We stopped a block short of my childhood home.
I looked around the neighborhood. It felt so familiar. I remembered playing football and soccer in the backyards. Playing flashlight tag with the neighbor kids after the sun went down. We all stayed up too late, until our parents called us in one by one. Not a worry in the world.
They were carefully assessing points of entry, trying to plan an approach to my home that wouldn’t alert anyone inside. The same yards I had run through as a child, now routes for a covert mission. It was still early evening, and the sun was just setting. It blazed orange and red behind us, through the frozen clouds.
We had no cover. That was the conclusion.
We had to strike hard and fast.
After a moment, James had a plan. Holly would get out now and make her way through the yards. The rest of us would drive up as if we belonged. We would park in the driveway and then all storm the house simultaneously.
James, Lily, and Mia would hit the side garage door. I would lead point through the front door, because I knew the place best, with Derek and Logan right behind me. Aaron would circle around back to follow Holly.
We all agreed, and Holly hopped out. We watched her make her way quickly past the road and into the adjoining yard. She hopped a fence with ease and ducked low.
James started the car, and we moved. He drove quickly, but not too fast so as to cause suspicion. We pulled right in front of my house and hit the curb to the driveway hard. James put the vehicle in park, and we all waited a beat for Holly.
I looked through the tinted windows of the SUV into my home. I could see no movement, no figures standing in the windows.
After a minute, Holly clicked her com once. In position.
Every door of the SUV opened simultaneously. We all moved to our designated positions.
I paused with my hand on the front door. The last time I had been this nervous to enter my parents’ home was because I was out too late and drinking with friends. I shook my head of the memory.
One. Two. Three. I turned the handle and burst forward into my own house.
I spent a moment perplexed at the door handle still in my hand as I entered our foyer. The door hung by a single hinge behind me as Derek followed.
In front of me was our entryway, a shoe rack to my right and a small coat closet to my left. Directly in front of me was the archway to the kitchen. On either side was a decorative indoor “window” my dad had installed when we were kids to give the feeling of an open concept while maintaining a formal separation of the two rooms.
In each opening stood a figure. They both had weapons held loosely by their sides. The Rogues were already here, in my house.
I felt a burning sensation inside of me. Growing from the pit of my stomach and spreading through my limbs. My whole body lit with a fire I never knew I had. My mind reverting to something animalistic.
HOW DARE THEY INVADE MY HOME!
I threw the doorknob at the figure to the left and transferred my forward momentum into a roll through the archway.
I came up on the other side just as they began reacting to my entrance.
The man right in front of me had yet to ready his rifle. I slammed his head into the adjacent wall with all my force.
I spun toward the man behind me. He was collapsing with the doorknob listing lazily behind him.
I drew the short-sword Derek had given me in an upward slice and practically split him in half. Without stopping to contemplate the violence I had wrought, I continued on.
Derek turned left into the formal dining room while Logan and I moved right. The kitchen in front of us was empty.
I knew Derek would run into James and company coming from that direction. They could take care of themselves.
The living room was next, as well as three heavily armed and armored men. They had reacted to the explosion of noises and had their guns trained on the short hall from the kitchen to the living room.
One was taking cover behind the couch to my right, another on the stairs in front of me, and the last was in the open to the left. Behind him Holly and Aaron were moving from the backyard through the ground-floor entrance.
I moved right.
My feet dug deep into the linoleum flooring. I could feel electricity firing through my whole body, starting low, deep in my calf muscles. The energy pulsed up through my quads and core. Every ounce of muscle willed me forward, leading with the sword.
I had to pull my arm from his limp, armored body.
The man at the stairs may have been trying to surrender, but before I could be sure, Logan broke his neck.
Past the stairs was the door to the master bedroom. Holly paused right behind me and nodded.
I attempted to kick the door down.
Instead, my booted foot kicked straight through the cheap wood, and I was caught haphazardly in the swinging door, pulled into the room.
Holly and Aaron moved past me. Aaron struck high, incapacitating the figure to the left with a single blow to the head. Holly went low with a sweeping kick. Once toppled, the figure on the right had no way to defend himself from her descending boot. It was all over quickly.
I extracted myself from the half-broken door while she checked the bathroom. All clear.
Everyone checked in.
Ground level clear. No sign of family.
We headed up the stairs. Again, I lead the way.
The stairs were a U-turn, and at the halfway point the man at the top open fired on me.
My boots dug deep into the floor, and I felt the wood crack beneath them. I jumped forward and flew through him into the wall behind.
Everyone else came bounding up after while I extricated my sword from him and the wall.
The hallway was inexplicably empty.
There was an office on the right, empty.
A bathroom to the left, empty.
My sister’s room after. Also empty.
Finally, we made it to my own room beyond the office.
Inside, it was just as I remembered it. On the walls hung participation trophies dating back to middle school. Sports I hadn’t played in years. My bed, with the same race-car bedsheets I had wanted as a child and never quite grown out of. Or maybe my parents had been too cheap to get new ones while they were still serviceable. A single desk held a PC with memories best forgotten.
But one thing was new.
There was an old CRT TV front and center of the room. It had cords running behind it, plugging into the wall by my nightstand.
The image on the screen was grainy, like an old movie. Only black and white. But what it portrayed was unmistakable.
It was a room. It was dark. It looked like maybe a tarp had been hung up that covered the back wall and floor.
On the tarp were three figures on their knees.
Mom. Dad. Ema.
A lone man stood behind them with a revolver in hand. On top of the TV, a single red light drew our attention to a camera watching us.