Choices for a Fated Destiny

Chapter One

~◇~ Everyone has monsters and ghosts inside them.
Are they real? Are they alive? ~◇~

It's another beatiful Sunday morning. The sky's illuminated with the first pink and orange light of dawn. It's still early and the streets are quiet, not a soul to be seen.

Then, from around the corner, a tall blonde girl comes running down the street, as fast as her long athletic legs can move. She doesn't look back but runs as if her life depends on it.

While her body is engaged in automatic flight mode, (she hopes with everything inside her that she won't have to engage in fight mode - she's more of a 'lover-not a-fighter' kind of girl), there's only one word running through her mind, on a continuous loop, "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!'"

She suddenly darts to the left and runs down a side street.

"Oh no!" Fear is now clearly written all over her face. That was the wrong move!

She'd turned into a long, narrow street that, very unfortunate for her, ends in a big parking area surrounded by three multistory buildings, all connected. It's a dead-end.

"Great!" she groans.

There's no time to turn around. Whatever is chasing her is making rumbling noises while running. Even though it's some distance away, those noises are clearly audible, and it's getting closer and closer.

"Okay, okay," she mutters while desperately nibbling on her thumbnail.

Should she turn around and head back or scope out this area? Perhaps there's another way out of there?

"Dammit! By turning down this alley I've lost all the distance I've gained," she moans, holding her head in frustration.

"If I go back, I'll exit right in front of the monster, then it'll jump on me and devour me. If I don't, it has me cornered, I'm stuck in a dead-end."

Quite a dilemma the blonde girl finds herself in, and by the look on her face, she knows it. She's now frantically pulling at her hair while turning in a circle, probably looking for an escape route.

Horrified at her circumstances, she mutters, "No, no, no, there's no other way out!"

Tall buildings surround her, each one with a closed door, each entrance sealed off with a sturdy locked gate.

To her left, there's a smallish fenced-in area with a chain-locked gate, with a few metal bins inside. By the smells coming from that area, those bins are filled with garbage. To her right nothing but a small, high window. And about three meters off the ground, a rickety-looking ladder to reach a metal stairway snaking up the side of the building, some windows higher up.

"Dammit! Why is this monster following me? Why is it chasing me? Why me?! And a monster! A MONSTER! A real-life fricking monster!" she whines.

"If only I was a warrior, some type of ninja fighter or something. Then I'd be able to kick that thing's butt and walk away like a superhero who'd secretly saved humanity."

Just out of sight, a scraping sound echoes from the street outside the alleyway. It sounds like claws digging into the road. The thing chasing her must've braked to turn into the alley.

"Ah? It's coming, it's coming... Ugh, damn this good hearing of mine, it's only making me more anxious! Oh! What to do? What to do?!"

"That fence might keep the monster out, maybe. Is it high enough?" she wonders, "Yes, and the stink will confuse the monster further... ungg... maybe not - even bears go after garbage bins, dammit! ... Uh, what else, what else! Maybe I can reach that ladder? Could I even jump that high?"