RWBY: LIFE AND DEATH - CHAPTER 3

[Umber Khan - 5 years old]

Happiness rarely lasts in a world of chaos and uncertainty, I always knew that I simply chose to ignore it, or rather not think about it. I loved my family, my new life, I simply had nothing to miss from my past life, here I had everything, except for my adulthood, which I would eventually recover, I had everything, until… I didn’t.

It was the night before Dad’s birthday, and Sienna and I were shopping for his gift, we had been doing errands for the neighbor to save some money, it wasn’t much but we saved every single penny, all to buy Dad and Mom, gifts on their birthdays, nothing expensive, a cup that said the best dad, or a wallet, or maybe a new earring for mom.

It was a night like any other, the town was filled with people, and we were walking around the shopping center, with what little we had to spend. Then, without any warning, chaos erupted from the streets of our little town, it was all so sudden, one moment we were looking at a pair of shoes for dad, and the next one, people started to scream and run, in a frantic state of fear.

It was all so fast, I didn’t even realize when Sienna grabbed me by the arm and started to run, I could tell she had no idea what was going on, like I did, but she was acting for the sake of my safety, so I ran, our main objective to reach our house, we knew if we reached there, everything would be okay, or so we hoped.

As we ran, I noticed something I had failed to see until now, fire, the town was on fire, consuming everything on its path, how had this happened, and why? As if answering my questions, a man, a human man appeared in front of us, cutting our path, what was a human doing here in a Faunus Town, why did he have a knife in his hands, and why did his knife have blood “Say goodbye you little animals,” what happened next was so fast, I barely had time to react or process, Sienna jumped towards the man like a feral cat, ripped the knife off his hands and as she clung to him, biting and punching with tears on her eyes, she stabbed the man to death with his own knife, as she did so, something felt from the man’s pocket, a gun, and frightening realization hit me, he could’ve killed us with the gun, but decided to go for the slower method, he wanted us or anyone he was going to kill to suffer, to feel pain.

As I processed this, another human ran towards Sienna with a bat, but before he reached her, the man fell to the ground dead with a loud thud, someone had shot him, looking at my hands, I understood what had happened, I had shot the man, with the gun of his friends, I have no idea how, or when I grabbed the gun, but I did, maybe it was on instinct.

“Umber, are you okay?” Covered in blood, from head to toes, Sienna started to inspect my body worryingly, as I nodded.

“I am,” I replied, my hands shaking, I had killed a man.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” Sienna hugged me, “Now let’s go home,”

Did we even still have a home? “Yes,” I nodded, my trembling stopping, this was not the time to let fear control me, not now, not ever.

We continued to run, avoiding the humans to the best of our capabilities, seeing the destruction these invaders had brought upon us. I had already lost count of how many people I knew were dead on the streets, like a common rat. It was shocking to see the people I once knew, lying on the ground, lifeless, “We are close,” Sienna whispered.

That we were, two blocks away from our safe haven, or our personal hell, “Yes,” I nodded, holding the gun tight, as it was my only means to defend myself, and my sister.

“Alright, let’s run!” Sienna said, sprinting through the last two blocks with me close behind. Our house, at first sight, looked okay, no blood, no sign of forced entry, but… the smells in the area, said otherwise, it didn’t smell like mom and dad, at least not entirely, it smelled like humans, and it smelled like blood, not sure to who said blood belonged to.

“You smell that?” I asked.

“Yes,” Sienna nodded. I could tell she was on the verge of tears but was putting on a strong façade for me.

“I’ll cover your back,” I guess we were both putting on a strong façade. I was scared of what I was going to encounter inside the house, I was… I couldn’t lie to myself, being an adult in mind didn’t change the fact I was scared of losing my family, my new family.

“Ok,” Sienna nodded, grabbing the knife on her hand tight.

Without any more pauses, we entered the house, encountering a trail of blood that led to the kitchen, three humans dead laying on the oven, but no signs of mom and dad. I could smell them, their blood around the room, but no signs of their bodies, this was good right? It meant they survived this encounter, opening the door to the master room. A cruel revelation broke my infantile fantasy, as our sweet mother laid on the bed, her throat cut wide open, with our father on top of her, holding her hand.

I choked with my own breath at the sight, as Sienna fell to her knees crying, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even blink, all I could do was stare at the corpses of those who I once called mother and father, dead, mutilated, broken. Tears fell down my face, as my knees started to give in, only for Sienna to catch me with a hug.

“Everything will be okay…” Sienna repeated in my ear in a broken tone, over and over again, probably trying to believe that herself, as I questioned, would it really be okay ever again?