The Riot by Riot

There was once a legend, a prophecy if you will; that when the apocalypse comes, a brave girl with magnificent power and her small army of powerful royal guards would appear out of seemingly nowhere and save the earth. Of course, along with many other things, these legends faded with time; kept alive only by the words written in history. Now, these legends have never specified where the girl came from. Some say she is a godsend sent from heaven to save only the souls of the righteous. Others theorize from primitive art depicting the story that she is a goddess from another planet. However, I believe that she is just an ordinary girl with a good heart and a fiery determination to do what’s right and to keep order among her planet, blessed with great power. This is ironic considering that everywhere this story has been told, she has only been called by one name: The Riot.

So let’s begin our story. It starts on the date December 21st, 2012. At the time, it was believed from studying the early calendars that the world would end on this date. This was semi-accurate. At exactly 12:00 in the afternoon strange deep red lights were spotted in the skies of every major city in the world. This was expected and planned for, of course, and everyone retreated into bomb shelters, or anywhere they could find that would be safe. At 12:05, a child is born named Hope Holden; daughter of Mary and James Holden. The number of lights steadily increases. Ten minutes later, the skies turn bright red and it becomes so hot that anyone standing outside would have instantly melted. At first, being that everyone was inside, nothing is affected; but slowly everything begins to disintegrate and the temperature inside the buildings rise.

At 12:20, Hope was put into a nursery with the other infants. Doctors and nurses rush around, doing everything in their power to keep their patients from overheating. Everyone was so busy, that no one noticed when a strange birthmark on Hope’s left shoulder began to glow the same deep red color as the lights in the sky. No one except Anthoney Jameson, a journalist who was sent to the hospital to interview sick and mentally challenged children left at the hospital. He passed by the nursery and saw the eerie glow from the window. Seeing it as a journalist’s opportunity he enters the nursery and snaps pictures of the child and her birthmark. Just as Anthoney is leaving the nursery, he notices faint whispers. Suddenly, Hope’s birthmark glows as bright as the lights in the sky, and sends out a shockwave. This destroys the unidentified lights, and the planet returns to its normal temperature. When it is declared safe to venture outside, the people emerge to find their planet in ruins. Whole buildings and great monuments that have survived for thousands of years, reduced to ash.

Days later, stories begin showing up in the papers of an alien child born on earth; emitting the same glow as the monstrosities that destroyed the planet. It became national news, then worldwide. After hearing this, people were outraged. Religious extremists rioted everywhere, demanding the child either be killed or experimented on. People found out her address and rioted outside her house. Her parents received anonymous death threats if they didn’t give up their child. This continued for weeks. One day, a woman in a business suit knocks at the Holden residents. She offers the family a way out, relocating and changing their names. As long as they never try to investigate Hope’s birthmark, and they don’t tell Hope what happened that day. Desperate, Mary and James accept the offer.

Chapter 2: New beginnings

Hope Holden, now known as Katherine Brines, is now a 16 (2028) year old high school Junior. Her parents never told her about what happened on the day she was born. The day after her family left their home, it was stormed by a SWAT team. The team leader announced that everyone inside the house was dead, including the infant. After a while, people just forgot about it. So far, Katherine was a normal teenage girl. She was happy, homecoming was coming up and she already had her date. Little did she know, that was all about to change.

I open my eyes and glance at my alarm, 6:55am. My alarm is going to go off in exactly 5 minutes and I’m already awake, fantastic. I close my eyes tight, hoping to somehow fall back asleep before the alarm sounds off. Sadly, this doesn’t work as well as I hoped. I sit up, turn my alarm off, and get ready for school. After getting dressed, I grab my book bag and start to head out the door to the bus stop. “Have a good day.” My parents say almost in unison from the kitchen as I leave.
“uh huh.” I respond with a wave before closing the door behind me. The bus pulls up just as I reach the stop, I take my usual seat in the back and put my earbuds in. Before I know it, I am getting off the bus.

I head to the courtyard, searching the crowd for Brian. I spot him at a table talking to a friend who’s name I can never remember. “Hey.” I say as I sit next to him. He smiles and slides his arm around my shoulders “Hey, babe.” He says before continuing the conversation he was having with his friend, which I assume had something to do with a new game that came out over the weekend. While I’m drowning out the rambling about how many headshots they managed to get, I decided to finish up some homework. For one reason or another, the U.S. suffered worse than any other country in the entire world. The first twelve years of my life were spent running from, or fighting, bandits; and working to rebuild. School was a luxury, it was air conditioned. The teachers gave us too much homework because they were trying to make up for ten years of our school missing. Luckily, my mom had taught me as much as she could. The bell rang, I closed my binder and headed towards class. I was about to open the door to my history class. From that point on my life started sucking. A lot of things happened at once. First, the doorknob to my classroom was ripped from my hand as I was flung across the hallway and into the wall. Other than the sound of my head hitting the wall; there was a high-pitched, ear-piercing noise, then a boom and crashing.

For a few moments I couldn’t move, or see, or breathe. I felt my eyes close. I would have let myself pass out, had I not smelled smoke. Panic set in, and I mentally shook myself awake. Smoke was flowing from under the door. I was laying against the wall, opposite the door. The only thing that hurt was my head. I reached up and rubbed the back of my head and looked up, there was a nice dent in the wall where my head hit. I stood up, nothing looked out of the ordinary besides the smoke. If this had been the chemistry class I would have guessed the explosion was from a bad mixture of chemicals. I reached out to open the door, it burst open and a small flood of screaming students poured out. Half of the classroom has been absorbed by what looked like a large boulder. Flames burned on the remaining walls and ceiling, but I could swear the boulder was emitting a red glow. I stepped under the door frame to confirm my suspicion. “Kathy! Get out of here!” Mr. Clare’s voice yelled. I looked to the right of the room to see him closing a drawer in his desk and heading towards me. I move out of his way and he takes off down the hallway to pull the fire alarm.
Just before the alarm sounds “What was that Mr. Clare?” I asked. He looked at me, then back towards his room.
“I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to. Now come on, this isn’t a drill.” We both ran outside into the parking lot.

The school was complete chaos. All the students and teachers in the entire school were crammed into the gym, which was also used as a bomb shelter. And I do mean crammed, there was barely any room to move at all. No one was sure what was going on. The teachers were either on the phone or trying to keep order among the students. I couldn’t imagine either being an easy task. The principle was obviously on the phone with someone of high importance because he left the gym. Rumors flew through the crowd like wildfire; each rumor more ridiculous then the previous one. At some point I heard someone say something about an invasion of squirrels. Myself, Brian, and a few friends found a spot high in the bleachers that was clear enough to breathe in.

“So did you see it, Kathy?” Brian asked, sounding very interested for once. I nodded lazily; my head was still a little cloudy. “What did it look like?” Ryan asked. Brian, Ryan, and I grew up together. “It looked like a boulder.” I responded. “So you’re trying to tell me something fell out of the sky and crashed into the school, and it’s just a boulder?” Brian questioned. I sighed “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. “I don’t believe it for a minute, you’re keeping secrets.” Brian said. “Well.. I think it was giving off a red glow, but I can’t be sure being half of the room was on fire.” I said. Brian’s eyes widened “Ya know, the lights in the sky were red too..” he said. I rolled my eyes “are you still going on about that? Come on, babe. It was a fake.” I said, leaning back against the wall and putting my hands behind my head. “How could someone fake that?” Ryan asked. “I don’t know, they had more technology then. A lazer light show, or something?” I replied. “In the sky?” Brian said, skeptical. I shrugged and nodded. “That disintegrated buildings?” Brian asked. I didn’t have an answer to that, and chose to ignore it.

“Guys this is boring.” said Cara who had been quiet until now, sitting next to Ryan who nodded in agreement. “I wonder if we can get out of here..” Brian thought out loud. I looked around for an escape. The deans were blocking the main door and Coach Reilly was standing in front of the door to the boys locker room. The entrance to the girl’s locker room was unguarded and crowded. “Coach Milly isn’t here, the girl’s locker room is our best bet.” I said. “Aw man! Why’s it gotta be the girl’s locker room?” Ryan asked. “Dude, there might be topless chicks down there… Let’s go!” Brian exclaimed as he stood up. I shook my head and stood up as well. We moved across the gym slowly.

Luckily, the door to the locker room wasn’t locked. We slipped in, to find it completely empty. “Brian, you lied to me.” Ryan said. “Hey I said ‘there might be topless chicks down here’ not ‘there’s definitely topless chicks down here’” Brian responded. “Yeah, well you got my hopes up..” Ryan said, “Hey guys! Look at this.” Ryan ran up to a bench and picked something up. He turned, holding up a black lacey thong. “Do you know who’s this is?” he asked. Cara was laughing so hard she couldn’t answer him. “Well, that bench was in front of Brittany’s locker, so I would assume they are Brittany’s.” I bravely answered. “Who’s Brittany?” Ryan asked. Cara, who was catching her breath, burst into another fit. I put my head in my hands and shook my head. “Dude, Brittany is the biggest whore in school.. Ya know that girl, the only girl at this school who’s filthy rich and come’s to school with a cell phone and laptop?” Brian said. “Yeah.. Her name is Brittany?” Ryan asked, confused “I thought It was Susan..” Cara finally stopped laughing long enough to speak, “She was wearing that when she snuck her boyfriend into the locker room.” she squealed, then started laugh again. “Yeah, so..?” Ryan said. “They were fucking, Ryan. The only whore in the school got fucked in the thong you are holding.” I said bluntly. Ryan’ eyes widened he threw the thong and started looking for somewhere to wash his hands “Eww!”
I started walking towards the exit “Come on, Ryan, stop fooling around or you’ll get us caught.” I said, peaking out of the window to make sure no one was outside the door. “But. But, that’s disgusting. Ewwww!” Ryan exclaimed. I opened the door, peeked outside, and looked around. “Come on, guys.” I said as I headed towards Mr. Clare’s class “We’re gonna have a closer look at this boulder.”