Gone in an instant

Chapter 19: Tuesday 3, 4:35 PM

I woke up. I was being dragged by my legs across the same room I had fallen in. My knee was shooting pain through my body. I could feel the bruises on my chest from where the fence had fallen on me. I felt my head pounding too. I was too tired and dizzy to resist them. They had taken all of my weapons. I clutched my knee. They stopped. One man held my uninjured leg firmly while the other unlocked a door on the side of the room. This was my chance. I felt well enough to fight I guess.

I kicked my leg. Loosing the mans grip. Then I twisted, spinning out of his grasp. I got up and kicked him in the stomach. He stumbled backwards, doubling over and clutching his stomach. I upper-cutted him in the face. Knocking him on his back. The other man kicked me in the ribs. I stumbled away and lunged out of the way just before his fist connected with my face. I stumbled from my sudden dodge. I moved towards the door and the fallen man. Grabbing his Bowie Knife. I had never actually used one in combat. The man froze, putting his hands up in the air. I was close enough to stab him. Instead I lunged like I was going to plunge the knife into his chest. He leaned forward to protect himself. Lowering his head. Instead I slammed the handle of the knife on the back of his head. He dropped to the ground. Unconscious.

I grabbed my weapons off of them and opened the door. It led to the outside. I looked left and ran towards the highway I could see about a mile away. But then I veered right to an opening in the cliffs about 200 feet away. I reached the cliffs and crouched behind a boulder. I glanced over it and saw 5 men running towards me. I aimed my gun and began firing. I hit 3 men and the other two crouched down in the sand. I couldn't see them anymore. I crept along the wall, keeping the boulder between me and the men. I saw that there was a T in the ravine and so I went left, towards the highway. This one was wound back and forth like an 'S'. I ran around it. And after about 10 minutes I reached the highway. I leaned against a rock and caught my breath. There was a car, it looked like a brand new pick-up truck, coming down the road a few hundred feet away. I ran onto the side of the road, waving my arms. The car slowed down. Then as it stopped in front of me gunshots rang out back from the ravine, which was about a quarter-mile away. I opened the door of the car. The driver was Adrian, the man I met yesterday who I thought would be an ally. I was right.

He was as shocked to see me as I was to see him. Then a bullet smashed into the back of the truck and it snapped us out of our trance. He slammed the pedal down and sped off down the highway. “I can't believe the timing of that!” I said, half to myself and half to him. He nodded. “H-how did you escape?” He asked, his voice was kind, not like I expected it to be. “I-I escaped, I failed a challenge, #8 I think. I fell-” “Wait, You said you fell on #8?” He asked, “Yes!” “I fell at the corner where you jump to the deck.” We said in unison. We both laughed. It was sort of an awkward and uncomfortable laugh, but it was a laugh. The whole situation was weird. “So...um...I can't leave.” I said hesitantly. He looked at me quizzically, but then he seemed to understand.

“Who'd they take from you?” he asked. “My family and my best friend.” “Well why are we still driving away then?” He said. He turned to me and smiled. Then turned the car around. “Woah...um...Thanks! Like a lot! Thank you so much!” I said surprised. “Do you want the MP5 or the M9?” I asked him. “I'll take the M9, I've got another M9 and a bowie knife too.” He said. I would have the MP5 and a Bowie knife then.

Pretty soon we were passing the exit for the compound. He was about to turn when I said, “Wait! We can't just walk in the front door! Keep going and turn off at the next exit, we can try and loop around.” He nodded, “Good idea.” And began driving down the highway again. A mile later we pulled off on a dirt road. We drove about a mile and a half and we came at a crossroad. “We should stop here and then climb up this hill.” I said, pointing to the hill on our left, towards the compound. It was about 500 feet up but it was steep. We began climbing. It was really hot and we had no water. By the time we reached the top we were panting and drenched in sweat.

There was a small decline of about 20 feet on the other side and then steep cliffs. “Crap.” I said. “Over here!” I heard Adrian call out. I looked behind me and saw him about 25 feet away walking down a narrow path that led down the cliff. He was tightly gripping the wall. I followed him. The trail was about a foot and a half wide. I walked sideways, practically hugging the cliff wall. A few knuckle-whitening moments later and we reached the bottom. There was another hill similar to the one we had just climbed ahead.

“So, how'd you get here?” He asked me. “Well, to make a long story short, the boss guy is my grandpa and he wanted to see if I could run his gang.”

“Wait, you're Pappy Phil's grandson!?!” He asked. I nodded. Then laughed a bit. “Pappy Phil?” I asked jokingly. “Yes, we call him that kinda as a joke, he doesn't seem to mind.” Adrian said, chuckling along with me. “So...How'd you get here?” I asked. He sighed, “I was raised in 'The Company' since I was born. They call themselves Enigma. My dad was second in command behind Phi-, er...your Grandfather, and I was following in his footsteps, eventually I was in what they call 'The Elite', which means you're the best that they have, there's only about 8 of them, but only me and one other are left, they were the other men competing in the challenge. Anyways, when I was 16 I missed an assignment they had given me and they tried to kill me so I ran away. A family took me in for a year and I realized that what I was doing was wrong. After a while they found me and accepted me in and I've been working at trying to take them down from the inside out now but now I have a very good chance.”

“Wow. That's uh...That's a lot. You want to take these guys down too?” I asked. He nodded. I went to speak but we were at the top of the hill. This one declined steeply, we were about to walk down when I saw a guard tower on the other side. The ravine between the next hill was about a half mile long and I assumed that the compound was on the other side of the hill. The valley was full of short trees and several shrubs. It appeared a small stream ran down the middle. I grabbed Adrian and pulled him behind a boulder. “Stay down! There's guard towers!” I said. I poked my head up. There was a guard tower along the top of the hill every 500 feet or so. We began crawling towards a patch of bushes about 10 feet down the hill. The warm sand was going into my shoes and up my sleeves. I ignored it and laid behind the bush next to Adrian. “We're going to have to stay low. Should we try and fight them once we get there or sneak by?” I asked. “I say we take down the towers one by one, and be sneaky...and fast, so that we don't alert the other towers.” He answered. “Sounds good.” I said. I counted ten towers.

We kept sneaking through the forest below. We were almost to the top on the other side of the ravine and the first tower came into view. It had a big number 8 on it. “We need to start at the end.” I said to Adrian. We began making our way towards tower 10. We were hiding behind some bushes about 50 feet from the base, looking at the door to tower. There was a field the whole way, there was no way we could make it to the tower without getting seem. “We're going to have to charge.” Adrian said grimly to me. I gulped. “You ready?” I asked. He nodded. We readied ourselves to charge. I began counting down. “3...2...1...GO!” I said.