For a nanosecond we were all frozen, paralyzed with fear.

Kenji grabbed me by the shoulders and started pushing me out the door. “Everyone out! Get into the water. Dive as low as you can go!”

In the moments where decisions had to be made in an instant, Kenji seemed to be the only one capable of acting. The rest of us were hopeless. But for him it was like the life or death situation simplified matters. Stay on the boat and die for certain, or dive into the water and at least have a chance of surviving.

The Jet screamed towards us. At one point it looked like it was going to crash into all the super yachts and the cruisers docked in the harbor, but then it banked sharply to the right and pulled up into a steep climb. As it began its ascent to the heavens we could clearly see two missiles launched from each wing. They accelerated towards us at frightening speed.

We scrambled across the deck and jumped overboard, diving head first into the water. I swam and swam, as deep as I could, until I thought my head and my eyeballs would burst from the pressure. Above, I could hear the all too familiar sound of explosions and destruction. When I heard that noise and when I felt the power of the warheads, I swam harder. Finally, I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. My lungs were screaming at me again for oxygen. I had to come up for air.

I broke the surface of the water, gasping and choking. I was splashing around with heavy arms. One of the guys yelled out. I think it was Kenji. He was telling us to swim for the foot bridge. I didn’t even know where that was. I couldn’t really see anything because my vision was blurred from the salt water and from lack of oxygen. I was seeing stars and black spots and bright spots.

Someone grabbed me. It was Jack. Again. He dragged me in the right direction. We swam underneath the footbridge which gave us pretty good coverage from above, from circling choppers, or prying snipers. It wouldn’t do anything if they decided to fire a couple of more missiles, but at least they couldn’t see us.

Once more it was Kenji who was able to think clearly amongst the chaos. “I think our best option is to get to high ground. And in the city, high ground means getting inside a building, to one of the upper floors.”

“But isn’t that dangerous?” Kim asked as she wiped her hair out of her face. “Isn’t that like in horror movies how the dumb girl getting chased by the crazy killer with the giant knife always runs up the stairs?”

“It’s a risk we have to take,” Kenji said. “We have to get out of the water. We have to hide somewhere. High ground is easier to defend.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Kenji made a good point and even though I kind of agreed with Kim, we were fast running out of options.

We waited for the jet to make another pass but it never came. We slowly swam towards the closest jetty, making sure we kept directly below the walkway. We arrived at the jetty and waited another five minutes before deciding that now was as good as ever.

As soon as we were out of the water we sprinted as fast as we could. I didn’t dare look over my shoulder. It felt like the Apaches and the jets with their missiles were right behind us. It felt like they were hovering over our shoulders, just waiting to unleash their hellish weapons, just making us run a bit further until our lungs burned and our legs gave out, just to make us feel a bit more pain until they put us out of our misery.

It didn’t take long for our sprint to turn into a slow jog. I felt so weak. I was dehydrated, dizzy, and disorientated. I didn’t really know where I was running to. I’d only ever been to this part of the city once or twice before. I was really just following Kim and Jack and Maria. Kenji and I had no idea where to go. We were blindly following them.

I was again struggling to keep up, but not by much. I was a lot faster on land than I was in the water. But all the swimming and the diving and the cheating of death had completely worn me out. All my limbs were heavy. My arms and legs felt like lead, almost too heavy to move. Even my eyelids felt heavy. I couldn’t believe it, my eyelids, no more than an ultra-thin layer of skin, felt heavy. I made a promise to myself then and there to get fitter and faster and stronger, to work out more, join a gym, and go running on the beach more if I ever got the chance.

But as bad as I was doing and as much as I was struggling, Kenji was actually lagging behind me. Maybe he was lagging behind on purpose, to bring up the rear, to make sure we were safe from any pursuers. But he appeared to be doing even worse than I was. Maybe it was because he was wearing big army boots that were now soaking wet.

We had been running uphill when suddenly the road dipped. I picked up speed and nearly tripped over myself. We started running downhill, passing limousines and shiny sports cars and massive luxury cars, one after the other.

Kim yelled something over her shoulder but I couldn’t hear her over my own ragged breathing.

“It’s the casino!” she yelled again. “It’s right there.”

“Do you think it will be safe?” Maria asked.

Kenji suddenly sprinted to the front of the group. I guess he was doing better than I thought. He told us to stop. “Press yourselves flat against the wall, crouch down.”

We did as he said.

Kenji was breathing hard. He could barely talk. “Where…Where’s the casino?”

Kim pointed down the road about two hundred meters away. “It’s right there. It should be deserted. I heard on the dispatch the other night that it was shut down due to a brawl. Apparently there was an attempted robbery by some looters.”

“There’ll probably be more food and water inside,” Jack said.

“God, I need food,” Maria said. “Real food, not just stupid protein bars.”

Kenji took a few more deep breaths. “What do you think, Kim?”

“It’s as good as any other place,” she answered. “Plus it should have views of the harbor and the city.”

“All right, let’s do it,” Kenji said. “I don’t want to spend a minute longer out here in the open. Unless anyone has a better idea?”

We all shook our heads.

Kenji stood and waved us forward. “Stay behind me.”