The Wannabe Warrior

Madison POV ‘Mummy, Mummy.’ I called as I left the school grounds. In my hand is the painting I painted today, my face bright and happy as I hand over the painting with pride. ‘Hello, Luna.’ I belatedly greet our Luna, who laughs and greets me back with a hug. We started to walk back home. I am holding mummy’s hand and Luna is holding my other one. Mummy and Luna are talking. About halfway home, Mum stops walking and starts sniffing the air, then grabs me by my waist and pushes me into a tree, yelling at me to stay in the tree, as a really bad smell arrives, and I want to gag. Ten big smelly men came out and stood in front of Mummy and Luna. I saw Luna’s face go blank for a moment, and I knew from that look, she had called for help. ‘Well, today is our lucky day, hey boys. What we have here is the Luna and Betta. What do you say, we have some fun?’ one smelly man said. The men circle around Mummy and Luna, getting them to separate, then one jumps at Mummy and Mummy starts to defend herself. Somehow, mummy managed to rip one man’s throat out. Blood gushed over my mummy, covering her, it was awful. I screamed and then put my hand over my mouth as Mum glanced up at me, and then was tackled by another man. Luna has two men come at her at the same time, and one manages to bite her on the back. She is thrown to the ground as she screams in pain and tries to roll away from the man. Two men who jumped on Luna’s back started ripping her to pieces. Her screams of pain are loud and terrifying. She loses her head, and it rolls across the ground and finishes at the bottom of the tree I am in, her eyes open and staring back up at me. They start pulling her arms and legs off her body and cheer each time another limb is removed. I am terrified, as I watch from above, as the men grab my mummy and she screams, as she tries to fight the men, but there are too many of them for my mummy and one rips out her throat, her blood spurting over the man, and they start to remove her head and then her arms and legs, just like they did with the Luna. Cheering as each piece is dismembered from her body. Then one of the men comes over to the tree I am hiding in, and looks up at me, with a sneer on his face. ‘Come on down little one, we won’t hurt you.’ he tries to get me to climb down, but I don’t believe him, he will take my head off, like they did with Mummy and the Luna. One of the smelly men calls ‘to the van, the Alpha and warriors are on the way,’ and the smelly men, taking their dead and injured with them, ran to a van that had pulled up as they were killing my mummy and Luna and the van took off backward away from us. Alpha falls to his knees when he sees the Luna, and my dad does the same. They both let out a loud woeful cry to the sky, their voices crying out in pain for all to hear. A warrior hears me crying in the tree and gathers me out of the tree. That night was the first night of my nightmares, where I watched my mum and Luna get torn to shreds over and over and over again. I vowed I would find those men, whose scent will never be forgotten, and learn to fight and track. My mum was a born tracker and her skills would be passed down from mother to daughter. I am going to train and hone those skills, so I can find those men myself and get revenge on my mum and Luna. My training began. At first, it was a struggle, but I refused to give in. My twin brother and I joined our older brother in training, and Dad encouraged us both, he was hoping I could defend myself if I needed to, just like Mum tried to protect the Luna. We trained every morning before school and then again after school. When I reached sixteen, I joined patrols and fought and killed rogues, learning and getting stronger and working hard to be the best. I had to be the best, anything less would get me killed, and I would not give up until I found those men who filled my dreams with nightmares. At our next pack testing, I came top of the pack in tracking, even beating veterans, my special abilities outshining the men, and came top of my age group in fighting, even beating my twin brother, who was not angry about losing to his twin. He clapped me on my back, congratulating me on how good I was. I excelled at school, being top of my class in science and technology and chemistry, in chemistry I won an award for my spray that hid your scent, and in science and technology I won an award for an anti-bugging device. My school work was for my mum to be proud of me, and the training, so I could get revenge. Then Alpha announced he had a call from the king. He wanted twenty good warriors to go to the palace to join an elite team to tackle the rogue problem that had escalated lately and plagued our kingdom. I intended to be one of those joining that team.