The Raccoons 1 It's a new world. #life as you know it has crashed and burned. Ever since the new laws came in. A new continent assembled when they won WWW3. They wanted the rest of the world to wither and die so they could rule all lands. Everyone had a licence to murder. There was no more prison, no more jail, no more court. There was orphans and widows. All because of the new continent, or as we call them, the queen bees. Then there's us. The raccoons. You stole money and traded. I've done both of them. But Ive never murdered. The queen bees had taken away things once known as cars and computers and phones for themselves. I was born into the queen bee era, but my grandma wasn't. She had crazy stories. Ones where we actually had freedom. Real live freedom. I lived with my father and two brothers. My father went into Dublin every day to trade, so I was left to babysit my two brothers. I was tall and skinny. Well everyone was skinny. And we had hallow eyes and cheeks. I had shoulder length black hair, which I usually tied back with some fabric. When I was seven I grew my hair as long as my waist and then I cut into a cropped hair style and gave the remainder of my hair to my dad to sell. People were so sick and twisted they actually bought seven year olds hair. We got ten gold coins though. But we were down to one bronze now. My dad said if I ever did that again I'd be punished. He said he would deal with it. But I didn't care. There was school, but no one made fun of me. Instead they respected me. And I was mistaken for a boy many times because in the raccoons we didn't have dresses or pink skirts and that stuff. It was black long sleeved tops and brown trousers and no shoes. Sometimes just rags. I didn't care about my boyish hair. As long as we didn't starve. I was only twelve and I felt like some kind of supplier for the house. Then came that rainy Tuesday. My dad had just left for Dublin and I heard shouts and saw smoke coming from the village. I rushed the boys inside. We lived in the middle of the forest on an abandoned hill and you could see the village. I gave the twins, Chris and Joe an apple (one between and told them to share) and they scurried of to their room. My mum died shortly after there birth. But I loved them. I had an older brother but he's, well, I don't really know. He works for the queen bee army. People died from disease and Joe almost died from one that gave him purple rashes all over his body, but lucky my friends mum healed him for free. We were so grateful. The day went on and by and at seven, the time my dad was always home, he wasn't there. The boys became worried, so I told them there must have been a storm but it could have been that. About ten percent. The other ninety could included jumped, kidnapped, murdered, seriously injured, even a gun car. A thousand possibilities. There was queen bee cars that shot any raccoons they saw. Another stupid queen bee rule. Many times I thought about repeating the whole hair selling thing, but dad wouldn't like that. The next morning he still wasn't home. The boys were starving and so was I. I considered going into town; but dad would kill me. He did have a licence. I feed them a crust of bread. It was stale and chewy. In the boys bedroom that night, they insisted I slept with them, I had a dream. I was walking along a road and then I saw him. My dads corpse. I wanted to kneel down and put my head on his stomach and start crying; but instead, I kicked him and roared, "you failed us! Now I'll have to shave my head like last time to feed your kids!" I woke up with a start and as I walked over to the window I muttered, "I'm sorry dad, I'll help them," Then I saw the lighting. The. I saw the torches. The villagers were fleeing the village. They'll kill me and Chris and Joe. I shock the boys awake. We slept in our clothes. We ran out the house, and in a tin held our last scraps of food. My granddad prepared for this. He built a base in the ground called 'The Racoon Hole'. After a five minutes run, we got there. I pulled a bush out of the ground and opened the trap door. The boys climbed in, and I handed them the tin. I stuck the bush back on with mud and climbed in, closing the trapdoor behind me. Then came another trap door. It was a little metal square with a key hole. Only the key on a string around my neck could open it an lock it. I unlocked it, let the boys in, then I hopped into the little space the size of a small living room, locked the trapdoor, and slumped down on a chair that was left there. We were safe. For now.