Hey guys, I was looking through my stories and realised that my writing style is kinda dark. I mean, it's all either angst or death or just evilness in general. I guess that's what I'm good at though, as I can't write a humour fic to save my life.
So, here's another depressing story! Enjoy! :D
UPDATE: See note at end of chapter for explanation of stuff.
My mother thinks I'm dead.
Obviously I'm not dead, but it's safer for her to think so.
At least twice a week, I see my Wanted poster pinned up on the notice boards scattered throughout New Mexico. It looks out of place up there. Most of the posters up there are advertisements of upcoming events, decorated in neon colours. There's also the occasional Lost Pet poster, complete with photos and phone numbers.
Then there's my criminal report. It stands out like a rain cloud on a rainbow in it's black-and-white glory:
WANTED
FILE NO: 765319-7618
"PHOENIX"
WANTED FOR MURDER, ASSAULT,
ARSON, THEFT, AND DESTRUCTION
OF GOVERNMENT PROPERTY.
$300,000 FOR INFORMATION LEADING
TO ARREST.
They always have a different photo running alongside the report. One time it was a girl with glasses and a head full of thick brown curls. Another time it was a girl with clear blue eyes and a ginger pixie-cut. Sometimes I'm black, sometimes white, sometimes olive or brown or yellow or red or whatever the hell else they can think of.
In other words, the government have no idea what I look like. They don't seem to know much of anything about me, except that I'm a young female and that when they run my fingerprints they don't find a match in their databases. That's why they hate me, why I'm not the most dangerous criminal in the state, but the most wanted. I make them look bad.
It's early evening, but it's already pitch-black outside, and the street lamps' reflections are visible in the puddles on the road. I sit on a crumbling window ledge two stories up, hidden from view behind a large tree. This used to be an apartment complex, but it's fallen into disrepair. Broken glass and scraps of cardboard and rusted metals litter the floor of this room, and the paper is peeling from every wall. In one corner, an old battered radio lies abandoned on the ground. I wonder who used to live here - not that it really matters to me.
My black hair, which I cut to chin-length with my own knife, is as usual tied up and tucked inside of my hood. My eyes, hidden in the shadow of the hood, are fixed on the window of the small terraced house across the street. My hands fiddle with the bracelet around my left wrist.
Through the open window I can see a small bedroom, lit only by a bedside lamp. The window is unobstructed by blinds or curtains, so I have a perfect view of the room. The walls are plain and white, and the only visible furniture is the single wooden bed pressed up against the far wall. In the bed lies a dark-haired woman, no older than forty, soundly sleeping.
The scene would not look out of place, were it not for the hovering doctor and the tubes sticking out of the woman's body.
She looks even worse than the last time I saw her. I think grimly, not moving from my perch on the opposite building. The woman's skin is sickly pale, with large purple shadows under her eyes that were not from lack of sleep. Her body seems weak and frail, her cheekbones prominent and threatening to poke through her worn skin. Her dark hair, the same as my own, lay spread out around her face like a fan on the white pillows. Mom.
Next to the bed stands a frantic looking blonde woman, talking animatedly to a worried looking doctor and making wild hand gestures. I strain my ears to hear the conversation over the roar of the winds and the streets below, but I can only make out certain fragments.
"-must be something... -can do"
"-medicine... -low supplies... -shipment"
"-can pay... -serious illness"
"-at least... -week... -too late"
"-die?"
"-yes... -nothing that... -can do"
It's not hard to piece together what they're saying. She needs medicine, but the hospitals don't have any supplies. Without it, my mother will die. She has less than a week. There is nothing they can do. A normal person would have broke down crying then and there, maybe yelled at the skies or smashed something. But I just watch silently and numbly as the doctor leaves the house and walks down the street, leaving the blonde woman, her sister, to fall to the floor and weep at my mothers bedside. I sit there for hours, and only as the sun finally breaches the horizon do I go back into the abandoned apartment building and grab my bag from the floor, the darkness hiding the tears still glistening in my eyes. My mother is going to die, and I do not want to be in town when it happens.
I travel from dawn till dusk, eating food out of my bag so I don't have to stop to eat. I move with the skill of one who has lived on the streets for years, covering more ground than even I realised. Sometimes I hitchhike, sometimes I walk, sometimes I run. I reach the outskirts of New York before two weeks pass. The city is familiar to me, I have traveled here many times in the past to escape the New Mexico police or just for a change of pace. I always returned to New Mexico though, to check on my mother. Not that I'll need to do that ever again.
When I arrive, the sun has gone down and the streets are plunged into darkness. I pull my hood closer around my face and head to the nearest food store. During my journey I had finished all of my stocks, and I intend to get more.
The store is closed, deserted, but no doubt there are security cameras inside and outside. Looking around to make sure I was alone on the street, I casually walk past the store, subtly dropping the wave transmitter onto the pavement in front of the doorway. This technology is not common in this world, so they sure won't be watching for it. I doubt they even know it exists.
I wait in an alleyway to the side of the shop until a few civilians have made their way past the store, before checking the coast was yet again clear and activating the transmitter. The frequencies immediately disable all of the cameras both outside and inside the store, so I walk back over to the entryway and stuff the transmitter back in my pocket. Pulling on a pair of black gloves, I pick the lock to the store with a paper clip and a piece of wire. It takes a while, but it finally opens, and I quietly slip inside.
Inside the store is pitch-black darkness, but I can see perfectly well. After checking the cameras were still disabled, I stuff as many cans of food into my backpack that will fit. I then replace them with the empty cans that I had finished on my journey, making sure to only take what I can replace, so nothing would be immediately missed. As soon as I'm done, I walk right back out of the store and re-lock it with the paper clip and wire.
The moon is casting a bright white sheen over everything, so I duck into the nearest alleyway where it's dark and open a can of food. I'm only halfway through when I hear the footsteps.
At first they sound quite far away, a few of them, probably a group of men judging by the heaviness of their steps. I stop eating but don't move, listening warily. As the footsteps come closer to me, I pack away my stuff and get ready to run if I have to. My hands grip the knife at my waist as I flatten myself out against the brick wall. As they get closer, I hear voices.
"You sure she came this way?"
"You sure it was her?"
"Tracked her from New Mexico. She broke into that shop."
"She's in the alleyway."
I smirk and run my finger down the blade of my knife. A group of muggers, or rapists, or kidnappers or something. They think I'm easy pickings, a young defenceless homeless girl. Ha. I prepare myself to fight them, when another of the men speaks and I freeze where I stand.
"Director, we finally got her."
Government.
Shaking myself clear of the paralysing fear that had frozen me in place, I spin on my heel and bolt in the opposite direction. I hear their footsteps perusing me, and their yells as they call for more agents. I race down the alley, and when I realise that it dead-ends at a brick wall, it only takes me a second to think of a solution. Getting a running start, I leap onto one of the dumpsters, and use the extra height to grab an old pipe and climb up it. I end up on the roof, and start running as fast as I can along the rows of houses and stores, leaping the small distances between roofs. I glance downwards and see agents following me on the ground, and some even scaling the buildings to get to me. I put on an extra burst of speed as I search frantically for the building I'm looking for.
Where is it? Where the hell is it? My hair is sticking to the back of my neck with sweat and I'm panting as I near the end of the row of roofs. There. Not even bothering to hesitate, I jump from the roof to the ground, landing in a crouch and rolling a few times to absorb the impact. My left ankle stings, but it's not broken, so I ignore the pain and sprint across the streets and along another alleyway until I reach the building I wanted. I shove the door open and bolt through the rooms and down the stairs until I get to the basement, where I yank open the hidden door and barrel through it. I push it closed behind me, sighing when I hear it lock.
Looking in front of me, I'm in an underground tunnel system. I run down the tunnel, making sure not to touch the walls, until I come to where the tunnel meets with others in the system. They all have a shallow layer of grimy water covering the floor, so I run down a random tunnel and stick to the water, so my scent will be untraceable. I make plenty of turns where I can, and don't slow down until I'm gasping for breath and physically can't run anymore. I kneel down in the water and take a break.
How did government find me? They must've followed me from my mother's house and saw me break into that shop. How do they know what I look like? As my heart rate finally becomes slow enough to be normal, my mind clears. They don't know what I look like, they just tracked me from my mother's house, knowing I was Phoenix, and waited for a place to ambush me. They don't know who I am.
My relief is short lived, however, as I hear perusing footsteps again. Groaning, I stand up and begin running again. It isn't long before the footsteps become too close for comfort. I know there is no hot breath down my neck, but the echoing footsteps are real and terrifying. I suddenly hear a loud and piercing bang that rattles my eardrums, and I'm not surprised a second later when a shooting pain consumes my left arm. The bullet plants itself inches below my shoulder, inside the muscle. I scream in pain but keep running, determined not to get caught.
The agents aren't far behind me, I can see their reflections in the layers of water that line the walls of the pipes. They all carry guns. Cradling my left arm to my chest, I put on an extra burst of speed as I reach the end of the tunnels. I haul myself up the ladder one-handed and out onto the streets above. I practically dive into the crowds, trying to lose myself in many turns and hundreds of people. I end up on an old backstreet lined with old markets selling fruit and plants. Since it's still dark, there are no people out. Leaning against the brick wall, I open up my backpack and get out the wire. I pull off my hoodie, careful not to jostle my arm too much, and use the wire to make a small hook. I carefully use it to dig the bullet out of my arm, biting back a scream and groaning in pain instead. Once the bullet is out, I grab some bandages out of my bag and wrap them tightly around my arm. It hurts a lot, but the tightness should slow the blood loss, which is only a good thing.
I pack up my stuff again and start walking in the direction of the Main Street, when a helicopter flies up above my head and shines it's spotlight down on me. I look up, cursing. It's a government helicopter. In the dimness I think I see the letters S.H.I.E.L.D painted on the side of the copter, but I can't be sure. I duck into the nearest building, away from the light.
But what I had ducked into was not a building, it was in fact an archway. And on the other side of said archway are at least twenty agents, all armed with guns.
I just stand there for a minute, eyeing all of the weapons trained on me. My arm still stings, but it's healing, and my breathing is laboured. Slowly and deliberately, I raise my hands behind my head, making it look like I surrender. Then, quick as a strike of a viper, I grab the hilts of the two katana blades strapped to my back and bring them forwards. A shower of bullets rain in my direction, but I deflect them all by swinging my swords so fast they become a blur. I dart around to avoid the huge clusters of bullets, narrowly missing getting hit. I'm not going to make it. All of the bullets ricochet, somehow none of them hitting me, though the constant movement of my arm causes me to grit my teeth. When the bullets finally stop coming, whether because they run out or have realised none are hitting me, I pause only for a second to wonder how I'm still alive, and how my arm will hold up before I switch from defence to offence and throw myself into the fight.
It's a whirling blur of blades and arms and legs, but within five minutes all of the agents are dead. My blood-slicked katanas wiped clean on the clothes of one of the agents, and strapped back onto my back, I begin stumbling down the dark street.
In the fight I gained a deep cut running down my right side, and I strained my injured arm even more. My foot was probably fractured from when I fell off that roof, and I had a pounding headache from both blood loss and adrenaline. Pushing all of the pain back, with one hand clutching hard at my side, I race down the dark street with all I have until I get to a chain-link fence. I look around desperately, but there's no way around it. I have to climb over it. I can barely hear the echoing footsteps over the pounding in my skull, but I know the agents are close behind me. Gritting my teeth, I use my good arm and foot to get a good hold on the fence, and begin climbing.
I can feel blood gushing from my side, which has no chance to heal quickly anymore, and my left arm is painful to move. I can barely move my left foot. It takes me ten times longer than it should to get leverage and haul myself up. Somehow I make it to the top of the fence, but I know I won't make it back down the other side as a wave of dizziness sets in and I will myself not to pass out. I let go of the fence and fall to the floor in a heap, rolling again. I cry out from pain, and immediately curse myself. Now they know where I am.
My vision is going dark around the edges, and I'm lightheaded and dizzy. I can't move from my position on the floor. I'm losing way too much blood from my side, and my foot is useless. My arm is going numb from both the tightness of the bandage and the blood loss there. I'm barely conscious, barely alive, but I can still hear the footsteps -closer now- over the ringing in my ears.
I glance to my side, where one of my daggers had fallen to the ground next to me. I stretch my good arm out and grab it.
The voices and footsteps were almost at the fence, but I hear them as if from a distance.
Rolling onto my back, knife still in my hand, I stare up at the blue sky between the roofs of two buildings.
It would be so easy.
I hear the rattling as the agents climb the fence.
I always swore that I would never let myself be taken by them. That I would do anything to prevent it from happening.
The agents are on my side of the fence, surrounding me.
With every last ounce of strength I own, I lift the knife.
This is a better fate.
And drive it down into my heart.
So yeah. This did have a second chapter, but I deleted it. It really wasn't that good and I feel like this story is better just as a oneshot. I didn't even know how to continue it anyway, and if I had, it would have been shit.
Sorry to those of you who saw this on their story alerts and were like "omfg she finally updated runaway" and instead saw this.
So yeah, it's staying as only one chapter. Sorry guys. Feel free to yell at me. :3