Beyond the Looking Glass
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Rain poured from the night sky as a girl ran through the streets, her breath coming in harsh, panicked sobs as she fled her large pursuer. The deluge plummeting from the sky plastered her light hair to her face and neck and made her soaked cotton pyjamas stick to her slender frame, hindering her flight. The inside of her water-logged sneakers rubbed her bare heels raw, but in her terror and exhaustion she scarcely noticed.
The girl was obviously unused to such exercise and was near collapse when she spotted a man getting out of a taxi. She forced her aching legs to continue and all but threw herself inside the vehicle. "Please!" she begged, panting for breath, "Get me out of here!" The driver, an older man, took pity on her and promptly pulled away from the curb, speeding her away from her pursuer as she curled up in the back seat, water dripping from her face and hair, starting to shake with fear and cold.
The taxi stopped momentarily near a bank for her to slip out and withdraw some money from an ATM to pay the driver. She was still panting for breath, but her strength was slowly returning. Slipping into the car, the girl requested that he drive her to the nearest residential area. Once they reached her destination, she quietly slipped him four bills and vanished into the rainy night. Ordinarily, he'd have reported the incident to the police, but the four hundreds she'd handed him along with a quiet entreaty for him to keep quiet convinced him to forget the incident.
The girl limped down the sidewalk, wincing at every step. Now that the adrenaline from her panicked flight had worn off, her feet were complaining loudly about their earlier abuse. She tried to ignore them, but the dull ache in the arches of her feet wouldn't go away. That didn't matter, however. What mattered was getting as far away as possible from wherever she was.
A low growl sounded from the air in front of her as a large figure appeared. "Going somewhere, Echo?" Eyes wide in terror, she took a few steps backwards, then turned and fled in the opposite direction. Laughing, her pursuer calmly strolled after her; he could tell that it would not be long before her own body betrayed her.
He was correct: after a few minutes, her legs simply refused to keep moving, causing her to topple forward with a startled cry. The hard cement tore the skin of her palms, but she scarcely noticed as she pushed herself to her feet and tried to keep running. Unfortunately, her left foot caught a treacherous pile of wet leaves that slid out from under her, pitching the exhausted young woman to the ground once more. Her head slammed hard against the cement, and she didn't rise.
Grinning, her pursuer caught up and was reaching for her when he noticed approaching headlights. Cursing, he stepped out of the illuminated circle they caused, watching the girl carefully. Eventually, he decided that no human could have survived that fall, proving that he had very little knowledge of general human hard-headedness. As such, he was not present when the girl, very much alive, was found by a very surprised Daniel Ash.
Next chapter in first person POV. Anything not in first-person POV will be in italicised paragraphs, all right?
Yes, this story is based on Detective Story from the Animatrix. Mr. Ash was THE coolest character in the Animatrix as far as I'm concerned, so he is one of the main points of focus for this story. If anyone knows Mr. Ash's real first name, please let me know; for now I am calling him Daniel.
The Matrix Trilogy and the Animatrix are all © the Wachowski Brothers and the Warner Brothers; Detective Story and Mr. Ash also © Shinichiro Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop fame. Original Female Character © me, however, but why would you want to steal her? And no, OFC and Mr. Ash do not fall in love. She's like half his age. Ew.