BROCK

Mohammad Yousuf Zariwala

Daastan Publishing 2023

First Published in Pakistan by Daastan PVT LTD

House # A-41, Madni Street, Lala Rukh, Wah Cantt, Punjab 47040

www.daastan.com

www.meraqissa.com

Text copyrights © Mohammad Yousuf Zariwala

Illustrator and Book Design copyright © Rashna Kanwal

Edited by: Mariam Rizvi

The moral rights of the writer, illustrator and editor have been asserted.

All rights reserved

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-969-696-791-0

I dedicate this book to my mother, an inspiration throughout my life, my brother, and my mentor.

PREFACE

While commuting to and from my home for school, I always used to indulge in a discussion with my friends about different Marvel characters and was always amazed by the people who created different new characters. I always wanted to create a fictional character on my own and hence Brock came into existence. Brock is you; Brock is me. Brock is somebody who every person would like to become. I hope that this character shall give hope and strength to its readers and give them a lesson to never give up in life.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

JACK.

THE INCIDENT.

BLOOM?

THE DECISION.

NEW FRIENDS.

SUPERPOWER TRAINING.

THE MISSION.

AVA.

LAST MISSION.

JACK

Hello readers! I am Jack, I was the first superhuman in my universe, or as my people call us, the Guardians. This is the story of my life.

My father was General Walls of Australia, well before World War III. The Super Continent (one that shall not be named) launched an all-out attack on the world and took the world by surprise. After they captured the world, they divided the world into districts; my district was District 90. But in the year 2045, my father and other generals decided to fight back. This came to be known as the Great War. Many people lost their lives, and gladly the world was freed from the shackles of the Super Continent.

One good thing that came out of this war was that it brought out the inner human in all of us. When my father had returned home, he decided to have me with him.

I was born in October, my head framed with luscious brown hair, and eyes, the colour of sea. However, my body was weak and frail. My father decided to invite the whole of Australia to a grand feast. I grew up in a family with my loving mom and my dad who were very strict but caring towards me.

When I was at a young age, I showed signs of intelligence rather than brilliance; I was much advanced than my friends. I loved computers and Sci-fi; it always inspired me to be myself. Throughout my childhood, I did not have many friends; they never wanted to play with me, and hence I always felt like an outsider. But I had one friend Tom. He was my only best friend. He was like me, he loved computers and Sci-fi, and he was also handicapped and was not welcomed by our other classmates.

He and I always looked out for each other, but he moved to a hostel, and I never heard from him again. Well, I was left with no friends again and if that was not bad, I got in a squabble with my father. My father told me that I was going to join the army, something he was enforcing on me. He kept insisting and I did not know how to change my father’s mind. I gathered up the courage, and one night, I told my father that I did not want to join the army and be a scientist instead and that’s it! This angered my father as I had never stood up to him. He scolded me very badly and I swore to never talk to him again. But little did I know what would happen on my 10th birthday!

It was my 10th birthday and my mom had invited all the kids from school, but no one attended since I was not popular among them at all, in fact, it seemed they despised me. It had been a week since I had not talked to my father. Today he was going to return, and I had planned to tell him that I was sorry. As I was looking outside the window waiting for my father eagerly, to my horror the sky turned black. I thought was it a sudden storm, how come? There was no such news, but to my awe, when I looked up, I saw that a huge flying ship was hovering above us. There was chaos all around almost instantly. So close was the UFO that people panicked and started running all around. Soon, the noise of emergency horns started blaring. We were instructed to move to the nearest safe house as obviously the government itself was taken by surprise and did not know immediately what to do.

We were all safe in the safe houses, it was hot and there was panic everywhere. The tension was high and it was extremely silent everywhere as people were petrified. But it was the silence before the storm. Suddenly a voice spoke, which I do not remember completely but it went like this: “Greetings, people of Earth, I am Zorok, leader of the Alien race, Higlets. We lost our home and have come to capture your planet.”

People started to scream, everyone started to run everywhere. The voice continued, “If you don’t surrender in four hours, we will go to war.”

People were afraid and wondered what would the President decide. To retaliate or surrender? A few minutes later, a poll went up deciding whether to surrender or not. Well now that I think of it, the poll idea was dumb. The votes had come in, it was fifty-fifty. Now, it was the President’s choice; the safety of the world was on his hands. The President was ready to give his answer and he decided to go to war.

My mom and I, and all the other people present there started praying for the safety of our army and the safety of our own. I was scared from all the noises of explosions and guns; the safe houses were also shaking. The war went on for hours until the noise went silent.

A few minutes later, we were commanded to come out of the safe houses. We had won the war. The next day, names of the martyrs of the war appeared. I had hoped that the name of my father would not be there, but it was on the top as he had died as a General and fought till his last breath. I was heartbroken and just burst out crying.

We held the funeral on the day of his martyrdom. The funeral was packed as people from all over the country came. He was given the salute of 21 guns, and he was finally buried. I was devastated as he was my hero and I never got to apologize. That day I made a promise to myself that I will train for the army and be what my dad wanted me to be. But I didn’t know what would happen on the day when I would leave for the army.

THE INCIDENT

I had ten years to train.

I was a feeble boy and had to train harder so I could get into the army. I trained day and night. I was made fun of by the kids at my school, and the only support I had was from my mom. I had given up studying and my grades went down, but I did not care about grades, I just had to train. The training paid off. I went from having a weak body to Thor’s body. Can you believe it? At that time, I couldn’t believe it myself but I did it.

It was almost ten years since my father had died and now it was my time to go into the army, but my dumb mind got me to the hospital. As I was waiting for the bus one day, I saw my old friend Tom. I was delighted. When I saw him, I got so excited that I crossed the road without looking, that is when the bus hit me. I blacked out and when I woke up, I was on a stretcher, the doctors were rushing me to the ER.

Many doctors were around me, but at that time I could only see and not respond. I remained at the hospital. My mom brought food even for the doctors. I was in the hospital for five years until I recovered and could talk again and was fully aware of what was happening. My mom and Tom were there with me. I was happy, but I could not stand up. My mom told me that due to the accident I had lost my legs. I was sad as I lost my legs and now, I could not serve in the army. My dreams were shattered.

I returned home after a few weeks of rest in the hospital. I was in a wheelchair. I had lost all my dreams. But I tried to stay as cheerful as possible, so I decided to help people all over town. Sure, I was told that I could not do it, but I did it independently. My favorite job was to deliver flowers as they brought joy to others. I worked for Bloom, which I later found was something more than a flower shop.

I worked almost all day long and in my wheelchair. It was slow and dangerous. I needed a new wheelchair. After my father’s death, I decided I had nothing to do but I forgot one thing about myself, my love for building things. I forgot my sadness and began to build a new wheelchair. I needed something fast and flying. I worked on this day and night and my mom was starting to worry for me. But my dedication paid off. I finally had built my flying wheelchair. It was green in color with an orange tint, and it had a built-in controller, a shield and an emergency weapon for protection.