Chapter One | Beginning

My name is Alexander Kleave, I'm 23 years old and ex-military. The reason I'm not in the military anymore is because of my sister, Eva. While I was away my mother would take care of her, but my mother got cancer and died. Luckily I was able to return home and take care of my sister since she's still a minor.

Our father left us when my sister was still a baby and I haven't seen him since I was a child. My mother struggled to make money and as soon as I turned 18 I was forced to join the military because of my father. Apparently, he had made a deal with a Sergeant to have me join, which my mother had no idea about.

My sister and I still struggle for money because of the Apocalypse that happened 25 years ago. This Apocalypse has nothing to do with zombies. It's actually an event where thousands of portals opened around the world. These portals let Fiends into our world.

Fiends are just a fancy name for them, they're really just monsters. Fiends come in all forms. They could be common insects and animals or be otherworldly and undead, some are even humanoid. The Fiends would have killed everyone already if something else didn't happen during the Apocalypse, the start of Hunters.

Hunters are people who awakened with powers and are the only thing that can kill Fiends. Powers are given to Hunters, they can either use Magic or Martial Arts, some even develop skills that are unique to a single person. The pay is good from what I hear, but the one small problem is that I'm not a Hunter and can't get that kind of money.

You think with my training I'd be able to kill them, but no. When I was deployed a giant ant Fiend appeared and none of us could kill it. Not even an ant could be killed by non-Hunters who are trained to kill.

Anyways, I think that's enough of the past. Let's get to the present.

Since summer is almost over, Eva and I are heading to the pool before it closes for the season. It's about a 15 minute walk from our apartment to the pool, we can't drive because I don't have a car.

When we finally arrive at the pool we go and change into our swimsuits and meet up outside the restrooms. We start looking for a spot for our towels, but as we walk past all the people quite a few stair at us. Well more me than Eva.

The reason behind this is that I look different from the "Normal" person. My hair is a vibrant red and my eyes are different colors. The left eye is emerald green, while my right is a light blue.

The Apocalypse made it possible for people to have unnatural hair and eye colors, although vibrant colors are still rare. My hair and heterochromia which is what causes many people to stare at me.

Eva is quite different from me because I was adopted, she has chestnut brown hair and gray eyes. Boys often ask her out from her school because she's quite beautiful, yet she has refused every offer that has come her way.

"Alex!" Eva yells at me, splashing me with water, "Get in!"

"Yea, in a second." I tell her. I must have been lost in thought and didn't realize that she got into the water.

I set down my towel on a chair then jump into the water. We spend about an hour and a half swimming and hanging out by the pool before getting dressed and start leaving the pool to head home.

"Hey, Alex?" Eva asks me.

"What's up?"

"Can we go and get some ice cream?" She asks me with a big smile.

"Sure." I tell her sighing.

We headed on a little detour from our apartment and started going to StoneCold. When we arrive and go inside I see that it's a little busy, but we're already here so we might as well get ice cream.

We get in line and wait about ten minutes until we get to the counter. Eva always orders the same thing when we come here in the summer so our turn goes pretty fast.

"Hello young lady, what would you like today?" The man behind the counter asks.

"Playdough please." Eva tells him.

Now Playdough is quite the unusual name for ice cream, but it's actually pretty good. It's a Blue Moon ice cream with multi-colored cookie dough pieces in it. This is the only place I know that sells Playdough ice cream.

"Okay, sounds good." He says as scooping out her ice cream, "Any toppings?"

"No thank you." Eva tells him.

"Okay." He says, then heads to the cash register.

"That will be $5.39." He tells me.

"Okay." I say while getting a ten out of my wallet, "Here."

"$4.61 is your change, sir." He says, handing me the change.

I take the change and look around the shop for a spot to sit, but there isn't any.

"Let's go home." I say to Eva.

"Okay." She says to me.

We head out the door and start heading to our apartment. It will take a little longer to get there since StoneCold wasn't on our way home.

We walk for a while and Eva finishes her ice cream. Out of nowhere, I sensed that someone was watching us, but when I looked around and couldn't see anyone. It makes me wary because there had been reports of young girls going missing.

'It should be fine as long as I'm with Eva.'

We walked for a little bit longer, but suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my stomach.