Prologue

I had my headphones in as I was walking up my road toward my house. I'd stuck around for a while after school with Em and waited while she was picked up before I walked home on my own. This didn't bother me much, I liked bobbing along with my headphones in every now and then. Kind of therapeutic you know?

I was completely oblivious to all else as I bobbed along to some Red Hot Chilli Peppers, I was listening to Dani California and I was trying very hard to not start miming playing the drums or bass. Something about the Chillis always made me want to groove, you know? It filled me up with energy or something. It's hard to explain. But I bobbed along oblivious to all until a felt a tap on my arm.

I promptly jumped about a foot in the air a let out a very manly noise that definitely didn't make me blush. Malcolm, our streets postman, for that was who had interrupted me, just smiled knowingly. I pulled my head phone out and tucked them into the collar of my shirt.

"Scared the crap out of me there" I said trying to make light of the event.

He laughed good naturedly and reached into his post bag and pulled out a package about the size of an A4 pad but three inches thick.

"Got this for you, figured I'd be lazy and save myself the walk." He joked as he looked through his bag and pulled out a couple of letters and handed me them too.

"Need me to sign anything for this?" I asked as he handed me the package and the letters.

"Nope" He replied cheerfully. "Have a nice day lad." He said as he wandered off again.

I mumbled some kind of affirmative response as I headed up the garden path pulling my keys out of my pocket. I managed to get the door open and as I came into the house I noticed it was quiet and realised that I was the first of my siblings home and dad was obviously still at work while mum must still be asleep. Her working nights meant that she'd sleep until about six when she'd get up and we'd help make dinner before she'd leave.

I went through the living room into the kitchen and looked at the letters. One was addressed to 'The Occupier' the other two for 'David Walker' so I dumped them on the table and looked at the package.

It was a simple cardboard box, which on closer inspection was actually larger than a sheet of A4 paper and at four inches thick much heavier. There was a stuck on label which had clearly been printed off some kind of computer as the type was perfectly spaced and neat. I found this odd. The package itself looked mundane yet someone had gone to the trouble of printing off an address label instead of just hand writing it. But why?

My fingers played with the top of the box, considering opening it but some kind of intuition told me that I'd want to be somewhere private for this. It felt odd but I was both wary and excited to open this package and I definitely wanted to know I was alone.

Making my decision I went to the door that lead to the stairs down to my bedroom in the cellar underneath our house. Most people found it odd that a child was living in a cellar, but let me assure you that this isn't any kind of Harry Potter shit. I liked the cellar!