How to Love the Stars | Ghost (Simon Riley)

Prologue

Althea gasped for breath, her legs pumping and her heart racing. The wind whistled in her ears as she ran, harder than she had ever run. She had a pistol in her hand, firing it back but couldn't hit any of her attackers. She longed for the leather grip of her trusty knives in her hands. She had left them behind when her pursuers had ambushed her.

Her pursuers were awfully persistent, but fortunately not as agile. Althea couldn't see their faces, and barely even had time to register their presence in general. A bullet whizzed by her ear, close enough to leave a burn mark as it shot past and buried itself in the wall where she was standing just a fraction of a second ago.

Choking for air, she threw her body into a jump, catching onto the ridge of a building. Althea quickly pulled herself onto the ledge. She heard shouting behind her as they scrambled onto the wall after me. Her lean body gave her an advantage when scaling walls.

The city of Las Almas was beautiful, but the recent terrorism had ruined it, and the streets were empty, all the people evacuated. The war certainly wasn't helping.

Althea was quick and agile, able to leap from rooftop to rooftop, but it was much different than her hometown; the streets here were cold and wet, making it difficult to climb.

She hissed as a bullet grazed her arm, leaving behind a searing pain. It was lucky enough though, if it had been to the right by a few centimeters she would have been dealing with a much more serious wound.

Althea stifled a yelp, teetering a bit. Climb, Just Climb.

Her mobile radio crackled; it was her commander radioing in. "Whisper, How copy? Have you obtained the info?"

She gritted her teeth, sprinting across a slim beam. "Affirmative. I have obtained the documents. I am being pursued."

She hurtled over a pipe jutting out of a roof, narrowly missing tripping on it.

"I'm black on resources. I've been shot in the left arm, send backup."

As she hoisted herself onto another ledge, she caught a glimpse of her attackers. They were big and bulky, all large shoulders and heaps of muscle. She smirked. "Clumsy oafs.". She watched them stumble across the narrow beams for a moment, chuckling. It was amusing to see them hobble around, their large stature making it difficult to balance.

She paused momentarily, watching one of them boost themselves onto the ledge, the only one who was able to scale the ledge.

Althea narrowed her eyes, watching him. He was tall; taller than six feet. He sported a skull mask, his eyes glinting dangerously. She noticed his ease in scaling the wall, his body weight seeming like none at all. It was as if death itself had come to punish her for her sins.

"Crap," she muttered under her breath.

She started to run again, hoping that she would lose him after a few minutes.

"I get you're obsessed with me already, but this is going a bit too far,"

She leaped from building to building, feeling better now that she was at a higher elevation. When she was on the ground she never felt safe. she was meant for spy work, learning the dirty secrets of others. Scaling buildings and melting into the shadows were her specialty, not hand-to-hand combat.

Althea slid down the slope of a rooftop, springing off the edge and catching a lamppost to swing to the ground. her arm stung with pain as she stretched it out too far, cursing under her breath.

How did I, a stealth operator, end up in this chase? Althea wondered as she huffed and rounded a corner, taking the moment to look behind her and see if she had succeeded in losing the masked monstrosity of a man.

She clutched her bleeding arm, grunting as she tied a cloth around it to stop the blood from leaking out. She gritted her teeth, groaning at the dull and aching pain.

Althea suddenly felt, more than saw a presence behind her. Before she could whip around, there was a harsh blow to the back of her head, and her vision sparked. She watched, mesmerized as fireworks exploded in her vision. Stars swam across her sight and she reached out for them, but just as she was about to touch them they danced away. The world became darker and darker.

Her radio crackled again, and she could barely hear the words. It was all this death and destruction were miles away, her reality fading. She just barely heard her name being called from the garbled sounds of the communicator.

The last thing she saw was a skull, glinting eerily in the dim light of the alley.