CHAPTER TWO: "Let me remind you – you're on the run…"

"Did you hear that?" Clear heard Kimberly ask. The answer was, she had indeed. There was no mistaking the sound of death.

"I heard it," Clear confirmed. She looked Kimberly straight in the eye. "It's here."

Kim shook her head in disbelief. "That's not possible! I thought we were safe here!"

"There are too many possibilities with two of us," Clear countered. "Anything could happen.

"Do you think Death thinks that we'd turn on each other? Have one of us commit murder and get half the job done?" Kim asked. Though the prospect of Death having independent thought and thus a mind to think with was rather unusual, Kim and Clear knew that it was entirely possible.

"No," Clear shook her head in response to Kim's theory. "Too simple."

"Well, maybe suffocation, by the beds or padding." Kim's words hit Clear like a ton of bricks. The blonde looked at her roommate with wide eyes.

"Suffocation, yes…but not in our sleep." Clear had noticed that the temperature of the room had risen. "The vents. Our air…"

There was dead silence for a moment before Kimberly sprang from her bed. "We've gotta get out of here. We run. Now." She ran across the room and slammed the button that opened the door, then jumped back when sparks flew from the control panel. One managed to smolder for longer than a second on the cotton padding and instantly set the fabric alight. Clear too leapt from her bed and tried to stamp it out, but the fire continued to burn. The two girls looked at each other in complete horror and then at their only way out. The button had opened the door, but only slightly. Clear and Kimberly ran and pulled hard at the edges, pulling so hard that their fingernails started to rip – even though the door was only padding.

"Oh shit!" Kimberly cried when she looked over her shoulder, then instantly started to cough. She had seen that the fire had multiplied in size and intensity and was swiftly threatening to swallow them. Clear looked back too, redoubling her efforts when she saw the flames.

"Come on!" Clear shouted above the din of the fire. "Pull!" Just as the girls thought they were finally facing Death, they wrenched the door open and threw themselves into the hall, gulping sweet oxygen as flames consumed the spot where they'd just been.

"Oh God," breathed Kimberly, looking at the blaze that had once been their sanctuary. But no longer were she and Clear safe. Death had found them in their hideout, and now they had to escape its wrath yet again. Kim didn't really have any time to think on this though – Clear had grabbed her arm and was hauling her up. Kim stumbled numbly behind.

The girls burst through the high-security doors at full speed, avoiding the glass they had shattered in their dive at the exit. They flew passed shocked nurses who instantly sounded the alarm. Clear and Kimberly winced at the high-pitched shriek, though they continued their relentless sprint to the main doors. Just before the doors closed completely due to the emergency shutdown the alarm had triggered, the two girls forced their way through and collapsed onto the cobblestone driveway outside. Just as they managed to stand they were thrown back to the ground again as a larger part of the building was consumed in a roar of fire, the origin of which being the once-silent room that Clear and Kimberly had occupied.

"The lockdown!" Kim exclaimed suddenly from where she had fallen. "They can't get out!" She and Clear got to their feet in horror as the screams of the asylum's inhabitants reached their ears, the ceaseless flames piercing the night's blackness like a sinister funeral pyre of those still alive. Tears streamed down Kim's face.

"Wherever we go, it always follows…"

"Well, I think 'it' is full for now, so it should be safe enough for us to get the hell out of here," Clear said humorlessly. Kim looked at the blonde with incredulous astonishment. Clear met her gaze coolly. "Let's go," she insisted, grabbing Kimberly's arm and dragging her along. The girl could only follow helplessly.

……………………

Hours later, Kim and Clear slumped down to rest on the side of a fairly empty road, shivering in the cold night air. Their white outfits, faces, and hair bore traces of smoke and ash, and their hands and feet were nearly black with dirt. They were both exhausted and disheveled, but they knew they couldn't stop for good – not yet.

"Where are we gonna go?" Kimberly asked breathlessly. Clear shook her head.

"I don't know," she said. I don't know where we can go.

"My dad's moved, and even if he hadn't he wouldn't let us in anyway."

Clear frowned at Kimberly. "What makes you say that?"

Kim sighed. "He thinks I really have gone mad, what with me checking into Stonybrook. Plus he thinks you put all this garbage in my head and yet I'm responsible for all the deaths."

Clear sighed in turn. "I'm sorry. From what you've told me about him, he doesn't seem like the kind of person who would do that."

"Yeah, I didn't think so either." Kim thought for a moment. "How about your old house?"

Clear snorted. "Yeah, right. They tore it down, anyway. They're building a new one right now, so one of the ward nurses told me."

"Damn. Um…" Kimberly trailed off, and when she did speak again her voice was quiet. "What about A-Alex's parents?"

Clear's response was harsh with anger. "They trust me even less than your father trusts you. I'm on the blame list too – for his death. They made it quite clear to me that they didn't want to see me anywhere near their house. Ever."

Kimberly sighed. "I'm out of ideas. Where are we gonna go?"

"It would be easier if we were somewhere not terribly close to others," Clear thought aloud. The answer popped into Kimberly's head in an instant.

"Burke's apartment." The small brunette turned to Clear. "I don't know if his stuff's been cleared out or even stolen, but last time we were there we made it decently safe."

Clear frowned. "But the question is, is it still decently safe?"

"We'll find out, won't we?" Kimberly countered, hoping that Clear would go with her idea. Clear frowned some more, but finally nodded.

"All right. We'll go to the apartment. Depending on what we find, we might stay there for the rest of the night."

So the two girls got up and continued to walk down the darkened road, hoping that their destination would indeed be a safe waypoint and not an opportunity to die.