SAVE POINT 2
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Rosabella
THE APARTMENT is dark now; enormous shadows claw up the nearly bare walls, flickering there from a knocked over lamp.
Now, smashed on the floor.
A lamp that had been intact only 15 minutes before.
"Dad?" My heart is caught in my chest.
Truth be told, even after so frequently wishing for it, I haven't often been alone. And the feeling creeps down my throat like an engulfing and expanding snake.
And the fear of if I'm not alone lurks there too...
Curtains swish near the open window behind the couch.
I spin around, barely daring to breathe, but it's the breeze outside.
There's Dad's book, overturned on the floor by the sofa and the tangled mess of wires for my Xbox controller. Like he'd dropped the tome in a rush? I reach for it, feeling the fabric of the old spine under my fingers. He never did anything erratic; surely, he would have left a note...and that lamp didn't knock over itself...
My breath hitches.
Dad taught me to be observant, and I am.
I notice a dark reflection in the floor mirror propped decoratively in the corner...a black boot.
That I've never seen before.
And there's a leg in that boot...
I don't give away the sheer panic on my face as I rise to upright slowly, the book still clenched between my fingers.
I bite the inside of my cheek, tasting blood with the intensity I'm clamping down, and I look for exits.
Dad always said to run, not fight.
He'd always cryptically lectured me that, if anything ever happened to him, I should run and never look back—
The window.
Thank God it's open.
I shoot a quick glance at the shadow in the mirror; whoever is standing there is concealed just behind the kitchen wall...
What if it's Dad?
"Dad?" I call once more—a last, desperate plea.
But, somewhere along the line, I miscalculated.
Because a gloved hand clamps over my mouth from behind.
No!
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Adrenaline kicks in.
I slam the book towards the attacker's head.
I hear a muffled grunt.
...And a thud as the book hits the floor.
I throw off their tightening fingers.
And I lunge.
For the window.
Cold air smacks me in the face.
I fall through the curtains, nearly taking them with me.
And the soles of my boots heavily hit metal, clanging on the fire escape floor—
As something hits me.
In the back.
A pinprick of pain exploding.
Even through my thick jacket.
Dazed, I reached my arm around, my fingers fumbling and recognizing a metal cylinder sticking out of the back of my coat.
I pull it out, turning it over in my hand and blinking at it, there, in the dark on the dimly lit fire escape.
A dart?
My breath creates white puffs around my nose and mouth.
A message flashes over my head, neon letters floating in mid-air.
***Game Maker Rosabella has joined The Game***
I blink at the run of words.
My name—?
Floating in the—
A red-filled bar appears next to it, inching downward as my back pulses. I squint at it.
Why does that bar remind me of a health bar in one of my video games...?
"Argh!"
A woman's scream.
Arms wrap around me, choking me.
I kick against the hold, yelling back as I break free and hit my knee hard on the steel with a clanging noise.
But I'm up to my feet almost instantly—
Ducking under the bar that pops up, now lower than before:
My feet banging down the stairs—
My breath heaving in my lungs—
I slip through the bars at the very end, shaking my head at the look of the drop to the top of a parked car below.
And I hold my breath.
And ease down, putting all the weight on my straining biceps—
With a grunt, I land.
My boots crashing into the steel roof of the minivan.
I did it!
I made the jump!
My brief celebration is met with wheezing breaths which rake through my body and a desperate hope that random-assassin, creepy-break-into-our-apartment girl doesn't follow. Where is Dad? Did she have him? He'd always said to run... I chance a glance upward before I crawl to the roof of the van, sliding my legs over the edge to make it to the ground.
But, when I make it to the ground, my boots crunch on broken glass.
The minivan's windows are all broken...
And the sky is dark and filled with smog...
And it's not night anymore, even though a haze of gray darkness shadows the dark city buildings towering over me...
This isn't even our street...
...Where am I?
A megaphone screeches to life in the distance:
> "Stay where you are, and this man will not get hurt."
A male voice, seeming to echo from all sides.
And a male picture.
A screen, mid-air, buzzes to life before me as I blink at it.
It's a picture of Dad.