**We've been living in this house for a few years. Nothing would have really prepared me for what was about to happen. Sure, they told us that if a disaster ever hit that we'd just have to hide in our basement and put on gas masks...that everything would blow over quickly. That's not exactly how it happened.
I was sweeping the floor in my kitchen, occasionally glancing out the kitchen window to catch glimpses of the green hillsides and to enjoy the singing of the birds nearby. With a ponytail and whispies falling at my cheeks, my three little children were playing in the living room. It was at this moment, while I was leaning against my broom with a sun-splashed warmth coating my dress and apron, that I saw a flash of light. Almost immediately there was a plume of green and purple smoke shooting up with an orange-tinged halo near the origin of the flash.
"TO THE BASEMENT!!! NOW!!!"** I shouted as the light became more intense.
We were in the basement for 10 days. We could hear the commotion, the gunshots, the silence that followed. It was the silence that was the most devastating. The twins continued playing in the basement where I'd put rations as if anticipating something like this.
Jakkal grew more and more distant to us as time progressed. She would sit in a corner and look up at the sliver of light coming through the small crack in the roof of out basement.
On the tenth day, we heard the door being smashed open as a voice shouted, "Are there Alliance supporters here or soon-to-die targets?"
Jakkal ran before I could stop her "We want to join the Alliance. Spare our lives."
I looked at the thirteen-year-old I'd brought up to always decide what is right and what is righteous. I watched her take the offered gun as she shed the principles I'd instilled in her.
"Not me, never me. I will re-"
A flash of bright red hit me, and everything ended.
Jakkal averted her eyes as her mother passed away. She herded the twins towards the back. They would be sent to the academy.
For many years whenever she killed someone and the red light flashed, a pang regret tugged at her.
Survival - for her and her siblings that was the mantra that roamed in her head. Her team leader 
"Most people joined the resistance after seemingly joining us to save themselves. Your foolish mother even chose death, why did you choose us?" He asked Jakkal.
She turned towards him and said "Because I fight for myself. For my family. I do not have allegiance to anyone. War is not about winning or losing, it is about survival."
Before he could pull the trigger, a shot of blue light hit him from behind.
and had grown up.This story took place twenty years before the video by 
The text in bold is by 
