1 CRUMBLED IN SECONDS.

I am squatting in a corner, behind a large shipping container praying no one finds me. Around me are a couple of dead bodies, and all I can hear are some men arguing loudly.

Now you might be wondering what's going on? Here, I'll explain.

Hey, I'm Candela Rubio, Candy for short. I used to live with my parents and my sister.

Notice how I used past tense?

That's cause both my mom and my younger sister Ellie are dead. They died exactly two months ago today in a car accident. When my dad figured out what and who was responsible for the accident, he decided to avenge their death by assassinating my mom and Ellie's killers, and now he seemed to be paying for it.

Up until this moment, I thought my dad was a humble business man who owned a sugar factory amongst other companies in his name, but I was wrong, cause here I am, hiding behind a huge red shipping container hoping these monsters don't me.

All I can hear are loud angry screaming coming from all corners of our house. I just stayed quietly in my corner praying this madness will end and we go back to normal.

After some minutes of screaming and shooting, everywhere became oddly quiet. I quietly and carefully crawled out from my little corner. The first thing that caught my eyes was my dad lying lifeless and covered in blood, along with two other lifeless bodies in the middle of the room.

I quickly ran over to my dad, crying and begging him to wake up.

"Dad! Dad! Pls get up, pls" I cried, holing his body in my arms. "Pls, Dad pls get up pls" I cried even louder, hugging him tightly as my tears fell to his body.

I was still holding my dad's body when one of THE RANGERS; as they were called, walked in. I stared at him for a split second before getting up and dashing out through the back door into the late-night streets.

The man ran after me, firing shots as I kept running.

After a while, he stopped running after me and went back to his people.

"Where did you go?" One of THE RANGERS asked him when he got back.

"I forgot something in there." He lied.

"Check around to see if any one saw us." Another guy said.

With that, two of their men went in to search the house and all round to make sure no one was around. They didn't find anyone, so they left the premises.

Meanwhile, I had no idea that the man running after me had stopped the chase, and now I had come so far that I was lost. I stopped running to try figuring out where I was, but all I could see around me were trees. It finally dawned on me that I was officially lost.

There I was, a 15-year-old high school kid in the middle of nowhere. Not knowing where to go, or what to do, I sat down there in between the trees.

I still had my phone in my back pocket, the time was 11:45pm at night, it was winter season and my jean and sleeveless top was not for the weather, but my outfit was the least of my concerns at the moment.

I sat there staring at my phone screen, I had no signal and I was at a 2% battery life. I kept staring at my lock screen which was a photo of my entire family from last Christmas.

My whole life flashed before my eyes, how I went from being the daughter of successful parents, to being an orphan. I had lost everything; I missed my mom and my little 10-year-old sister.

I couldn't even go to the police cause first, I didn't know my way back, it was almost midnight and plus, I couldn't explain anything to anyone. With all of these thoughts and memories running through my mind, I finally cried myself to sleep, not knowing what would become of me now.

The next day, the police had already surrounded my house, asking questions. It was hard to get any information because we lived at a more luxurious part of Columbia. Houses around there were secluded and far away from each other.

I was still at an unknown destination, but I decided to keep going forward. I had only my phone on me but with no one to call. Because of my parents' business, we kept having to move almost every 3 months.

Now it was more annoying because I didn't know anyone, I hadn't even started schooling in Colombia yet, so I had no friends or school mates. At my previous schools, I was always the new kid, and you know how that always turns out. I never had to really worry about school because I was a straight A student, good in the sciences and mathematics.

I am pretty sure my grades stayed high because I didn't have any friends and no one to distract me or anything like that, I also didn't have to worry about bullies because I never lasted more than 3 months anywhere.

As I walked through the forest like a lifeless soul, I recalled earlier when I had created an android girl about my age for Ellie to play with whenever I was away or busy with school work, but even now I couldn't locate her. I remember I had left her charging as I was updating her programs before THE RANGERS invaded our house.

I let out a sigh as I realized that she must have been destroyed by now. As I kept on moving aimlessly and obliviously, I realized I had walked long enough and had somehow ended up at the beach. Since it was winter, the beach was almost empty, I took off my shoes and sat down on the sand looking at the ocean

After about ten minutes of sitting there, thinking of going into the water and drowning to join the rest of my family, someone walked up to me.

"Hey are you alright?" the lady asked.

I didn't respond, I didn't even realize someone was talking to me.

"Hey?" She tapped me.

I jerked immediately and got up.

"Are you okay?" The lady asked.

"Ye...Yeah. Yeah, am fine." I said, wiping my teary eyes and sandy jean.

"You don't look fine to me, but it's not my job to care." She replied.

I nodded in response.

"Okay, just be careful, there have been reports of many sea creatures roaming around here. The latest one was the case of a seal this morning." The lady added.

"Thanks, I will." I replied with a faint smile.

She turned to leave, I stopped her before she could move.

"Just one more thing" I said softly, "What is this place called?" I asked.

"The beach." She answered, a little confused.

"I know that, I mean this town or area" I added, more specifically.

"What? Are you lost?" She asked.

I looked around, "Maybe, I don't know." I answered.

She looked at me carefully, as if studying me. "You're in Colombia. The Western part of Colombia." She said.

"Okay..." I said slowly, waiting for her to continue.

"If you go up a little, you will see a dangerous forest that divides us from the South side of the country. All those rich hipeys live there, this area is called Ember Wood." She explained.

"Oh. Okay" I responded with a nod.

"So, what, are you a painter?" She asked, examining my stained outfit.

"Painter?" I asked back.

She pointed towards my shirt "Why is shirt all covered in red stains?" She asked.

I looked down at my shirt, I hadn't realized that my dad's blood had stained my cloths.

"Am...I'm" I stuttered, thinking of something clever to say. "Am an artiste, I didn't realize this shirt was messed up." I said immediately. "But do you know where I can maybe get some food to eat?"

"Do you have money, because I run a sushi stand, its right over there." She said, pointing in the direction of her stand.

I searched my pockets but found nothing, I couldn't even pay with my phone cause my battery had ran out and I didn't have my card on me.

"Um, no." I said softly.

"Okay then." The lady said, about to walk away.

"Wait, what if I drop my phone?" I asked, shaking my phone in the air. I was really hungry.

"What am I supposed to do with that?" She asked.

"Okay," I thought for a second. "What if I work for you?"

"I already have someone working for me." She said, completely crushing my hopes. "But hey two hands, they say, are better than one, so come on." She said and started walking over to her Sushi stand.

I followed behind her.

"Bertha!" The lady yelled as we were approaching her stand.

"Yes Miss Cathy?" A young girl, about my age came out.

"Here's our new worker" She turned to me "Sweety, I didn't get your name."

I thought for a second "Ellie. My name is Ellie." I lied.

"Well Ellie, meet Bertha, Bertha meet Ellie." The lady introduced us and walked away.

"You'll need this." Bertha said, handing me an apron.

I tied it around my neck and waist then joined her to work.

"Hey, do you know where I can find an outlet and a charger, my battery's low." I asked, few seconds into the work.

"There's one over there." Bertha pointed at the socket, "And you can use my charger, it's on the desk out back."

"Thanks." I replied and made my way to the back to plug in my phone.

I took a deep breath to kind of suck in my new reality, it was almost Christmas, and I didn't have anyone to share it with. It seemed like I was just going with the wind.

"I don't remember saying you could sit around." My new boss said.

I snapped out of my thoughts, apologized and went back to meet Bertha.

"Don't worry about her, she's always been that way." Bertha said.

"Okay." I said softly.

"Okay, so I know you don't know who I am and all that, and maybe you're not allowed to strangers, but you look like a mess, you need some help?" Bertha asked, wiping her hands on a clean napkin.

"I'm not sure we are allowed to sit around; I mean you heard her." I said, fiddling with an onion, pretending to be busy.

Bertha snatched the onion away from me. "There's no customer right now, plus we close in the next 20 minutes." She said.

"Close? But it's just 2pm."

She pulled out her phone to check the time. "It's 3:50 actually" She said, dropping her phone, "Plus Miss Cathy takes over from us, she claims she likes the night customers."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because they are the High class Middle-class." She said.

"What?" I asked immediately.

"The higher paid middle-class people around here, I don't know if that makes any sense." Bertha said.

"Not really though." I replied.

"Everyone on this side of Colombia are either poor or middle class. The richer people are on the other side." She said and took a chair to seat on.

I took a second to reflect on what I just heard. "When you say poor people, what exactly does that mean?" I asked slowly.

She raised her head to look at me, "What do you mean? You don't know what poor people are?" She asked.

"Kind of, it's just, different people have different definitions for certain things, you know." I said.

I didn't know what it was like to be poor. I have always had it all, but it seemed like things were about to change.

"I don't know how else you define poor, other than having no money, or good clothes and stuff." She said, casually.

I stared at her.

"Around here, everyone just tries to push their way through life, a lot of kids you see around are either orphans or foster kids." Bertha said.

My mouth hung open for a second, "Where are their parents?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Who knows." She replied casually.

Her phone alarm started beeping.

"Its four o'clock, which means we're free for the day." She said, and began arranging her stuffs in her bag. "Am going to eat, then leave, what about you?" Bertha asked me.

"Uh, same." I replied.

"Okay, where do you stay?" She asked, still stuffing her bag.

I froze, "I...I don't know." I said, and took off my apron.

"Do you not have a place to stay?" Bertha asked closely.

I didn't respond. I couldn't, I didn't know what to say.

"Ellie!" She called out.

I jerked, "I mean no, not really." I answered.

"You could move in with me, I live alone, and I could use a roommate." She said, zipping up her bag and hanging it over her shoulder.

"Thanks, but I...."

"But nothing, it'll be fun come on." She said and grabbed my hand pulling me with her.

"Hold up, my phone." I said, and reached out to grab my phone with my spare hand, before joining her.

She took me to a store where she did some grocery shopping, after which we headed to her apartment.

"We're here, make yourself at home." She said, walking into her house and hanging her bag on the wall hanger.

"Your place is nice." I said, looking around.

The house was not what I was used to. Although I was rich, my parents spared no expense teaching us the values of life, people and everything.

"You don't have to lie to me." Bertha said.

"What do you mean?" I asked with a little smile.

"This place is terrible; I hope to someday move out of here." She said, falling backwards into the couch. "I even hope to see beyond the forest, you know, the rich people's area."

I didn't know what to say.

"Whatever." Bertha got up from the couch, "Come on, let's go make spaghetti."

We walked over to her kitchen and started preparing our food. After cooking, we both made our way to the couch with our plates of food.

"What do you want to watch?" Bertha asked, holding the remote and scrolling through channels.

"I don't know, whatever." I said and started with my food.

"Are you into Telenovelas?" She asked, still scrolling back and forth.

"My mom used to love that." I said, slowly "Her favorite station was Telemundo." I added, recalling how we would all gather in the living room to watch our favorite show 'Face of Destiny' and my dad would always complain.

She turned to me, "I noticed you used past tense."

"Yeah." I smiled slowly. "She was. She's gone now."

"Gone?" Bertha asked.

"You know, how we all come and go. Literally." I said, letting out a deep sigh and taking a large munch of pasta to prevent myself from speaking for a while.

She glanced over at me with a faint smile. "I never knew who my parents were, I grew up in an orphanage."

"Ouch." I replied.

"Why are we even talking about all this? In the end we all won't be here, so it depends on what we do with the time we have now." She said and continued with her food.

I stared at her in admiration.

'It's funny how fate works.' I thought.

"What do you do when you're not feeling okay, like sad, depressed and mad at life in general." I asked, still playing with my fork.

"Well," She started, mouth full of pasta. "Where I come from, when we feel that way, we simply get high, take drugs to lose ourselves and forget everything. Sometimes even our own names."

"Isn't that dangerous?" I asked with curiosity, remembering that it was drug dealers that left me homeless.

"It is." She blurted out. "Which is why I had to do whatever I could to get out of that toxic environment. Now when I feel that low, I simply listen to music." She got up to wash her plate, I still hadn't gone halfway on mine.

"I personally love Juice Wrld and JoJo Siwa." She added and began scrubbing her plate.

"That's a weird combo." I said and continued with my food.

"I know, but both pass different powerful messages to a kid like me who grew up in what you could call The Trenches." She said.

"I've heard of that." I said.

"Yeah, so you see, Juice tells you how he lost everything and struggled through life with apparently little to no love and all he had to rely on were his drugs, which eventually ended him though." She said and wiped her hands on the towel hanging on the wall.

"Wrong example." I stated. "Also, don't all rappers do that? You know talk about how they made it all from nothing and all that." I added.

"The struggle Is real." Bertha said. "Now JoJo sees only the beautiful things in life; colors, flowers, fun and all that. She gives me hope and a lot of it." She paused to make sure I was still paying attention. "Now both musicians passing the same messages but using different words. Both saying that life is though sometimes, but we all need a reason to live, and if we try hard enough, we just might find that reason. It's complicated." She said, finding her way back to the couch.

She was right, it was complicated, it took me a long second to understand her.

"No, it's, I get it." I said with a smile. "I listen to both of them, but I just haven't looked, or listened to it that way."

"No one does." She tossed the remote control over to me. "I have somewhere to be early tomorrow morning, good night."

I watched her walk away, before walking over to the sink to wash off my plate. I was about to wipe my palms when I heard something on the tv. I walked over to turn the volume up, they were talking about my family. I paid close attention as they gave reports on my mom and sister's death, stating that they had died due to a car break failure.

They still had no reason for my dad's death, but they had security footages from our cameras which clearly showed the faces of the murderers. They also identified the dead bodies and said that the police are currently searching for a gang of drug traffickers popularly known as The Rangers.

As I watched the news, hot tears filled my eyes and started to drop. I couldn't speak, I didn't know what to say, if anything I was filled with fear and my heart which was filled with tears and probably shattered, started to harden. I wasn't sad anymore, I was mad.

Mad that people who didn't matter to me up until 24 hours ago had completely destroyed me. Mad that I didn't know what to do, what to think, or what would eventually become of me. I was mad about everything. Nothing else seemed relevant to me anymore. I have never known what it was like to lose someone I cared about, but in less than 6 months, I had lost everything I cared about.

The last part of the news showed a photo of me, telling anyone who sees me to bring me to the station for protection.

Back at South Colombia, The Rangers were not at peace, they too had seen the news and wondered how they could've forgotten about the cameras.

"Isco and Blark were told to search the house for anybody." Perez, one of The Rangers said.

Their leader, Hilion kept glaring at the tv screen. His men could clearly see the rage in his eyes.

"We did." Isco said.

"No one was there" Blark defended.

"Then who is this girl?" Hilion asked in his natural husky voice.

"She must be his daughter." Flavio said.

"Then why didn't any one kill her?" Hilion said, eyes still glued to the tv screen.

"We didn't know she was in the house boss." Flavio said.

"We'll do whatever it takes to finish her off." Isco said.

Hilion took a deep breath. "Why don't I just do the job myself cause all of you are useless." Hilion said, clearly frustrated with his mean.

"We promise we won't let you down sir." Perez said.

"Find her and bring her to me" Hilion said.

"Yes boss!" They all said and exited.

It was not yet so late. I checked my phone for the time, it was 9:45 pm. I paced around the living room, thinking of what to do.

'Lord Jesus pls can you hear me? I need you to save me.' I prayed silently, still pacing around nervously. 'There are chances that over 85% of the world had watched the news and probably know who I am now. I can't stay here anymore; I have to get out. But how? If I access my credit cards or accounts, then the police will find me, and if the cops find me, the rangers might find out and try to kill me too. I mean they already killed off all our security guards.' My thoughts were going wild and not really helping me.

I took a shower, got dressed in one of Bertha's hoodie and sweatpants, I added a nose mask to hide my face then grabbed my phone, and went out of the house. I walked around her neighborhood, trying to find a casino where I could maybe gamble in order to win some money.

After about 15minutes of searching, I finally found one named; EL CASADA'S CASINO. I walked into the place filled with drunk men gambling their heads off and loosing, there were also some ladies there, the whole place was packed.

I knew within me that this was the last place I needed to be; a place filled with people. Who would've ever thought that someday Mr. Leon Rubio's daughter would be at a casino trying to win money?

I scanned the room carefully, before joining a table full of gamblers willing to bet over 50 thousand Dollars. Knowing fully well that I had no money on me, I agreed to randomly bet 5grand.

"This isn't a place for kids." One of the men at the table rudely spoke up as soon as I joined in.

"Especially one without money, 5grand seriously?" Another man added, and they all started laughing.

I lowered my head without saying a word. I have heard about places like this, and the last thing you want to do is make a drunk irresponsible man mad, he could easily pull out a gun at any point, so I let them make their jokes, it didn't bother me anyway.

"Let her be. She'll play, she'll lose and go home to mummy." One of the men said, while the others kept laughing.

I still didn't respond, instead I struck the first move to start the game and everyone else started playing.

I had learnt a thing or two about poker, cards and even chess from my dad, we would play and he'd always beat me, but by losing, I was learning, and these men were too drunk to think straight so this was definitely going to be easy money for me.

I just hope they don't have families to feed.

5 rounds and 12 losers later, I was left with only one guy to beat before I could walk home with over 500 thousand dollars in cash. Suddenly, the last guy called it quits, he was going to lose anyway. After he lost, I took my bag of money and hurriedly walked out of the casino before anything escalates.

I ran back to Bertha's apartment, got in and locked the door behind me. She was still sleeping, by now it was half past midnight. I took my phone to book the first available flight to New Mexico far away from Colombia. After which, I stuffed 425 thousand dollars under Bertha's bed with a note saying:

'Use this to get to the other side, I'll be waiting for you. Thank you so much for everything. It's a small world, I know I will see you again. XOXO Ellie'

After that, I set my alarm for 5:30 am cause my flight was by 6:45am.

I didn't realize that I had accidentally sent out an info to the cops by paying for the flight through my phone, so now they had my location, or Bertha's.

The next morning, I got up very early, before my alarm could even start buzzing. I went to a nearby store to get some stuffs I needed, like a tooth brush, cloths and red hair dye. I returned to the house to get ready, I took a shower, dyed my hair red and cut it short to change my appearance, got dressed grabbed my phone and left the house. Since I had no bags or luggage's, getting ready was fast and easy.

As I walked out the door, I turned around and thought of Bertha. As I did, a satisfactory smile played across my face, I held the door knob for a while before letting go and walking away.

I took a cab to the airport, since I didn't have any baggage's, it was a lot easier. Not very many people were flying anywhere so early in the morning, so it didn't take us long to get up in the air.

By the time Bertha woke up, I was already way up in the skies.

"Ellie?" She called for me when she didn't see me in the room.

"Ellie? Where could she be?" Bertha said, still searching the whole house trying to find me, but didn't. She walked back to her room to get her phone to call me when she sighted the bag of money I had stuffed under her bed with a note.

"Oh My God!" She almost yelled as soon as she unzipped the bag to see the content.

She ran out to ask her neighbors if they had seen me. Some of them said 'No', while others said 'They has seen a girl with red hair, but they didn't know where she went.'

She walked back into the house and realized the note and the empty container of hair dye

"Ellie where are you?" She muttered, throwing her head back on the bed after reading my note.

By the time the cops had gotten to the airport, I was already close to New Mexico. Word had spread out that I was in Ember Wood, so they came looking for me. Miss Cathy explained to the officers that she had seen me, but my name was Ellie. Bertha who was also around when the cops were interviewing Miss Cathy finally understood what was happening and why I looked like a mess. Everyone admitted to seeing me, but no one knew where I was.

Meanwhile, up in the sky, I was scrolling through my phone and seeing people post photos and videos of me on Tweet Flash, there were even some rumors that I might be dead. I was still watching the news when the flight attendant came in to address us.

"We are currently experiencing some technical issues. Please don't panic, we are sending word back to the control center and everything will be resolved immediately. In the meantime, pls put on your seat belts and stay calm." The flight attendant said, and walked back to meet the pilot.

The pilot sent word back to the control center at the airport, while every one of the passengers put on their seat belts and safety gears.

'Am I also going to die too?' I thought. 'Is this how you want to wipe out the entire Rubio's? I just want to move to a new city and start a new life and put a line to my old one.' I exhaled as my eyes travelled from one passenger to another, "Baby Jesus, I know I haven't been the most righteous, but all I want for Christmas is to make it out alive. Amen." I prayed, for comfort.

While everybody else in the plane were panicking, I sat there quietly. I took one last look at my lock screen; which was a photo of my entire family in New Mexico last Christmas. I smiled at the photo and closed my eyes, waiting to die.

'At least we'll all be together again.' I thought.

After a couple of effortless trials by our pilot and technicians, our plane crashed.

*****

Back at The Rangers ware house.

"The job is done boss." Isco said, as he walked in with Flavio and Perez.

Hilion looked at them a bit confused.

"The Rubio kid should be dead by now." Perez said. "We traced her location to Ember Wood, and found the plane she was about to board..."

"And left her a little present." Isco added.

"Isco, Isco, Isco." Hilion called out, "My instruction was to bring her to me."

Flavio and Perez exchanged glances.

"I thought you just wanted her dead boss." Flavio said.

"We were able to get her location and use it to wreck the plane she boarded." Isco repeated for clarification.

"Yes, so the flight should be fine for a couple minutes, but after that, it's bound to crash." Perez said.

Just then, Blark and Kinye came in holding my android, Lauren.

"Boss, we found her lying at the back of the Rubio mansion." Kinye said, holding Lauren's arm because she was blindfolded.

Hilion was already mad that they forgot somebody, now there was another one. "Who is she." Hilion asked.

"Not who, what?" Blark said, "I think she's a robot."

"Huh?" Perez and Flavio asked together.

"And how can you be so sure about that?" Isco asked.

Blark walked over to a table, picked up a pocket knife and pierced it in Lauren's shoulder. Bringing out the knife, he showed everyone that there was no blood on it.

"She might be an android prototype." Blark said.

"Ok, well even if she is, what are we doing with her?" Flavio asked.

"Yeah, does anyone even know how to run her programs?" Perez asked.

Hilion walked over to Lauren, took off her blindfold and raised her head, examining her.

"I want to see everything she knows; she might be more useful than all of you." Hilion said.

"Yes sir, I'll get right to it." Blark said, leading Lauren to an experiment desk.

"First show me everything she knows, then re-program her to become mine." Hilion said and walked out of the room.

The men stood there speechless for a while.

"Okay, so does anyone know what to do or?" Flavio asked.

"I think I might know what to do." Blark said, plugging Lauren to a socket.

"Android system reloading 0%." The computer voice said.

"This might take a while." Blark said, staring at the android, waiting for her to load.

The others exchanged glances and slowly exited without Blark's notice.