Chapter 14 - Fear

Click.

Tentatively, Miles opened his eyes after pulling the trigger. The scene that would haunt him for the rest of his life remained in front of him. Still shaking, he felt for another bullet to load into the gun. Feeling nothing, he began to be gripped by an even greater panic. Sirens were nearing the apartment at a great speed. Miles could no longer deny what he had done - still holding the pistol in his hand, he ran over to Amber and hugged her. Her brown eyes gazed far off into the distance, refusing to focus on her murderer.

"I'm so sorry..."

Miles cried as he held Amber's cold shoulder, wishing he could take back everything he had said and done. As he heard the sirens draw nearer, he took off Amber's neck chain. Still smeared with blood, he threw it into his bag and ran to the balcony. Clinging onto the fading hope that this was all unreal, Miles looked back at his girlfriend.

"Goodbye, Amber..."

Her eyes continued to stare past him, ignoring his pitiful wishes for her to answer. He turned away and stood on the railing. Closing his eyes, he jumped into the unkempt collection of plants two floors below. He felt a burning pain in his left leg, but the fear of being caught masked the pain. Running away into the shady alleyways of the city, he prayed that nobody would see the bloodstains covering his hands.

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Marshall sat in his office, procrastinating as usual. Even though he was the executive of Sunlight Pharmaceuticals, he had a lot of free time on his hands in recent weeks. Darke, although he knew how to run both aspects of the business, hadn't been bringing him enough test subjects for the part of the business he liked to control. He had been thinking up experiments to try out on these subjects during this free time - as head scientist of the experimental department, Marshall had to be prepared. Darke always wanted Marshall to try new theories that would help them advance in their profession: biological warfare and cryogenics. However, Marshall also had another role: to hide this side of the company from the public. If they were to find out about this darker side, Darke would be on death row for sure, taking everyone involved with him.

It was late - Marshall had resorted to playing Minesweeper as a way to pass the time without much thought. After failing for the 14th time at expert level, he cursed loudly and closed the source of his anger. He looked at today's news headlines on his homepage: 'Earthquake in Noitaixyphsa', 'Wild Panther found in Cornwall', 'Who do your Bases Really Belong to?'... 'Minerva Hospital - New Evidence'? Marshall's skin grew increasingly pale as he read the article. The virus, the tag... Darke would kill him if... no, when he found out about this. As he lit another cigarette, he thought about the items and their connections listed in that article. The broken glass had not been linked with anything mentioned... yet.

End of chapter 14