The Falling

Chapter One(Part One)- The Old Lady Got You Too?

Bang! Bang!

My tired knees buckle and slam together as I roll down the steep, narrow ramp like thunder. Clumsily, much like a frail old woman I stomp to the landing. Sweat streams down my forehead in trickles of sticky, bitter water. Droplets gather at the beginning of my hairline like an army on the border of enemy territory.

This maze of blackened, battered walls is illuminated by the soft multi-coloured glow of futuristic weaponry. It's been barely twenty minutes since I've been thrown into battle, like a rabbit chucked into the lion's den. I've managed to trigger, kick and claw my way through. I'm the last of the survivors.

I lick my lips in anticipation like a raindeer high on candy canes. My adrenaline runs away from me, streaking through my body. The outline of a tall male with dark hair and tanned skin engenders itself to my gaze. I aim, the slim barrel of the black gun aligning with my focused eye.

Bang!

The boy flips his head to me in panic, his jaw drops. He stumbles to the left, thumping the makeshift barricade and slumping to the ground behind another scrappy heap made from smoldered pieces of blackened, burnt metal and silver car doors.

A laugh as slick as a polished floor escapes my tender, dry lips, sliding easily off of my tongue. My pride bubbles up like water left on the stove.

 "Ali!"

The victory is short-lived. I quickly spin on my heel, gun raised ready to instill fear and instant death.

"Wait!" Natalie holds her hands and gun innocently in the air.

"What are you doing? Put your arms back down! This is a war zone!" I hiss at her, hoping she'll hear me over the constant zap-zapping and screeches of fallen comrades and enemies.

She lowers her flimsy black gun down to an appropriate level, guarding her bullet-proof-vest-covered chest. Natalie's hair is matted with sweat and tied up in an array of independent knots.

"Run!" Talisha's voice screams out a warning only a wall away.

I don't think twice, I turn. I dodge. I duck. Through a manufactured civilization long past it's use-by-date. The young rule this domain, maybe that's why it's such a mess.

Maybe that's why this battle reigns on, the feud between each side growing stronger every day all for the sake of points, a score. Is that why I'm here? To win someone else's battle or my own?

I suck in the air as fast as my shallow lungs will allow. I can't see in this forsaken wasteland of blind ginuea pigs. I stick my back to the walls, a defensive measure. My skin grazes on the broken, rugged shards of plastic. My chest deflates like a blow-up mattress with a hole in it, I suck in more and more air but it seems to do nothing. I scratch my back along the sandpaper wall which clings to the soft fabric of my jumper.

I have no doubt Talisha is dead. She must be. She didn't have the heart to become a soldier.

To be cold.

"Run!" Natalie repeats.

She'll be next.

She appears around a rounded corner, clambering over a half-finished, diminishing bricked-up barrier.

A heavily shadowed figure lunges towards Natalie, pistol outstretched.

"Natalie look out!" I yell desperately.

Natalie's wailed cry echoes along the hall, bouncing off the walls like a rubber ball off of cement. She falls to the floor, her knees bash onto the uneven pieces of thin wooden planking. Bam! Bam! The soldier I shot minutes ago has a wicked grin on his face; baring his unnaturally animal canine fangs. He's angry. He's cold.