The Game of Hide & Seek

Chapter 1- Sought

The man standing outside of the room bashed at the door with tremendous strength; enough force that formed a giant crack throughout the door as the severe bangs continued. Fear struck me in a way in which I'd never felt before, my insides painfully churning as if they'd been battered repeatedly.

"Let me in or I'll bust this door down!" a threatening voice boomed from the other side of the door between bangs. Although I couldn't see him, his intimidation was very powerful. It was as if his menacing figure loomed over me.

A lump generated in my throat as I was crouched behind a desk, with the hopes of being concealed from his sight if he were to enter the room. Given the poor condition the door was in, his pummeling and kicking increased the presently high chance of him emerging into the classroom I was hiding in. My heart dropped in my stomach when the door suddenly and loudly thudded on the floor. I peered through the underside of the desk, still crouched, my legs beginning to ache from all of my weight resting on them for a long time. There he stood in place of the once sturdy door: Nigel Brooks, the bane of my sanity which I fight to maintain during the fleeting school days with nearly all of my willpower. He wore blue jeans with tears at the knees and a black leather jacket. His hair was slicked back with gel, but most of his hair was covered by a red hat.

I held my breath, trying to be as silent as possible. It was inevitable for my whereabouts to be discovered, but I might as well be hidden for as long as I can to enable myself to prepare for an unavoidable assault. Nigel cautiously stepped off of the door and began to slowly take steps toward my direction in the room, his eyes darting back and forth. Beads of sweat streamed down my forehead as the suspense slowly grew. Nigel abruptly stopped moving when his eyes remained on something. Me. I gasped loudly, confirming I had been found.

"There you are," he coldly snarled, a threatening smile expanding on his face.

I jumped up from my hiding spot and ran to the left side of the room, hoping the desks scattered about would reduce Nigel's speed. I was naïve for thinking such a thing. Nigel was big and robust, a fine concoction of developing his muscles at a gym for years and taking wrestling lessons. Heavy school desks seemed to be insignificant in Nigel's view, which was an assumption that was proven right when he charged at me at an unsettling speed, ramming through the desks like they were not there to begin with. When he reached a spot six feet in front of me, he stood still, panting lightly. There was no chance I could prevail against Nigel in a fight, for my efforts would amount to nothing. My mere knowledge of fighting was meager compared to his, considering the only attacks I could muster being the simple punch and kick.

Without displaying a hint that he would do so, Nigel lunged at me, his arms extended forwards. I squealed and flinched, my eyes tightly shut and my face shielded by my arms. His hands slammed into my chest with an immense amount of force, lifting me off of my feet and propelling me backward into the wall behind me. The collision between me and the wall left my head and my back throbbing with pain, making me collapse to the ground. A loud clang was produced from the collision of the walls and my metal limbs. I curled up into a ball on the floor and pitifully wailed. Nigel squatted down to my head and shouted, "You pathetic piece of garbage! Get back up and fight me! End what you started!"

"I... I can't. Please," I weakly whispered, my face wincing in pain. Nigel grunted and got back up, still looking at my face.

He furrowed his eyebrows and powerfully deployed a kick into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me for a second. I coughed out small droplets of blood and screamed, all the while Nigel was still kicking at my stomach. Tears began to gush from my eyes as the surge of pain became too much for me to handle. Nigel suddenly stopped kicking after we both heard distant footsteps running down the hallway towards the room we were in.