#59

Mina was halfway between panicking and jumping behind something else, and just staying still and not breathing. That is to say, she made enough sound for the red guard to hear her, because she was fidgeting and suppressing a scream. She saw the guard react at once and face her. Its faceless helmet indicated to her that it had some sort of external sensory powers, in all likelihood, so maybe it had some form of—she didn't know—x-ray vision. Or, it could be like the Red Hood—some comic book shit her cousin Amos had told her about—who had a one-way mirror in a similar helmet.

No time to think about that. He saw her. That was it.

She looked over at the corpse, then. She hadn't had time to scrutinize him too closely, but now she saw...he was a British soldier. He had dropped his assault rifle, now landed at his feet. He must have been ambushed quickly...maybe...

She lunged at the gun. The air hissed next to her with the sound of someone puffing through a straw. A pike had nearly missed her head. That would be this guard's last mistake...

She grabbed the rifle and let him have it.

The shots seemed to stagger him, as his body rippled with the bursts. Her whole body was shaking, so she couldn't see the specifics of the shots—i.e., if there was blood coming out. She didn't even know if blood was supposed to spray out with something like this; it's not like she had gone and fucking killed anyone before.

The rifle started clicking, so she had to stop firing.

Problem was, he was still standing.

She considered throwing out a mental one-liner, some clever acknowledgment of how ridiculously scary this was. But instead, she didn't think. She just ran.

Much more logical.

Logic didn't seem to function well in this place. Reason didn't seem to be a common property held by all the dead fucking bodies in these corridors, or by their killers.

Mina still had the Columbine vibes in her head, which made her want to throw up. She moved that throw up energy into her legs, which did make her move faster. Ignore the violence, she figured. Think about it later. There will always be a later.

She tried to head for the closest exit; that would be down a set of stairs, just up ahead. She didn't check to see if the guard was behind her, but whether he was or not, it didn't matter. It was the lack of mattering in this place that made her have to run...

There were the stairs. No soldiers, no guards, not even any corpses. Of course, that last bit wasn't reassuring, because it meant no one else made it. Or maybe they did, and just didn't happened to get cut down when they were this close.

She nearly dived down the staircase. Bad move. She rolled wrong, and that could have broken something. Her ankle, likely—which now ached. But she didn't have time to consider that. She could see sunlight outside, and she wanted that, more than anything. It would signify she was still alive. She limp-charged out into it, and it felt it flow over her. And it was good.

Her sense of raw, electric joy was swiftly broken when she fell over hard, onto the pavement. She let out a cry and felt her cheek bruise, but she stood up again. A brief head turn and a quick fantasy made it look like the red guard was galloping after her, when he really wasn't. That was enough. Another adrenaline burst, and she had made it to the woods at the edge of campus.

She sat there for a few seconds, unable to contain her heavy breaths. It was over, for now. She didn't have the heart to look back at whatever damage the building had sustained, or if there was anyone else behind her.

It was a few miles to London proper, through this forest. 

It would take someone with determination to make it there. But holy shit, she realized. Did I just prove that I've got that.