The Story of Max Sniklock, Hunter, Gunslinger [b]Chapter 1: Awakening[/b] I woke up staring into a small flashlight, or at least what I thought was a flashlight. The last thing I remember was dying in a horrible fire in my old house on San Bonita Avenue in Clayton, MO*. My vision cleared a bit and I made out a small floating… thing… I realized immediately that I was not in any afterlife, as my head was pounding hard, and I imagined that any afterlife I ended up in would be much worse than this. I looked around and saw that I was in a cemetery and that someone, or something, had dug up my body and restored me. I was a little stunned to say the least. “Guardian, get up. We need to get you to safety soon!” The little flashlight thing said. “Ugh… can we just stay put for a bit? I need time to get over the rigor mortis…” I said with a solid groan. “The fallen are on the way and we need to get you a weapon soon.” The light said. “I am a Ghost, yours in fact.” “Okay, Ghost, you say we need to get a weapon for me, right? Explain everything on the way or I will throw you into a pit of lava.” I said, wanting nothing more than to find out what the actual hell was going on. “Okay. Well, I will first need to get you into a more defensible location. There is a military base from the collapse due north of here. We should find some old guns and munitions there.” Ghost said. I followed my Ghost as he (or at least I thought it was a he…) spoke about how there was a golden age of humanity, lost to history now, as the darkness closed in on the traveler, the last hope for mankind’s survival. He spoke of the collapse, and the death of the traveler. He spoke of how he had searched and searched for me, and now that he had found me, he was overjoyed. I mostly ran and listened closely, wanting any bit of information I could get. “Ghost, what happened to my parents? Can you see what they did after my death, or is that too far in the past for you?” I asked, hoping to find out what happened to my mother and father after my untimely death. “Sorry guardian, but I can’t see anything prior to the time I was created. Anything that I can see prior to that is because of things I discovered while searching for you.” The Ghost said with a somber tone. “Ah, I see… I will do my own searching for any information later on. With any luck, I will find out what they did after my death.” I said, resolved to find out some day. “Almost there, I am picking up fallen nearby. We need to hurry.” The Ghost said. I ran into the military base and my Ghost located the armory. I grabbed an auto rifle and a sidearm, along with some ammunition for each of them. I stored some extra ammo using my Ghost. He was able to get a fair bit of extra ammo stored in my ‘Inventory Space’ as he called it. I made my way out of the base, thinking to myself that it was weird that these ‘fallen’ had not shown up yet. All of a sudden, I heard what I thought was a battle cry, and I spotted a humanoid with four arms up on a nearby hilltop, wit two smaller humanoids on either side. I readied my weapon, and aimed my rifle at the humanoid. “What now, Ghost? Do I shoot them or do I run?” I said. “Ideally, we could run, but I don’t think that will go well. There are two options. We go back inside and defend, while sending out a distress signal, or we can fight our way out. What do you want to do?” the Ghost asked. “I say we barricade things so we can force them to come in one at a time. That way we can deal with them without too much trouble.” I suggested. In a hurry, I made a makeshift barricade that would force the enemy to go single file to get through the defenses I put up. “They are coming!” The ghost said. I readied my weapon and saw a small humanoid enemy coming into the chokepoint I had set up. I fired off 3 rounds and saw it fall. I noticed that my helmet displayed the class of enemy, and what I had just killed had been a dreg. Another enemy made its way in. This time, my helmet registered it as a vandal. I fired 3 more rounds, but the vandal did not go down. I fired 2 more rounds and it finally died. Suddenly, the barricade was blasted apart. I saw what looked like a giant tank with legs, and my helmet registered it as a walker. I decided that it was out of my league, and I decided to escape rather than die again. Suddenly, I saw an explosion, and the walker exploded. A fighter jet went by. Wait, not a fighter jet, but it resembled one. “Hello down there! Glad to see another new face join our ranks!” an energetic female voice said into my helmet’s earpiece. “Have your Ghost transmat you into my ship!” “Ghost, you heard the lady. Do your thing!” I said as I recognized the voice of the female guardian. I was dematerialized and appeared on board the ship as the ship flew over again. I walked slowly to the cabin, where two seats were facing the window of the cockpit. The female guardian waved me to the other seat. I complied rather quickly, knowing that I was the junior now. “Good to see you again Ashley.” I said with a smile. "Good to see you too, Max." She said, returning my smile. *I did live on this street a few years back, and I am basing my character off of myself, and my past. You will get a good insight into myself in this story, and I am open to opinions! I will have chapter two out later tonight and it may become a novel length story. I will compile all finished chapters in one thread that I will make later on with the links to each thread. Expect more soon!