Washington D.C.
February 17, 23:58 EST
The existence of time became meaningless to Cassie as the life within her was being choked out. She didn't know how long she had endured the assassin's torture, as either moments or minutes dragged on into an endless cycle of short gasps of air and her shaking fingers trying to tear the man's ice cold hand away from her neck. Her eyes locked onto her attacker's mask, the one dead-eye that was visible to her, was scrunched into an irritated, and somewhat demonic appearance. She knew that she had to figure something out right then, because he would either finish her off by suffocating her or throwing her head against the wall one more time.
She squeezed her eyes closed and with the last of her strength, she swung her leg, kicking him directly below his right knee. Cassie didn't hear a small cracking noise after she kicked him, nor did she feel any pain in her foot from hitting him. She did however hear the man give out a quick huff of pain, right before letting go of her throat to reach down to his injured leg. That lapse of time let Cassie's feet hit the floor, her back still resting on the wall allowing air to return to her lungs.
Without a second thought, Cassie balled her left hand into a fist, and swung not only her arm, but the upper half of her body, letting all of her impetus collide with the assassin's face.
The impact caused a near ripple-effect in the assailant's mask, not enough to shatter the facial part of his disguise, but enough force to knock him out of the bent position that he was in, and right through the wall behind him, and into the bedroom behind it.
The aftershocks from the punch reverberated in Cassie's body, causing her to lose all of her balance and drop to the floor gasping for air. Her eyes widened to give her the look of a fish thrown out of water. Her choking masked the disgruntled moans erupting from her mother's bedroom, yet out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man gradually rise to his feet. No doubt ready to return the favor that she had bestowed unto him.
She tried to push herself off of the ground so that she could stand up and run away, but her whole body writhed in agony from the loss of oxygen. The only thing that she could do at the moment was bend her arms inward, and use her elbows to try and move towards the front door. Her pitiful movements barely gained her any ground, all the while her foe's whimpers of pain and anger grew louder and closer to her.
Cassie had made her way from the hall and half way through the living room before she heard the sound of her mother's door being clumsily thrown open and her mysterious aggressor falling against the opposite wall outside of the room.
The girl brought the palms of her hands onto the floor and pushed with all of her might to raise herself off the ground once again. The growing pressure in her arms made her muscles and bones shiver and quake, as if she was lifting the entire planet instead of only herself. Yet by some miracle she was able to push herself up and back onto her quivering feet.
Instead of taking short choppy steps to the door, she made enormous strides which in all reality were leaps towards her only escape.
She lunged her body at the door, her hand firmly grasping the handle ready to leave when she felt an enormous gust of wind fly right past her and into the door. Her eye suddenly met with a large naginata lodged into the edge of the door and the door frame, eliminating her chances of leaving.
Wide-eyed and terrified, she backed away from the door only to see her pursuer in mid-air, sword in hand ready to slice her from head to toe.
In less than an instant, she jumped back just far enough from his reach to avoid being split in half, but still close enough to the blade to see her own horrified reflection in the central ridge of the weapon. The sword's point clanged against the floor while Cassie tried to make it down the hall to her bedroom. Her body still screamed in pain, but with her wannabe murderer not too far behind her-
"Do you really think running away is going to delay the inevitable?"
Cassie propelled herself into her room slamming the door right behind her. She flipped the lock then immediately turned to the large white dresser sitting next to her. Sensing that it was the perfect object to use as a barricade, she ran to its side and pushed it as hard as she could in front of the door. The awful skidding sounds of the dresser were appalling to her ears, but right as she moved it into place, Cassie began to hear a loud banging coming from the opposite side of the door.
Backing away from her mediocre barrier, Cassie stood in silence as the crashing sound persisted only for a moment, before stopping altogether. She couldn't help but stare at the doorknob as it began to rotate, without a single sound indicating that it was moving, giving the blonde even more anxiety from just watching the eerie sight.
However, the silence was broken when the lock made it's comforting clicking noise, ensuring that the young girl had the small comfort of a door lock protecting her from an imminent death.
Suddenly, the dresser slid across the floor, tumbling down onto the ground while shards of wood came bursting out of the door. Cassie turned away, screaming and covering her face from the flying debris. She felt as some of the pieces of wood grazed along her backside, scratching her, but not enough to leave anything permanent behind. She craned her head back to see the blade which occupied her front door only minutes ago, was now protruding towards her.
The sword, embedded into the wood as much as it was, started to shake awkwardly until it jolted out leaving a large hole high up in the door behind. She watched in horror as the man's half orange-half black mask moved back into view, "You're making this longer than it has to be. You do understand that?"
Cassie could only gulp in fear as the his face slowly moved away from the hole and began hacking away at the door again.
She glanced around the room to see her twin-sized bed in it's usual dishevelment, articles of clothing randomly strung throughout the room, and other paraphernalia laying on the ground begging to either be stepped or tripped on. Her line of vision did however lead her to look towards her only salvation at the moment; her window leading to the fire escape.
The latch was already unlocked, sparing Cassie only a moment as the window was being stubborn to lift open. Her fear started to consume her even more, causing her hands to uncontrollably twitch as she shoved on the windowsill harder and harder. The sounds of her door literally being torn down behind her did not help with the situation either, but she kept pushing the window higher and higher till finally it cracked open.
Cassie slid the window just enough to force herself through the small opening she created, letting herself fall onto the floor of the fire escape just below. She jumped back up ready to get the hell out of Dodge. Her mind instantly went back to the window, making her turn back around slamming the window shut once more.
The small fire escape that was situated on her bedroom window was covered in a fine sheet of snow, hiding the thick layer of ice that the stairs had accumulated over the cold winter season. Cassie tried her best not to slip as she ran down them to the alley directly beneath her.
As she finished running down the first flight, her hand grabbed onto the guardrail, yanking herself onto the next level. She grasped both sides of the railing to swing herself over the last two steps as she began to lose the feeling in her feet. The situation did not help as her bare feet came into more contact with the crunchy white snow on top of the frozen flights of stairs. As if she didn't need anymore reason to hate living on the top floor of her apartment building.
When she made it to the bottom of the fire escape, the ladder was raised up waiting for her to use. Yet right as Cassie frantically tried to push the ladder down, she neglected to notice that with the ladder being subjected freezing cold outside plus snow, it was frozen in its' place.
Cassie's anxiety crept over her spine again as she tried pushing the ladder down with her shivering hands, then stomping on the top rung to get it to move; to no avail. Jumping off the ladder came to her mind, but when she looked down to the bottom, she noticed that the drop was too far away from the ground for any safe landing to be guaranteed. She lifted her head back up the fire escape to see if the assassin was any closer to her, but the upper levels of stairs prevented her from seeing anything.
Four or five failed attempts at getting the ice holding up the ladder to break proved too many for Cassie to handle with a psychotic hit man right behind her.
"Screw it," her mind screamed.
Throwing one of her legs over the side of ladder, the blonde started climbing down one step at a time, trying not to look down. Yet it was tricky to maneuver down as she no longer had any feeling left in her toes.
As she stood on the last rung, she peered over her shoulder to see that she was still too high up for a safe jump. But her peripheral vision caught a massive collection of garbage bags sitting up against the building and it's dumpster.
"Why do I know that this is gonna hurt," she groaned. She closed her eyes and leapt off the ladder.
The world was blurry when Cassie opened her eyes again. Thankfully there was no ungodly bright light in her eyes, so she was given ample time to adjust to the dark. She cautiously rolled off of the mountain of garbage back down to the cold cement ground. Cassie knew that she could have gotten a concussion from the fall, so she wanted to take it easy for a moment. The soft snowflakes that fell around where she rested sparkled and shined in the low warm glow of an orange street light that stood nearby, granting Cassie a solid moment of peace. Realizing that she couldn't just stay there though, she begrudgingly lifted herself up to her knees.
She raised herself up into a crouching position, just about ready to stand fully upright when a large object crashed right next to her, knocking her back down into the snow. Cassie's gaze slowly turned back to whatever fell, revealing the hulking menace that she thought was far behind her.
Her mind scrambled to figure out what to do, just as her body scrambled to crawl away from his terrifying presence.
The masked man calmly strolled over toward the girl, his heavy boots not even making a sound when crunching against the snow covered ground, "Lucky shot you got there; putting me through that wall."
"Yeah well, I'm trying to figure out how you jumped down 4 flights of stairs without breaking your legs."
A sinister chuckle slithered from the assassin's mask, followed by his arm reaching behind him to slide one of his sword's from it's resting place, "I guess we're both full of surprises."
The mere sight of blade's near sparkling edge caused Cassie's breath to get caught in the back of her throat. Her mind didn't snap back to reality until her opponent stalked towards her, his weapon's sharp tip skating along the bottom of the ground, cutting through the snow directly to the concrete beneath. It didn't take her a moment to realize that their little game of cat and mouse was going to come to a swift and violent end for her, whether she liked it or not.
Her now frozen feet trembled as she clamored away from the masked man, her legs convulsing with pain. Yet her crawling away only encouraged the assassin to rush straight for her, grabbing at the roots her shining blonde hair.
He raised her up carelessly, lifting most of her body up into the air with the exception of her shins and bottom of her feet, which still laid limp in the snow.
Cassie clawed at him, trying to get him to let go of the hair that he was ripping out of her skull. Her pathetic attempts at escaping his grasp only left her looking as though she was a worm wriggling on a hook.
"I hate to end this," he said, "but you're cutting into my schedule."
She slammed her eyes shut as he smashed the back of her head into the pavement.
Author's Notes: I'm back.