Chapter One

It was a nice and sunny day as I worked in the fields, I doubt the temperature could have been any higher than thirty-two degrees Celsius. Dad stood by me as I plowed the ground for the next crops, guiding me along as I went. My father had spent many days teaching me how to use Chikensei to help make working with a plough and other tools on the farm easier and more effective. I now knew how to gather Chikensei from cells in my bloodstream and send it to my brain. From there I could then send it anywhere I wanted in my body. In this particular case I sent it back down through the blood veins in my arms and hands in order to release it through my palms. Using this method I could make any wooden farm tool stronger and more effective.
The reason I could only make wooden tools stronger was because wood was the easiest substance to enhance since it was once a living entity and had cells in which to store Chikensei. As my ability with Chikensei grew, though, I could enhance stones, gems, metals, and almost anything I set my mind to. Liquids would be the hardest task for me, as they have fewer atoms then solids and no cells in which to store Chikensei. To enhance liquids and abiotic substances I would need to create cells within my own body and then send those cells to whatever substance I was enhancing. From there I could send Chikensei to those cells and enhance the substance in that way. On another note, the reason ploughs were wooden instead of metal was due to the fact that the majority of metals were used to make new weapons and armors.
Anyway, using Chikensei to power the plough, I continued to till the soil. While Dad and I labored in the fields I could smell the faint hint of apple pie over the farm’s everyday stench of fertilizer. Mom must be baking again I thought as a continued forward. “There is a reason to work harder and finish early now, no?” Dad observed. I guess he must have noticed the wafting aroma of the pie as well. A spark of new determination was lit inside of me and before I knew it I finished the row my dad and I were working on and had kept on going. By the time dad had stopped me I was a few feet out and had to re-fill part of the trench I dug. I took it at a slower pace after that.
    - - - - - - -
“Go set the table for dinner, Honey.” Mom yelled to me from the kitchen. I had just got out of the shower and was hoping to play my Xbox 720 before dinner. “What are we having?” I asked, yelling back at her. “Chicken and Rice” she replied. Of course we are I thought grumpily. We had chicken at least four times a week due to the abundance of it on our farm. I sighed and went to set the table, knowing that it didn’t matter what I said, we were going to have chicken for dinner one way or another. After dinner I raced to the kitchen, knowing Mom’s delicious apple pie awaited me. Once dessert was over Mom, Dad, and I sat down to watch an episode of American Idol. I don’t particularly care for it, but it’s the only “family” time that we get. I believe American Idol had made it to its twelfth season, which to me is amazing for a show that is only about people singing. The show ended at nine and I was sent off to brush my teeth and go to bed. I had to go to sleep early because it was Sunday, a school night. Out of all the advances in technology school had to be one that was still stuck in the 21st century. I wished my parents a good night and reluctantly climbed the stairs and went to bed, knowing that if I missed school I’d never hear the end of it.
   - - - - - - -
I woke up to a pitch-black room. Lying in my bed I looked over at my digital clock. The clock’s green lights shone brightly in the dark room. It’s 12:00, I should be able to get a water bottle without waking mom or dad. As I started to sneak down the stairs I heard voices coming from the kitchen. They’re still awake? I thought to myself. Well, this is just great. “I’m worried about Sauk, the fights are getting more frequent.” I bent down and tilted my head in order to hear them better. “He’ll be fine, the schools are setting up tighter security now” Dad replied. “Still, what if he got trapped in the middle of one of those raids?” Mom sounded really worried, I didn’t know the raids were getting that violent. Was Chikensei really becoming that much of a problem for people to be fighting this much over it? “He won’t get hurt. End of discussion.” And with that Dad put a close to the conversation. I left my spot on the stairs and went back to sleep, pondering what had been said.
- - - - - - -
I hit the alarm clock’s off button as hard as I possibly could in my drowsy state. I HATE alarm clocks… Truthfully, The thing I hated wasn’t exactly the alarm clock, but the being forced to get up when I didn’t want to in order to go to a place I didn’t want to go to. I sat up, knowing that if I kept lying down I would fall asleep again. “Yet another day of school…” I complained, sighing. After about two minutes or so I got enough resolve to get dressed and head for the bathroom. I relieved myself and looked into the mirror as I washed my hands. Looking up I studied my reflection; A boy of twelve with wavy dark brown hair and chocolate brown eyes so dark they sometimes appeared as black as night looked back at me. My skin had a deep tan from working in the fields, and my nose had a slight sunburn from forgetting to put on sunscreen. I slipped my shirt on over my head and made my way downstairs.
As I stumbled down the stairs I could smell my routine breakfast cooking in the toaster. Bagels were my primary morning food source. Easy to make, inexpensive, and always tasted better than Dad’s attempts at making egg omelets. Unlike most families my dad was the stay at home parent while my mom went to work. The reason for this was my dad needed at least five days a week to tend to the farm. So because my mom had a job she was always had left by the time I had to get up for school. This left Dad in charge of breakfast and that is the reason I am dependent on the always-lovable pre-made bagel.
I packed my lunch while I waited for dad to finish buttering the bagel. Good ol’ PB and J, water, crackers, and fruit made up my official everyday lunch. Unofficially, though, my lunch also had soda and chocolate, which were my motivation to make it to lunch each day. After I ate breakfast and brushed my teeth my dad drove me to the bus stop.
“Hey! Sauk, What’s up man?” It was my best friend Zeb. His fiery red hair fluttered in the morning breeze. Zeb had an unusual set of features; in addition to his somewhat rare fire red hair he had emerald green eyes and a light tan. “I haven’t been up to much, how about you?” I responded while getting out of the car. “I’m fine, just wishin’ it wasn’t a school day again. Weekends go by way too fast.” Yeah, I know what you mean” I laughed. “Anyway, thanks for the ride, Dad” I called back to my father, who was now pulling away. “Hey guys! It’s been awhile, how’s life?” Zeb and I looked back to see our friend Sam getting out of her mom’s car. I smiled as she got out; Zeb had had a crush on Sam since he met her in 5th grade, but never could get the courage to tell her. I guess I couldn’t blame him, Sam was really pretty with her long brown hair, sky blue eyes, and fair skin. At the same time she had quite the personality, she was always friendly and never afraid to speak her mind. She also was more athletic and smarter than most kids in our school were. “Yo, you feeling better now?” I asked. She had been out sick from school for a week now. “Yup, I’m feeling much better”. “Uhh, hi Sam…” Zeb was always so nervous around her, I almost felt sorry for the guy. “Hello Zeb” She replied.
There was a bit of an awkward silence after that, for neither Zeb nor Sam could think of anything to say. “Oh, hey, the bus is here” I pointed out, walking toward the road. Buses nowadays were blue instead of yellow, with white sidings instead of black. Apparently a group of parents a few years back complained that the yellow buses were hard to see in the bright sunlight, and that the color of the school bus should be changed. While a majority of the public thought of this to be absurd, the parents ended up going to court and winning the trial, thus turning school buses from yellow to blue. I guess that’s irrelevant though, isn’t it?
Anyway, As we stepped up onto the bus I noticed a guard in a white uniform armed with a sheathed sword was on the bus. I guess dad was right, the schools are setting up tighter security. I thought to myself as I sat down in an empty seat a few rows back. Sam and Zeb sat down beside me as I scooted in to make room. “What’s with the scary guy with the sword?” Sam asked. “I’m guessing it’s because of the raids” I replied. “I had heard they were getting worse, but I… I didn’t think that they were as bad as this” Zeb added. “Neither did I. I doubt its anything we need to worry about though“ I said with a grin. No need to get Sam and Zeb all worked up over this; it’s probably nothing too important anyway.  
“Hey, what’s that?” Zeb asked as he pointed to a truck driving by. The truck was a Spartan green with an extended truck bed covered in a canvas like a western caravan wagon. “It looks like an old troop transport” I replied, “Like one from those old World War II movies”. I noticed a man armed with a gun in the back. I was guessing there were more, but I couldn’t tell because a canvas flap was covering the back. “I wonder if they have to do with the raids” Sam commented. “Yea, there aren’t many armed forces around here, maybe they came to help” Zeb replied. So much for trying to get Zeb and Sam off this topic I thought, slightly annoyed the truck had to pass by right when I had just gotten a change of subject.
About twenty minutes and two or three stops later we arrived at school. Zeb and I bid a temporary farewell to Sam. We were in Middle School, and we were the middle grade. 7th grade to be precise. Our school day consisted of four classes, each 100-minutes long, with a 50-minute lunch break. Every other week our classes changed, so that we would have eight classes total. Basically, it was a schedule of Week A, Week B, Week A, repeated over and over. I guess the school board committee thought that this schedule would provide junior high students with a more “exciting” school experience than just regular classes.
Either way, Zeb and I had the luck of having six out of eight classes together, while Sam had the misfortune of only having two out of eight with us: Lunch and Math. While Lunch was a good class to be with friends, Math was more like sharing a prison cell together. Also, while we had Lunch everyday, we only had math on Week B. This week was a Week B. The class Zeb and I first was Home Economics, or just Home Ec. for short. Basically what we did in Home Ec. was learn how to cook and sew, where sewing, in my personal opinion, was a complete waste of time nowadays. I can see how it was useful fifty or sixty years ago, but sewing is all automatic now. Machines can sew hundreds of times faster than humans can, so the point of learning to hand sew was beyond me.
Luckily, the sewing part of class was already behind us and we were working partners in the kitchen. And my partner just happened to be Zeb, which made the class go by that much faster. On that particular day we learned how to make ”nutritious” soup out of bread, water, and spare ingredients. And by spare ingredients I mean lettuce, tomatoes, and chicken wings. Needless to say it didn’t go over to well during the final taste test.
After Home Ec. I had Physical Education while Zeb had Health and Sam had Chorus. Ironically, I had Health, Zeb had Band, and Sam had P.E in Week A. Next we had Math, the disguised prison. Usually you would expect two classes, Lunch, then two more classes. Well, for some reason we had three classes, Lunch, and then one more class. Which annoyed me, because by the end of our second class I was already hungry.
So like always I didn’t pay attention in math due to hunger and instead played a game of paper note football with Sam and Zeb. It amazed me that the three of us got A’s in math. But we did and we still had time to goof around, which was fine with me. Eventually Math ended and we got to go to long awaited Lunch.
“It’s about time” I commented to Sam and Zeb as we walked down the hall, “I thought that class was never gonna end.”  “You say that everyday” Sam remarked. “That’s cause its true” I replied with a grin. Sam just rolled her eyes and kept on walking. As we made our way through the cafeteria and found the table that we always sit at I noticed that something was different today.
It took me a moment but then I realized. There were more students inside the cafeteria than normal. I looked out the window to where the exterior tables were. Nobody was sitting outside for lunch today. It must be because of the new security the schools are setting up. They really are serious about this. I thought to myself. We sat down at our table and started talking about random and for the most part pointless things. We were laughing and didn’t have a care in the world, which was why I liked Lunch so much.
There was about ten minutes left in the Lunch period and we were all having a really good time. I didn’t want it to end in what seemed such a short amount of time. Unfortunately, going back to class wasn’t the worst thing that would happen that day. Lunch ended and we packed up our lunchboxes with the remaining containers, bottles, and such. As we headed back to class a call came over the P.A. system. “Sauk Nakaman, please report to the front office.” All of a sudden the good mood disappeared.
“Uh-oh Sauk, what’d you do now?” Sam asked jokingly, trying to resurrect the cheerful mood. “I don’t know, but I guess I’m gonna find out”. I sighed and waved goodbye to Sam and Zeb, heading for the front office. “Good luck Sauk!” Zeb yelled to my back. I chuckled and kept walking, thinking there was no reason that I would need good luck to go to the front office. Now that I look back I wish I was right.
I walked into the front office and asked the receptionist Mrs. Perusi why I was there. She just looked at me sadly and told me to speak with the Guidance Counselor Ms. DuPont. All of a sudden I didn’t feel so good. I had a bad feeling about this. I made my way down the hallway hoping that I was wrong and that there was nothing to worry about. I told myself that over and over as I progressed down the corridor. Finally I made it to Ms. DuPont's office. I opened the door and went inside.
“Please, Sauk, take a seat.” Ms. DuPont requested. I sat down in the padded chair and noticed that Ms. DuPont’s eyes were slightly red and puffy. That made me worry even more. Ms. DuPont looked at me for a minute and then spoke “Sauk, there is no easy way to say this, so I’ll just get it over with.” Fear started to grow inside of me, there were so many things that could have happened. “Sauk, I am truly sorry, but your parents are dead.”