Death cheaters

Death cheaters - A note and a vision. chapter 4

What do yo expect to achieve in our company?", a handsome man on a dark blue suit asks Lara.

Lara is tired and has a shooting headache. She's been through four hours of tests and interviews by now. This is her last interview, but even when it's over, she can't go home, a fire drill won't allow her to leave.

She hasn't recovered completely from the earlier experience. Her new near death experience.

"I will be a very productive part of this company. No doubt of that", she answers full of confidence.

The man smiles and makes some notes on Lara's resume. Lara blinks rapidly trying to not fall asleep. After her las blink, she sees a trembling lamp aside from a red couch. The vision changes, she's running down a staircase, where a man pushes against a wall. The same man that she saw at the rotating door earlier. He drops a piece of paper. Lara picks it up and reads it.

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The shaking intensifies. Lara runs down until she reaches the ground floor. A powerful shake throws her to the ground, twisting an ankle. She can hear how the building shatters and crumbles.

The man that dropped the note is trying desperately to open the rotating door. The building brakes and starts to tilt. A big piece of rubble falls right over the man, crushing him and a couple of other people.

The building starts to fall, she looks back at the emergency staircase, it's almost intact from the second floor down. A loud noise coming from above distracts her. A window is coming right to her. She tries to stand up, but the pain in her right foot forces her to fall again. The window hits her. Everything turns black.

"Miss Hendricks? Miss Hendricks?", the man on the blue suits says.

Lara opens her eyes. She's strongly grabbing the chair with both hands. A drop of sweat rolls down from her temple to her neck.

"Y-yeah?", she answers breathing heavily.

"Are you feeling fine?", the man asks worried.

"Y-yes. I just... didn't sleep well, you know? Worrying about this interview", Lara answers with a nervous laugh.

"Don't worry, you've been excellent. Let me take you to the infirmary, you look a little whiter than earlier"

The man guides Lara to the closer infirmary, on the fifth floor.

'A red couch. A lamp. A man and a note. twelve sixteen. The second floor is safe', she thinks while she makes a note on her cell phone.

It's twelve fourteen, two minutes away from the time written on the man's note.

*I'm dead because I couldn't see a f*****g blue pen falling* said the note. This she can remember, and sounds like a person who could see his future. Now Lara is thinking if she can save this man and herself at the same time.

"Here we are", the man on the blue suit says. "The doctor will see you in a few minutes", he says and opens the door.

She freezes for a second. In the waiting room, there's a red couch and a lamp, the same of the vision.

"Th-thank you", says Lara and sits on the couch.

The man closes the door and walks away.

Lara grabs her phone again and reads her note. 'A man and a note'. Twelve fifteen now. To help him or not, this is the moment to decide. She could run now and save herself with a minute of advantage. Lara even knows where to be safe. Or she could use this minute to find the man of the note, Dan Clarke.

She looks around the waiting room. There's a small desk with a phone. In the wall next to it, a list of phone extensions.

She looks at his phone one last time. The note and the time.

"f**k it!", she mutters.

Lara stands up and walks to the desk.

"Dan Clarke, Dan Clarke", Lara mutters while searching. The list doesn't have the names in the first row, it has the position, then the name.

"Sofware... something. Damn! I should have written down his complete position", she groans. "New software senior manager, Dan Clarke! Yes!", says Lara when she finds Dan on the list.

Lara picks up the phone and calls Dan's extension. She looks at her phone: twelve sixteen.

"Hello?", Dan says.

"Run. Run right now", says Lara. Her hand is shaking, in any second the shaking will begin.

"Who is this?", asks Dan.

"Don't think. Just run your ass off and meet me at the emergency stairs. Second floor. DO NOT use the elevators if you want to survive. GO!", she says fearing that the warning may lead him to change his actions.

Lara hangs up without giving Dan a chance to answer. Whether he listens to her or not, now is beyond her power.

She starts to run, but her cell phone falls and slides under the red couch.

"f**k!", she mutters. "If I die because of you, Dan, I will come back and collect your soul myself", she says as she crouches to look for the phone.

She finally grabs it and stands up. The floor shakes. The lamp trembles. The first sign.

Lara runs for it. She follows the signs in the walls to reach the emergency staircase.

She opens the door and takes the heels off and starts going down the stairs.

The shaking intensifies. More people join her in the stair case. One or two steps on her feet, but she doesn't stop. Not until she reaches the second floor sign.

Lara corers herself in that spot. She just watches as many others pass near her.

"Come on miss, we need to evacuate!", a guard says to her. He grabs her arm and tries to pull her.

"I can't, I'm waiting for someone", she answers freeing her arm. "You should stay here", Lara says to him hoping to save him too.

The guard just turns around and resumes his way.

Lara looks up the stairs and sees him. Dan is just a few steps away. He walks to her.

"You?", says Dan exhausted and confused.

"Yes, me", Lara answers with a grin.

Lara hears a cracking sound and remembers how the wall will brake.

"Come close, now!", she says and hugs Dan close to her.

If she said that she wasn't feeling kind of warm next to him, she would be lying.

The building shakes so hard that it makes it impossible to be standing up. Being cornered help Lara and Dan to stay standing.

The crack over them gets bigger, surrounding them and letting some sunlight in.

At this moment, Dan would have already died.

The building now begins to tilt, living only the stair case standing.

Lara has a new vision. She sees through the eyes of a girl. She´s hanging to a iron bar, but it brakes and she falls. Lara sees how the girl falls right where they are. Then, everything goes black. She opens her eyes again, they meet with Dan's.

"Move!" she creams at the same time as Dan.

They practically jumped three steps down in an instant. Then the body of the girl splatters onto the concrete, splashing blood on her face.

The shaking stops. The building is just a pile of rubble. The girl´s body is broken, her legs, her arms and her head.

Lara and Dan lean forward to the girl's corpse. Suddenly, the right arm begins to move, drawing letters with the blood on her hand.

A few seconds after, the arms stops moving, leaving a sentence written in blood.