I was sweating... nervous as if I was about to give a speech to every single person I ever knew… which… is exactly what I was about to do. I was becoming a man… the past two years had been culminating into this moment, this three hour ceremony to celebrate my entrance into my people's community as a fully responsible man in charge of his destiny. As the rabbi continued speaking to all my friends and relatives, I looked over at my best friend Alex, who grinned at me and gave me a thumbs up. I'd like to say that made me feel better… but it didn't although it did make me a tad bit happier. I looked over at Ellana who had not long before me had her Bat-Muitzvah, she whispered, "Breathe." to me and then I realized I forgot to breathe and took a long deep breath and some of the pressure in my chest was alleviated. All of a sudden the rabbi called on me and my legs turned into wet noodles and I couldn't get out of my chair. I was looking around the room, for any escape... and then my gaze crossed my father's. The look on his face... was so amazing... he was proud of what I was about to do... it instilled me with a confidence I'd never felt before and I regained my strength, got out of the chair and walked up to the podium. To my surprise I felt a hand on my back and turned around.
"Greg, the Crystal Ball drops in like 5 minutes, c'mon.". We quit Halo: Reach and turned off the XBOX, it was awesome to be going into the New Year, which, was in my opinion the most important holiday of them all, with my best friends Nick and Alex. We ran up the stairs and already saw my parents and their friends gathered around the TV, champagne glasses in hand. My dad handed us each a glass and said, "To a fantastic New Year boys." The ball started to drop and every single person in the Eastern Time Zone started counting down from 10..9..8..7..6..5..4.
"3..2..1", and with that great countdown from my parents, sister and friends, I blew out the candles and was all of a sudden 16. "I don't care how old I am, I need my birthday wish." I said and laughed. The cake was passed around and delightfully devoured by the whole company. We went downstairs and started playing Halo 3 again as we had been for the past 4 hours... the nerds we were... and still are. "Nick, Jordan's behind you." I said. "Like it matters I've got the sword." he said as the virtual blade of energy passed cleanly through the thick titanium armour and sliced through the augmeneted bone, tissue and muscle of the artificial Spartan supersoldier. "That's what you get double barrel!" a joke that had passed from my birthday of the previous year. All of a sudden I heard Filip yell from in the backyard, "Hey Greg, wanna shoot some bottles and cans with the airsoft guns." "Sure!" I yelled back. I passed my controller to William and ran over to where Filip, Alex and Zach we're playing around with the M16, the Sniper and the AK47. I picked up the sniper, aimed down the scope and sighted to the top of the pillar where the cans were supposed to be set up, but... all of them were down. "Why the hell aren't the targets set up?". "That's why we asked you to come out here." Alex said as an innocent smile crossed his face. I gave him a very rude gesture involving my hand and finger and ran over to the pillar to reset the cans and bottles. As I was setting up the cans, I was oblivious... completely unaware of events that were set in motion. Danielle, Alex's girlfriend of 6 months came out of the house and picked up the M16. Alex was showing her the ins and outs of the electric rifle. As I turned around and started running back, I saw Danielle point at me and yell, "Look, it's Greg!". She brought the rifle up towards me and unloaded fully automatic rifle with a full magazine of .20 g BBs into me. I turned around and felt the first shots hit me in the side and then in the back, I felt my legs give out from under me and as I fell to the ground I yelled, "What the @*%$! You stupid #$^@$!". The last thing I saw before I passed out from the pain was Alex and Filip running towards me while Danielle laughed.
As I awoke, there was a stinging pain in my arm and I felt a warm liquid pouring down the length of it and soaking my dirty fatigues. I got up and felt a weight around my neck, it was the strap of my rifle. I got up and looked around, I was in the downtown of a ruined city with shots ringing all around me. I looked at my watch it read, 3:20 PM, August 24, 2125... the year of the Great Revolution. We were the heroes... and it was time to get to work.
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