Thud!
My forward momentum took me as far as the opposite wall. I slammed into it with both hands. My nails raked the brickwork but didn't find a grip—and then gravity took hold.
To make matters worse, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. My collision with the wall resulted in a slight rebound. As I fell, I glanced down to see something rushing towards me.
I reached out. One hand grabbed the top of a window frame. My body swung toward the glass and then—
Crash!
I hurtled through the window and into someone's living room. It wasn't a graceful landing. Far from it as I went sprawling like a duck with a broken wing. But it was a landing, and I'd only fallen a few feet as opposed to a hundred, so it was a win as far as I was concerned.
Picking myself up, I flailed at a mess of glass, timber, and shredded curtain that entangled my head. My landing had also destroyed a flowerpot and knocked over a small television. Sitting opposite me was an elderly black woman with knitting in her hands. She was sitting on her lounge chair, staring at me with openmouthed astonishment.
I couldn't blame her. It probably wasn't every day that a teenage boy came smashing through her window.
Bang!
A bullet thuds into the carpet next to me.
Someone's shooting!
'Sorry about this,' I muttered.
She stood, regained her composure, and waved a finger at me as she yelled something unintelligible.
I charged through her apartment, and more by chance than design, found the front door. Yes! I struggled with the locks on the door. How do I—
Whack! I turned to see the lady had hit me over the head with a broom. A second hit smacked me in the face. Blocking the weapon with one hand, I struggled the door open and stumbled into the hallway.
'And don't come back!' she yelled.
Those words I understood. I was at the end of a long hallway in a rundown apartment building. A door eased open, and a young mother and her son peered out in astonishment. Part of the curtain still hung from my shoulder. Dislodging it, I try to wave reassuringly.
'It's okay,' I said. 'Knocked over a vase.'
I hurried down the hallway to the elevators at the end. Just as I reached for the down button, I saw the elevators were ascending. Both of them. Is that good? They could be Ravana's men.
Fire stairs were on my left. Dragging open the door, I started down. The gap in the middle allowed me to see all the way to the bottom. I was up about ten stories, and there was no sign of anyone climbing up. Good. I raced down one set of winding stairs and paused.
Are they footsteps? Or was I just imagining it?
Silence filled the stairwell. Regardless, I had to keep moving, so I continued down another floor, stopped, and listened. Nothing. I rushed down another flight. The door to that floor flew open, and a huge guy tackled me from the side. He threw me towards the railing and thudded a fist into my stomach. Getting me into a headlock, he dragged me towards the exit door.
'We're not finished with you, kid,' he hissed into my ear. 'The doctor's got a long night of fun planned for you.'
The doctor's face appeared in my mind.
Where is the headquarters of The Agency?
Where is The Swan?
Who was the dead man in the room?
I screamed and brought my elbow up into the man's stomach. He gave a satisfying oomph, and his grip loosened.
I elbowed him three more times as we slid and stumbled down the steps. Pushing him against the railing, I swung about and slammed a fist into his jaw.
That's when it happened.
The railing wasn't high. Probably some building inspector looked at it thirty years ago and gave it the green light without a moment's hesitation. Little did he think this little piece of building design would become the stage of a life and death battle.
Because at that instant, the man fell backward. He flipped over, his arms flailing about like a cartoon character. If it weren't so horrifying, it would have been funny.
I made a desperate grab, but all I got was the corner of his jacket. This ripped out of my grasp as he disappeared from sight, screaming as he fell down the gap. It seemed to take forever. For one brief instant, his eyes met mine during that endless fall. It was almost an expression of disbelief.
This can't be the end of my life.
Then he slammed into the ground floor.
Spl-aaaat!
Openmouthed, I stared down at his motionless form.
Please, don't let him be dead.
I stumbled down the remaining stairs in a daze. All I could think of was the expression of sheer disbelief in the man's eyes. This can't be the end of my life. I clattered down the stairs. He can't be dead. People survived falls worse than that.
But not this time. Reaching the last turn in the stairs, I stumbled to a halt as I stared at the man's motionless body. He lay in the middle of a growing pool of blood, the shape of his body like a crooked swastika. His dead eyes stared into mine.
This couldn't be real, but it was.
I've just killed a man.