The snoring began to fade. it had been coming from a man in his early twenties. his overgrown red hair concealed what promised to be a handsome face with chiseled features while a simple vest and jogging bottoms obscured his well toned body, leaving only a pair of relaxed muscular arms and British size nine feet for anyone with a silent step and great lock picking skills to see.
The man’s eyes burst open and he rolled of his bed onto the balls of his feet. His right hand touched the floor while his left held a relatively small kitchen knife, that seemed to have appeared from the air itself, behind his back. He looked around, for a split second his eyes were unfocussed and blurred, then details began to force their way past his retinas and into his brain. A small wooden desk, painted blue with a note pad on it, old, peeling, race car wallpaper, childrens clothes, boys by the look of the mud and holes, and a multitude of toys, all stained and moldy from years of neglect. He turned his head to look at the half destroyed race car bed he had been lying on. one side had fallen off and the steering wheel was resting broken to the side of the room, it clearly needed to hit the pit stop.
The man, Alexander Fault if the name stitched into the waist of his exposed boxer shorts was anything to go by, looked at the knife in his hand and then looked towards the old blue doorway and frowned. The past month had flooded back to him, how he had hopped on a plane, travelled to America and met his friend just to be accused of having a virus and chased out of town. He had been on the run ever since, with his friend.
He sat down just above the front wheel and sighed, waking up like that, knife in hand, body ready to fight... it threw him into stark reality... he was no longer Alex Fault... he was Dante James Cross... he wasn’t a simple, english, concept artist anymore, he was on the run, a fugitive, all because he’d contracted the virus- The Gift. All because he’d gotten the gift, and the governments of the world were afraid of it. His mind turned back to his friend, now known as Tess, they couldn’t run forever, they had only barely made it out of washington with their heads attached to their bodies. He leant back and stared up at the ceiling, and thats when he realized that something was wrong. it was so quiet in the house, so peaceful, as if he were alone, and that didn’t bode well. The man leapt to his feet and nearly flew to the door, barging it open even though the door was supposed to swing inwards. He ran to the other bedroom and kicked the door in, he was going to be so dead if she was just asleep. She wasn’t in there. He turned, the bathroom door was open and the room was empty. Dante’s entire body shifted to glare at the kitchen and living room... but there was nothing. She was gone... The man’s skin went pale and he fell back against a wall, sinking to the floor. He’d lost her... he’d failed... he... was looking out the window. It was sunny? That wasn’t right. Dante pushed himself to his feet and moved through the front door onto the porch where an old newspaper from a week earlier still rested dry as a bone.
Dante frowned and stepped back inside the house, he looked around again. There was no evidence of a struggle... other than the two doors he’d kicked in. His eyes groped every inch of the room, sucking in the light, drawing every image it could cary to his eyes... nope... no note... that girl is going to get her ass kicked when she walks through that... his eye caught the window again, noting a quick grey cloud storm blotting out the sun. Aw crap now I feel too sorry for her to beat her. He thought, watching the drizzle come down on the forest that seemed to guard the little house.
Time passed, not long, but enough time that Dante was changed by the time the girl returned from her little excursion into insanity. He’d been able to do twenty minutes of tai chi, done a little practicing with the only blade he had and then he’d had a shower, admittedly he’d had to syphon the rain water in to do it, but the soap he’d stolen from his friend’s wash bag made sure that it didn’t show too much. Now though he sat in one of the two comfortable chairs in the main room, his kitchen knife on the little coffee table and a new newspaper he had managed to... acquire from a car passing the dirt road up to the house.
The door swung open and water splattered across the floor. “I got some breakfast.” Tess’ voice called through the house Dante was instantly on his feet, his jeans unceasing and t-shirt flattening out across his abs. The knife that had been on his table was now embedded in the door, which swung closed. Tess eyed it, and then him. She raised an eyebrow and ripped the blade from the entrance.
“You trying to kill me?” she asked, throwing the blade onto the empty chair. “And I got you breakfast.”
He ignored that. Whatever she had done, she had done it while they were being hunted, without telling him, and in broad daylight. not only that but the bag was soaked, there was no way whatever lay within remained edible.
“Only as much as you’re trying to get yourself killed!” he said, annoyance seeping into every syllable. “You left! No note, no quick word before heading out after we’d been running for... god knows how long!”
He grabbed the newspaper and walked across the room to her, “Have you seen this?” he said, thrusting the front page under her nose. She read quickly and looked up at him, solemn eyes, and rain clouds. She nodded. |
