《Am I friendly or hostile?》 Chapter One Chapter One I am sprinting through the forest, tripping over the dying trees and severing off the loose branches in front of me. I can see the looming shadow that sweeps life away from the village; I can hear the discordant gunshots going off and the ear-piercing screams that follows. The suffocating smell of gunpowder reaches my enhanced olfactory cells right afterwards, and my tongue feels the bitter taste of the grey and black smoke, coming both from fire and corpses. Thorns and shrubs are cutting through my skin and ripping my flesh, but my brain doesn¡¯t even have time to process that. I didn¡¯t know what I was doing in the village, my body wasn¡¯t always controlled by my mind, not THIS mind that tells me to stop doing what I was doing. They drugged me, numbing my thought, so I could follow their orders like a puppet under the strings. Unlike the others, I am human. I am alive. I have an actively-functioning brain. I have the power of independent thinking and decision making, which is, trust me, pretty rare. They shot doses of drugs into my veins, and now they are ordering me to commit murder, or maybe massacre is a more precise word. When I saw the village filled with humans like me, a violent reaction goes on in my body. My head ached so much and adrenaline was gushing in my blood. My heart beat twice as fast and as hard, and my kidneys, despite all the pain, were filtering out all the drugs from my bloodstream. It was an ability passed down by the ancestors of the human race. Humans used to live together and work together in huge settlements unlike the small villages we see now, and that created a bond between the human beings. This bond was operating inside my body and making me fully human. I run on and on, my wrist twisting that 10-inch combat knife in front of me, cutting through obstacles. Suddenly, my ears pick up a shuffling noise behind me, advancing closer and closer. Instinctively my brain runs the calculation like a computer - converting the frequency of the sound into the approximate speed of the threat, which is 10 m/s. With that speed of running, it¡¯s probably a sergeant who has noticed I ran away, or maybe an officer of a higher level. From the loudness of the sound my brain figures out the size of the target. All these operations are completed in no more than three seconds. My neurons fire electrical charges at each other at an overwhelming rate, connecting to each other, passing the message along at a speed that no normal human can achieve. Yes, I am not completely normal, I am enhanced. You can say I¡¯m superior, but I prefer to say I¡¯m just one of the lucky ones, or unlucky ones. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. At the exact moment of 1.28 seconds before the target leaps out behind me, I raise my knife and flings it forward, arm going down in a smooth semi-circle. Just when my finger is pointing toward the target, the knife escapes my arm and spins forward. This move is embedded into the deepest parts of my subconscious brain and I have practiced this hundreds of thousands of times. No chance it will miss! However I don¡¯t hear any painful cries or smell the warm blood gushing out of the sergeant¡¯s body. I can¡¯t sense any damage at all. I raise my head and stare in shock at this seemingly-frozen scene. The knife has stopped millimeters in front of the sergeant¡¯s heart, and the sergeant is grabbing tightly onto it. Damn! The sergeant¡¯s reflex is so quick that he can catch something flying as fast as a car at full speed. I see no terror or fear in the sergeant¡¯s eyes, nor pride or disdain, in fact nothing at all. His eyes are just staring blankly at me, his brain analyzing me and figuring out how to take me down. I don¡¯t blame him, since he isn¡¯t a human like me, and he has no emotions programmed into his brain. We, no I mean they, are born to fight, to kill, and to die. I am born to live and to make a difference. I¡¯m the only human being strong enough to withstand their crushing power, the only one who has enough strength to push them away and to protect myself from their pulverizing blows. No, I must protect not just myself. Chapter Two Chapter Two Before I was drugged and this whole invasion thing, I was just a private under the training unit. The Higher Officials didn¡¯t see me as the kind of person who would rebel, but now they know that I will only fight for what¡¯s right. That day I finished my routine two-hundred-pushup and ten-mile-jogging early, so I decided to take a walk outside the bubble of the camp, into the real world. I saw scattered settlements and some people, humans, walking around on the lush green grass. The sky was perfectly blue and the thick summer trees granted me a shade under the blazing sun. I heard a whooshing sound behind me and snapped my head back. There was a projectile flying toward me. The signal from my eyes immediately fired up my brain, and my hand automatically shot up to catch the projectile. I took a closer look at it. It was in the spherical shape of the body of a grenade, but the surface is a lot smoother and softer. ¡°Hey excuse me! Can I have my ball back?¡± I heard a girl¡¯s voice calling out to me thirty meters away, and I can hear her panting as she ran toward me. As I tossed the ball back, I saw the girl. She had straight brown hair coming down onto her shoulders; a few strands of bangs fell naturally and perfectly, covering her eyes as she softly brushed them to the side. She saw me and smiled, not those kinds of killer smile or high-voltage ones but a gentle smile, yet with so much beauty within. I didn¡¯t know why back then but my heartbeat was racing and I feel blood rushing up to my face. She walked with elegance towards me and reached up in a swift motion to catch the ball. Her brown almond eyes winked at me. ¡°Thanks,¡± she said, and she was about to leave. If my brain wasn¡¯t able to operate so quickly to think of something to say she would probably have left. ¡°Uhhh¡­ Why are you throwing this sphere, no, this ball, around here?¡± Such an amazingly stupid thing to say from an amazingly smart mind. I did my best to attempt a smile. Lower the levels of my hostility, as they called it. However, the rest of the education I¡¯ve received all life long came to me - humans should be our enemies. I must not trust her. She could be a threat to my life and I should be a threat to hers. If the first step of conversation I did was because of instinct, now it would be of consciousness. She looked at me, curious instead of puzzled or angry. She definitely saw past the walls in my heart, but she didn¡¯t mention it. I quickly readjusted to conceal my suspicions. Making a conversation was something stored inside my human part of the brain, and I was supposed to be good at it naturally. Well exceptions could be made when the person you were talking to was both the prettiest girl you had ever seen in reality and the enemy you were supposed to destroy upon seeing. ¡°I¡¯m just playing baseball catches against that tree. Do you wanna join me?¡± It¡¯s the first time I heard of the term ¡°baseball¡±, and I have no idea why she was playing catches. The only time I train catches is when we catch projectiles flying at us from random directions. Then she smiled. Again. This time I saw it from so close up. Oh god. This smile completely crushed my barriers of vigilance, or more like melted them down. I had never seen anything like this. It reached inside my head, and before I could even take a second thought, I replied timidly with the first response that came into my head. ¡°Okay. But um¡­ I don¡¯t know how to play.¡± This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. When saying that, my hesitation was of fearing that she would laugh at my ignorance instead of being afraid that she would be hostile. No. AN128. What was the creed? Humans were enemies. By the thought of that, I flinched back a little. My eyes refocused from that dreamy state back to my sharp stare. She would probably think I was a lunatic or a psycho. She chuckled, but it was a friendly one instead of teasing. She probably realized that I wasn¡¯t a normal human being like her, but she didn¡¯t point it out or say anything. She didn¡¯t even intentionally trespass into the territory of my heart, but she accomplished it with her every tiny gesture. Was this thing happening because I was too lonely in the base? Or was she a special case? Why did I feel another kind of feeling? I wanted to stay. I could leave immediately now, but I didn¡¯t want to. ¡°It¡¯s alright I¡¯ll teach you. By the way my name¡¯s Jessica.¡± She extended out her right hand. I searched in my brain for my name, but I couldn¡¯t find a result. In my whole life they referred to me as ¡°AN128¡±. ¡°I¡¯m Andrew,¡± I said, using the first human name that came to me. I didn¡¯t know what I was supposed to do, so I awkwardly took out my right hand, but Jessica used hers to shake mine. When I extended out my hand, my muscles were extremely tense. In my head I unconsciously repeated the move of completely subduing a person from the wrist and fingers. Elimination of the threat before it turned too late. In case¡­ In case anything happened. But when her hand touched mine, my muscles immediately relaxed. I never felt so free before. For the first time in my life, the habit of holding alertness and vigilance against humans became a burden. Screw that. There was no surveillance outside the base, so maybe I could just follow my heart. For once. We walked along the edge of the field. ¡°Is it your first time meeting someone new?¡± Jessica asked me curiously. ¡°Yes.¡± I answered honestly. I couldn¡¯t reveal my identity to her, but I could still expose some not-so-important information to ease her suspicion. ¡°It¡¯s the first time I come out into the real world.¡± Was I finding an excuse for myself to share the story of my life with her? ¡°Well how do you feel about it?¡± ¡°I feel like the world would be pretty awesome if everyone¡¯s like you.¡± She laughed. My skin receptors picked up the growing heat on her face. ¡°Thanks. You really should come more often though and meet more people besides me, I couldn¡¯t imagine staying home all the time.¡± ¡°What other beautiful things are out here? Besides the flowers, the sky, and the first person that I met.¡± She laughed again. ¡°Well, let me show you.¡± That day I felt a different kind of emotion. I couldn¡¯t find the right word to describe it. It was more than ¡°happy¡± or ¡°joyful¡±, because I truly enjoyed every second together with Jessica, and she gave me a reason to come out to the real world again. ¡°Pleasant¡±? It was a lot more than that. I found someone that I could truly open myself to, and she would accept me despite all my awkwardness and mysteriousness. Only today I know that feeling is called love. Chapter Three Chapter Three If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Chapter Four Chapter Four This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Chapter Five Chapter Five This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. more disgusting smell charged at me. My heartbeat increased instantly and adrenaline gushed up, but I was transfixed onto the ground. This was the image of fear in my mind. Chapter Six Chapter Six The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Chapter Seven Chapter Seven in its ghostly green light. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Chapter Eight Chapter Eight This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Chapter Nine Chapter Nine The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Chapter Ten Chapter Ten Why shouldn¡¯t I trust her. They didn¡¯t want us to have senses of trust, because trust could be illogical. They wanted us to follow our own judgements and estimations. But without trust, there wouldn¡¯t be harmony. Without trust, we could be turned against each other easily. No matter how individually capable we were, a team would always be stronger. A friend, like ST, helped me so many times, and I didn¡¯t know if I could live through these years without him. Skye understood what I felt, and she was perfect for a friend.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Chapter Eleven Chapter Eleven This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Chapter Twelve Chapter Twelve Stolen novel; please report. Chapter Thirteen Chapter Thirteen Stolen story; please report. Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fourteen If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Chapter Fifteen Chapter Fifteen This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Chapter Sixteen Chapter Sixteen This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Chapter Seventeen Chapter Seventeen Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Chapter Eighteen Chapter Eighteen This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Chapter Nineteen Chapter Nineteen Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Chapter Twenty One Chapter Twenty One Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Chapter Twenty Two Chapter Twenty Two Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Chapter Twenty Three Chapter Twenty Three Stolen novel; please report. Chapter Twenty Four Chapter Twenty Four Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Chapter Twenty Five Chapter Twenty Five Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! This is a massacre! Worst of all, we are the cause. Moreover, this means that they are piloting the vessel now. Chapter Twenty Six Chapter Twenty Six The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Chapter Twenty Seven Chapter Twenty Seven Stolen novel; please report. Chapter Twenty Eight Chapter Twenty Eight The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Chapter Twenty Nine Chapter Twenty Nine Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Chapter Thirty One Chapter Thirty One The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Chapter Thirty Two Chapter Thirty Two Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Chapter Thirty Three Chapter Thirty Three The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Chapter Thirty Four Chapter Thirty Four This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.