Although fear is encompassing Jian's mind at the very moment, his body is still able to react to the impending doom that awaits him. With a yelp, Jian pulls his fist back behind his head and throws it forward in one quick motion, hitting the balding man in the eldritch sigil on his head.
The man reels back in pain, letting go of Jian's hand to hold his head in pain. Seeing the opening, Jian runs out of the alleyway as fast as he can.
He sprints across the street to the internet cafe on the other side, hoping to find shelter in the building from the madman. The balding man is after him moments after Jian had hit him, running after him out of the alleyway.
Jian practically shoulder slams into the glass door to the internet cafe, but the push door doesn't budge from his impact. He looks inside and sees that the cafe's lights are out and there is nobody inside the building. “Fuck, the cafe's closed!” he thinks before looking behind him to see the balding man sprinting straight towards him.
He ducks underneath of the man's clawed hand as it smashes through the internet cafe's door, his hand going through the glass. Jian immediately sprints away from the madman down the street opposite the way he came.
Jian continues to sprint down the street until he eventually comes to a construction site. He stops when he comes within a few feet of the barrier and then looks behind him. The madman is still visible down the street, but he is quickly gaining speed.
Jian thinks on his feet. He could go through the construction site, but what looks like wet cement is formed in a large pool in the center of the construction site. “Crap...” he thinks “there has to be some other way....”
He looks to his right and sees an alleyway in between two buildings that have both been recently abandoned. Seeing no other choice, he immediately runs down the alley. He stops at the end and starts looking for another means of escape.
To his right at the exact end of the alleyway is a door to one of the buildings. He grabs a hold of the knob and turns it, only to find that the door is locked from the other side. Jian looks down the alleyway to it's opening and sees the madman appearing mere moments later.
Desperation now starting to set in, Jian sees no way out other then trying to ram his way through the door. He shoulder slams into the door, making it give way slightly. He looks towards the alley entrance again and sees the madman sprinting towards him. “Err, come on!” he grunts while slamming into the door once more, using as much force as he can muster. The wood buckles under the force of the hit and the door flies open with Jian rushing in, slamming it shut behind him a moment later.
Seeing as he had probably broken the door with the force of the impact, Jian grabs a hold of a filing cabinet to his left and throws it down in front of the door. The cabinet top lands against the wall, which holds it parallel in place. Jian looks at the blockade for a moment and thinks “Alright, that should hold him for at least a few seconds....” before his adrenaline wears off and his exhaustion catches up with him.
He wants to sit down and rest, he knows that his body is not made for this kind of exertion. He wants to at least knell down and catch his breath, but he knows that this makeshift defense wouldn't last more than at the least a quarter of a minute.
“Damn, I could use a glass of water right now....” he says, exiting the room that he had just entered. From what he can see just from a first glance, he can tell that this place had been a mansion first, an office building second, and abandoned last. Most of the rooms are large, especially the main room that he arrives in moments after continuing his flight from the psychotic madman that he knows will break through the near futile barricade at any moment.
He sees the building's main exit in front of him, the light of the late day sun drifting through it's stain-glass windows. He walks over to it in hopes that once he leaves the building, the man would have lost his scent, so to speak, and he can escape to the city's police station and report what had just happened to him. He grabs a hold of the double door's handles and gives a strong push forward and backwards, but the doors don't move an inch. “Fuck....” he says under his breathe.
The blockade that he made earlier gives way, the door smashed off of it's hinges and sent to the ground along with the cabinet that was in front of it. Jian hears the loud crash and swings his head around to see the madman rushing towards him. “Shit...!” he screams, realizing that he has no other choice but to run further into the building. He sprints with all of the force in his weakened legs, launching himself up the stair's behind him and up to the second floor.
He looks behind him as he sprints and sees the madman rushing to the stairs. He exits the stairway and darts to the left, running straight into another room and up into a stairwell to the third floor with the madman right behind him the entire way.
The madman continues to chase Jian throughout the complex, gaining on him inch by inch, but then falling behind multiple times throughout the pursuit. Eventually the two get up to the fifth floor of the building and then up to the building's rooftop.
Jian sprints through the rooftop doorway, opening the door as fast as he can, and slamming it shut behind him moments later. He flips the lock as soon as the door shuts and then moves away from the door as the madman slams his body into the doorway. Luckily for Jian, the door is made out of a thick enough metal so that the door doesn't buckle under the man's weight.
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While the madman continues to slam his fist against the metal door, Jian, his leg's shaking, slowly walks across the rooftop to another rooftop entrance on the other side of the building. “My God... it's like I'm in a fucking horror movie....” he grunts to himself, the noise of the madman smashing against the door still apparent.
Jian, still panting from this experience, opens the door that goes back into the building. He goes through doorway and shuts the door behind him. He locks the door and hopes that is all that he needs to do to hold the madman off until he at least gets out of the building.
He continues through the abandoned mansion, walking wearily through the hallways. “Damn...” he thinks. “is that guy possessed by the devil or something? This is getting freaking ridiculous....”
As he walks, his mind drifts, both from exhaustion and from wonder. He thinks through all of the crazy things that have happened throughout the last two days, but further more, he wonders if he is even going to see his friends again today, or at any other time if he isn't able to get away from this damned psychopath.
Suddenly, Jian hears an immense smash from behind him. He jolts out of his daydream and immediately starts running down the hallway. After only a short sprint, he looks behind him to see the madman only about twenty feet behind him. “Holy hell, how did he catch up with me so fast!?” he thinks before slinging his head to his left and seeing a small grouping of cubicles. Seeing as he might be able to lose the madman within the low cubicle walls, Jian turns mid-sprint into the cubicle area and rushes behind the first wall on his left.
Still crouching behind the cubicle wall, he focuses his concentration on his hearing. He hears the madman's footsteps slow as he nears the entrance of the cubicles. He can hear the man's huffing breath as he looks back and forth over the area. He grunts like a beast who has lost his prey before going to the right of the path Jian had taken and then going down the next path through the cubicles.
Before the madman can look down the path where Jian is crouching, Jian is already over the other wall to the right of the cubicle and making his way out of the room. Jian is hoping to make his way unnoticed by the psychopath out of the cubicles, through the hallway he had come from, to the top of the building, and then down through the building using the other roof entrance and then leave for the dorms.
Unfortunately, Jian isn't built for stealth, and the madman notices him as he leaves the cubicles. Once he notices Jian, he screams a bestial roar into the air before sprinting headlong through the cubicle walls toward Jian.
Upon hearing the madman's scream, Jian sprints down the hallway as fast as he can. Luckily, the cubicle walls buy Jian some time, holding back the madman as he attempts to smash his way through them.
By the time Jian is back at the entrance to the roof, the madman is already halfway up the stairwell, screaming horrendously the entire way.
Looking forward, Jian sees that the other rooftop doorway that he had used to arrive at the roof earlier has now been completely torn asunder, and half the entrance leading into the building has caved-in. He cannot think of another way of escape, he's trapped.
He turns his head when he is halfway across the rooftop to see where the madman is, and then he sees his last and final venue of escape.
Behind him and on the right corner of the rooftop, there is a hole in the fence that guards against death from gravity. Across the gap in between the buildings is an alleyway, about ten feet across. If he can make that jump, then maybe, just maybe, he can get away from this blithering psychopath.
Jian arcs himself and makes a one-eighty before sprinting headlong towards the opening. After making his turn, the madman makes a swipe for his head, but he is able to dodge underneath of his head-high strike. After which, Jian straightens himself and continues his sprint.
Jian knows that this jump would be difficult, but he has no other choice. It's either attempt the jump to safety or stay on the rooftop with the madman until he eventually catches up with him.
With a terrified yell, Jian sprints towards the hole and launches himself off of the edge of the rooftop, all the while his eyes are closed tight.
To Jian, everything is going in slow motion. He can feel the wind going by his body as he soars through the air. He can hear the madman behind him not seeing the hole he had just jumped over and tripping over the rooftop's edge. The madman let's out a hurried yelp before falling down the alleyway and landing with a wet thud from the five-story fall on to the concrete ground below.
Although Jian's flight from the psychopath is now over, his life is still in danger. He hits the edge of the other building with the mid-section of his body. The force of the impact knocks the wind out of him, jarring his eyes back open.
He attempts with all of his might to stay on the rooftop, but his lower section weighs him down, pulling him down until he is only holding himself up by his fingertips.
His body is not meant for this, that he knows. At any given time, his fingers would give in and he would plummet to his death. He curses to himself for this decision, but at least it got rid of the psychopath who would have killed him nonetheless.
He wants to climb up the building, but his body is too exhausted from the earlier exertion for him to be able to even pull himself up with his arms. “Shit... this is the end....” he thinks as the last bit of strength in his fingers finally gives way. Reluctantly, his finger's loosen, and he begins his plummet....
With his eyes closed tight, he expects death within a few seconds. After a few seconds, he realizes that he isn't moving, and that there is some kind of strain on his wrists. “Huh?” he says, opening his eyes to see that he has only moved a few inches down the building and wasn't falling any further.
He looks up and sees that a brown-cloaked individual, who's face is being obstructed by the overhead sun, is laying stomach first over top of him on the rooftop and holding him by both of his wrists. “Who are....?” he says to the cloaked stranger, not realizing that he had met her before.
“Don't you recognize me....?” the cloaked figure says, her voice strained by the exertion necessary to hold onto Jian. “It's me... Quib....”
As soon as the cloaked individual opened her mouth, Jian recognized her as the girl he had met the day before. Past the blinding sun, Jian can just barely make out a few strands of light purple hair leaking out of her cloak hood. Underneath of the hood's shadow, Jian can also make out a set of bright blue eyes looking down at him. “Quib!” he exclaims with excitement. If there was one person he thought that he wouldn't see again, it was her, especially since she had just saved his life a second time.
“Come on, Jian... help me lift you up....” Quib says, exertion in her voice.
With a new hope gleaming in front of him, Jian uses his legs to lift himself up over the rooftop's edge with Quib pulling his arms all the way.