Hero, villain, life, death. Choice? Calling?

Excerpt from the diary of Jane Thomas, 6 years of age, written year 2028, two years before The Takeover: "To day Daddy dinin com home. I wated all nite for him to com home. Mama sed I should go to sleep. I cant sleep when Daddy don com home when he should. She sed he waden comin home, but I don beeleeve her. I tol her so. She cryd and hit me. It hurted. I hav a boo-boo now. I hat her. She cryd some more and sed sorry but I don beeleeve her. She sed he got suked. Sed they suked his blud out. S...

Logan was a quiet kind of kid who wore khaki pants and a collared shirt, complete with a pocket protector every single day of his miserably nerdy life. Today, he stood in front of his closet, just like every other day, staring at his collection of blue shirts that were all exactly the same color, size, and style. Then he moved to the tie, which inevitably depicted a picture of a computer, Garfield or some frighteningly gaudy design. After dressing, taking one final look at his poster of Albe...

A car backfires outside of Maverick Stangetti’s residential Colorado home and, for the millionth time, he has to force himself not to flinch and flatten himself to the ground in a crouch. He is sixty-one years old now. I really gotta get over this, he thinks to himself. Vietnam ended a long time ago. Maverick, or Mav, as all of his war buddies had called him, is about five feet, eight inches tall. In his prime, he was five feet and ten inches tall, but time has taken its cruel toll on his bo...