Jin’s POV

Year 2097

It all started on my 19th birthday. It was a beautiful day, the sky was a clear baby blue, with the right amount of clouds in the sky. My parents had taken a day off work to take me out to a small but fancy restaurant near our house. The waiter got us the window seat and shortly afterwards we ordered.

Finishing the meal, a cake was delivered to our table. My eyes widened as I looked at the beautiful cake. My parents smiled at me and started to sing happy birthday.

I quickly made a wish and was just about to cut the cake when suddenly, from the stillness of the day, a shriek sounded and made my ears rattle. All traces of calmness evaporated from my being, and I in my seat, alert, trying to calm the thumping of my heart.

Loud explosions sounded as the grenades went off. Buildings were blown apart as humans and mutants ran away in fear. The Council had ordered their troops to kill the people living in the northern part of the new Pangea, wanting the remaining population to obey them.

My parents had thrown themselves on me when a grenade rolled into the restaurant and exploded. Distorted, I slowly opened my eyes. The explosion had blown apart the small restaurant, the tables were thrown across the room and the windows were shattered. My ears were ringing as I slowly push myself upwards.

“Mum? Dad?” I said as I saw them lying beside me. “M-mum?” I could feel tears welling up as I shook her limp body. The sound of shooting sounded a few stores down the street. The troops were killing the people who survived the grenades.

“D-dad?” I turned as I heard a faint cough. “J-jin… Run…” “D-dad! W-we have to-” Tears trickled down my cheek as my dad smiled sadly at me. “No, Jin. I can’t… G-go before they come.” “N-no…” I croaked “We- we can still make it out together.”

The shooting got closer as I tugged on my dad’s arm. “Jin… my sweet daughter… I’m sorry…” He lifted me up into the air with his telekinesis and threw me out of the restaurant.

Since the restaurant was located near the edge of the town, I landed at the exit. No! I have to help dad! I quickly picked myself off the ground and tried to make my way back to the restaurant.

“There’s a survivor!” Oh no, they found dad! I could hear dad trying to defend himself as the soldiers shot at him. “Our bullets can’t hit him, Sergeant!” “Use the grenade.”

No!!!

The grenade went off as I turned round the corner of the alleyway. Dad! I slid down the side of the building with my hands covering my mouth, my body tremble as a loud sob raked through my body. The sound of loud footsteps ran pass the alleyway before turning back.

“Sir! There seems to be someone here.” I froze. My hands frantically searched the ground for something to defend me. I could hear the sound of metal against metal as the sound of heavy breathing got closer with the footsteps.

I felt my fingers brushed past a glass bottle, and quickly grabbed it and ran behind the dumpster. I waited as the soldier got closer to my hiding place. The footsteps stopped on the other side of the dumpster as the soldier looked around. I peeked out slightly from my hiding place.

“Hey.” What? I-is he talking to me? “You can come out, I won’t hurt you.” N-no… he’s just saying that to trick me

Not believing his words, I swung the glass bottle at him. The glass bottle broke as it hit his helmet, stunning him for a few seconds. This gave me some time to escape as the soldier tried stumbled.

I ran out of the town and into the Ice Forest, seeking refugee there. My vision blurred as I thought of my parents. Hot tears flowed down my cheeks as I ran further and further into the forest. My lungs were burning for air as my legs gave way.

I felt myself fall and hit the ice cold lake water. The last thing I remembered was the silvery glow of the full moon, before my eyelids gave in to the darkness.

************

Year 2200

A strong musty scent filled my nose as I regained consciousness. Slowly and cautiously, I cracked open my heavy eyelids, only to see stone overhead. I gently rubbed the sleep out of my eyes as I sat up and surveyed my surroundings. Why am I in a cave? The last thing I remembered was- My thoughts were cut off as a man suddenly popped out of nowhere, holding a bunch of dead fish.

“I see you have finally decided to wake up”, the man said as he place the fishes down, got his knife out and started gutting them. “W-what happened?” I croaked, despite my dry throat screaming at me for water. “I got you out of that frozen lake not far from here, that’s what happened.” He replied as he continued gutting the fishes, not looking up as he concentrated on the fishes.

“C-can I ask you s-something?” “Sure” “W-who are you?” as soon as I said that, the man stopped and placed his knife down next to him. “I go by many names, but people usually call me Eric.” “Why do you go by many names?” Eric sighed as he looked at me “You know, you speak a lot for someone who just woke up.” I blushed as I looked down “Sorry.”

I heard him chuckle, before a flask appeared in front of me. He motioned for me to drink up before answering my question. “I’m rouge, that’s why I have so many names. I steal from rich mutants and help the poor ones. You can say that I’m the modern day Robin Hood.” I was surprised, so this man, despite his cold exterior was a nice person.

However, I was still puzzled by one thing though. “What does ‘rouge’ mean?” Eric looked at me weirdly, his eyebrows pulled together into a tight frown. “You mean you don’t know?” I slowly shook my head. Eric scratched his chin as he looked at my clothes. Something seemed to click in his mind as he jumped up.

“What year is this?” I look up at him “2097?” “Aha! I knew it!” What is he talking about? I was about to ask him what he found out when he said “You have been frozen for 103 years!” What?!?!?

************

Year 2257

Where is Eric? He should be back by now. I thought as I paced back and forth, wrought with worry. Eric was supposed to be back a few minutes ago, and he’s never late. I should go look for him. I decided to go look for him after much debate, Eric always say that I was too naïve for my own good, so he never lets me go outside alone. But he was missing and that had begun to worry me, what if something terrible had happened to him when he was hunting.

I packed the small dagger that Eric had given me in my messenger bag, along with a few other herbs that could come in handy if I needed to treat some wounds. I strapped the belt part to my hip and the thinner straps to my thigh. After that, I grabbed my cloak and stepped out of the cave.

I stretched my wings out first before flying up to the thick branches. As soon as I reached the dense treetops, I landed on the thick branches and folded my wings. I reverted to covering them with my cloak. Eric and I had travelled to the Northern region, after living in the South for a few years. He had taught me everything that I needed to know and guided me as we lived in the forest, and we had learnt that some crazy mutants likes to kill for exotic body parts.

And after some encounters with some other mutants, I developed wings. Eric had given me a cloak after a trip to a town as we travelled, and said it would prevent people from seeing them.

I peered through some of the gaps in the treetops as leapt from branch to branch, only to stop short when I spotted a familiar face trapped in a net hanging from a tree. Oh no! Eric!

Eric’s face was bloody and bruised, and his body was battered. I took off my cloak, attaching it to my belt while I unfolded my wings. I got my dagger out and jumped off the branch that I was on, and flew down to Eric.

“Eric, don’t worry, I will get you out”, I whispered as I got near him “Jin… G-get out of here. T-they’re c-coming for you.” Eric whizzed as he looked at me with his half-lidded eyes, he gently pushed me away, before whispering “Go”

Everything had happened so suddenly. The group of men had emerged from the shadows and started shooting. I quickly flew up to the treetops as the bullets whizzed past me.

Storm clouds started rolling in rapidly, and thunder could be heard rumbling overhead. When the leader of the group saw that I had no intention of coming down the tree, he ordered the man beside him to kill Eric.

All I could do was watch as the man aimed his shotgun at Eric as looked at me. He gave me one last smile before the shotgun fired, the bullet lodging itself into his chest and through his heart.

Blood spilled out from Eric’s mouth as he struggled to breath. His clothes slowly turned crimson as life drained out of his body. My brain ached as a familiar scene flashed across my eyes. No!

Rain poured down heavily as I sobbed uncontrollably on the tree branch. Eric have been taking care of me for 57 years, he treated me like his daughter, took care of me and trained me. Even when I had lost my memories, he stayed with me and helped me. He was the only person I had left, and he had died protecting me.

After crying for hours in the rain, the group of men were still waiting at the bottom of the tree. The sound of the pouring rain had drowned out most of their conversation, but I still managed to overhear their plans.

The leader wanted to sell me off to some traffickers after cutting off my wings. Apparently, feathered wings were hard to come by and they are worth a fortune to some collectors. I came up with an escape plan as I calmed down on the branch. I folded my wings and hid them under my cloak as I put my plan into action.

I got up from the branch and got into a crouched positon. I quickly took off as soon as I heard thunder boom. My plan was to leap from tree to tree when there’s thunder, so that the sound of my escape would be drowned out.

My escape did not go as well as I planned as I had not gotten far before the leader spotted me. He ordered his men to hit me with the sleep darts instead of the normal bullets. Those darts were used for hunting, and would knock a high level mutant out in a matter of minutes.

The branches and rain had given me sufficient cover from most of the darts but one. One of the sleep darts had hit my thigh, and had released the some of the drug into my system before I could pull it out.

As I kept running, I could feel my eyelids getting heavier and heavier. Dark spots clouded my vision, preventing me from seeing clearly. I felt myself fall from the tree as the weak branch I had landed on snapped. One of my feet landed at a wrong angle when my body slammed into the ground. I clawed at the tree to lift myself up, I felt pain surge through my body as soon as I applied pressure to it.

As the sound of footsteps got closer, I forced myself to keep going. I had managed to reach a clearing by using the trees as support, but as my grip on the tree loosen, my boots slipped on the muddy ground. I struggled to push myself up as the men came up behind me.

“You really don’t know when to give up, do you? You made me run all over the place just to catch you.” Somebody bend down next to me and grabbed onto my hair. “And for that, I will make you suffer.”