In a haze somewhere between conscious and not, I'm being dragged out by my armpits from the janitorial closet, by a figure I know so well but in the blur of everything I can't put my finger on the name of.
With each breath that I take closer to the shattered open window, I begin to gain clarity on the girl saving me. Her long blonde hair has faded purple tips, and even in a place like this she still shows some kind of fashion sense.
How did I not realize it sooner? Lola.
She must notice my opened eyes, "Can you stand up?"
I nod only partially aware, she lets go and I get the hint to prop myself against the wall.
She heaves Nayan by his armpits to the wall near the window by me, while he is a year younger than us, he's diffidently heavier than me. His eyes begin to flutter open as we reach cleaner air.
Wordlessly Lola hops out the window, and for a split second, I worry she's mad at us and won't help us past this.
Lost in thought, I'm caught off guard by her tapping my shoulder, "I need your help getting Nayan out."
She looks void of emotion yet full of it all at once, stuck between mad, sad, scared, and everything else that anyone in this situation would be feeling.
I pull him up and he sluggishly holds his weight, his eyes stay open with relief.
He aims his view towards my sister, "Lola, that's you, right?"
He begins coughing and when he stifles it, he seems to bring himself back into our unfortunate reality.
She faintly smiles, "Yeah, It's me, here to save your asses."
He sways weakly, eyes darting around to assess everything, "Thank you."
I swat off the fatigue and hop out the window, once I'm nearly out my hand begins to slip, my wrist scraping against the windowsill.
She grabs my hand, "Here."
I finish pulling myself out with her help, "Thank you- I mean, well" I begin stumbling through my gratitude, "Helping with the window of course- But even more for rescuing us."
Her hardened mask of seriousness begins to crack with a suppressed laugh.
"But especially for getting us out of there," I babble with a pain in my throat, "I mean it's-"
"God! You suck at thank yous! Just help me get Nayan out!" She sounds like a parent who is genuinely mad at their child, but at the same time can't help but laugh at whatever they did.
Nayan, keeping a hand propped against a shelf for balance holds a hand out for me to take. It's warm in my grasp and sends a pulse through me.
"Thank you- Both of you," He hoarsely grunts, pulling himself up while Lola watches guard, wielding a wooden bat.
"Enough with the thank yous! Your welcome!" Somewhere beneath her strong demeanor, she sounds scared.
With my help, Nayan pulls himself out and we stand up on the crunchy, gravel. How long were we in there where morning could come already?
From the looks of it we're not too far from the garage, the disregarded candlestick blurry in the distance. Lola stands just in front of us, like a human shield.
"What the hell happened to your faces?" She tightens her grip on the bat for power as she looks around, "Did someone punch you guys in the face?"
"Door," Nayan says simply.
With each gasp of open air my fear returns, and my urge to run grows.
"Downfalls of hiding behind one."
A distant noise I can't perfectly place startles me, It's coming from behind us, Inside the closet.
"Did you guys hear that?" Nayan says.
Simultaneously we all turn back to look at the agent peeking their head through the door to the closet, He watches us with lips slightly parted in a gape.
He fully enters the open doorway and pulls out a walkie talkie, not daring to take an eye off the three of us.
"Sir, I found them-"
Frantic muffles vibrate from the other end of the call.
"Janitorial Closet 1-04. But um-" He watches fearfully us and I recognize the voice, the timid guy from the meeting, "They broke out the window, and- uh, there's another girl with them."
Further static from the other end.
"We need to go, Now." Lola barks, "Are you guys good to run?"
"They are armed, yes." The timid man says, glancing at the bat in Lola's hand.
He makes it sound like her wooden baseball bat is more deadly than the military grade rifle flung over his shoulder.
The man looks back into the hall as if waiting for something. Or someone.
Nayan looks far better than two minutes ago but still weakly swaying, In no condition to run.
"I probably can," He says, forced.
Lola glances at him, then back at me who isn't doing significantly better, and then at the crowd of soldiers cramming their way into the closet behind us.
"I can," I say.
She nervously grits her teeth, "The run shouldn't be far, there's a river not far."
Swimming? I thought she said running, who said I'd be fine swimming?
Who said I'd be alive in thirty seconds if I didn't do either.
With a final glance at the soldiers emerging through the shard encircled window, we make a run for it down an old road with a field on either side, I can already see the stream ahead with a stone road crossing.
Lola is by far the fastest, she fearfully glances back at Nayan and me side by side every few seconds, or is she looking at the soldiers behind us? Their steps clatter on the asphalt from what sounds like far away, but their demands for us to stop running sound just behind me.
I don't dare look back.
I start running out of breath quicker than I had before, a mild wind whipping through my hair and scratching at my wide open eyes.
Lola turns to check on us again, this time she takes in a sharp breath and her eyes widen, "Don't look back!" She shouts.
I swallow hard and force myself to listen to Lola, I trust her, I won't look back.
There is no longer a crowds stomping following us as we approach the stone walled bridge.
Nayan continues down the short hill leading to the river with the same speed as the ten minutes ago that felt more like an eternity. But the curiosity gets the best of him and he takes a peek back faster than the wings of a hummingbird. He becomes as rigid as a person running for their life can be.
"Don't look back," He mutters to me, just like Lola.
Oh, God! What's behind us?
I and Nayan get to the water a few seconds after my hyperventilating sister, the water wildly sloshes against the rocks several feet under at a pace that looks like it would sweep me under and never let me see light again.
"We-" She stops to breathe, "I know it looks bad but..." She looks behind us and turns back to the rushing water.
"We can't wait," Nayan says with the same struggle to keep his breath as I and Lola.
"I don't hear them following us, what are they doing?" I say, "Why can't we take a second to catch our breath?"
"We just can't," Nayan says.
I turn to look back but Lola puts her burning hand in front of my cheek to stop me, "It won't do you any good to look if we go now."
I hear a quiet clicking from behind us and her eyes widen in fear, "Jump!" She screams, diving into the river without any hesitation. A splash of water splatters over me.
Instead of following Lola, the curiosity gets the better of me and I look back. I freeze up when I see the soldiers at the top of the hill, the crowd circled around one cold faced member on the ground with their face in the scope, finger readily on the trigger.
Nayan pulls my arm with him towards the water and that's when I hear it. I may as well be midair but in reality, am just inches from crashing into the water. The bursting that I've only heard in movies, but in real life, it's worse than anything I've ever heard and far louder. Louder than the alarm and more sudden, as soon as I hear it, it's already gone.
The sound of a bullet aimed straight for us. To kill us. They want us dead.
Nayan flinches painfully as we fall into the white crest a wave, split up immediately under the rushing cold water.
Fully submerged and pressed further under, I open my eyes and search through the dirty water for my best friend, but it's all just a sea of darkness. I plug my nose and try my best to pull myself up, but am just plunged further below the surface, slamming my back into a stone and forcing the air from my lungs.
The orange sunrise becomes more and more distant through the water that drags me further away from the base. With one hand being used to plug my nose I scramble with the other and kick my legs to bring me afloat.
"Nayan!" I shout beneath the water, though I sound more like a fish.
My fingertips scrape cold air, but are quickly crashed over by yet another wave. My chest begins to crack as if screaming for me get to saftey.
Out of the darkness, a figure appears in the water next to me, grabbing my hand and pulling me above the surface.
As soon as I can peek my lips above the water I take in a huge relieving breath.
"CASSIE!" He shouts, reaching for my drifting body.
I kick against the current to keep myself above water, a blur of water mixed with the cold air blurs my sight but it won't keep me from my best friend. Nayan's head frantically bobs above the water with a mop of black hair pressed over his forehead.
"NAYAN!" I yell, dirty water splashing into my mouth.
A combination of strong waves and dumb luck push us together, and we latch onto each other's wrist, each using our other arm to splash to shore.
We crawl to the pebbled ground, still strongly holding the wrist of the other.
I cough out a few drops of river water.
"Are you alright?" He hysterically asks, "You weren't hit were you?"
His eyes scan me over, looking for any kind of major wound, I don't have time to form a word before he speaks, "Answer!"
"I'm ok," I blurt, and as I do I really begin to feel everything that's happened in the last hour.
This barely seems to placate his fear, "Are you... Are you sure?"
I look over the cold, wet clothes clinging to my body, "Yes," I say with a small smile, "I am."
He looks down at our hands still latched to each other's wrist, and this seems to scare him more, he quickly pulls away.
"What if... What if you did?"
While my pulse seems to slow down, his must only be growing.
"I wasn't shot," As I say it I'm brought back to the moment I heard the frightening bang, It sends an additional shiver down my bruised spine, "I promise I wasn't."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
He looks over me again as if I really could be dying and not know it.
"I-" His cheeks have a subtle redness to them around the bruises on his nose that isn't from the cold water, "I'm sorry for freaking out a bit."
I laugh quietly, "It's fine. Are you ok?"
His clothes cling to him like mine with small creases scattered about, "Some bruises maybe but nothing too bad."
"Same here."
He sighs in a relieved way, and mutters something under his breath, "It didn't happen."
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a figure running down the rocky shoreline just a short patch of green trees away.
"Lola!" I shout scrambling to my feet to get to her.
She crashes into me, wrapping me in an embrace, our cold bodies mushed together to become slightly warmer. I bury my face into her soaked hair and am overwhelmed with joy to see her and not be running for our lives.
She abruptly pulls away to eye us both, "You guys weren't hit right?"
"No," Nayan shakes his head next to me.
She pulls me into another tight hug and looks as if she's near tears, "Thank god."
"We're ok," I murmur, unsure if I'm saying this more to myself or her.
She sharply inhales and pulls away again, this time her expression has drifted back to the pissed version from before, "You shits have some explaining to do."