By the early hours of the morning, not long after the dead of night, I had already been heaved from my limited slumber, my mind too engrossed to be able to slack at any stage.
Sighing, I hoisted my body from the seat, the floor boards creaking beneath my weight. I stood facing the window, the outside barely perceivable due to the dark outcast of the night. A vociferous crack of thunder seemed to leave the objects around me trembling, a burst of lightning following not long after. The downpour, as far as I knew, had continued throughout the night, flooding the road beneath me as it seeped onto the sidewalk.
The next few minutes remained silent as the thunder subsided for a moment, refuelling for the next discharge.
However, the next roar of thunder didn't arrive alone. My heart plummeted at the sound it was accompanied by, my mouth growing instantly dry and my entire exterior trembling after realising that it had come from downstairs. For a moment, I suspected that I was engaged in a night terror, where a noise matching the one that previously bellowed, was common. That suspicion was fraudulent and was soon proven as a succession of the same noise followed. Gunshots.
My quivering body stilled realising that Luke was downstairs, but I was utterly panic stricken to do anything. I waited for a moment, no sounds present within the house which fuelled my concerns for Luke's life further.
Footsteps were the next thing to meet my ears, the harsh sound of feet slamming on the tile floor of the entrance hallway. From what I could hear, it appeared to be only one set of feet that slowly padded up the stairs. I raced to my door, locking it shut before sprinting out onto the balcony of my room, closing the door urgently behind me. Once on the terrace, I circled searching for what I could do in my panic ridden state to reach some kind of safety. I soon spotted the thin ledge that wove around the rest of the house. It was wide enough to hold, at a push, two people so I climbed over the railing of the balcony and climbed across to the ledge, sliding down to avoid being seen from the window.
The sound of feet padding across the carpet in the corridor leading to my room sounded, my breath once again hitching in my throat. The next noise was one that I had hoped would never hear, but knew was coming. The sound of the lock located on my door being blown to pieces from a simple firing of an undeniably, pestilential bullet.