The Night Bleads
654 Words
Burn or Be Buried
The building shook as another alarm blared overhead, the emergency strobes slicing the darkness into sharp, dizzying flashes of red and white.
Cecily tightened her grip on the flash drive, tucking it into the waistband of her jeans under her jacket. She and Arinze moved in sync without speaking, weaving through the wreckage of the crumbling ritual.
Bodies pressed everywhere—masked figures screaming, organizers barking orders, black-suited security dragging dazed candidates toward back corridors like livestock.
Cecily’s gut twisted at every glance:
People stripped of their names.
People willing to vanish.
People who hadn’t even known they were candidates until tonight.
They sprinted down a side hall, past an overturned catering table and the smell of burning plastic. Arinze skidded to a halt at a service elevator tucked behind a broken security door.
“This way,” he rasped.
They shoved inside, barely squeezing together in the narrow space. Arinze jammed a keycard he had somehow swiped into the control panel.
The doors ground shut just as three masked security agents sprinted past outside, guns drawn.
Cecily exhaled shakily. “How many floors?”
“Two. Service deck exit’s underground. Leads to the old drainage tunnels.”
“And if it’s guarded?”
He gave her a grim, sideways smile.
“Then we improvise.”
The elevator lurched downward, creaking, stuttering.
Cecily stared at her reflection in the cracked mirror panel beside her.
Her mask was gone.
Her face was raw, flushed, streaked with dust and rain and adrenaline.
Real.
For the first time tonight, she didn’t feel invisible.
She felt dangerous.
The elevator screeched to a halt.
The doors slid open.
*********
The Final Run
The service deck smelled like mildew, rust, and cold stone.
Dim emergency lights flickered along the ceiling, barely enough to see by.
Ahead, a wide tunnel yawned open—its concrete mouth lined with moss and broken pipes.
The old city drainage system.
Their way out.
Arinze scanned the darkness, tense, alert.
“This way,” he said.
They sprinted forward.
Behind them, footsteps thundered—guards, masked operatives, yelling in clipped commands Cecily barely understood.
She pushed harder, lungs burning.
They hit the mouth of the tunnel just as gunfire ripped through the air—short, brutal bursts that echoed off the stone like thunder.
A bullet ricocheted off the wall inches from Cecily’s shoulder.
Arinze grabbed her hand, yanking her down into the tunnel.
Cold, filthy water splashed up around their ankles as they ran blindly into the dark.
No time to look back.
No time to think.
Only forward.
Only survival.
Only the drive tucked against Cecily’s skin—the single thread of truth she could still save.
******
The Betrayal Unfolds
Halfway down the tunnel, panting, soaked, almost slipping on the mossy floor, Cecily realized:
There were too many footsteps behind them.
Too many.
She risked a glance back.
Three figures.
Four.
More.
Closing the gap.
Cecily slowed, chest heaving. “Arinze—”
He grabbed her, shoved her behind a support beam just as another shot cracked past them.
“Keep moving,” he growled.
She shook her head, voice raw. “We can’t outrun this.”
He looked at her—and she saw it then.
Saw the thing he hadn’t said back in the ballroom.
Arinze wasn’t just running with her.
He was running for her.
He shoved something into her hand—a second flash drive.
“Backup,” he said. “If you lose yours.”
Cecily’s eyes widened.
“You knew.”
“I always knew it could end like this.”
“No,” she whispered, clutching the drive. “Not like this.”
He smiled—a fierce, broken thing.
“Go. I’ll cover you.”
And before she could stop him, he turned and sprinted back toward the pursuing shadows—drawing their fire, drawing their chase.
Away from her.
- Writer
