The sound of bare feet slapping against smooth marble echoed through the dim, perfect corridors. Flashing red lights obscured Luna’s vision, making navigation almost impossible. She squinted and blinked, trying to focus just enough to keep her from running into walls. She could hear footsteps and yelling behind her. She couldn’t stop. Not now.
As she reached the end of a corridor, she encountered a small square doorway waist level on the wall. She panted loudly as she bent over, trying to find a way to open it. She had no idea where it went, but anywhere was better than here. She grabbed the top of it and tried to pry it open with her fingers. She pulled as hard as she could, pushing her foot against the wall to give her more leverage. Instead of the door opening, her fingers slipped and cut themselves on the corners.
She fell on the ground with a loud thud. Her head bounced off the marble floor. Everything she had just been doing faded from her mind, replaced with the throbbing pain now engulfing her skull. The lights continued to flash endlessly, keeping her eyes from shutting entirely. As she started to pull herself as close to reality as she could manage, she could hear the sound of footsteps starting to echo louder.
Luna pushed herself back up as fast as she could, ignoring the throbbing pain and dizziness as well as the blood dripping off of her hand. She looked around the door more thoroughly this time, noticing a panel on the wall next to it. She reached forward and touched the panel, bringing the screen to life and leaving a bloody fingerprint behind on it. A keypad numbered one through nine was displayed. Luna’s mind started running through the possibilities of combinations, but her calculations immediately faded into the background as the throbbing pain, blaring lights, and loud footsteps started to lull her into a catatonic state fueled by primal fear.
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Run! Her mind jolted her back to reality with one simple word. Every bit of fear and every thought that could stop her quickly faded from her mind, replaced exclusively by that one word. Luna looked at the screen again before pulling her arm back and punching it with all her might. The screen cracked and shattered beneath her fist. Luna pulled her fist back to see a flickering display barely clinging to life, covered in glass and blood. Luna looked back at the closed doorway before punching it again. This time, the lock keeping the door in place released, allowing it to fall. Luna did not wait to see where the doorway led. Instead, she followed the command from her mind, and jumped through it into a chute just large enough for her to easily pass through.
Luna fell through the chute and landed on a huge pile of trash bags. The blinding red lights were replaced by the neon lights of the streets of Haven. Luna quickly pushed herself to her feet, covering her nose with her bloody hands to protect herself from the overwhelming stench of waste. She climbed out of the trash pile and onto the street. She wasted no time on assessing the damage or analyzing her surroundings. Instead, she followed the order. Run.
Luna ran as fast as she could. The only thing moving faster than her feet was her heart. Though the red lights no longer blinded her, her vision was still blurred and it faded in and out. None of her senses were able to guide her in any way. The only thing she could feel was a need to escape. She couldn’t even feel when her feet started to bleed. She had no idea how long she had been running, nor how far away she was from whatever she was running from. The only thing that was able to rouse her from her tunnel vision was a blinding light that flooded her vision with white. She turned to face the source of the light, but all she was greeted with was a brief instant of overwhelming pain as something much larger than her collided with her. Then, she felt nothing.
