In the truck I looked up at the new kid, Jacy, and noticed she kind of looked pretty. A kind smile inhabits her face and she had tons of freckles. I smiled at her, but that was it. She smiled back weakly. I felt kind of awkward and stupid. I think I scared her or something.

The van came to a stop. 

“Wait here,” Eric said as he left. 

We didn’t reply. Dylan and Ava moved to the front of van and talked. Finn and Mary went with them towards the front. Now, it was just me, Wyatt, and Jacy. 

“Hi, I am Ernest,” I said, sticking my hand out for Jacy to shake.

Jacy replied, “I’m Jacy. Well, I guess you already know that. Nice to meet you.” 

Wyatt just nodded and made a grunt that meant “hi”. We didn’t talk at all. I kept looking at her, as she watched the other kids. Obviously, she would rather be with the popular kids than me.

All of sudden, gunshots were heard. There were bullets hitting the back of the van! Wyatt yelled at us to get out. I heard the sound of a bomb ticking off. The bomb exploded the van. By now, we were out of the van and on the road.

I noticed the soldiers were on the other side of the van, so we used the scorched vehicle as a shield. I was so frightened. Over there, Wyatt whispered hoarsely pointing to a 7-Eleven. Dylan went first with Jacy following shortly behind. Wyatt and I followed shortly. We burst into the 7-Eleven and looked for a good hiding spot. We decided to go to the far corner in the manager’s office. We went there and waited.

That’s when my asthma kicked in. At the worst possible time my asthma made me start coughing like crazy. I couldn’t stop. Wyatt tried to cover my mouth, but my coughs were like thunder. The soldiers definitely might have heard us. Dylan saw an inhaler on the shelf pulled it down and I quickly got a shot from it. My coughing fit stopped. Lasers pointed overhead from soldier’s guns, but eventually they gave up and left.

I looked back and no soldiers were there. Eric wasn’t either. Great, we are alone again! Dylan came up to me. 

“Nice job dude!” he said without thinking about Eric. 

“Why are you not worrying about Eric?” I asked.

“It wouldn’t be the first time an adult died. I have gotten used to it. Also, here are your new glasses,” he said. He handed me a pair of new mint condition glasses. I jammed the pair on. Everything was fixed! Nothing was blurry! 

“I found them at an office place. I was polishing them off. I hope they are the right type,” he said.

“They match my prescription perfectly! Thanks!” I was so thankful. I looked at Jacy. Hopefully, she won’t think I look weird. She didn’t say anything. In fact, she was talking to Mary and Ava.

We all left the room and went throughout the 7-Eleven before getting caught by soldiers. We raided snacks and stuff like that. I went in an empty aisle and talked to Wyatt the whole time. It was so fun until the front door shattered. German soldiers entered the building and took us away. There were two military trucks. The soldiers dragged Jacy into a different van. 

I was shoved in with Ava and Finn. The Germans took us to an underground base. It was really hot. They pushed us down spiraled stairs. The lower we went, the hotter it got. We kept climbing down the stairs till we reached the bottom of the stairs. We were forced through a hallway which led to a platform. They pushed us onto the platform and the platform hovered away. The platform led to a gigantic pit of lava. It was extremely hot. 

The soldiers stood around us in a circle. A man in a tuxedo entered the platform. 

“Hello, children,” the man said in a rich German accent. 

“I am Franz Hitler the descendant of Adolf Hitler. And no, I am nothing like my great grandfather. I am the ‘good guy’ in this game. I have a purpose to kill. Adolf killed for the fun of it. You are some of the last survivors of the U.S. and I have kept you alive for one reason. One of you has something I need.”

“Have any of you received a file sent from a man named Friedrich Herman?” he asked giving each of us a mean glare. I looked Dylan. Was that “Code Leben” thing, the file? He looked nervous. He probably thought the same thing. None of us stepped forward. 

“You had your chance,” he said and six Nazi guards each grabbed us by the arms, holding us still. Franz pulled forth a pistol from his belt that had a rubber case surrounding it. 

“This,” he said showing everyone the pistol. 

“Is a Pressurized Gewehr (gun). It may look like an ordinary American pistol, but this has special flint inside that releases the bullet in a different way making it much, much hotter. Hot enough to melt through a bulletproof vest. It is pressurized so when fired it makes even hotter and much faster than the average bullet. Now let’s try this precious new mechanism on young spectacles here.” He gestured to me. 

“No!” Dylan yelled. He tried to get out of the soldier’s grip, but the soldier just twisted his bandaged arm. He screamed in pain. I was to horrified to do anything. 

Hitler walked forward to me and aimed the pistol at my heart. 

“For Hannah,” I heard him say under his breath. I flinched. 

Franz was about to pull the trigger when I heard a loud Scottish accent yell something. It was Eric. I heard gun fires, but they weren’t from the “Pressurized Gewehr”. A guard fell. 

“What’s going on?” Franz yelled. Eric came over shooting enemies with a machine gun.

“Get out!” he yelled over the loud rapid gunfire, nodding towards a small rope coming from the ceiling that he must have put there. A hole inhabited the ceiling right above the rope. I was free from the soldier's grip because he was battling Eric, so I ran towards the rope. Ava and Finn were already halfway up the rope. I climbed up it and looked down. I saw Dylan and Jacy coming up with Wyatt and Mary behind them. Once we all got to the top, Eric climbed back up the rope.

“Eric, what happened?” I asked.

“I was scouting the area around the van when I noticed the soldiers come from the opposite side,” he replied. 

“When they kidnapped you guys I followed them and they lead me here, where I saved your lives.” 

“Thank you so much, Eric,” Ava said.

We were relieved that we survived. We exchanged a lot of high-fives and fist-bumps because we thought this was the end of our story. We thought we were going to die, but we lived. Dylan hugged me tight and ruffled his hand into my hair. He was like my brother. He went to hang out with Finn. He left me to hang by myself, again. It is so unfair. Why couldn’t I have fame? Those other guys are so athletic and popular. All I am is a lonely puny kid who everyone thinks is uninteresting.