Welcome To The Family

A single drop of sweat rolled down the side of my face. The moment was intense. I could hear the loud roars of the fans in the crowd, cheering on their teams. The stadium lights lit up the entire field, and they seemed brighter than ever. We were down by one touchdown, with only about two minutes left on the clock. It was now or never. With us being forty yards away from the goal line, it would be nearly impossible to make a final touchdown. This was the last game of the playoffs. If we didn’t win this, we were finished for the year. This was only high school football, but in this town, football was the important thing about school. Many of the players on the team had actually been scouted for college teams, including me. I regained my focus as the team huddled together to make the next play. Most of the time, Coach would let the players make the calls, unless it was obvious there would be a better play. “Alright guys, this is it. We win this, and we’re off to the championship. I think we can finish this right here, right now. I’ll throw a long pass out to Jack. If we time this just right, he’ll be able to make it all the way to the in-zone and we’ll have it,” said the lead quarterback, Jake Dawson. Jake had a strong arm and I knew he could make this pass. We worked great as a team and had been known to make those long distance passes easily. There wasn’t a bit of doubt in my mind about catching the ball for this play. “Sounds great to me, I know I can make it. Hawks on three, “I reassured my team and we all put our hands in the center of our circle. “One, two, three, Hawks!” We all rushed back out onto the field and took our place at the sixty-yard line. Everyone lined up in formation and got into position. I moved quickly to an open spot and positioned myself so I could sprint off as soon as Jake said “hike.” I was ready for this. I felt like I had been training all year for this single moment. My heart beat rapidly and pounded at my chest. Adrenaline pumped through my whole body. Time seemed to slow down around me. I took in the loud cheers from the bleachers and the intensity of the moment itself. Out of the corner of my ear, I was able to hear Jake yell “hike!” I dashed off the line, dodging past anyone that was in my way. Noticing a cornerback tailing me from behind, I simply ignored him and kept running as fast as I possibly could. Suddenly, I felt a burst of energy in me and I ran faster than I ever had before. As soon as I realized how far out I was, I turned around and looked for the football to be heading my way. Eye contact established between me and Jake for a brief second and he immediately threw the ball towards me. The ball rapidly came toward me. I noticed it was high in the air, but if I tried to run farther and wait for it to come to me, I would surely be stopped. When the ball was almost directly to me, I jumped into the air. The jump felt like it was at least three feet in the air. My hands touched the ball and I fell back down to the ground. For just a second, I let my body take in what had happened. I myself was even surprised I was able to catch that ball. There was no time to waste though, I immediately ran towards the touchdown line. With another burst of energy, I made a mad dash towards the line. For a brief moment, I noticed the time running down on the clock. There was only seconds left to go. I had to make it or we’d lose. Next thing I knew, I noticed that I had finally reached the in-zone. My body filled with excitement, I even jumped in the air. I saw the scoreboard light up and at points for my team, putting us in the lead. The buzzer rang and the game had ended. The Hawks had won, and we were going to the championship game. My team rushed my way to cheer me on for making the final touchdown. I had never felt this great in my whole life. It felt amazing to know I had actually made the final goal, and because of it, we were going to go the state championship game. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something strange in the crowd. At the end of all the bleachers, close to the in-zone, there was a man standing there. He really stood out from the rest of the people that were there. He stood tall, wearing a nice suit. The man appeared to be rather overdressed for him to be coming to an event like this. At first glance, I thought he may have been a college recruiter looking to scout any willing football players. I knew all of the recruiters though, and he definitely wasn’t one of them. I overlooked it and just went on with what I needed to do. The next hour went by relatively fast. The whole team headed back to the locker room, and Coach went on to give us a speech. He talked about how proud he was of us and how intense our training would have to be if we wanted to win the championship game. If we won it, it would be the school’s first state championship win in the past twenty years. Honestly, we had created one of the best schools that this school had seen in quite a while. After the coach’s speech, everyone hit the locker rooms. I made sure to be quick to finish up and just get out of there. Me and a couple of my friends finished up around the same time, and headed out to the parking lot so we could leave. As always, some of the cheerleaders were waiting for us to leave. Almost every time that we had a game and won, there was a huge party. “Hey there Jack, great game out there tonight. I knew you’d make that last pass and win the game,” one of the cheerleaders, Casey, said to me with a bright smile on her face. She was always quick to congratulate me after a game, regardless of if I won or not. Though sometimes it appeared as if she was trying to flirt with me, it was clear to everyone that she would always try to flirt with one of the other players, Blake. Blake was a running back for the team, and was definitely one of the fastest people on the team. “Thanks Casey,” I spoke as everyone started to head out to our vehicles. Everyone was having small chat about how the game was great and the effort that we displayed. I just smiled to myself and kept listening to all the things people were saying. This night was something everyone would be talking about for a long time. “Jack! My man! Look dude, there’s this amazing party tonight at Spencer’s place. Her parents are out of town for the weekend and she’s got the place all to herself,” I heard an excited voice say. It was Aaron, one of the defense players. He had always been known to find the craziest parties for us to go to, or even throw his own wild parties. Spencer was one of the girls on the cheerleading squad, but she had already left to go home. Now that I heard about the party, I guess that would explain why she left without waiting for any of the guys. “Yeah man, I’ll totally be there. Go ahead and go, I’ll catch up with you guys at the party,” I told my friends as I began to walk towards my car. I own a 2009 Nissan GT-R. It was the second car I had ever had, and I got it as a birthday present from my parents for my seventeenth birthday. My parents used to be out of town a lot when I was younger, so they were always trying to give me these nice presents in an attempt to make up for it. Over time, I had added several modifications to it. I had been upgrading anything I could to turn it into a faster car. Recently, I had actually added a small tank of nitrous oxide. I know it’s illegal, but I didn’t really care. I hardly ever used it, so I was never really concerned with getting busted by the police for having it. I unlocked the doors to my car once I approached it and got inside. I took my time starting the engine and sat there playing with the radio. The stereo system in my car was actually relatively nice and I always enjoyed playing loud music. Mostly, I would always listen to heavy rock music. Playing hardcore rock n’ roll music in my car was always one of my favorite things to do. Countless times teachers had attempted to get in me in trouble for driving into the school parking lot with my music too loud. I have actually been told by several people that they wouldn’t be surprised if I lost my hearing by the time I was thirty. I always just laughed it off and lived life the way I wanted to. Finally, I found what I wanted to listen to. I wasn’t able to find anything that sounded too good on the radio, so I just stuck with listening to one of my favorite bands, Down To This. I took the car out of park and drove out of the school parking lot. I was somewhat excited for this party tonight. I knew that it would be a lot of fun. Spencer’s parties never let anyone down, especially when her parents were out of town. There was always bound to be plenty of hot girls and even beer. I did drink a little bit, but I surely was not a heavy drinker and people would hardly ever see me with a beer in my hand. Typically, the drive between the school and Spencer’s house was about twenty minutes. I was already running a little late, so I needed to tighten up. I knew if I was quick enough, I could easily make it there in about ten or fifteen minutes. There were very few turns after this stop sign right outside of the school. I checked to make sure my seatbelt was on well enough, checked for my lights, and finally turned the music up even louder. Making it quick, I looked both directions down the road ahead, and made a sharp left turn. I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal, trying to reach full speed. The speedometer maxed out at a little over a hundred and ninety miles per hour. This road went straight for the majority of the trip, so before I knew it, I was already going seventy miles an hour. The next turn was coming up, so I braked and let my foot off of the accelerator. Not really wanting to fully stop, I decided I would just drift around this turn and not even worry about stopping at the stop sign. Taking a slight bit of precaution, I slowed down just a little bit more before turning. I drifted around the corner without looking for oncoming traffic. After all, it was starting to get late, and I knew this road never really had any traffic on it. I was almost completely positive that I wouldn’t have to worry about traffic. Nearly immediately after I began to make my turn, I noticed a motorcycle headed directly towards me. I slammed on brakes, in hopes that the oncoming motorcycle wouldn’t hit me. I saw the biker attempt to dodge my car so he wouldn’t crash either. I looked back, and I saw he had lost control and noticed his bike on the side of the road. I barely saw it since it was mostly dark in the sky. I turned my car around quickly to aim my headlights in the direction of the motorcycle lying on the side of the road. I immediately parked my car and got out of the car as quickly as I could. My heart raced and I began to worry. What if I had just killed someone due to my reckless driving? I was so foolish to do something like this. As I got out, I noticed the jet black motorcycle on the side of the road, but there was no body to be seen. I looked out into the field alongside the road, but could not see a body anywhere. I almost started to freak out, nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I closed my eyes and took a moment to breathe, counting to five. After five seconds, I opened my eyes, and looked around. Still there wasn’t a body to be seen anywhere. When I looked at the ground, there wasn’t even a motorcycle there either. I must really be seeing things tonight. I slowly walked back to my car and got in. I decided maybe I should actually drive normal the rest of the way and not be stupid. After about another five minutes, I finally got to Spencer’s house. I parked not too far down the street on the side of the road. It was as close as I could get with the massive amount of people that were already there at the party. I got out of my car, locked the doors, and started to head towards the house. The music from inside the house was extremely loud and could easily be heard from down the street. Before I even got inside of the house, I already knew this was bound to be a crazy party. I noticed several of my friends cars parked alongside the road. There were actually some cars that looked like street racing cars. Knowing this party, some people might actually suggest that we do a race. I could use some excitement like that though. I always got a thrill out of knowing how dangerous racing cars could be, especially when cops were always out, looking to catch people at any minute. I walked into the yard through the front lawn. There were many people standing outside on the lawn, holding drinks in their hands and talking to one another. I waved at one my friends amongst them, and then continued to head for the front door. As I walked in, I was greeted by many people. One person actually yelled to everyone, pretty much announcing my arrival. “Look, its Jack Anderson, the star of the game!” he said. Everyone clapped and cheered. I had never felt so welcome in a place before. As I continued to walk inside, heading for the kitchen, many people proceeded to pat me on my back and say, “good game Jack.” When I got to the kitchen, I quickly grabbed a can of soda and went to join my friends outside. I would have poured myself a beer, but I knew I would have to drive sometime tonight, and I surely would not allow myself to drive drunk. There was a deck, pool, and huge backyard behind the house. This was where the party was at. The majority of the crowd for the night was standing outside. “And for a minute, it was almost like time stood still. I saw the ball fly out of Jake’s hands and spiral towards Jack. I watched the ball zoom towards him, and I almost thought he wasn’t going to catch it. Next thing I know, I see Jack jump several feet in the air and catch the ball!” Blake was bragging about the game, which didn’t surprise me. He always managed to impress the ladies talking about football. He saw me walk up and immediately grabbed me and put an arm around me, holding a beer in his other hand. “Here’s the big man! Ladies, without this boy right here, we probably wouldn’t have won. And get this, he’s even single,” he whispered to the girls as they giggled at what he was saying. “Don’t give me all the credit Blake. No way could I have done any of this without Jake making that pass. I still can’t believe that I caught the ball and outran everyone,” I said as I laughed along with Blake and the girls. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Spencer was all by herself with a drink in her hand. I knew this would be my perfect chance to make a move. “Hey Blake, I’ll catch up with you later. I’m going to go talk to Spencer. I walked off to where Spencer was to go talk to her. “Hey Spencer, pretty awesome party you got here tonight.” I opened with small talk, with intentions of having a good, long conversation with her. “Oh, hey Jack. Thanks, you know how I do parties when my parents get out of town. Great game tonight, you guys did great. I knew you’d help lead the team to a win tonight,” she said with a bright smile on her face. She was excited that we had won the football game. I noticed how pumped up she was during the game earlier when she was cheerleader. Spencer always showed her support for the team when cheerleading. Over the next couple of minutes we continued to make small talk. The conversation was going as well as I suspected it to and she was even showing small signs of flirting with me. I had actually been interested in Spencer for quite a long time, but I just never really had the time to talk to her. I was always busy with football stuff, such as working out or working on plays with the team. Whenever I wasn’t busy with football, she always seemed to be busy with cheerleading. She had cheerleading practice to always go to and was definitely a hard worker when it came to that. On top of that, the cheerleading team was constantly competing in several competitions. “So Spencer, I was thinking maybe sometime we could go out or something. You know, nothing too complicated. Maybe go out to eat or go see a movie,” I suggested to her. I decided it was finally time I made my move. Football season was almost over, and now was the perfect time to ask. Everyone was making me look like the star of the football team, so I’d use what Spencer thought of me right now to my own personal advantage. “Yeah Jack, that’d be great. I’d love it if we could go do something together one day,” replying with a bright smile on her face. With the way she was smiling, she had probably wanted me to do this for quite a while. I had actually had my eyes set on Spencer for quite a while. Now that I think about it, I’ve probably have had a crush on her since sophomore year, before I had even joined the football team. Back then though, I didn’t see that I stood a chance with a girl like her any day. Suddenly, there was a bunch of noise that came from inside the house. At first, I just tried to ignore it and stay here with Spencer. She was different though, this was her party after all. Quickly, she apologized for having to go, but said that she had to check it out and make sure everything was okay inside. I stood there for a minute and decided to head into the house as well, after the noise had been continuing for the past couple of minutes. When I walked inside, I noticed a circle of people standing crowded in the living room. There was a wide space open in the middle of the room. I knew immediately what this meant, there was a fight going on. A fight would surely ruin the mood for this party, so I decided it’d be best if I tried to break it up. I pushed my way through the crowd to get into the circle. One of the guys, to my surprise, was Blake, and the other guy, I wasn’t sure of whom he was. The two boys were throwing hard punches back and forth. No one was exactly winning the fight. They were both getting beat up pretty badly. I stepped in and pulled the two apart. I grabbed Blake tightly and pulled him back. He struggled to get out of my hold and go back to punching the other guy. Someone from the crowd grabbed the other guy to hold him back before the fight started back all over again. “Jack! Get off me! Let me teach this fool a lesson!” Blake’s voice spoke with anger. He seemed angrier than usual. I had to get him calmed down before this got nasty. “Blake, what are you doing?” I asked, trying to figure out what was going on. “There’s no reason to start fighting at a celebration party man, we’re here to have fun. Not to beat up some stupid punk that’s trying to mess with you.” “He was talking crap about the game. Saying how it wasn’t even you that helped us get the win. He kept talking about how you just got lucky with that last pass. Are you really going to sit there and let people talk like that about you?” Blake made a good point, but still, I wasn’t about to get into a fight. For one, it was a party, not fight night. Besides that, I can’t afford to get hurt badly. I definitely need to stay ready for the championship game. “Look Blake, I understand. Trust me, if this was somewhere else on a different night, this kid would be going down. But, the championship game is coming up, and I’m not going to risk getting into a fight,” I explained to him. I figured explaining my reasoning for not wanting to fight would probably make him smarten up and not be so stupid. “Well, let’s settle this a different way then.” When Blake said this, I didn’t really know what to expect. Sometimes, Blake would come up with these crazy bets. So, there was no telling what he’d say. I let go of him, he seemed to be calmed down enough to not start fighting again. “We all have cars here, right? And as we can all see outside, quite a few of us have cars we race with. So, I say we settle this situation with a race. Everyone places in at least a hundred dollars, and the winner gets it. And of course, the winner gets bragging rights as always.” Many people cheered. This was definitely one of the crowds that enjoyed watching us race. This obviously wasn’t the first time that we had done something like this. During the summer every year, we constantly have races after or during parties. It’s extremely risky, since it’s illegal, but that didn’t mean much to us. We always kept an eye out for the cops. Everyone had scanners, so we could tell if any cops were around. Most of the time, we only raced for fun. Sometimes though, we actually did race for money. Hopefully everyone would calm down and the tension would loosen up if we went and had a race. I was actually about to say I wasn’t going to race, but I knew Blake would get pissed off if I said that. I definitely didn’t want to start the fight back up. “Alright Blake, I’m in. Don’t get pissed when I cream you though,” I jokingly said to him. We cleared off a coffee table that was in the living room area and emptied out a bowl that was in the center. Several people started to toss their money in for the bets. I was a little hesitant to put in a hundred bucks on this, I was just wanting to have fun, but I wasn’t about to be a bad sport. I pulled out my wallet and grabbed money from it, putting in the bowl with everyone else’s money. When the guy that Blake had been fighting put his money in, I noticed the way everyone looked at him with much hostility. Some small talk was made for a few minutes while we waited for everyone who wanted to race put money in the pot. After everyone had put money in, everyone started to head outside to our vehicles. The vehicles that people were driving to go race varied greatly. Some people had trucks, while others had cars, and one guy even had a Jeep. Nearly the entire party was leaving to follow us to where we were going to. This was the life of the party now. I knew the perfect place for us to race. It was an old highway that went several miles. It was currently closed for construction, which they hadn’t started yet. All we’d have to do was move the traffic cones that had been put down and the whole road would be open to us. The construction hadn’t started yet because the road had just been closed the day before and all the construction vehicles had not arrived yet. We’d probably just have a few cars drive down the road entirely first to check out the whole road. We’d set up a few checkpoints as well. This would help look out for cops, and make sure the race was going okay. After leaving the party, it took about fifteen minutes to get to where we were all headed. There were at least twenty cars there in the end, and plenty more than twenty people. Spencer had actually ridden with me on the way there, which was nice. I wasn’t exactly sure what her opinion was on me racing, but she didn’t really seem to mind it too much. She actually seemed rather excited, just like me. Typically when I was about to be in a race, I was always extremely nervous about what could happen. There are always a few risks with street racing, varying from the possibility of wrecking and dying, to getting caught by the police and being put in jail. At the same time though, I was always excited to race. It seemed that the possibility of being caught was what really made this so exciting. As people started to pull up and park at the end of the highway, Spencer and I stepped out of the car. Several people were already moving cones out of the way for the race. Once the cones were moved, people started to head down the road to find places to watch the event. I walked over to Blake to talk to him. “Alright man, you want me to lay down the basic rules like usual?” I asked him, since I typically did make rules every time. It was just how we normally did it. I had been doing this since nearly the beginning of us starting this and knew how to run things. I never made any unfair rules, only the kind of rules to keep us all safe. I wasn’t about to have someone else’s death on my hands. Blake gave me a nodding gesture, so I took that as my queue to speak up. “Alright everyone, listen up!” I whistled to get everyone’s attention. Everyone quieted down quickly and came in closer to me to be able to hear. Mainly the racers were the ones up front though. “I’m going to lay down so pretty basic rules here you guys, but nothing too stupid. I’m only doing this to try to keep everyone safe. We’re using both sides of the road, all four lanes. There’s to be absolutely no hitting other people’s cars, we’re not having any wrecks out here tonight, understood? Other than that, do whatever you have to in order to win. Let’s do it!” Everyone cheered and got ready to watch people race. We had already gotten the signal from people down the road that everything was good to go. There were no cops around, and people were on watch for that anyways. The road was pretty much completely safe to drive on. Probably a few rough spots to drive through here and there, but overall, it was pretty safe. We decided to pick what order cars would be lined up at the start in a silly way somewhat, we decided to choose a number then go from whoever was closest to the number. Spencer picked a number, and then people said the number that they thought it was. After everyone had picked numbers, including me, I actually ended up being in the first row of cars. We lined up cars in all four lanes, with a total of eight people racing. Spencer came up to me and wished me good luck. Right before she went to walk away though, she leaned in and gave me a brief kiss on the lips. I was shocked at first, but I obviously kissed her back. She told me that there was more where that came from if I won the race. This made me have this wide smile on my face, even if I probably did look pretty stupid. Now, I felt even more encouraged to win this race. If I win this race, not only would I win the money and bragging rights, but I’d even win the girl. I went to my car and started it up and drove up to the front line of cars. I was excited for this race, probably more than I had ever been before. I was determined I’d be the one who’d do almost anything to win. This race would also give me the perfect chance to be able to try out my nitrous tank. With something like that, I’d surely be able to take the lead and win with no problem. I wasn’t about to get too confident and make me get off focus though. I was definitely going to put forth my best effort in this race. All of the cars were lined up straight across the four lane highway. I began to rev my engine some, to intimidate my opponents. My engine typically sounded amazing and you could easily tell that my car would be fast. Blake was right behind me. Blake drove a ’93 Honda Civic, which I knew he had made several modifications to. I wasn’t exactly sure of what all he had done to make it faster, but I’m sure he had improved the vehicle’s top speed. He was one of the few racers of the night that I was sure I’d actually have to worry about. I glanced briefly to see what other cars there were, and it surely seemed like this would be quite the race. One of the girls walked to the front of the cars to stand directly in the middle. In one of her hands, she had a racing flag. This meant that the race was about to start. I sat my back up straight in the seat and checked my seatbelts quickly. Most people would think we wouldn’t worry about seatbelts, but this is truly a dangerous sport to participate in. The possibility of being in a wreck was very high, so I made sure my seatbelt was on just in case I did happen to crash. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and revved my engine several times. I looked over at Blake’s car and he looked back at me, I gave him a quick nod, wishing him good luck. We wouldn’t hold it against each other if the other person won. We weren’t stupid enough to let some fun like this destroy our friendship. That’d be just plain stupid. I kept my eye on the girl up front. With one hand, she raised the flag. This was it, the second that flag went down, I’d be off. Time seemed to be in slow motion as I watched her drop her hand back down to lower the flag. That was my signal. I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal as hard as I possibly could. My car sped down the highway extremely fast. I almost wanted to look around to see other cars around me, but I wasn’t that stupid. Looking back would probably cause me to lose control. There were cars on both sides of me, but I didn’t worry about them. This was a long stretch and I’d surely be able to get in front of them before we hit a corner to go around. Glancing at the speedometer, I noticed I was already going eighty miles an hour. The speed of the car was rising quickly. Cars that were beside me began to disappear from my view, and I smiled to myself. I may actually stand a chance in this race. Before I was able to get to confident, one of the cars in the outside line sped up and slowly crept past all of us. I pressed my foot down harder on the pedal and I felt the car jolt forward. My body was pushed back against my seat and I was literally able to feel the speed of my car. I could feel my chest pounding, but not in a painful way. It was my heart beat increasing because of the adrenaline rush that I was getting from this. All of this was so exciting for me. I hadn’t felt this way in quite some time. My car was passing others and I was right beside the Mustang that had passed me earlier. I hadn’t really noticed at first that it was a Mustang, because I was trying to pay attention on getting ahead. Now that I saw the kind of car this was, it didn’t surprise me one bit that whoever it was, was able to go that fast. I began to slowly pass this car as well, putting me in front of everyone. As we drove down the highway, I noticed all the people in cars on the side of the highway cheering us on. We passed by them so quickly that they were actually barely even noticeable. Our first turn was coming up ahead. There had been a few small turns earlier, but nothing dramatic. This was a sharp corner that could change the whole race. If I took the lead here, I could probably go on to win the race. Not too long after this turn, the road would turn into a two lane highway for a while and not go back to a four lane for a long distance. I looked down at the middle console in my car and saw the nitrous tank and the switch to turn it on. It would be extremely risky to use it now, but it would be useful if I did, because I could take the lead this way. Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, I used the other to turn on the nitrous tank. I was extremely nervous coming around this corner going so fast. I saw the dial on my speedometer jump all the way to a hundred and thirty miles per hour, and the speed only continued to go up. I wasn’t really too worried about my car flipping over. The weight of the car was pretty heavy, so I was sure it’d be able to sustain taking a sharp turn. Surprisingly, I noticed a ’04 Acura RSX pull right beside me. It made me somewhat nervous because it would be a tight turn with two people trying to go through. I was also worried because of how fast he was going. He must have had a nitrous tank as well. I let of the accelerator and started to tap the brake slightly. We started to come around the corner, and his car came to be right beside mine. This was too close, it wouldn’t end well. Both of our cars started to make the sharp turn, and I heard his car scrape right against mine. At first, I thought it was an accident, but then I felt my car being pushed to the left. Suddenly, I saw him pull his car away for a second, and then ram his car into mine. I lost control of my car, and it started to go off the side of the rode. I tried bracing myself for what was about to happen. I felt the car flip, and I hit my head hard. The second I hit my head, everything went black. When I finally regained consciousness, I had no clue what was happening. I opened my eyes and tried to look around. I immediately felt blood running down my face. I must have bashed my head pretty hard. A jolt of pain rushed through my body. I began to scream out in pain. I had never experienced anything like this. Never had I felt a pain as great as this one. Even as I tried to move to stand up, I felt even more pain. Looking down at my body, I noticed I had broken several bones. My left arm was broken near my wrist, the left ankle was twisted, and a bone was protruding through my right leg. My body was in horrible shape. Worst of all, I honestly couldn’t really remember what had happened. Here I was, lying in the middle of a street, half dead, with no clue of how it all happened. I looked around to at least try to find out where I was. Maybe someone would hear me yelling and screaming for help. It was clear that if I didn’t get help immediately, then I surely would end up dead. Honestly though, with the pain I was suffering right at this very moment, I felt like I’d much rather be dead. When I looked around, I noticed several houses lined all down the street. There were absolutely no street lamps to light up the street, which I found surprising. On top of that, there were no cars in any of the driveways of the house, nor were there any lights on in any of the houses. Not even a front porch light was on. The only thing that was lighting up the night sky was the bright full moon and the stars of the universe. If the pain was nerve-racking enough for me, I began to worry about my surroundings. Questions filled my mind. Where was everyone? Why were there no lights on this street? Then, the weirdest thought came to my mind. I was pretty sure that it was an incorrect assumption though. What if I was dead? This was a dreary place after all. Who knows, this could be where you get sent before the final judgment of your life. Fear filled my mind now. This all was too insane, why would this happen to me? What happened next was probably what made the situation even weirder. Out of nowhere, I heard this booming, odd, and strange sound come from the far distance. I couldn’t tell what it was at all. I had never really heard anything quite like it. Well, now that I thought about it, I probably had. It almost sounded like it came straight out of a science fiction. Almost like it was the sound of some sort of spaceship. This couldn’t be possible though, because there’s no such thing as spaceships. Spaceships only exist in movies. Besides, there’s no life on any other planets besides Earth. Everyone knows that. Shortly after hearing the strange noise, there was a loud crash. The crash was so loud, that I could even feel the vibration from where I was. I had no clue what it could have possibly been, and it was slowly starting to make me nervous. There was the sound of what seemed to be motorcycles. That was kind of cool, aliens that have motorcycles. I laughed to myself, but stopped almost immediately because I felt a horrible pain in my chest and throughout my whole body. I looked up to see down the road, and I saw what looked like motorcycles and some sort of jeep heading directly my way. From behind me, I had a crash. This one wasn’t as loud as the one from before. Directly following the sound of the crash, there was the roar of an engine and I heard whatever kind of vehicle it was head towards where I was. I would soon be surrounded on both sides. Fear filled my head yet again, but now that the sounds I had heard were things I could actually see, it started to scare me more now. There was no telling what these people wanted from me, and much less who they were. I noticed the vehicles in front of me stop not too far in front of me. As for the vehicle coming from behind, it didn’t seem to be that it was close to me yet. One of the people on the motorcycles drove further than the others, making a sharp slide to be turned to the slide. It seemed like they were trying to either show off their “skills” to me or their friends. Overall, there were six of them. As they removed their helmets, I saw that four of them were guys, and the other two were females. The guy in front pulled out some kind of pistol from a side holster on his outfit. He proceeded to shoot at the ground around me, but not directly at me, causing me to jump out of fear. “Aiden, stop!” one of the girls yelled at him for shooting at me. “Stop trying to frighten him, he’s already half dead to begin with. You really want to lose what we came here for?” This girl walked closer towards me and stood beside the guy named Aiden. “Sarah, shut up. We found him, and that’s all we needed to do. Now that we have him, we can save him and get out of here. So, it doesn’t matter if I mess with his mind,” Aiden said to her in a slightly angry voice. “Kristen, what are you waiting for? Heal the boy already, take the pain away.” One of the girls walked over to me and knelt down right beside me. I was nervous about what she was going to do. I went to say something, but she put a finger over my lips, trying to keep me quiet. She whispered to me, “Don’t worry. We aren’t here to hurt you, only to save you. I’m going to help you out, I can heal you. Don’t be scared child.” I watched her put her hand on my foot and move it back into place, but I felt no pain whatsoever. She used her hand to put my broken back into place as well. Her hands had a strange glow to it, it wasn’t too much of a glow, but I still noticed it. The whole time she was doing things to me, I felt no pain at all. In fact, all of my pain was gone now, I didn’t feel anything. “Jack Anderson, stand up,” Aiden ordered me. Not wanting anything to go wrong, I obeyed him and stood to my feet. This task was actually surprisingly easily. I expected to feel a large amount of pain trying to stand up. “Perfect, you’re in great condition. Now, we’re going to do a test, just try to do the best you can.” “I’ll take it from here Aiden, you aren’t qualified to give the test, you very well know that,” one of the boys stepped forward and moved Aiden out of the way gently. “What’s going on here? I don’t understand any of this,” I asked him. I had so many questions, and I wanted some answers. “Jack, we’ve come to take you to your rightful home. We can’t explain much now, but we will when we get back to the ship. We’re going to have to perform a small test. This will be just to see if you are who we think you are. Okay?” He had a kind voice and seemed like he only wanted to help me. Unlike, Aiden, this seemed much more friendly. “Place your hand out in front of you, almost like your waiting for someone to place something in it. Here’s the hard part now. Picture your hand on fire, not like it’s burning, but almost as if fire is emitting for your hand itself. Try as hard as you can to let that happen. Tell me what you experience.” “I- I feel my hand getting hotter and hotter. I can’t stop my hand from shaking,” I told him. I didn’t exactly understand what was happening. It kind of scared me, but the feeling actually felt really good for some reason. I literally felt like flames were about to erupt from my hands. “Wow, it really is you.” There was a long pause before he spoke again. He seemed to be rather surprised. “You can’t exactly do much yet, but you can actually feel it, which is what matters. Look, you’re part of something special. You’re ancestor was a very important man who led a nation during a dark time. We suspect you might have the same abilities as him, that’s why we’re here. Let me introduce everyone. The girls are Sarah and Kristen. The guys are Aiden, Jonas, and Alexander. I’m Logan, pleasure to meet you.” He reached his hand out to shake mine, and I gladly accepted the friendly gesture. From behind, all of us heard a vehicle pull up. I was yet another motorcycle. This must have been from the other ship that I had heard land. The person stopped their vehicle a short distance in front of us. He stepped off and threw his helmet off his head and onto the ground. His face showed a very angry expression, which almost scared me. Logan pushed me back and all of the guys moved forward to stand in front of me. I noticed Aiden pull out his pistol and keep at his side. This must be something serious. “Logan, it’s quite such a surprise to see you here tonight.” The man had a wide smirk on his face. “Oh wait. It isn’t much of a surprise. You and your stupid little gang of friends always come up and try to snatch the bounty at the last minute.” “Daniel, there’s no need to get angry. You had every chance to get here before we did. He’s ours now, so back off, or we’ll make you.” They kept talking about me like I was something that just be thrown around and like they owned me. “Hey! I’m not anyone’s property. What’s this even about?” I spoke up and asked them. I demanded to know what this was really about. “Well, if it isn’t Jack Anderson himself, the savior of a nation. Did they even tell you what they wanted from you?” Daniel said, laughing some. “There’s a bounty on you Jack. That’s why they’ve come to take you. They’ll turn you in for the money, and that’ll be the end of it. They don’t want to be your friends. Their only goal is to earn the money.” “A compromise can be made later. Daniel, don’t turn this into something it really isn’t.” Jonas spoke up. I hadn’t heard a single word out of him until just now. This people must really have needed me. It was probably best if I just kept quiet and didn’t put my two cents into this one. “You’re lucky that the Republic has an eye on you. If it wasn’t for them, I’d take every last one of you down right here, right now. Don’t worry, I’ll be back one day, and you’ll regret all of this.” Daniel turned around and walked back to his motorcycle, and put his helmet back on. Suddenly, I noticed it was the exact same motorcycle from earlier tonight. There was no possible way that they were the same though. I didn’t even bother speaking up. I’d probably only look crazy for saying something like that. “Jack, don’t worry about him. He talks nonsense like that all the time,” Alexander said to me. He chuckled to himself. “Come on everyone. Let’s head back to the ship, we need to get out of here before anything starts to happen.” Everyone started to head back to the motorcycles and the one jeep. I hesitated for a moment, questioning whether I should really go with these people or not. I decided that it was probably my best option though. Besides, this world looked deserted, what could there possibly be to do here? I followed Sarah to the jeep and got in the passenger’s side. She started the engine and waited for the others take the lead. We drove just down the street and then I saw it. The spaceship they had come in was enormous. It was beautiful, even if it was nothing like I had ever seen before. There was a large bay door open in one area, which we were driving too. All the vehicles headed in through this bay door and parked inside. To my surprise, there was a large crowd of people standing there, as if they were waiting for my arrival. After we stepped out of the jeep, Sarah walked over to me. She placed a hand on my shoulder and stood beside me. “Jack Anderson, welcome to the family,” she said with a bright smile on her face.