Displaced

Wicken - Sixteen

I don't know what I was thinking when I chose to escape through the hallway instead of face my enemy. Was I afraid for my life? You bet, but it was more than that. I guess I would have rather been shot down trying to be free than taken hostage. In the end, my actions didn't seem to make much of a difference in my fate.

The first thing I had to do was push Chevelle out of my mind. Was I disappointed she decided to not come with me? Yes. Did I understand why? Definitely. She was scared. We all were. I had to respect her decision to stay behind and face whatever was ahead of her. Maybe she ended up making the better choice, maybe she didn't. If I thought too much about her while I was trying to get away, I know I would have caved and gone back to her. I love her. Leaving her behind was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Somehow, I thought if I could get free, that would be the best way to help her.

The halls behind the stores at the mall would make a great setting for a horror movie. The ceiling wasn't tiled over like the rest of the mall, so if you looked up, you saw all of the insulation and pipe work. Fascinating stuff, let me tell you. The halls themselves had some of the rust from the pipes overflowing onto them, so they have bizarre red tentacles splaying over the sheetrock. That's not the scariest part, though. No, that award goes to the trash chute. It's about the size of an elevator and would be a fantastic place to dump bodies. I certainly was always extra aware of where I placed myself anytime I went to throw any garbage away for the store.

My plan was to see if I could get to a stairwell. I figured that since the power was off that meant the cargo elevator would be out of order. Stairs were always the best bet. From there I could get down to the garbage incinerator which was close to a massive truck loading center. Easy, right? Wrong.

The back halls were a lot like a maze. It's hard to tell just where you're going with the lights on. With the lights off, it's even worse. My cell phone put off a good amount of glow for me to work with, but it didn't hit the higher points of the halls where the signs were. This of course meant I had to work off of memory. I'd been back there enough times to have a good idea of what I was doing, but the adrenaline of the situation was more or less blocking my better judgment and memory. If anyone had asked me my name, I probably wouldn't have been able to answer, I was that freaked out.

My hands were shaking; my entire body was shaking, and sweating. So badly in fact, that my cell phone fell out of my hands and broke apart. The thing was always a piece of junk anyway.

I got down onto my knees and frantically started to search for the pieces, the darkness enveloping me, suffocating me, and making my isolation complete. If the battery had only popped out of the device, I could fix it and get moving again. My fingers had just wrapped around the casing of the phone when I heard solid footsteps coming my way from in front of me. Then I saw the glowing blue light and the ghostly thin face of its carrier.

Get up and run, or stay and forfeit. Neither option sounded all too great. I'm not a quitter, but I'm also not a coward. If I thought I stood a chance in a fight against the guy, I would have plowed through him, stolen his light, and bailed. The thing is, I've never been a fighter. Sure, I come across as tough, but I like to use my brain over my brawn any day. Why? Because it'll keep me alive longer.

Plus, the guy was pointing a gun at me.

As much as I want to say I'm a noble hero, willing to die for my cause, and all that poetic stuff, I'm not. People who aren't afraid of death really have a lot of guts, let me tell you. They also believe strongly for whatever they're dying for. It wasn't my time. There was a lot I still needed to do, and one of those things was protect Chevelle.

I placed my hands up, staring into the eyes of the man in front of me. There was a softness in his gaze, and that made me a little less afraid. But then I noticed how tall he was. Like, he had to be at least eight-foot-five, and skinny. Lean muscle covered his body, but I'm pretty sure I was wider than he was all the same. It wasn't normal, natural or...human.

He flicked his fingers upward and I stood. Then he circled around me like some kind of bird of prey, nodding every so often. Cuffs appeared in his hands like magic. Yeah, those were for me.