Day 201 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write a chase scene.
Erin: When my ex was on my tail to talk out our issues I reacted like any self-respecting adult would. I ran. This typically worked for me, but we were equal parts crazy as a couple as we were now. I started by running downtown and weaving through the crowed. I jutted down a side street when I thought I had lost him. I didn’t. I sprinted into the small forest trail which led to the river and in a moment of desperation I jumped in.
“Babe what are you doing this is crazy,” he followed me swimming to the other end by walking on the bridge.
“What am I doing?” I started treading and yelled up. “What were you doing? You’re the one who hurt me, you’re the one who made me crazy.”
“I’m sorry,” he yelled.
“I don’t care leave me to my swim,” I pointed him in the other direction. “Go ruin your other girls lives.”
Shannon: “Take it, I’ll distract them” Mark handed me drawstring bag and I immediately draped it over my shoulders. “Run, go,” he demanded with an aggressive shove as he ran in the other direction with the fake bag.
I weaved through the crowd, taking a look back to see if anyone was following. I caught a guy barreling through people with his eyes locked on me. I guess Mark’s plan wasn’t working as well as promised. I needed my next escape route.
I headed for the museum hoping to erase some tracks with a game of hide and seek before I’d have an easy escape out the back door.
Why is one of your character after another one?
Pelky Sisters 
I walked up a lonely road with dull grey cookie-cutter houses lining the sides as though a terribly lazy architect had designed them all. Where you would expect to see children playing in cement yards and laughter floating through open windows, there was only dust and the sound of the wind whispering to itself. Not a soul dared to turn on a light or step a foot from their hiding places that were set deep within the stone structures. Somewhere in my peripheral vision there was a flash of candlelight, but it was swiftly extinguished; perhaps it was eaten by the stoic silence and stillness the entire world seemed to have taken on.
As I turned into my house, resisting the strong urge to whistle in the uncomfortable silence, heavy footsteps echoed from beyond the hill. Taking a quick glance around for anything out of the ordinary, I sprinted for the door and hammered on the frame as though my life were depending on it. I leaned with all my might on the door panel, but it didn’t budge until a light, trembling voice asked through the mail slot, “Pass-password?”
With the army of heavy boots fast approaching, my mind refused to grasp the word I needed to be let in. Swearing under my breath, and with the tops of the men’s helmets cresting the hill, I knelt down and stared into the tan irises of my sister. “If you don’t let me in, I swear-” I whispered breathily, feeling the air around me getting hot as I fumed. She stood quickly, disappearing from the door, and was deftly unfastening the eight different locks we kept on the door. As she pried it open and stood to the side, I slipped through and shut it as easily as I could, re-bolting it securely. “Dammit, I wasn’t halfway there this time,” I sighed, leaning against the stair rail as I caught at my breath.
We started to head down the back steps, when I realized something was wrong and pulled Tam into the sterile dining room. As I listened carefully to the marching footsteps outside, I put my finger to my lips and whispered tersely, “Tam, where are the girls?” Usually they relished the few minutes a day when their mother, Tam, had to wait at the door; it was the only time they could see the world outside our house. Staring into her light brown eyes, I could see the pain and horror spreading. “Tam,” I stated angrily, catching myself before my voice rose any louder than it had.
“They, uh, well, you, they just,” she stuttered, unable to meet my eye before I held her chin up. “Well, they just wanted to, you know, see where it was that, well, where you went. And, and I didn’t, I didn’t know when you’d be back, coming back and I just-” she dissolved into a fit of quiet tears before struggling out of the emotional spiral to admit fully, “and I just let them go.” There was stunned silence in the quiet house as I digested the stupid decision and Tam wept openly.
After a minute, I took a stabling breath and turned my back to my sister, intending to head back toward the town site until something caught at my sleeve. It was Tam, sniffling softly and gripping the end of my shirt as though it were her last home. I was about to tell her off when there was a loud kerfuffle outside in the street and I tensed every muscle in my body; we were both still as statues as the noise continued. Creeping forward, I motioned for Tam to stay where she was, and went to investigate in a crouch so low I was practically crawling. As I reached the window, I peered through the sheer drape that hung limply to one side of the glass and stifled a scream.
There was a group of about thirty armed guards standing in a tight circle around a tiny, lifeless body that lay in the street. From their positions and the cheerful way in which they were speaking to each other and jeering at the figure, they must have caused the death themselves. I was fortunate in that I knew it wasn’t Dil or Bil because they weren’t allowed to wear the brilliant blue shade the figure was wearing. Across the street, our neighbour wasn’t so lucky, as the older woman who lived there with her daughter and son-in-law rushed through the door despite the son’s efforts. He shut and bolted the door the moment she flew at the crowd with tears spilling wildly from her eyes and shrieks echoing in the warm day.
I looked away before they did it, but I could hear the gunshot as though it were in the house and the fall that followed. There was a disgusting round of applause from the soldiers before they inevitably headed for the widowed man’s house to tie up any loose ends. Their motto lately was to leave no one alive, so they killed without worry for fairness even more than usual. To them, this was just a sport; a deadly game of hide and seek where you only won if you couldn’t speak or breath or survive.
As I stole back to the dining room to find Tam holding her face and breathing shallowly, I tapped her shoulder and waited to see the whites of her eyes. “It wasn’t them; don’t worry. I’ll find them,” I promised, gripping her hand tightly in my own and heaving her into a standing position. We were just about to head through the door to the downstairs when there came a frantic knocking on the back door. Releasing Tam’s hand, I stepped around the corner and peered out the side window to see two girls in their teens staring around with wide-eyed expressions. Joltingly, I unlocked the door, pulled them through and bolted it safely behind them, shifting the curtain to cover more of the defunct kitchen. “Oh, girls,” I whispered as I threw my arms around them, squeezing them so tightly I figured they might think twice about leaving the house anytime soon.
The three of us crept back to the hall, where Tam hugged and kissed her girls even more ferociously than I had, and started back for the stairs. With the door swung open, there was a larger commotion outside with furious shouting and the frantic pounding of boots in different direction. All four of us froze when a few soldiers’ shadows passed by the dining room window and he barked a few commands back to his comrades. Cursing the world under my breath, I motioned for Bil to give me her pale pink shawl and Dil to pass me her grey-green hat. Though they stared at me, confused, the garments were given and I expertly tied the scarf around my neck and crammed the hat on my head.
“You three need to head down to the cellar and barricade yourselves in there, okay?” I whispered forcefully, pleading with my eyes. The men out there knew someone came in here, and even if they suspected more than one person, they wouldn’t find our hiding place easily, and would likely give up after they caught one of us. Nodding to them, I continued hoarsely, “I love you all.” Aggressively shoving Tam down the first step, I looked away as their light steps receded and the cellar door shut with a squeal of old hinges.
With a few nods to myself to psych myself up, I moved to the front door, undid all the bolts carefully and swung it open to the dull grey street. There was still a large congregation standing around their two victims and the door opposite us had been broken, as had the window, but no one noticed me at first. Dashing to the right in front of the next two houses I amassed quite a following, but I was lighter and faster than the army was. Their shots rang out beside and behind me, but none could hit the side of a barn, so I kept running until my lungs were on fire and my legs would barely support my weight.
As the last few cadets dropped out of sight between some duplexes, I shot around the back of one I knew well and rapped on the back door gently, heart and lungs working hard to keep me conscious. When, after what seemed like a lifetime, the door opened, I shoved past Mal and leaned against their rotting table, holding the stitch in my side. “You’ve got a safe-behind-the bookcase-up the stairs-right?” I panted, Ter suddenly appearing in hazy in my vision, standing protectively before his wife. “Please-go-the girls-chased-last resort,” I pleaded, still unable to speak without gasping.
Ter nodded curtly at me and took Mal’s petite hand in his own, leading her toward the hallway. Thinking of something, he turned back and patted me on the shoulder as he whispered in my ear, “You’re braver than I; Mal’s the only one I would do something like that for.” With a last sorrowful smile, he followed his wife down the hall and their footsteps fell on the crooked stairs. I listened intently as they made it to the room and the safe door squealed open before it shut with a thud; they would be safe and the soldiers would think I just chose a vacant house for my last stand.
It took them all of ten minutes to determine where I’d gone, but it felt like an eternity again, waiting for death to find me. When I opened the door gracefully, the two in front aimed their rifles at me but didn’t fire. Instead, a particularly rugged man stepped forward and called, “You give up, do you? I bet you know which houses stand empty and which are full of criminals, don’t you?” I could see the glint in his eye as he realized catching someone like this might be a real boon for him with the overlords. “How about we make a deal, you and I?” he continued, his boots thudding hollowly on the cement as he came closer. “You tell me where all your little friends live, and I’ll let ya live. How does that sound, huh?”
Taking a deep breath of moderately fresh air, I took two sure steps forward to let the grey-tinged sunlight hit me and stood still before a well-armed army. I smiled at spat at the man’s foot before resuming the wide grin. When the first shots went through me, I wasn’t even paying attention anymore.
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Heather walks along the empty halls of the palace. She limps heavily, so she sits down on a bench, ‘Stupid leg,’ she mutters, ‘just work for once.’ She sighs, then looks up, she sees someone coming at her from down the hall, fast.
She gets up and races down the hall. She turns corners, trying to escape whoever was after her. The green clad warrior never lost track of her. Heather is suddenly in the throne room, where T’Challa is talking to Shuri.
“King T’Challa-” Heather starts to explain.
“That will be all, thank you Nakia,” he says, turning to them. Heather turns to watch the warrior, finding her no longer in pursuit, but standing there. She walks to T’Challa’s side. Heather sees their affectionate glances.
“Wait… what was that about?”
Shuri smiles, “You kept doubting yourself, Heather. I guess we decided you needed, a bit of a push.”
“She chased me through half the palace,” Heather complains.
“And did you fall?”
“No.”
“Did you stumble?”
Heather thinks on it, “…No.”
“How does your leg feel?” Shuri asks.
Heather looks down at her new leg. She almost forgot she had in with the chase in mind.
“The only difference between this leg and your other one is that it is metal,” T’Challa states, “It responds to you. It does not work, as you said before, because you are not treating it the same as your other leg.”
Heather bends her knee seamlessly, then smiles, “That was a bit of tough love.”
“Do you deny needing it?” Nakia asks.
Heather laughs, “Fair point. That was a good run. Other than the fear for whatever I did to deserve it, I mean.”
“How so?” Nakia asks.
“…I haven’t ran like that in so long,” Heather beams. She then gets an idea, “Rematch?”
Nakia smiles, “First one to the North spire wins.”
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