------------------------------------------- A sheltered kitties’ shattered life ------------------------------------------- I was suddenly awaken because of loud banging noises. With burning eyes and a dizzy feeling, I got out of my bed and smelled the smoky sent of dry oak wood burning in the fireplace. At first thought, my mother came to my mind. It seemed she was making breakfast on the fireplace. But why are my eyes burning so badly, was I thinking and took a glare out of the window. There was a yellowish, red flaring light at the horizon, but the sky was dark. As I checked my pocket watch, still a little dizzy, an ice cold chill ran down my spine. The town! It was burning! I feared the smoky sent in the air was NOT my mother cooking. Adrenaline rushed through my entire body, driving my heart into a nearly painful cadence and completely cleared my mind. I began to run downstairs as fast as my feet could. I looked into every room on the first floor of our three level house. The smoky sent was more of a harsh stench on this floor. And an even worse stench came onto me right when I opened the door to the ground floor. It smelled like burnt meat and fur. The living room was not passable, so I headed to the kitchen. It was fiery hell. With teary, burning eyes, I catch a horribly sight of a burnt corpse hanging halfway out of the window. My mother and I were living alone in this house, it have to be her. I was screaming out of my lungs, “Mom!” my voice suffocated in the smoke. I have to get out of here. My only way out was the cellar. To my luck, the fire did not get there yet. My mother is dead. I could not save her. She died escaping while I slept like the sheltered kitty I am. A stinging pain tugged me out of my thoughts and pushed me back to reality. I fell down the stairs and must have passed out. A glimpse on my watch told me that since I got out of the bed and laying on the cellar floor right now, merely fifteen minutes have passed. Above me, a cracking, thunder like noise let me witness the fact that our house was collapsing. Due to the paranoid living style of my father, the cellar was built like a bunker. Why is all this happening? Why my mother? Why me? There is no time to mourn right now. This sentence came to my mind several times as I gathered some gear in my father’s office. He was an active and loyal member of the Van Hellsing organisation. A law and order organisation with focus at non-human and human species relationships and affairs, formed by the famous monster hunter John Van Hellsing. As he died, my mother stored fathers’ uniform and service weapon in a trunk down here. Which I finally found by now. I got father’s weapon, an old but still working Crow handgun series revolver. It was loaded already. I calmly walked down our secret escape tunnel with a lux crystal in the left hand and fathers’ gun in the right. Why hurry now? What could I lose? My thoughts drifted away again till I reached the wooden hatch at the end of the tunnel. The banging noises were hearable again but a bit louder this time. They seemed to be gunshots. I threw away my lux crystal and put the gun back into my belt. The hatch was heavy. It took me quite of an effort to open it with my untrained arms. The location were the tunnel ends was unknown to me. But soon I realised that it was in a mausoleum on the graveyard of Woodarch. “Why dad? What the hell were you thinking when you let the tunnel built? The graveyard… Seriously?” Spoken thoughts of mine, while I was checking out the situation. Woodarch, our town, was burning around the graveyard. The gunshots became silent and the dawn had begun. Steps came along. I draw my gun quickly and hid myself behind a tombstone. “I heard a voice somewhere.” “Who should be talking here stupid, everyone in this town is dead!” A knot formed up in my throat. “My ears are damn fine. When I tell you so, you have to believe me.” “Yeah right. As if.” They were humans. Their uniforms were familiar. Van Hellsing uniforms. They can tell me what is going on here! I almost jumped out of my place, as I saw their insignia. Scratched and ripped out Van Hellsing signs. Hellsing separatists. A group of deserted Van Hellsing members. Formed and membered only by humans, which hate all none-human life forms. They’re heading in my direction. I jumped sideways out of my hiding place and fired two bullets towards the heavier armed of the two men, which let him fall to the ground. The other had a shocked expression on his face as he pulled out his gun. I was already running towards him. He had the chance to shoot once before I smashed the gun out of his hand and point my weapon against his head. Forcing him to put his hands in the air. I want answers. “What is going on here? What did you mean as you said everyone is dead? Answer me!” He began to grin. “Shoot little kitty. I won’t tell scum like you any word.” His words made me angry. I chocked the cock of the gun. “I fear no death, kitten scum”. I pulled the trigger without a single thought. The bullet went straight through his head and burnt his grin forever into his face. His corpse began to fall backwards slowly and landed with a muffled noise in the end on the graveyard soil. The other one coils himself in his own blood and stares at me with his pale expressionless face. The gunshots could be heared again. Even more this time and from different directions. A sick feeling broadened in my stomach and my vision began to blur. Fear suddenly strikes me. I found myself running without a destination, pointless straight forward, covered in some other ones blood with a gun in my hand. My movement got slower, nearly stopped. I felt sicker and sicker. Is this the price for my carefree living? “Stop right there! Drop your gun!” I followed without hesitate. “I am Sgt. Marks, leader of the Van Hellsing crisis management department. Name yourself!” The pictures of my burnt mother and those two humans I just killed came up to mi mind as I stared into the barrel of this German Sheherds’ weapon. “ I… my mother.. burnt… I shot two…” I vomited uncontrollably before I could say any more words. My vision began to fade and I collapsed. Another face bent over me and yelled something I didn’t understand. His face looked shocked. Everything became black.