My eyes snapped open.
Frantically I looked all around, scanning every surface and square inch of my surroundings. I could see them everywhere.
I was trapped.
I could feel the anger and sense of injustice of it all. This wasn’t my home. They had stolen me away. I had to get out. I had to escape. I had to leave. Now. NOW.
NOW.
With a thunderous roar I burst forth from the enclosure and smashed through the thug standing in front of me with a stick toy in his arms.
RUN.
Whipsawing through the room, I blasted through the door and found myself staring down a long hallway with columns and people standing in my way.
I ran up to the first soul I could find. Lifting him off the ground I threw him into the nearest pillar and watched him splinter apart like a matchstick. A wide eyed grin burst across my face.
I was close to freedom. It was right there in my hand.
Hurrying over, I picked up the poor guy standing to my right, and with all my strength hurled him towards an approaching enemy. Both exploded in a kaleidoscope of reds and crimisons.
Smashing my way through the compound, I flew past, level by level, until I was on the fourth and final one. Exploding through a door a single narrow, seemingly never-ending hallway stood before me.
Clenching my fists, taking a deep breath, I charged ahead and ran full steam towards my freedom. Towards my waiting family. Towards a way out.
The lights flickered.
I plowed ahead lifting one shotgun wielding foe and turning him around as he fired off a round directly into the chest of his closest friend. I threw him towards the next enemy and in one fluid move snapped the next guy up and repeated the process. Their blood painted the grey drab walls, and their bodies carpeted the floor as I charged ever and ever faster down the hallway.
The foes began to thin out as I approached closer to the hallways end. Explosions rocked the walls as I snapped bomb carrying baddies against the walls and hurled them at one another.
Still, I sprinted and ran. I couldn’t fail. They needed me.
Bullets slammed against my chest but I kept running and running, blood coating my matted hair and still I refused to stop. My knuckles raw and bloodied I smashed my fist into the helmeted face of the nearest solder while at the same time scooping up his body and tossing it forward.
My eyes were narrowing more with each step, the door their only concern and occupation. I was at the end, this was it, the final stretch.
Five men stood spread out. By now I was running at maximum speed, impossible to stop save for my death. Time snapped to a crawl.
My eyes darted all across this narrow tiny hallway, barely big enough to fit me as my mind whirled ahead trying to chart the exact calculations and steps needed to finish off the journey. As one they started to turn and move their guns upwards, and my mind clicked, my hands snapped awake, my heart skipped a beat. I took a quick breath and engaged in the most important three seconds of my life.
One.
I slid across the floor slamming into the first of the men, picking him up and throwing him into the guy next to him. Before he even landed I was to the right side of the wall, dodging a spray shot and scooping up the man now in front of me. With a quick flick, I grasped his head and smashed it against the wall, his body crumbling to the floor.
Two.
Now hurling myself forward I landed on top of the next soldier, snapping his heart out of his chest and swinging him by the feet across the hallway. Five feet ahead, he collided with a bomb welding foe, the explosion and light of it all as powerful and brilliant as the brightest lights in the night sky.
Three.
Sprinting through the explosion without stopping, I smashed through the final foe and slammed square into the heavy double doors without missing a beat, their soft echoing slam as they tumbled to the floor utterly missed on me. I ran and ran into the forested and comforting embrace of the jungled woods. As the warmth and heat and soft soil of it all swallowed me up whole and brought me home and as I kept on running till my lungs screamed out, as I never stopped running. I had to save them all. All they had taken and stolen away. I had to save my child. And so I ran dead ahead, buoyed by that wonderful and terrible thing I had once lost and only so recently found, the thing that kept me going, freedom.
