Adrenaline

⌊Chapter 8⌉

Did you do it? Did you catch him?

No.

Why?

I couldn't.

Darkness enveloped him instantaneously like it never had before. Everything hurt, but even as he opened his eyes narrowly, it was hard to feel anything at all. The low hum of the AC filled the otherwise silent room, and it softly sang some sick tune that he didn't want to hear. He leaned his head back against the wall, staring upward at the ceiling lights, which were turned off, trying to remember exactly what happened. There was a stabbing pain around his ankle, and he remembered that he had twisted it whenever he stumbled off that moving train. He didn't remember too much after that. All he knew was that he was chasing Richard Alann and then he lost him. He returned to Dacora St. where Black Tower stood. Blake hadn't been happy at all.

"There were over 15 people after Joe and Matt. I was chasing Rich alone and you know how he is," he had said, but that didn't change Blake's mood. He couldn't believe he went through Harcastill for this. He forced his eyes open, staring forward at Blake's empty desk. He immediately noticed the blood on his nose from the knockout, and he quickly covered it from his field of view. Unfortunately, he didn't block it fast enough, and the world began to spin around him faster than it should have.

With his free hand, he pulled himself to his feet with the desk, and he stumbled slightly to the side as he did so. Outside, the sun was setting. He couldn't see it, but he could tell. His gaze panned over to a clock on the wall which read 12:30 AM - half an hour ago, he was supposed to leave this damned place for the rest of the night. His eyes darkened, and just to spite Blake, he took the stapler on his desk and took all of the staples from inside, breaking them apart, and throwing them away. Afterward, he made his way out of the tyrant's office, still seeing the image of blood in his mind, which left him feeling sick and his chest feeling tight.

He got the comment a lot - why did you take this job if you're hemophobic?

Because he had been trying to get himself over it. He didn't have any other plan for his life if he didn't go to Harcastill either, so it was a win-win situation. Well, it was. Now he wanted out, couldn't get out, and couldn't even get over the sight of blood.

Black Tower, being the tallest building in Adelmir, wasn't necessarily the easiest to get through. Elevators existed, but he didn't like the interaction with the other people, so he took the stairs. Unfortunately, in his current condition, that wasn't such a great idea. He had to keep himself close to the wall so he wouldn't lose his balance, and just hoped to whatever god may exist that this wasn't going to cause him to faint. He hadn't had a reaction this bad in a while - it had remained relatively calm for the past couple of weeks. It seemed to select the perfect time to act up.

"Winters! Weren't you supposed to leave, like, half an hour ago?" a voice approached the man, appearing next to him at the stair platform. He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. "You okay?"

"Sure I am," Anthony responded sarcastically. Edmund Kelley really knew how to state the obvious. But that wasn't even close to the reason that Anthony despised the man. Now, he would rather spend a day with him than Blake, but Edmund held a special place in Anthony's heart - and not a very good place at that. Edmund had attended the same college as Anthony had - Harcastill University in Jundan, District Sorova-NA. It was a highly respected place where a lot of good workers came from, but Anthony and Edmund didn't really have a very pleasant history there. Not to even mention Edmund's sister, who had it out for Anthony from day one because of some problems with another girl named Aurora. There were too many names, and it was too long of a story, so Anthony never talked about it. The only people that he saw regularly who knew everything was Edmund and Jane.