The day started as any other did for the past couple of years with a somehow pleasant morning alarm on my phone which I snoozed more from the habit rather than me being tired, which I was after a long Sunday gaming session with my friends and brother which extended way past the point the previous day ended an this one began. After five more minutes of resting the alarm sounded again with me repeating the action of snoozing again forgetting that I had only one snooze available.
Couple of minutes later my doors flung open "Oi wake up already we are going to miss the bus if you don't wake up right now or do you want to drive us all the way to Ljubljana!" my brother Max who was seemingly unfazed with lack of sleep.
"yeah, yeah gimme a minute" I jumped from my bed frantically searching for my clothes and my keys which I knew I put somewhere on my table but now I could not find them for the life of me. After a minute or so I gave up on them deciding to use the reserve keys and went to wash my face and brush my teeth.
The bathroom was still full when I stumbled to it "Late again?" I ask my sister leisurely brushing her hair.
"Shut up, I only need a minute to finish." she lied naturally as breathing. There was not a day where she was ready in less than fifteen minutes, so I just grinned for which she stuck her tongue out in return and grabbed my toothbrush.
"Where is Annie?" asked Siegsmund my other brother same age as me just a minute older.
"Guess?" I responded and turned on the car "Also good morning." for which I got mixture of mumbles in return from Siegsmund, Max and my foster sister Seo-Yeon who came to us from Korea about four years after the short war between Koreas happened thirteen years ago.
"Still in the bathroom then." said Siegsmund and smashed the horn. It took only two attempts before Annie came running outside the house towards the car.
"We are going to leave you the next time." said Siegsmund for who knows how many times before.
"We still have plenty of time, don't be a jerk." she answered as she sat down. I didn't wait for her to buckle her seatbelt because contrary to her statement we were in fact late and i would need to drive above all the speed limits to catch the bus, which i refused to do unless i was in the car alone and the road was empty.
"I am going to drive to Ljubljana, ok?" I asked not expecting an answer from any of them. Max was already sleeping before Annie even sat in the car and Seyon as we called her was already absorbed in a book for which I was extremely jealous as i wanted to read too.
The ride was calm apart from a deer attempting to throwing her life away in front of my car, I left all of them apart from Siegsmund who was in the same school as me at the main bus station.
"When do you finish today?" I asked him as we walked towards the entrance of the school which used to be a factory as all the ceiling were at least 3 meters tall and reinforced by steel beams not to mention clearly iron stairs.
"Same as you today our P.E is cancelled as the professor is in hospital."
"What happened, did he finally drank to much?"
"Nope, apparently something attacked him, a dog or a fox maybe. He is alive but amount of stiches they say he has is insane, see you after school." he didn't seem bothered by what he just told me and joined his friend who were already waving at him. There was increase in similar incidents in the last months which was one of the reasons we were going to school together as much as possible. There were a lot of conspiracy theories about what was happening everything from the government culling the population, zombie outbreak and some people were also preparing for invasion of other worlds or aliens. I was technically one of them as I did train a bit with swords, spears and bows but I did it for fun with my family rather than preparing for war.
"Look who is last today." greeted me a shorter somewhat fatter brown haired boy.
"I cant always be the firs Ales," I grinned as a shook his hand. "good morning Jan." i turned to the skinny as well brown haired boy sitting next to Ales.
"Morning." he nodded "you are actually early the physic is cancelled our teacher is in hospital." I felt my face stiffen.
"Was he attacked?"
"Good guess, yeah his arm is broken or something." he replied with puzzled expression "Sadly I don't know what did him in he is a massive dude with black belt in judo."
"So is the P.E teacher and he is messed up as well." I shared the news I had received just couple of minutes ago. My brain went into theory crafting before I even realised 'Are the incidents connected? What about others that were reported in the last month? Are there actually zombies crawling around, but people come back from hospitals but what if they are clones.....' I forcefully stopped thinking about it pulling myself back to the school hallway. We spend the following hour talking about everything but nothing, messing with each other and greeting other classmates who were slowly arriving. I was having fun but my mind was constantly switching between fun and worry, and I spent as much time as possible browsing the internet during the classes about the attacks I felt were connected somehow, but I could not find any real thread that connected them apart from the fact that nobody and attacked or not died in last three months. Kids were born daily as usual but the morgues all over the world were reporting that they haven't received any new work at all. I tried to make some sense of the information I found but all I got were the same old theories as other people posted online. Before I knew it the school ended without problems apart from two teachers yelling at me to get of the phone.
"Did you two train with weapons at all since the excursion?" I asked as we were leaving the building.
"I did, and do it from time to time to lose weight, I lost ten kilos from it." said Ales who actually lost quite a bit of weight in last half a year.
"No only did it twice or trice since then, I didn't fell like it, why?" asked Jan in return.
"Just in case the you two get attacked really, having some skill with weapons is still better than not having any right and don't forget to sharpen them as well just don't cut your arms while training." I advised them while making plans for my armoury at home.
"You read way to many books." Ales gave a strong pat on the back raised his hand and left to the bus station.
"And Anime and manga's as well or whatever different names those comics have." Jan did the same.
I fought a heavy battle in my head between telling then the other types and saying gym last warning "Keep your weapons close please!" They just made a thumbs up sign in return. 'They at least acknowledged it.' I thought to myself and went in the opposite direction toward my car. A bit surprising thing was that my twin was already waiting for me and even more so that he seemed worried.
"Something wrong?" I asked and unlocked the car.
"More people got attacked, one of Annie classmates and her mother also another teacher at Max school. Shit something is happening that is not normal anymore." he was now visibly paler.
"I read that there were a lot of attacks all over the world and they are getting more common, but nobody died couple of heavy injuries but no deaths at all not even from diseases or old age." I sat down and turned the ignition then it occurred to me 'I wonder how i saw that info only today, was it suppressed from the public and only came out now?' it was definitely weird how nobody mentioned anything about it at home or at school.
"Shit really?"
"According to news that seems the case."
"Shit." he swore again quieter this time. That was also the last time he spoke all the way to home. It took us about an hour to come from a city to the green countryside we were used to, not that the city was devoid of life, it was one of the greenest cities on the world but the feeling of being in the hills of the a bit more rural area was so much better. When we first started going to school in Ljubljana we had headaches for months before we got used to the air in the city, it was bad enough that we took pills some days which we rarely did at home. When we finally started to climb the tallest hill in the county I at last breathed a bit easier, I was finally at home the area that I knew like back of my palm. I knew where to hide, how to escape, most of the animal paths and all my defensible and offensive plans I dreamed and set up in my head were here. I parked my car at the usual spot behind the house which was quite big with two bathrooms multiple bedrooms and two living rooms, still all of this was almost too small for our big family there were ten people living here. Our parents and four kids they had, our mother parents and Seyon and Rupert another foster brother who was twenty three years old, four years older than me, Siegsmund and Seyon. I needed to put in some force opening the doors as the wind was strong, I expected it to be cold as well but it was bearable.
"South wind is blowing." Siegsmund who was checking the weather forecast everyday said as he climbed out of his seat "Tomorrow the north one will come so maybe we will have snow."
"Oh, i wish for snow. We didn't have a snowy charismas in years."
"That is still a whole week away calm down."
"Let me dream you jerk." he rolled his eyes in response and headed to the house. I follow him to the room we shared since i can remember. The room is big enough for two king sized beds two sets of closets and a big table that was in the middle of the room half of it being mine and half his. You could immediately tell that us twins were quite different. My side was full of books, games and weapons of al kinds some sharp most dull while his side was filled with crafting manuals, tools and some books that I managed to convince him to read. The only real similarity was two computers on the table which we used for school but mainly for gaming and watching videos. He threw his backpack on the table and turned on his computer most likely watching something about smiting which he was obsessed lately. I was tempted to do the same, but sadly I had homework to do, it wasn't much but still annoying.
"No homework?" I asked between filling in the blanks in English workbook.
"Nothing that need to be done today or tomorrow." he didn't even bother looking around the monitor.
'Lucky you' I thought trying to focus on the work in front of me. As soon as I finished and reached for my computer our mom yelled for dinner time. I could hear multiple doors opening and closing some with heavier thuds as others.
"Somebody is angry." I grinned.
"Probably Max, I saw he was playing that new hero shooter." he held the door open for me "I hope there is baked potatoes and fried chicken today." to which I nodded twice in agreement.
He was right about the angry member of the household but the food was a wide miss as pasta was on the menu with sour cream and fish topping. We were last to arrive at the table all others already putting food on their plates.
"Good Afternoon." we greeted our mom Leonia and grandmother Leona both very young compared to other parents and grandparents our mom being thirty seven years old and grandmother being fifty five years old.
"Hello." they smiled back at us. "Eat well you all need to go to the forest today." grandmother laid the terrible news that got followed with unified grumbling and dramatic sighs.
"Isn't the wind to strong today?" Annie mounted a feeble attempt of cancelling the plan which we all knew had little chance of working.
"The tress are already cut you only need to put branches and firewood on the separate piles, and it is only two trees worth of it so you will be done in twenty minutes." she destroyed all our hopes and dreams of quiet afternoon of lazing around. I could feel the collective irritation from al of us and decided to ignore it as I was equally pissed at the sudden change of plans, I didn't brood for long because I remembered the attacks again.
"We are taking our weapons with us." I said after couple of moments so all could properly hear me. Grandmother sent me a look that send shivers up my spine. She was never happy that me and Siegsmund roped all of the children in the as she called it playing knights.
"And why do you want to do that Fenris?" she asked in somehow both angry and composed voice.
"Safety," I responded holding her gaze "there were new attacks all around the country lately. You saw the news right? Two of our teacher are in hospital because of it as well."
"That was in the cities, you are going in the forest not far from the house."
"But grandma..." I started but she cut me off.
"NO BUTS, you are going to work not to play. Why do you never take anything serious not only do you play with those toy you even...."
"MOM!" our mom cut her off before grandma could start a long tangent about kids those days and us not being serious. "Take them if you fell safer." she rummaged through my hair.
"Thanks." was all I could respond while avoiding grandmother eyes focusing instead on the pasta on my plate.
"Also the trees are big so it will probably take an hour to do I would come and help but the clothes will need to be hanged by then, no Annie you are going to the forest." she correctly predicted that Annie would offer to hang them instead. Usually this tactic worked wonders for her and Seyon to get out of work early or completely avoid it altogether. The rest of the dinner had a weird feel to it as we were all trying to avoid talking with grandmother as much as possible while also trying to extend the eating time hoping for rain or something similar. Sadly nothing happened so we rose from the table to get ready for work, I looked at Siegsmund and he nodded and quickly went with the rest so he could unlock the closet where we had our weapons. The inly ones with weapons in the room was me and Siegsmund so I went to grab his broadsword and my katana like sword with the only difference being that is was a bit longer and not as curved. I did consider taking some armor as well bit I was pretty sure that would cause even bigger fight. When i came down all of them had equiped both the work clothes and their favourite weapons. Annie had her bow and a dagger, Max had his spear and Seyon had her rapier.
"Lets go." Max said while looking very angry. None of us bothered to respond and followed him outside. It only took us about ten minutes to reach the tress as all of ours lands were fairly close to the house.
"Fucking hell!" Max cussed an started mumbling to himself as we saw the trees in question. While they were really only two of them, they were giants with huge amounts of logs and branches.Siegsmund was the first to start working being the one who was complaining least of us all. It was actually pretty nice working together especially after Max calmed down enough to joke with us instead of complaining.
"Max will you be on computer when we come home?" I really wanted to play something after working.
"Maybe." he answered but we all knew that it was a positive response. "Why?"
"I want us to finish Forsaken Lands that we started last week."
"Ooooo i want to join as well then!" Annie jumped in "And Seyon is coming as well." at which Seyon noded slightly.
'Nice now if Siegsmund says yes we can finally finish it today.' I excidetly turned to him, but as soon as i turned to him i noticed that he was unusally pale looking at something behind us.
"What is that?" he pointed at it as we made eye contact.
At those words i instictibly pulled my sword out of the sheath and spinned around. 'No fucking way!' i could not beleive my eyes as i saw two small creatures running towards us with weapons drawn. They were really short at most half my size dressed in rags that cobered their greenish skin, wielding what i assumed were improvised weapons on which i hoped was dirt and not dried blood.
"Goblins?" my question dissapeared in the void of disbelief among us. It took me way too long to notice i was the only one with weapon in hand others having discarded theirs in close proximity as it was hard to wark with them strapped on.
"Grab the weapons! I dont knik they are friendly!" I yelled my voice cracking.
"Ghakakkakakaka!" the goblins laughed now close enough for me to see their long nails and pointed teeth and eyes full of malice.
I raised my sword in the best defensibe stance I could do.
"Grandma you lose this one." I whispered to myself.
"Yeah, sorry about not helping." Siegsmud tried to do the same stance as me.
I noded and baceced and looked at my enemy that might be my first and last actuall fight.