I awoke to the smell of pine trees and chirping birds. I lay on my back, looking at the sky, a view blocked by the overhanging trees. Wincing at the pain I try to sit up, only to be knocked back down by a throbbing pain in my chest. I look down and see a tree branch protruding from my left peck. I rip part of my shirt off and stuff it in my mouth, grab the branch and rip it out. My muffled scream echoed through the forest, birds flying away from the noise.

“Cain! Cain are you there?”

Looking around all I saw were trees and plants covering everything, leaving no space untouched. Several minutes went by before I managed to get up, groaning to subdue the pain. Getting a better view of my crash site, I can see the motorcycle hanging in a tree, several feet away. I try looking for Cain, but don’t see any sign of him. I even take a nearby branch and throw it in the direction of the bike, yet still no response. I groan once more as I slowly get up, dusting off the dirt and leaves that accumulated after crashing and laying here for however long.

I go into my pocket to check the time on my phone only to see the entire screen destroyed.

“Well, there goes any call for help too. Must’ve been destroyed after the fall.”

I look up and realize just how far I fell.

“That has to be at least 3 stories, probably more from here to the edge of the railing.”

I started to make my way in the direction of the bike, hoping Cain went in the same direction. Stopping every few minutes so I could rest against a tree, I called out his name to no avail. After what seemed like hours, I came across a makeshift bed, filled with leaves and anything soft one might find in the woods. I realized this must be where Cain is after seeing his tattered jacket laying nearby.

“Cain! Cain, are you there, it’s me Ethan. How’d you even make this? These had to come from up in the trees.”

Looking around, I finally find Cain, not in a state I was hoping for though. He’s on his back, dried blood all over his shirt and legs and dirt covering the majority of his face. It did seem as if he had climbed the tree seeing the tree above him had the branch snapped in half as if it had broken underneath him.

Rushing to his side, I try to wake him up shaking and checking for a pulse

“ Oh many, hey hey wake up! Don’t you dare die on me now, not after all that bullshit you pulled and the lack of an explanation?! Now come on and wake up” and with good measures, give him a good slap across the face.”

Instantly, his eyes jolt open and he grabs my wrist as if to crush it.

“Old man it’s me!”

His eyes readjust and when they focus, he throws my arm out his face as if disappointed. Groaning he gets up, wipes the dirt on his face, and starts to hobble away.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going? You’re just gonna walk away as if we didn’t just go through all of that before?”

“I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Look man, I still hate you, don't get me wrong. But you still owe me an explanation for what the hell just happened.”

Looking at me pissed, he trudged back and told me to sit.

“Okay fine.”

We both sit down in the makeshift bed, which in all honesty is just a pile of leaves and moss from around the woods.

“Your friend Julia, she’s not human. Well, she is, but not the normal kind, not even a Gear user. Simply put, she’s an experiment, one that was shut down many decades ago.”

“Experiment, what do you mean? I’ve known her since she was a kid. There's no way she could be decades old.”

“A couple of decades ago, the ‘Boss’ wanted a new species of humans, a race that had the power to use the power of Gears without having to activate them. He called them Homunculus, better known as Hybrids. A few people born by the experimentation and power of Gears, used as weapons for future use.”

“However, a group of heroes called themselves the “Resistance” fought against these monsters and creators destroying any lab or place used for their creation.”

“Wait wait the Resistance? Who are they?”

“The Resistance is a group of people with the power of Gears, who rose against the ‘Boss’ when he was in his prime, fighting against him to stop his efforts. Not only were they the strongest, but each member was a BiGear user at least. Sadly though, they were a group for only four years until they suddenly disappeared.”

“Does anyone know what happened to them? I mean they seemed like a critical part of Gear history for them to just go missing and not looked into.”

“People tried to look for them, but it's just as if they disappeared off the face of the planet without a trace. But their efforts were not in vain as the Hybrids never showed up again.”

Looking into the distance, I could tell this was starting to be less of an informational talk and more of his own back story.

“For a while, there was finally peace, fighting and killing stopped. Sadly, it was short-lived as about a year and a half later new monsters started showing up. One's that are even worse than the Hybrids. Made them look like toddlers compared to what this new group was.”

“Wait wait, back up. So what about Julia, how is she still alive if she was supposedly created decades ago?”

“I can’t give you a definitive answer on that, I was still a kid just like you at the time. What I can tell you is that I know they have these tanks that act as incubators, most likely she was stored in them for a while until she needed to be released.”

“But if that’s the case, and you said the heroes destroyed all the Hybrids and the places they make them, then how is it that she’s my age?”

Realizing what this meant, Cain tried to get up only to fall back down after gritting his teeth in pain.

“Look kid, if she is your age, then we have a real problem. But for now, let's focus on the present alright. As I was saying, a group of villains stronger than hybrids started appearing. They wear masks to indicate each one, each a BiGear user at minimum.”

“When you worked for them, did you ever encounter one of these guys?”

“Only once. It was in passing, but in that small moment I did, their presence was absolute. They have such an intensity to them, all my instincts told me to run.”

Thinking about what that meant, chills went down my spine. Cain had been through a lot, he’s killed plenty of people and worked for the ‘Boss.’ In terms of the toughest people I knew, and I play football so I know a lot, he’s the toughest. So if just ONE of these guys scared him that much, I knew I was in trouble.

Adjusting myself to try and get comfortable

“So, you said it’s a group of people. Who are they?”

“They’re called the Sins and they work for the ‘Boss’ doing only the extreme of the extreme work. At least they used to be, they haven’t been active in years, and many think they’ve died off.”

While he was talking I realized that his face was losing color and his words were starting to slur a bit.

“Wait many you said, who else is there?”

“A new age of heroes is to be born, like the ones from the past. Which is what my mission is, to protect them and ready them until they can fight the war that was never finished.”

New heroes being born. A war to fight. None of this made any sense to me, my head still spinning from the fall. I look around and with my shock, haven’t realized that it’s already starting to become evening.

“Wait, so if you’ve been going around, trying to protect me and train me, does that mean-?”

He looked away from me as if to avoid my question, but the expression on his face told me everything I needed to know. The reason why he left the ‘Boss’, why he saved me, why he taught me about Gears, and even why he persists in helping me. All because I’m the newborn hero. At least one of them.

“So how many are there?”

“7 including you, just like the number before.”

Thinking what this means, it means now I know I’m going to have to get better at fighting. My only real fight using Gears I’ve had was at school against Hitch. Even then, I haven’t learned how to use my second Gear yet so if I have to fight these Sins and the ‘Boss’ I’m gonna have to get stronger. Not only that but there was another problem on our hands. Someone was creating hybrids again or at least activating the ones already made.

“Hey Cain, I think we should probably get out of here, it's getting late and the last thing I need is for my mom to start calling people when she gets home tonight.”

Getting up was a lot harder than I thought, but after a few tries, I managed to get up and wipe some dirt off my face and pants. Looking over at Cain I see he’s still on the ground and not moving.

“Hey man, I get it. We just fell like 3 stories after running away from a giant monster, but we can’t stay here forever.”

Waiting to hear his usual snarky remark, I got nothing. Instead, my impatience turned to dread as I started to fear the worst. I crouched down, checking his pulse to see if he was still alive.

“A pulse. Yes, thank goodness.”

I check him, trying to find the source of his unconsciousness. That’s when I found it. A hole the size of my fist going through his back. I never noticed it because he was laying on his back when I found him, but he must’ve been stabbed by a branch on the way down. The dried blood was the darkest around the injury.

“Oh, no-no-no.”

I take my shirt off, trying to put pressure on his wound, though I know it might be too late for that already. Jokingly I say,

“Yeah now look who’s turn it is to save someone huh.”

I grab some leaves and along with my shirt tie them down using our shoelaces. I bend down and hoist him onto my back and start walking in hopes of finding help.

Trudging through the woods with a 200 plus pound man while also injured yourself is no easy task. Sure, playing football helped a lot, I was strong enough to carry him, but with the chest injury I got earlier and the long-distance down, this task went from easy to nearly impossible. Nonetheless, I kept going, only stopping to put him down and rest. As night set in I started picking up the pace, only stopping what felt like every half an hour or so instead of every 5 minutes.

My chest felt as if it was ready to explode. Each breath I took felt like my last, as if I was breathing in hot air, my lungs drying out with every inhale. My back burned with pain, increasing every time I took a step, longing for me to take another break, even if I just got up from one. After what felt like forever, I finally made it to the edge of my town. At this point, I put Cain down for another 5 minutes and picked him back up.

“No hospitals, take me home,” Cain says, grabbing me by the shoulder with an intense look in his eyes.

“You sure, man they’re better suited to help you than-”

I could see the look on his face wasn’t going to change unless I agreed with him.

“Alright fine fine”

I knew it was now or never, so I took one deep breath and started to jog my way to my house.

I struggled to keep myself up, or even awake for that matter as my body was starting to shut down. As I was running, my legs kept wobbling, barely having enough strength to keep myself up, let alone run several miles home. But I made it. That’s when the final adrenaline kicked in. I opened the door, laid Cain down on the couch, and went and got the first aid kit.

For the next hour or so everything went by in a blur. I patched up Cain and did makeshift stitching to close the wound. I washed myself up, ate a quick meal, and called my mom and told her I just got home from a ‘party’ even though it was 3 in the morning.

“You know what, it’s fine. I won’t be home anyway. I’m at a friend's house and I’m staying here on the weekend. Just be safe and don’t burn the house down.”

I sigh in relief knowing I have time before I have to possibly explain this whole situation to my mom. I check Cain’s pulse to make sure he’s alive and then I lay a pillow on the floor beneath him and within seconds with my head on the pillow, I’m asleep.

My dreams were just flashbacks to earlier today. From waking up to flying off a cliff it was a pretty eventful day. What I didn’t know is that this was the beginning of the worse that was to come.