They were supposed to be sleeping, but I guess it's a good thing they weren't. 

Growing up in Mound Village, Louisiana, Cassiopeia and Zavier Harver-Ali were surrounded by 17 people for the first five years of their lives. Rasha Ali gave birth to her son without a husband to hold her hand. George Harver was landed with his niece after his sister's death. Rasha and George had both grown up in the same large city, surrounded by people they didn't know. When the two got married and became one, they didn't want their two children to live the same way they did. They found the smallest city they could, and increased the population by four. Cassiopeia was 10 months older than her new brother, Zavier, and even when they were very young, Cassiopeia made sure that Zavier knew.

"I'm the oldest," was always Cass' way of ending an argument, and for Zavier, who looked up to his older sister and worshipped her like a goddess, would always comply when she said that.

Rasha and George could tell, from the moment the two children first met, that there would be no separating them, but also that they would grow up to be very different people. Zavier would throw something at Cass, or pull at her hair, or try to bite her ear, and Cass would just stare at him, as if she found it fascinating that this small human in front of her was attempting to communicate. Even though Cass was older, Zavier learned to talk first, learned to walk first, learned to smile first. While Zavier's first word was "Momma" Cass first said "Dadda." All of the other 15 people in Mound Village knew well enough who the children would grow up to prefer. There were no other kids in the village. No one under the age of 54 (besides George and Rasha) lived in that village. Most of these people hadn't seen a baby in years, and it delighted them greatly to hear the two laugh, to watch them smile. However, it was plainly obvious to every single citizen that the two would turn out quite different.

Cass liked talking to the other people. She yearned to have civilized conversations with her parents and with the elderly. She liked to tell her 4-year-old kind of jokes and tell stories. She liked to exaggerate her dreams. Zavier, on the other hand, sat against the wall, listening to every conversation he could hear, every sound within hearing. At four, he could mimic almost every voice of the male people in the village and could walk the halls of his house without making a sound. It was almost as if he knew something was coming. Cass, even if she felt like something was coming, she pretended as if it weren't, as if she were safe. To say she was wrong, would be an understatement.

Mound Village was a very culturally diverse place, which wasn't hard for a village of 19 people. Rasha and Zavier were both African-American, Cass and George the only Caucasians. There was the elderly, Chinese couple that lived across from them, the Indian family of three who always came over bearing cookies, the Indonesian family who brings food to everyone when their crops don't grow well, and the Middle Eastern family who always bares a smile. While none of the families had a television, they each had seen the reports of the awful racism that swept the country, and the world, like a plague. Each family knew that it wasn't long before their small village was tainted in some way by this madness. They just hoped that Zavier and Cass didn't have to be a part of it.

Zavier had just turned five.

"A ripe age," Mrs. Sai said as she brought Zavier his birthday cookies.

Cass was irritated that Zavier had caught up to her again, and, although she understood perfectly well how aging works and why her younger brother kept catching up to her, she always wished he would stop.

The night of his birthday, neither he nor his sister could sleep. Instead, they lay awake, staring at opposite walls in their shared room, not knowing the other was awake. Their parents' hushed voices could be heard down the hall, even above the rustling of the wind outside. Cass was restless, hardly able to keep her body still, but Zavier was not moving. Had someone seen him and not known that that was how he usually sat, they might have thought he was dead. It wasn't long before Cass became too restless to sit still any longer. She crawled from the safety of her bed and slinked across the floor, silently opening the door and crawling on to the carpet outside her room. She stood outside her room and shuffled down the hall towards the living room, where her parents lay, cuddled together by the fire. She hid behind the corner and watched as her mother laughed quietly, almost sleepily. She loved watching her parents. She could see the love in her father's eyes as he looked down at Rasha, and the love in her mother's eyes as she looked up at George. She always noticed the way their hands brushed together and was entirely conscious of the way they were always touching when they could be. Seeing them together made her so happy, almost privileged to have been brought to a family who loved so deeply, so strongly, so madly.

She didn't even notice Zavier's presence behind her until she felt his hot breath against her neck. She would have been startled, if not for the fact that he was always like that; silent as the grave and scary as crap.

"Zavier!" She whispered, "You should be sleeping!"

"So should you," her brother responded. She narrowed her eyes at him and pursed her lips, but didn't say anything. The grandfather clock near their parents rang midnight. George and Rasha stood. Zavier and Cass were about to run back to their beds, when a sudden explosion rang in their ears. Both children fell to the ground, their ears ringing, their eyes blurred. Cass felt a yelp come from her throat before she hit the ground. As soon as both bodies hit the ground, they reached out for the other. Once their hands were locked, relief flooded their systems. Cass was sure the explosion came from the front door, Zavier could have sworn it came from the back. It didn't matter to either of them. They stood (with much difficulty as their ears were still buzzing) and ran towards the slowly shifting bodies of their parents on the floor a few yards away from them.

"Momma!" Zavier screamed and took his mother's shoulders.

"Dadda!" Cass wailed, holding her father's face. The adults stirred as two men entered the house through the demolished front door. Having flung the adults into the kitchen, the children and their parents were sort of hidden from the entrance of the house. It gave George and Rasha enough time to stand, collect their senses, and take hold of their children. With Rasha at the front, Cass and Zavier sandwiched in the middle, and George at the back, the family began moving towards the back exit. Cass started to cry. So did Zavier. They grabbed hold of each other's hands, along with that of their parents, and felt suddenly reassured that everything was going to be alright.

They could hear the shrieking from outside. The family could hear the carnage of their small village from inside their abode. Rasha felt her heart leap into her throat with every step towards the back door. George felt sweat build up on his face. Both knew that if any of them were to get out of this house alive, it had to be Cass and Zavier. Rasha glanced back at her husband, hoping he was thinking the same as she, and he was. The small family hardly got past the parents' bedroom before the men found them and open fired their guns. Rasha and George, in one last attempt to save their children from these men, pushed Cass and Zavier to the ground and curled themselves over their children. Zavier and Cass screamed as the dead weight of their parents fell limp against them.

"Momma! Dadda!" The children screamed, tears falling from their eyes. They held tighter to each other. The bodies of the now dead Rasha and George, who spent their last seconds reaching for each other's hands, covered the two children well enough. Had they not been crying, the men wouldn't have known they were still alive. But they were only 5, they didn't know any better. All they knew was that their parents were dead and the men were coming for them next. Zavier closed his eyes. Cass brushed her hand against her mother's bloodied cheek.

"Momma, Momma, help us," she pleaded with the dead woman. "Please, help us!"

The weight was lifted off of them. The siblings looked up to see two very tall men peering over them. They could almost see one smiling. The men threw down the bodies of Rasha and George and reached for the children.

"Momma!" They screamed in unison. One of the men grabbed Cass' hair, the other took hold of the back of Zavier's neck. The black haired man, the one holding Cass, leaned in real close to her ear.

"No one can save you now," he whispered in such a raspy voice that Cass' body visibly trembled. Zavier was thrown against the wall by the blonde man.

"Zav!" Cass screamed and struggled against the grip of the black haired man. "Zav!"

"Cassie," the little boy croaked.

"Shut up!" The blonde man seethed, slapping Zavier across the face. Their voices closely resembled that of the of Louisianians that the siblings had come across. The two noted their height, guessed their weight, spotted their eye colour. It was natural for them to observe everything. Even their attackers.

"Please," Cass sobbed, looking at her brother, her eyes moving back and forth between her parents. The black haired man lifted her off the ground by her shoulder lengthed hair. Cass screamed in pain and reached to grab the man's hands.

"Cassie!" Zavier earned a punch to the face. He yelped as the sound cracked through the house and fell to the floor. Cass hung in the air, thrashing and attempting to kick her assailant, sobbing, wailing, crying. The blonde grabbed Zavier and began to beat him; kicks to the stomach, slaps to the face, punches to the gut. Each sound of pain that Zavier made only caused more tears to fall from Cass' eyes.

"Look!" The black haired man screamed in Cass' ears, "Look! This is your fault! If your father hadn't mucked up his perfect blood by marrying that scum of a wife, then you wouldn't be in this mess, nor would your brother. This is your fault!" Still holding Cass' hair, he slammed her into the wall, his other hand wrapping around her small throat. Cass immediately choked. She gulped back sobs, as the air was no longer able to make it's way up her throat. She shook her legs out, hoping desperately to kick the man in front of her.

"Zav." The sound wasn't audible to the other two men, but to the little boy on the ground, to Cass' little brother, the sound pierced his heart like a scream. He turned his bleeding, bruised face towards her, as his sprawled body received another kick. He was starting to go numb. In the darkness, he could barely make out the outline of Cass' figure, not moving like it had before, slowly draining of life.

"Cassie." His voice broke through the tears. Another kick to the stomach.

Cass watched her brother being beaten on the floor below her. The tears in her eyes were no longer for the fear that had disappeared from her heart, nor for the pain that was no longer consuming her numbing body, but she cried for her brother, for the helplessness she felt in that moment. She hadn't been able to save him, she hadn't been able to help him or protect him like an older sister should. All the older siblings and all the older sisters she'd read about had all been able to help their siblings, been able to keep them safe from harm, but not her. No, Cassiopeia had failed. She'd failed her brother. She couldn't fail again. Never again. When she made it out of this, when they both made it out of this, she would never again fail to protect him, she would never again let him get hurt. Nobody would ever have to suffer like she did that night.

Zavier, on the other hand, had completely different thoughts running through his head. Much like his sister, he no longer cried for his parents, he no longer cried for the fear or the pain. He cried because he wasn't strong enough. He wasn't strong enough. He thought he'd been afraid before, sad before, angry before, but never had he felt so much hatred in his body as he did before that night when his sister's body went limp against the black haired man's hand. Never before had he felt so much hatred as he did that night when the man let go of her and dropped her almost lifeless body to the floor alongside the body of his mother, who stared at him, wide-eyed. Zavier vowed, as he felt another kick ruptur another bone in his pained little body, that he would kill anyone who ever touched his sister, anyone who ever hurt her. He wouldn't let himself be weak, wouldn't let himself be afraid. Not anymore, not when his sister's life was on the line.

Zavier's vision went black just before more men burst into the house, but these men were wearing all black, these men came with guns only to capture, these men came in with haloes and large lights and angel wings. These men were their saviors. These men were their SHIELD.

Zavier awoke in a bed, clad in white, covered in white, the feeling of another body against his side. He found his older sister curled up tight in a ball between him and the railing of the hospital bed. She stirred slightly, moaning quietly. He smiled, happiness overwhelming him that she was alive, that she was safe. But a sudden, almost horrifying thought passed through his brain then; what if they were both dead? What if this was what heaven looked like?

But he knew he was wrong for two reasons. The first, his parents weren't there, and if anyone deserved to go to heaven, it was them. Second, as Cass stirred again, he noticed large, black and purple, finger-like bruises around her neck. There was no way God would have let her enter heaven with bruises like that. So he was alive, so his sister was alive, so his parents were really dead. He let out a sigh, and as he did, he cried out in at the sharp pains in his chest and ribs. The cry was enough to startle Cass awake. She was dressed much like him, in full white. She had stitches on her cheek, sealing up what seemed like a pretty deep wound to Zavier. She sat up quickly.

"Zavier!" Her voice was terribly hoarse. It sounded like someone had taken a helicopter and shoved it down her throat, tearing it to shreds. He managed a pained smile, not noticing how awful his face felt until now.

"Cassie." Saying her name was like a breath of fresh air, even though it hurt his chest. "What happened?"

Cass grinned, her smile stretching from ear to ear.

"We were saved!" Her voice still sounded awful, and the suddenly exclamation sent her into a round of coughing fits. Zavier was about to reach up to touch Cass' shoulder, only to find that his arm was casted, both his arms were casted. He scowled. Cass smiled again, but it was small, sad smile. She reached over the side of his bed and pushed a small, blue button. That's when Zavier noticed the other bed, presumably Cass's. Zavier took the time of silence to evaluate himself. Both his arms were obviously broken, as was his left leg. His head felt like there was a spike pushed through his eyes, so he assumed he also suffered from a concussion. He remembered hearing at least three of his ribs breaking, which would explain the pain in his chest and sides, and he also assumed his face looked awful. Most of the words that came to his mind were words he remembered his mother telling him about, who had been a doctor before marrying George.

The large white doors, that were directly in between his bed and Cass' on the other side of the room, slid open and three people came walking in.The first was a woman with a large smile and tightly wound, red hair. The second, a man, similar in dress, attitude and appearance. The third and final person was another older, woman, with raven black hair underneath her doctor's hat, half-moon shaped glasses on the bridge of her nose, and glowing green eyes that would have struck fear into both children's hearts, had she not also been smiling at them as if they were her precious treasures. The three smiled down at the children.

"What do you need?"

"Tell him...." Cass coughed a few times, "Tell him what happened." She started to cough a lot, trying to cover her mouth, but the horrible chalkboard scratching sound that came out of her mouth could still be heard.The smiles dropped from the faces of both the male and female nurses. They came around to where Cass sat. The girl rubbed her back, wiping sweat from her face. The boy reached out to touch her, but Cass flinched back slightly.

"I'm...sorry," she croaked, tears coming to her eyes. She couldn't cry in front of Zavier, she wouldn't. The male nurse shook his head.

"It's alright, Cassiopeia, it happens all the time." He smiled again.

"Come on, Cassiopeia, that's enough talking for today," the female nurse said, helping the girl from Zavier's bed. "You need to rest." She carried her back to her bed and tucked her in. The male nurse decided it best that he not be here and left. The female nurse, smiled down at the 5-year-old girl, who aged too quickly in one night, leaned down with a smile and kissed her on the forehead. Cass closed her eyes and fell asleep quickly. The female nurse left. Only the doctor remained.

"What happened?" Zavier asked, mimicking Cass' question. The doctor gave him an almost pitiful smile. She sat in the doctor's chair, folding her hands over her crossed legs.

"After you lost consciousness, a few agents of SHIELD came in and shot both of the men in your house. They are currently in captivity. You and your sister were unconscious, so we took you both back here, along with the bodies of all the citizens in your city. All the other men have either been killed or taken into captivity. Once you arrived here, we performed what surgeries needed to be done on you and patched you and your sister up the best we could. Now, you're here. Any questions?" Zavier looked at her out of the corner of his eyes.

"What's your name?"

The doctor was almost too quick to answer.

"Barania Corvus."

"What does SHIELD stand for?"

"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."

"How did you know we were under attack?"
"It's our job to save people."

"Why couldn't you get there sooner?"

"We can't save everyone."

Zavier sighed, looking away from the woman.

"You should rest, like your sister," Agent Corvus said, standing.

"Ms. Corvus?"
"Agent Corvus."

"Sorry. Agent Corvus?"

"Yes?"

"What do you do here?"
"I'm a doctor. I fix people."

Zavier had no more questions. Agent Corvus dipped her head respectfully and left the room. Zaiver lay his head against the pillow and was asleep in seconds.

***

When Cass awoke, a little girl her age was placing a tray of food next to Zavier's bed. Cass coughed a few times, the soreness in her throat hardly any better. The little girl had dark black hair, the same colour as Agent Corvus. She looked up at Cass and caught her gaze. Cassiopeia was absolutely transfixed by the icy blueness of the young girl's eyes. The girl smiled at her, revealing two rows of uneven teeth; the middle top two were missing.

"Hi!" The little girl said, bounding over to where Cass was now sitting up. "Are you feeling any better?" Cass watched the girl curiously, noting her British accent.

"A little." Her voice was still hoarse, still tearing at her throat when she spoke. The girl nodded.

"I'm Cam...elo...par...dalis," the girls said, looking up at the ceiling as if it was going to help her remember how to say her name.

"What?" Cass said, scowling. It sounded like a mouthful.The girl smiled, turning slightly red.

"Camelopardalis," she said. "But you can call me anything, really."

"Cam is easier, don't you think?" Cass suggested, smiling back at the girl. Cam giggled.

"I like it!"

The two fell silent. Cam returned to her duties of making sure Zavier was comfortable before moving back towards Cass and proceeded in doing the same things for her.

"Why are you here, Cam?" Cass asked. The girl stared at her for a second, thinking through her options of answering.
"My mum and da work here. Mum is the head Doctor, Da is an astronomer, that means he watches the sky," Cam said, gazing up at the whitewashed ceiling as if it was the universe. Cass looked up to see if it really was.

"What are you?" Cass asked, slowly sitting up. Cam shook herself from her dreamland and smiled at the wounded girl.

"I help Mum and Da with anything they need. Mum said that you might want a companion while you're healing," Cam told her and took a shy step towards Cass. Cass gave the girl a genuine smile.

"I would really like that, Cam," she said and patted her bed by her legs, gesturing for the girl to sit beside her. Cam grinned and jumped onto Cass' bed. The two talked about the normal things 5-year-old girls talk about, although it was difficult to find a common topic at first. Cass didn't have a television for all the programmes Cam watched, and Cam didn't have a sibling that irritated her beyond all reason. Cam had enough sense not to mention parents, Cass' home, or the attack. Cass appreciated that greatly, especially since it was difficult enough forgetting it herself. Agent Corvus was right, Cam was a good distraction. From what she'd heard from Cam, she was a very intellectual girl, far smarter than she was.

"Camelopardalis means 'giraffe' in the Greek," Cam was explaining, "But if you take the word a part, kamēlos means camel and pardalis means leopard. So basically my name means Camel Leopard."

Cass snorted with laughter. Cam pouted, though a smile could be seen through her lower lip.

"Don't make fun of me!" Cam whined, grinning. She hit Cass' arm lightly, but the motion was enough to trigger a wild spray of memories from the night before. Cass began to scream, seeing the black haired man's face, his lips close to her ear, his hands on her throat. Cass thrashed her legs out, the blanket flying. She batted at the air around her ears, her shrieks terrifying the other girl in front of her.

"Cass? Cass? It's okay, they're gone, you're safe," Cam tried, but it wasn't helping. The more she tried to touch Cass to calm her down, the more images and sounds she remembered. Zavier snapped awake. At the sound of his sister's screams, he tried to leave his bed, but couldn't even sit up.

"Cassie!" He shouted. The sound of Zavier's voice calling her name just sent more images of that night shooting through her brain; her parents' dead bodies, Zavier's whimpers of pain, the blackness. The images made her scream louder. She pulled her knees into her chest, covering her knees and shutting her eyes, letting the shrieks rip her throat, even more than it already was. Cam panicked. She jumped from the bed and pressed the red button in between the beds as hard as she could.

"Zavier, please, you're making her scream more," Cam pleaded with the boy, who was still trying to get to his sister. Tears pricked in Cam's eyes as she watched both siblings freak out; Cass crying and screaming, Zavier calling out to his sister and attempting to move. Cam turned in circles, waiting for the nurses and her mother to run into the room and save the screaming girl from whatever phantom Cass was seeing. She jumped around when the sliding door opened and the three came running in. The female nurse put one hand on Cass' shoulder and the other on her thigh, trying to calm her down, but it only freaked her out even more.

"What happened?" Agent Corvus asked her daughter, who had tears streaming down her face. Before Cam could respond, the screaming stop. Mother and daughter turned to look at the girl. Instead of screaming, she was gagging, head back, grappling at her neck. She convulsed, her torso bobbing up and down as she tried to pry the imaginary hands from her throat.

"What's happening?" A terrified Zavier asked from his bed.

"She's going back in her mind," Agent Corvus said, rushing to the bedside of the girl. "She thinks she's choking." Zavier, with a horrified expression on his face, attempted to shift his body to see his sister, but the doctor and nurses were surrounding her. Cam ran over to Zavier's bed, trying to stifle her tears.

"She's..." Cam hiccupped and choked back a sob. "She'll be okay." Cam tried to give Zavier a smile. Zavier had attempted to ignore her, but the thought of her trying to make him feel better calmed his nerves slightly and cleared his brain enough for him to know what to do. Agent Corvus was taking a cap off of a long, thin needle and raised it into the air, about to stab it into Cass' chest to calm her down. The two nurses held her still, though she still tried to squirm underneath their grip.

"Wait!" Zavier called. The three turned and Cass was free to rock back and forth, continuing to gag. Agent Corvus scowled at him, her fierce green eyes glowing with confusion.

"If we don't stop this now, she could get herself killed. She thinks she can't breathe!" She said.

"I know, I know," Zavier pleaded, "But you don't have to do that. Bring her here." The two nurses knit their eyebrows and glanced at each other, but Agent corvus knew the power of siblings and if Zavier said to bring his sister to him, that's what she'd do. Turning the bed into a gurney and rolled her over to Zavier. He reached out with his good arm and fought to pull Cass' hand from her throat.

"Cass," Zavier groaned, pain flaring up his legs and side, "take my hand." Hearing her brother's voice, Cass looked over at him, eyes swimming with tears. She slowly pulled her hand from her throat and Zavier took the chance to grab it. Her other hand fell at her side. Zavier managed a weak smile and nodded.

"We're okay," he whispered. Cass felt the weight on her throat lift away, air filling her lungs. She gasped and choked, coughing, tears refusing to stop spilling from her eyes.

The female nurse, named Auzriel Loordes, watched the two 5-year-old siblings. Her heart clenched as if someone was squeezing it. She felt tears prick her eyes. She'd seen many children lay in these hospital beds before, and many others before she'd become a nurse for SHIELD. No matter what those kids had been through, they'd always managed to hold innocence on their innocence, the hope still lingering in their eyes. Yet, as she looked on at the two siblings before her, one crying, the other holding up a false smile, she knew that that innocence was already gone, and there was no hope for it to come back.

Auzriel reached out and grabbed her brother's hands, letting a few of the tears slide from her eyelashes.

Cass, finally letting herself calm down, looked around at the people around her. Cam, her new friend, stood on the other side of her brother's bed, crying. Her mother was staring, almost breathless at the children before her. Off to the side, the two nurses were also staring, hands clasped together. The girl had tears running down her cheeks.

Cass harshly slipped her hand from her brother's and pulled it into herself, bringing her legs to her chest and pressing her hands underneath her knees. She lay her face in the small cocoon she'd created with her body and wept silently, her shoulders shaking. No one moved. They just looked. Eventually, Cass' shoulders slumped forward, her sniffles ceasing. She had fallen asleep.

"Leave," Agent Corvus told the two nurses. They both nodded and shuffled out. Auzriel glanced back for a brief second to take one last look at the children.

Agent Corvus turned to her daughter, who had backed away from the siblings and now had her back pressed firmly against the wall, tears still streaming down her face. Zavier turned his attention on her as well. Cam stared only at the small ball of a girl on the bed.

"What happened?" Agent Corvus asked in the smallest voice possible, knowing that her daughter was easy to blame herself. Cam's lower lip trembled. Agent Corvus knelt in front of her daughter and took the small hands in her own. She could already feel the softness of a child's hands fading, and those calloused of a doctor's appearing.

"I didn't mean to," Cam said, talking only making the tears fall faster, her voice breaking. She couldn't help but look at Zavier. She had just given his sister a panic attack, and by the way he was looking at her, he knew it.

"It's okay, Luv," Agent Corvus said. "It wasn't your fault."

Cam started to sob, burying her face in her hands. She mumbled incoherent things about how Cass was laughing at the fact her name meant Camel Leopard and how she'd seen people tap their friends' arms when they were making joke and it was a sign of affection. Zavier, being a young child himself, was able to decipher some of what she said. He turned his gaze from the sobbing girl in her mother's arms, suddenly aware of the fact that there was no longer anyone to hold him like that when he cried.

Cass made a quiet moaning sound from beside him and rolled slightly, breaking the ball.

Maybe there still was one person to hold him.   

Will you stay with me my love
For another day?
'Cause I don't want to be alone,
When I'm in this state.
Will you stay with me my love?
'Til we're old and grey.
'Cause I don't wanna be alone.
When these bones decay...

***

I am very proud of this chapter. I am actually very proud of this story all together. I'm working on it with two of my friends, who are also on here. 

Strawberry_Bubbles

and

 The-Red-Panther

They are great people, go follow them. So I am basically the one who writes, but they help come with ideas for the characters. 

The song is called 'Run' by Daughter. The full song is above. The song is kind of the Main song for the entire story.

Please let me know if there are any problems with the story, be it grammar, spelling, or with the story itself. This goes for the entire book and all my other books. 

Thank you so much for reading this story, it means so much to me and the other two. You have no idea how much we love you guys!

With much love,

-Bucky,

The Author's Bane