Eh, I Was Bored...

"RUN!"

My feet skidded on the tiled floor, throwing me around the tight corner with unnecessary force. Arms outstretched to catch my stumble, he rolled his eyes and then shot me a brief look of concern.

"Are you all right? Can you keep up?"

I nodded and began to sprint beside him, the muscles in my calves screaming against the motion. Every bone in my body ached at the thought of pushing forward.

The voices were growing louder now, the shouts echoing off the asymmetrically angled ceiling. The lights had been cut hours ago, when the first hostages were taken.

No prisoners today, their leader had whispered to us. I shuddered now as I remembered.

We'd been sitting in class, a normal activity for a high school Tuesday; my fingers had tapped impatiently on the desk while I waited for the rest of the class to finish a test. Sighing to myself, I had turned my head slightly to the left.

The eyes of my partner had met mine, their pale blue matching my dark black only in boredom and exhaustion. We'd both been on call last night; just as those nights always went, we'd gotten less than two hours of sleep each.

Not that I didn't like my job; it just wasn't what I'd initially envisioned. The day the Boss had given me that fateful phone call, I'd truly had no other option. Halfway between the living and the dead had always been my home; I belonged with the Guardians, with their secret world and preternatural talent. To think that I was one of the least experienced field agents made me wonder exactly what those higher-ranking members were capable of.

Working in the dead of the night certainly had its perks--snazzy black car, unlimited senses, and oh, yeah, immortality--but there were nights when I just wanted to sleep. Like last night.

But Benji and I had dutifully answered our phones, arriving at headquarters around one in the morning. We'd spent the entire night cleaning up the mess some crazed medium had made, scraping memories off of city walls and picking up the trembling pieces of soul that were splattered on the streets. I much preferred the nights when we were actually destroying evil, not just acting as its maid...

As my partner's eyes had risen to my gaze, I had become suddenly aware of a disturbance down the hall. A quiet disruption, but a disruption nonetheless. Ben had noticed it too; we'd both turned stock still, our senses fine-tuning the perceptions and giving us a clearer mental picture.

The men had come so quickly that I hadn't even had time to finish the gasp; the air stuck in my throat, choking the words that I now sputtered incomprehensibly. They'd threatened us, their sinister tones ringing in my ears; in only moments, everything around me was suddenly on fire...

And now Ben and I were running down the hallway, our limbs flying against the slippery floor at top speed. We ran from the yelling behind us, because the danger there was over.

We'd followed the attackers from the room.

While I ran, I pulled my hair into a tight ponytail and wiped any sign of weakness from my expression. These were hardened killers, quite the opposite of the usual demons we'd faced. We were the youngest in the field, barely ready to move into the real action...

But we were in it. Without the help of the Boss or any of our coworkers, we were going to have to take on eight men who had come to destroy us.

I gulped loudly and continued to run. This was what the job was about, wasn't it? The adrenaline, the racing pulse, the excitement of the fight...

Ben reached over and grabbed my arm, keeping us close together in the smoke-filled, danger-saturated corridor. The same corridor I'd walked down for years, strolling casually to class. Just a regular high school hallway.

Just another high school Tuesday...