needed to have solid walls, no glass, and be away from the action. Guess they would have to go to the bedroom after all.

"Bedroom. Now." The father whispered with urgency. The kids came rushing as they hurried into the hall and ran into the bedroom.

"Underneath the beds! Quickly!" He said as he helped Calla slide sideways while Kade just dove. As he himself bent down, he heard a noise that immediately took hold of his attention. And then hell collapsed down upon them. Smashing through the walls, scattering cinder blocks, a hatch from a tank came barreling through the house. He ducked with his hands covering his head. He looked up to see the dented, disfigured part. What on earth would do that? He again flinched as the tank fired almost point-blank in their general direction. The shockwave erupted, this time no longer muffled by the walls. It was so fast. The ringing. The pain. The father and his kids screamed, and he rolled on the ground pitifully. His ear. He couldn't hear out of his left ear. Had it ruptured? As the father looked up again to access the safety, the rapid firing of a machine gun sounded as countless bullets strafed the walls of the apartment. He quickly turned to his stomach to lie as flat as possible, even dipping his heels and face flat on the ground. The bullet line traveled irregularly, as if aiming at a highly mobile target. Painful cries could be heard from the neighboring room. They were hit. Another vibration of unknown origin shook the earth. As the father inhaled sharply, he looked at his panicking kids. He inched closer to them on the ground.

"Everything's going to be ok.

Everything's going to be ok.

Everything's going to be ok."

Suddenly, Kade's face lit up with terror, as his dark eyes drifted to the ceiling with a terrible, ill expression.

"Dad! Dad!"

What changed Kade's expression so suddenly? Then he looked up. He could not hear the rolling crackle of concrete and glass shattering until it was too late. That tank shot… it had caused a major beam to fail. Combined with the shaking and torsion of the strange vibrations pulsing through the earth, this building was ready to go. Kade grabbed Calla's arm and sprinted towards the door and the hole in the wall. The father got up running as fast as his legs could take him. If there was a god, help. He didn't care about himself. But what justice would it serve to kill his kids? They were ahead of him. They should make it out first, right? Right? They could worry about the fighting as soon as they were safe from the most direct threat. As his kids passed the threshold of the wall through the large gap, a sense of relief came over him. As the ceiling caved in and the light from the outside faded in his vision, he could not help but feel satisfied. Good luck, Kade, Calla. Stay strong in this war, in this ever-evolving world. Cinderblock and steel alike collapsed like a waterfall down towards the building's base, a storm of dust flowering from the fallen remains. Kade looked behind him to be blinded by the bombardment of the small airborne debris. When he opened his eyes, his father was nowhere in sight. At this, Kade froze. Inside him was a fear distinctly familiar to him reached through him. Not again. Not dad… too. It had only been a matter of moments, yet his life was changed yet again. Father, Cyprus. He had been through too much to be killed off in just an instant. He had worked so hard, searching day after day, finally securing a job in the capital after mother's death. He remarried, thinking that would be the best. Two years later, he was left with another kid and no partner to speak of. Abandoned. Yet he did not show resentment, neither did he show regret. He loved us. Kade and Calla. He didn't care that he had to work long hours and have to take care of two kids left behind in different ways. When was the last time that he didn't just suck it up. Yet these… these… bad people, horrible people trampled on their family, time and time again. Unacknowledged. Indifferent. His mother was a part of the Ethiopian military. She was slaughtered by these people and their machines during the World War. They've taken enough. Countries, lives, and land. Their appetite was never satiated, like a weed in the grass. They had signed a peace treaty, just to go on the offensive yet again. Bite off a weed at its leaves, and it will just regrow. The whole plant must go. Every last leaf, root, and seed. Kade bit into his lip, blood running down both sides of his jaw. He wiped away tears, turning away from Calla.

"Come, Calla." Kade mustered, the words barely falling out of his mouth. "To somewhere safe."

As he took his little half-sister by the hand, his eyes stared straightforward, and his face expressed unbridled madness. On this battlefield, a new malice had emerged. An ambition with no other purpose than to destroy the TA. But a seed that has just been recently planted is just as easy to dig up. From the curtains of smoke and dust, a new danger emerged. Sickle-like claws shredded through the air, swooping to take the two children out. Kade held tightly onto Calla's hand and sprinted forward with her behind him. He felt the wind disrupted by the massive hand towards his back. Never in his life had he expected a limb and body to be cut through so cleanly. The arm that had held onto Calla was severed clean diagonally, and the small child was swung to the side with the blow. He stumbled, knee and face smashing into the road as his body barreled along the ground. He watched in utmost trauma as pieces of his sister flung into the depths of the white smog as he laid there screaming and paralyzed with agony. As he gazed at his predator, he noticed it was not even human or creature of any kind. A robot. With a waist too thin and proportions too grotesque to have a human inside. Three lenses stared seemingly into blank space. But it was watching. It was observing him. Uncanny. More lenses came into view as it cycled its bud-shaped head. What was that, nine? A nine-eyed beast killed his sister, and raised its hand quickly to dispose of him, too. Was this thing just a senseless killing machine, designed for indiscriminately slaughter? Why was it going after him as a civilian? Dad. Ever since the last war, Dad said something about forbidding us from carrying weapons. Guns killed Mom. Weapons, tools with the sole purpose of harming another. In the hands of an untrained adult, it can be a danger to others. In the hands of a child, it is in its most lethal form. Unpredictable and unrestrained. There was a knife… in Kade's pocket. Just a regular pocket knife. The machine could sense it. So it reacted accordingly. He felt sick. He felt horrible. It was all his fault. It was all his fault Calla is dead… He killed her with this knife. As the robot raised its claws to slice into the boy, Kade couldn't help but feel that it was well deserved. The blades came down. Was it fast? Was it slow? Kade didn't know. All he knew now was that a massive figure stood to the side of the humanoid monster, the machine's wrist crumpled and cracked beyond movement as the man firmly crushed it with gloved hands. The robot attempted to jump back but was caught head-in-hand, its skull expanding and lenses cracking as fingers with immense grip strength molded through the metal like butter, causing shearing to erupt from the bloated, puffed-out metal. Continuing his solid grip on the head, the man, with one simple stroke, punctured the tall metal machine's streamlined armor, tearing out innumerous vital components as his fist returned. He threw the machine effortlessly across the now-clear street close by the tank that had been firing. A woman was holding up an Ethiopian soldier out of his tank cockpit, grasping onto his temples with one hand. As soon as she saw the damaged ACI unit, she jumped behind the tank as quickly as she could as the body of the robot exploded with a mixture of chemicals that started dissolving it and the tank behind it quickly. The TA sure didn't want any of their tech falling into the wrong hands. The scout units attacking the base prior were weak, old, mass-produced, and had technology not really worth keeping secret. It was Arewara's ACI units that were much stronger, and worth deteriorating upon defeat to keep valuable technology classified. The white-haired, yellow-eyed man turned and scoffed, his silver teeth glinting in the hot Ethiopian sun, eight long fangs openly visible. He kneeled down, taking out a tourniquet from his web belt and sliding it on Kade's arm. As he was twisting the lever round and round, he began talking to the boy.

"Stay sharp, kid. Go find something sturdy to hide behind." The man said calmly. On his back a massive, flat, two-handled sword that resembled something like a narrowed shield. Kade couldn't believe his eyes. Twenty airborne needles lined up neatly behind him. Matching the color of the golden metal lacing on his matt white armor.

"What are you?" Kade said.

"What's the matter, kid? Never seen a vampire before?"