Page 80 of Blood Day: Part One

Illuminated only by the moon.

I recalled the details I could remember, but they were fuzzy at best.

Boom.

Was that the third one? Three minutes? Four minutes?

My heart was beating so loudly in my ears that I couldn’t even be sure I’d heard the appropriate amount of gunshots. Dizziness and exertion weighed me down, my body unprepared for this sprint into the darkness.

I should have paced myself.

My pulse raced, my lungs screaming for air.

I didn’t run often enough. I wasn’t going to make it.

What’s going to pursue me? What will happen when whatever it is catches me?

The loud clap of sound went off again, making me jump and nearly lose my footing. I couldn’t see anything aside from the wall and desert. No road. No end in sight.

I went the wrong way, I realized.

But there was no turning back now.

I had to push. To run. To find a place to hide and defend myself. But where? In a sand mound?

I nearly laughed. Yet I couldn’t push out enough oxygen for the sound to form.

Run. Run. Run.

I took off away from the wall, searching for anything that could provide me with shelter.

There were no other prospects nearby. At least none that I could hear or see.

Had any of them joined forces to fight together?

Which direction had Six gone in? What about my course partner?

Don’t think about them. Worry about finding a place to hide, I coached myself, my palms slickening with sweat.

I’d endured some intense exams before. But nothing compared to this. Not even Master Cedric’s sparring assignment with that prospect who had broken my arm.

A final bullet hit the air. Or I thought it might have been final. I’d lost count what felt like forever ago.

Funny how time seemed long now. Yet unfairly short, too.

A scream echoed through the night, making my blood run cold.It’s started.

A shriek followed.

Oh, Goddess…

I was running in the middle of nothing, searching for a place that didn’t exist!

A road that I would never find.

A palace that I’d reached bycar, not by running.

This was a terrible plan.