Blood seeped down from her skull into a pool by the base of her neck; a groan escaped her lips as she started to lift her head. Something quickly scampered by her position in a scrabble of loud squeaks and a low hiss, causing her to react and completely gain consciousness.
"Mark" She mumbled weakly, her throat sore and her brain still feeling light headed as she stood up slowly and reacquainted herself with gravity by almost falling down to her knees. After grabbing onto something solid to stabilise herself, she looked around and noticed her location. She was right outside the broken front screen of her beloved vehicle, glass and bricks lay all over the floor and the car itself looked completely shot to hell.
If this completely dark and dreary house was anything like regular buildings, then she had crashed the car straight into the living room as a solemn carpet lay underneath her feet and the destroyed remains of a sofa had been pushed harshly against the wall.
Lauren shook her head to the side as she ran up to the brutal husk of her car, she knew that Mark would have to still be inside as he definitely wasn't outside in the living room. So she rushed forward and quickly looked through the broken fragments of her window; a sigh of relief escaped her as she saw her boyfriend alive and with minimal blood loss; apparently the safety precautions of the vehicle had worked on him, even if not for her.
"Mark?" She called out to him, reaching in the vehicle and grabbing onto his arm so she could pull him out safely; he mumbled in return and started to crawl out until the front door opened and he fell heavily down to the ground.
Lauren looked over him as he coughed out a goblet of blood and slowly started to get up from the floor, his knees buckled once but he managed to hold onto her and reassure himself to standing on his own.
"You ok?" Lauren asked slowly, rubbing the side of her head as she surveyed over her boyfriend; he seemed alright but you never could really tell when it came to wounds inflicted to the skull.
"I'm fine" He replied slowly, looking around his eyes opened quickly at his surroundings, "What happened Lauren, where the hell are we?"
The deputy looked back at the vehicle slowly, memories of the drive and the crash was still corrupting her mind, "I don't remember, but this place looks suspicious as all hell."
"Wow! Where the hell did he go?" Mark roared outloud while peering through the car windows, one hand gripping tightly on the steel mainframe and the other gripping the M9 magnum in his holster.
Lauren swore outloud as she remembered what they were originally tasked with, the capture of this fugitive and criminal was absolutely fundament for the progression of law and order within the ranks of the police academy. Although the prospect of following such a deluded man stifled her right down to the core, she could not be seen as weak and had to complete her objective.
"If that rat gets away then we'll be hearing about it for months" The female police chief executive spoke briefly, readjusting her own posture alignment as she ripped her own silver magnum out of the sheath and cocked it ready.
Mark hesitated for a moment, looking out at the huge crater they had left behind; he knew more police would show up and follow them any minute, and it seemed foolish to go off without reporting in to an authority figure. But as he looked into the fierce and determined eyes of Lauren, he realised she needed to do this; it was one of the few moments in her life that she was given command on a situation that didn't alter at forces beyond her control.
Finally he nodded, following her through the destroyed remains of a once functional living room so they could both walk through and enter the more decent but still ruptured and diseased reminiscent of a long hallowing hallway.
"Got a flashlight? I can't see a thing" Lauren spoke up quickly, ripping through the ominous silence with a powerful and loud voice; a little too loud for the other policeman's preferences. If the stranger was hiding or running from them, then he would know exactly where they were and how to quickly get away. Nevertheless, Mark slowly reached down and unattached a small mechanical flashlight from his weapon harness and activated it swiftly to create a sudden and undeniable bath of golden light to slice through the regular darkness and assist the visibility of their prey and target.
"Jesus your quiet, what are you afraid of now?" The chief executive quickly turned around and stopped him, staring straight into his eyes before turning back and leading them both on; if he showed any fatigue he did not show it, stress and fear however was etched heavily upon his own pale exposed face.
"I don't like this, why don't we just turn back and report this in?" He finally spoke up, his croaky and nervous tone even managing to surprise him. As he spoke, a thin and chill breeze slowly rustled in from behind and brushed against the back of his neck sharply, causing him to flinch and hurry forward in survival instinct.
"Jesus Christ Mark, you speak like you're not a policeman; you're armed with a gun and you're afraid of an unarmed fanatic?" Lauren laughed outloud, her voice unnaturally loud as the tone mocked him as well as the ever-present over projection. As her partner mumbled unconditionally, she chuckled to herself and grabbed the torch light of him; making sure to scan all walls of the kitchen room they had walked into, assortments of blood and strange papers however did nothing to help her or calm the frightened policeman next to her.
"Now this is interesting" The policewomen spoke up again, shuffling her torch in-between the nook of her neck and her shoulder so she could rip one particular sheet of paper of the floor. Between the choice of her firearm and a torch, she would choose her magnum any time.
"What is it?" Mark squeaked from her side, shifting his own firearm from right to left arm in fear of an unknown set of movement that caught his attention and fear with one clear thrust. As he aimed through the precise iron crosshairs of his pistol, nothing seemed to make a move; yet.