Project 43

Stick around

Every morning when he left for work, Elias set a single strand of hair in the doorway, but someone had moved the door. Someone had either been in his apartment or was currently in there.

Elias' instincts came flying straight back into his body. If they were in his apartment they were observing the whole building. They knew he was in it and would sooner or later make their move, Elias wasn't going to stick around to find out.

Elias grabbed his emergency bag from a plant pot outside his neighbor's door and continued to climb up to the roof. He took three steps at a time while avoiding the creaky steps. In an instant, the window to his right was shattered and shards flew all around the stairway. Elias shielded his face from the shards for just a moment before continuing upwards. Man pooled in through the broken window and ran after Elias. Soon they started shooting.

Elias grabbed the handgun from his emergency bag and shot behind him while running. The men fell one after the other while bullets flew in both directions. Elias was hit in the shoulder and the burning pain spread across his body in an instant. He winced and hissed but didn't stop for even a second.

As Elias reached the roof, he threw the door open and sealed it shut. He saw a drone flying above him and just as it fired the first shot, Elias shot the bastard down. He was able to dodge the bullet but it had been a warning. They weren't careful, they had come to kill him.

Elias jumped off the roof and onto the next building, and the next and the next, hopping over rooftops while trying to lose the men who were after him. A few streets down, Elias could see four black vans speeding towards him. 

In a swift motion, Elias jumped down from the building while grabbing the fire ladder just enough to not break his legs with the fall. He grabbed a red scooter lying in the side alley and went off.

He dodged the cars coming his way and tried to shake the black vans tailing him. The bullets started to fly once more and Elias had to think quickly. He took a risk and stood up on his scooter. With one look backward, Elias jumped off the scooter and landed on the first van. He shot a bullet through the glass in the passenger side door and straight through the driver's skull. 

The first van started going off the road and just before it fell over the railing, Elias jumped off and rolled on the road to break the landing. The two other vans didn't stop and kept on driving straight towards Elias who didn't budge. He stood in the middle of the road and reloaded his handgun in milliseconds. 

He shot the right front tire of the first van making it spiral around before he attempted to shoot the driver of the next car. Unfortunately, as he had predicted, the windshield was bulletproof and the car kept on coming. 

Elias jumped down from the road and landed on the roof of another house. As the men started filing out from the first car, Elias started blasting. At first, he shot the rest of their tires but then proceeded to take out the soldiers. 

The last van turned around and started getting close to Elias from the road below him as the other soldier kept on shooting from above him. After a while of ducking behind a meeting unit on top of a house, Elias was able to take out all the soldiers from the second van. While he had been occupied with shooting, the last van had gotten dangerously close. 

Elias quickly shot down three drones flying his way as the van stopped in front of the house he was on top of. As the shots started flying once more, Elias kept on firing. He had the upper hand, having the high ground and all that, but there were still a lot of soldiers. Some had survived the car crash of the first van and had now joined the remaining soldiers.

Elias decided to take a risk and jumped down while shooting. He landed on a soldier who broke his skull on impact and shot the closest few soldiers. He stabbed another man and used him as a human shield before throwing the knife into the chest of another soldier.