‹ Prequel: Chasing Imagination
Sequel: Martyr's Run

Hurricane Heart

Burst of Insanity

Hurricane

I could see from Arjan’s face that my own expression had taken on a sort of demonic glow. But really, it was just mere hope.

There was a loud knock on the door, beating in time with the rhythm of my pounding heart.

I grabbed Arjan’s hand, and it clasped tightly around mine. I stepped up onto the window sill, the wind at this altitude whipping my long hair into a frenzy.

I sat down on the sill, and behind me the knocking grew louder; more insistent. So did my heart.

‘Come on,’ I whispered again, leading him up onto the sill. He stood there, frozen, terrified, looking out onto the lights of the city night; those endless possibilities suppressed by the all-controlling force that suffocated us every day of our lives.

But just by doing this, I could prove that the dreams still existed.

I jumped out into thin air.

My feet found the ledge beneath. I groped for the sill, trying to find something to hold onto, the wind pummelling me. I could fall, but I wasn’t going to let that happen easily.

‘Take my hand,’ I called over the howling wind. Arjan grasped it tightly, sending a terrified look back over his shoulder. I could feel him shaking; the blood pounded through his veins.

He slid forward, off the ledge and down, through the air. His entire body tensed even more, and he grew cold, but his feet found the solid surface and he fell into me, clinging on for dear life, crying out, terrified. I was not scared anymore, but instead my mind had taken on a dangerous life of its own. I was unstoppable.

Up above, I heard the banging against the door grow louder still, and with an immense crash the police barged into the now empty room. I began to shuffle along the ledge, away from anything I could hold, leaning into the safety of the large brick wall, my hands numb and my face frozen. Still I held Arjan, and he followed me, his other hand trailing along the bricks, his eyes wide and petrified as he looked down the great drop below and across the endless expanse of city and to the world that lay beyond.

‘Don’t look down,’ I whispered. ‘Only ever look up.’

He looked at me; not mocking, not angry, but sincere and finally, truly hopeful.

I continued to move along the wall, slowly, surely, not allowed to falter even once.

And then I slid round the corner of the building, hesitating as I reached that sharp corner, almost too scared to cross it, but then I grasped the icy metal of the fire escape staircase that zigzagged up the side of the building, the rungs no colder than my numb, unfeeling hands were. My fingers were pink at the tips, barely able to move, and I was suddenly afraid that I wouldn’t be able to grip it like I needed to.

But no. I could. I forced my fingers to curl around the railing despite how stiff they were, and I locked my foot into one of the slats. The rest was comparatively easy, apart from the paralysing thought that if I slipped now, I would be hanging over the edge, falling into the abyss. There would be nothing between me and the ground four storeys below, and there would be a very slim chance of being rescued.

I hoisted my leg over the railing, sliding slightly as my weight shifted, falling onto the right side, bringing my other leg to greet it. And I was there. I was on the staircase. Wet and slippery though they were, they were absolutely nothing compared to the almost insane danger I’d just overcome.

‘Come on,’ I urged Arjan, who stood as if spellbound, looking at the railing, gripping it with hands just as numb as mine were. I took one of them, and it felt cold even in my freezing fingers. Looking down, saying nothing, and concentrating intensely on the seemingly small but actually massive task ahead, he hoisted one leg over, falling to the side like I did, sliding a bit, and letting his other leg slip clumsily over the top. He staggered and I caught him just before he was about to fall down the next flight of stairs, and I held him close, and together we began to run. We ran not because we were in a hurry but purely to keep warm and keep the blood flowing and keep the life flooding through both of us. I so rarely felt like this that these magical moments were all the more precious.

We reached the bottom, and we both began to laugh from relief of the tension. I laughed out loud, smiling at the inky sky, the stars hardly visible underneath the artificial orange glow of the city, but they were still up there, and they always would be.

‘Come on,’ I said to Arjan, who slumped against the wall, laughing for the sake of laughing, eyes wide and confused.

‘What just happened?’ he asked me.

‘You just jumped out of the fourth storey of a building to escape the police that will want you for assault after almost being kidnapped by a masked man and practically climbed round the edge of the building before jumping over the railing of a staircase, and then ran down here.’

‘Wow,’ was all he said.

Then we began to run once again, this time back to the car. I was too cold; Arjan was cold, and we were both exhausted. We would sleep in the car tonight, but we would find a safer place first.

I all but fell into the driver’s seat, yawning and wiping my eyes, not caring if the makeup smudged. Still I took out my pocket mirror, looking in it, revealing that I didn’t look too great. My face wasn’t too bad apart from one cut, which was underneath my fringe anyway, but the spatters of blood were still faintly visible, and my hair was a dishevelled bush. Mascara ran down my face in tear-streaks, and the eyeliner smudged around my eyes made me look not so different from a panda.

I ached all over, but it was nothing that I couldn’t handle, and I turned the heating on to full blast to warm us up after the icy wind outside, shivering even in my jacket, and Arjan sat quietly behind me, saying nothing, but his eyes showed how deeply he was thinking.

He was thinking. He was one step closer to becoming a Dreamer. Soon, maybe he would begin to imagine.

I turned the steering wheel and began to navigate out of the parking space and down the road; any road; I didn’t care where it took us.

In the end, we arrived at a multi-storey car park. This was as safe as it would get, even though I should be sick of high buildings for today. I drove up to the third floor where we had the entire level to ourselves at this time of night, but we had the car up here, so hopefully nothing would happen that involved us climbing about on the outside.

I checked the time; a quarter past midnight. We hadn’t done badly, but then we’d probably arrived at the hotel at about eight.

‘Come in the front,’ I suggested to Arjan. ‘That way you can recline the seat back, and you might actually get some sleep.’

The phone rang.

I huffed loudly, stepping out of the car and clicking the button to lock the doors, feeling the cold rush of air hit my face as I pressed ‘accept.’

‘Hurricane?’

‘Jonas,’ I said. The first thing I noticed was that he seemed to have taken Carl’s post. Perhaps Carl really was trying to have me watched 24/7.

‘Are you alright?’

It took me a moment, even after tonight’s ordeal, to register why I might not be alright.

‘Yeah, just about,’ I said. ‘Did you see them coming?’

‘I saw someone in the hotel with you,’ he said. ‘Was it a Soulless?’

‘Yes, do you remember Scarrus?’

Jonas groaned loudly from the other end of the phone. ‘You had him? Yes, unfortunately I do remember him.’

‘Well, that was who attacked me,’ I explained, ‘I locked Arjan in the hotel room, because that was who Scarrus really wanted, but he managed to knock my gun away and we had a pretty massive fight in the corridor.’

‘What happened?’

‘I managed to stun him in the end,’ I said, ‘so I handcuffed him to the drawers in our room and got out before he came round again.’

I could hear Jonas laughing, and I hoped it was in admiration. ‘That’s brilliant!’

‘But yeah,’ I said, ‘the security guards were banging on our door, so I grabbed Arjan and our stuff, and we left via the window.’ I said it so casually that it took him a moment to register what I’d said.

‘The window?’ Jonas exclaimed. ‘How did you manage that?’

‘There was a ledge and a fire escape staircase...the rest is history,’ I said. After our positively legendary escape of epic proportions tonight, I felt I was allowed a quiet sense of pride.

‘So, what now?’ he continued. ‘I mean, I was mostly ringing to check you were alright, but what’s the next plan?’

I shrugged before remembering that he couldn’t see me and began wandering further across the nearly deserted car park, away from the edge where I could look over the iridescent city.

‘Keep running, I guess,’ I said, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this journey at all reflected my life; always running; never looking back; leaving everything behind.

‘Run to where?’ Jonas asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Once again, it was the mirror of my life. Keep on going to anywhere; somewhere; just...away. ‘I’ll just keep going, and see where the road takes me.’

I’d fallen quiet. The ecstatic, adrenaline-fuelled high of this evening was beginning to wear away. I was sore, I was bruised, I was cold, I was still covered in faint traces of blood, both my own and someone else’s, and at the end of the day, I was only ever alone in a faraway city.

‘I like your philosophy,’ Jonas commented. ‘But for now, that’s probably as good as it gets. Carl or I will update you as soon as we have a heading of any sort. For now, though, just keep running. Stay ahead of the Soulless, and we’ll notify Tallinn that they need to send some people out to help you fight those bastards.’

‘Thanks,’ I mused absent-mindedly, gazing over the empty, grey car park, all so much concrete, dull white lights embedded into the ceiling, giving just enough light for one to find their way back, but no more.

I began to round the corner of the concrete building that stood in the middle containing a set of stairs and the elevator shaft. Even from outside of it I could smell the putrid stench of litter and alcohol, and decided that I wasn’t going in there if my life depended on it. Even the underground didn’t smell half that bad.

‘Hurricane?’ Jonas said, and I realised I’d completely missed what he just said.

‘Yeah?’

‘I said I’ll keep a watch out,’ he repeated. ‘And I’ll inform the Master of everything that happened. Do you think anyone followed you out?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, unable to be one hundred percent sure, but pretty confident all the same.

‘Ok then, I’ll speak to you soon.’

‘Yeah, speak to you soon,’ I echoed. ‘Bye, Jonas.’

‘Bye.’

I hung up and wandered back across the desolate, concrete landscape back to the car. I got in and saw that Arjan had already worked out how to recline the front passenger seat, and looked already half asleep. I was about to say something but held my tongue, realising there was no need to stir him. He could only relax for so long; then the fight would start again. For now, these mere few hours in the world of dreams were all that we had.
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Oh, and I've realised that you have to read this chapter immediately after reading the previous chapter, otherwise you don't get the same atmosphere and tension that you get when you read the whole thing in one go. :D