I shot him.

I shot another human being.

He might not be innocent and it might've been for self-defense, but I shot someone.

The force of the bullet blasting out of the pistol had me stagger a step backward, and my grip loosened on the handgun so it fell to the floor with a loud clank. My trembling hands fell down to my sides and I watched, wide-eyed, as Darius crumbled to the floor, tightly clutching onto his left side. Blood was seeping through his fingers, and his contorted face was turning a shade redder as he tried to contain his pain and not let it show.

His eyes shot up to mine, only instead of flashing me his signature hard glare, this time it was softer - almost pleading.

Suddenly, I felt the air getting knocked out of my lungs as I was lunged at. Heavy arms wrapped around my waist and hauled me to the ground, and I let out a pained groan as I crashed to the floor. The other man's hands tightly gripped onto my wrists and pinned them to my sides, but I struggled and lifted him off me by pushing my hips upwards, creating enough distance to knee him in the stomach. His grip loosened a bit, and I took the chance to twist my wrists free of his hold.

I scrambled up to my feet, immediately reaching out for the gun. I lifted it up as I stood and pointed it at the man crouched on the floor. His jade eyes widened like a deer's caught in the headlights of an oncoming bus, and he raised his hands in surrender, his eyes begging me for a second chance.

I don't know him, I thought to myself, so I couldn't shoot him.

My feet started working backwards, retreating me towards the door as my hands stayed threateningly aimed at the man. When I stepped through the door-frame, everything started moving in fast motion.

One second I was facing the small cellar I was locked in, the next I was sprinting up the wooden stairs leading to the house. When I reached the top, I studied my surrounding and found that we were in a cabin. I sprinted down a hallway and around leather couches stationed across a lit fireplace, and found the front door, which was spread wide open with two burly men guarding its front.

They must have heard the squeaking of my shoes because the second I paused in front of them, they stopped their conversation and their heads snapped to my direction. Their hands instantly traveled to the waistband of their pants, where I was sure they were to retrieve their guns, so I did the unthinkable.

I raised the pistol in my hands and began shooting in the air.

I only saw the blur of their bodies falling to the floor as they tried to dodge the bullets blasting through my handgun, and I retreated towards the open kitchen space where I located a back-door. When there were no more bullets left in the gun, I tossed it away on the kitchen counter and yanked the door open and ran out of the cabin without sparing a glance behind.

I was in an open field of brown, dying grass and ten feet ahead of me rose hundreds of enormous trees. I followed the path into the woods, figuring that the only chance I had at losing the men on my heels was by zigzagging my way among the tall trees.

As I jogged over fallen logs and ducked beneath poking twigs, the only sounds resonating throughout the woods were of my heavy breathing and the faint scrunching of footsteps over fallen leaves. I knew that at least five men were targeting me, stealthily following behind me but not speaking among themselves as to not inform me of their whereabouts. I had to fight hard to keep my mind blank, pushing away the image of the wounded body whom I'd shot earlier, from my mind.

You had to protect yourself, I kept reminding myself. You know how bad he is, you couldn't have let your guard down in front of him, not for a second, or else history would've repeated itself.

As the thoughts turned my mind into a jumbled mess, I ended up stumbling over a log and falling to my knees on the ground, scraping my hands as they fell flat to the dirt by the bits of rocks and smaller twigs. I rubbed my palms on my dirtied jeans, scrambling up to my feet. Sneaking a quick glance over my shoulder, I heard the crunching of leaves getting louder as the perpetrators neared me.

My heart began thrumming in my ears and I turned to continue my way straight ahead, but a sudden flash of black knocked me backwards and I fell to the ground. I let out a loud yelp as the back of my head collided with a sharp rock and it grazed into my skin.

My eyes opened to search for what had startled me, and I found a pair of long legs standing directly above my torso, leather boots stationed on the right and left side of my waist. The man was looking down on me, eyes narrowed and sneering. I hadn't seen him before. He had bushy beard and a bald head, and from my angle he looked twice as burly and intimidating.

I swallowed the lump growing in my throat, blinking the blur in my vision away. Before I had a chance to fully comprehend what was happening, he leaned down and with one hand fisted my shirt and yanked me upwards into a seating position. I thrashed around as my shirt felt like it was about to be torn, but when he wouldn't budge and instead tightened his grip, I gave in and reluctantly stood up to my full height, the back of my head aching from the impact of the fall.

His fist loosened on my shirt but instead traveled to my hair, which he yanked rather roughly as he turned me around to face the direction I'd come from. I winced and my hands moved to his, scratching and clawing at it.

"Let me go!" I yelled, but he ignored my cries and shoved me forward, his grip tightening to the point where I felt the slightest flick of his wrist would pull the hair off my scalp.

I raised my foot and brought it down on his own so roughly, I nearly lost my balance. I heard him let out a breath of air, but he quickly recovered from the pain. His grip loosened on my hair, and instead moved to my shoulders which he gripped tightly and shoved my back roughly into a nearby tree. He was fuming, his face redder than I remembered from earlier. I only saw the flash of his arm flinging backwards then suddenly the air was knocked out of my lungs. I hunched forward, letting out a pained cry as I felt the heavy impact of his fist connecting with my stomach.

"Keep moving, bitch." He hissed lowly, his hand moving back to my hair and forcing me to stand upright and continue moving. I could barely hold my balance as I was in too much pain and very fatigued, and I kept stumbling every step of the way, which only angered my captor further and he tightened his grip on my hair with every move.

I winced loudly when his hold became too unbearable, my hand coming up to scratch at his own. "Let go of me! I'm walking, aren't I?" I shouted angrily. When I didn't receive a reply I shifted awkwardly around in his grip to take a glance at his face, while his hand was still fisted by my scalp. The dark void of his eyes stared back at me plainly, I felt a shiver run down my spine.

Then suddenly, a flash of white over his broad shoulders caught my attention and I diverted my eyes towards the source. They widened as I discovered that it was not just one flash of white, but instead a pack of four-legged animals sprinting among the trees. My mouth opened and I let out a loud gasp as they slowed their movement, now I could clearly see that we were surrounded from every side by what appeared to be wolves.

Their canines elongated and they snarled at us, their wide, narrowed eyes stationed on us as they slowly, creepily, began to near us.

The man noticed my reaction and loosened his grip on my head, turning around to sneak a glance at what had triggered my fear. His hands fell down to his sides as he searched around us, turning in a full circle, and seeing that we were surrounded all around by what looked like at least a dozen wolves.

Where the hell did they come from?! My heart began to thrum loudly and I screamed in my head to calm down; they can sense fear!

Oh, we are so dead.

My captor's arm moved to the waistband of his jeans as he retreated a gun. I gasped and took a step backward, only to watch him instead point it at the wolves. Simultaneously, the wolves began to growl furiously as if they understood what was about to happen. My palm fell flat to my chest as I breathed heavily, feeling myself on the verge of a heart attack.

Suddenly, the loud bang of a shot being fired sounded in the silence of the forest, frightening the birds so they flew off the branches of the hundreds of trees, startling the wolves so they growled and jumped a step back, and taking me by surprise that I ended up letting out a scream.

I stared wide-eyed at the man in front of me, only to realize he was not the one who had fired the shot, for he had ducked and turned in the direction where the sound came from, as if he, too, wanted to know who had pulled the trigger.

I turned with him and found that twenty feet away from our left stood a group of three men dressed in black attires, and had their guns pointed our way, only they were lower than our eye-level meaning they were aimed at the animals instead. I felt my heart clench in pain imagining the suffering it could cause the animals had they gotten shot.

Loud and frightening growls suddenly emitted from the wolves as they sprang towards me, and I let out a scream as my arms came covering my head to protect myself from the attack. But when nothing happened, I slowly peeked through my arms to discover that they had circled me and were instead running in the direction of the three armed men.

I yelped and fell to the ground on my stomach as the shots began to fire, my arms covering my head again as I lay flat against the dirt. My senses were evaded by the sounds of growls and the shots and the screams and the yelps.

I felt my chest clenching as I forced myself to take a risky decision I knew for sure I could regret. My arms moved from around my head to the ground and I pushed myself upwards, sprinting away from the scene of the fight. I ran and ran, jumping over fallen logs and stomping into mud puddles that splashed my entire jeans with dirt, and my heart beat thumped and thumped until all I could hear was my heavy breathing, and all I could feel was the rapid beating.

"Nora!"

I gasped, my ears straining to hear my voice being called again. I turned around as my feet came to an abrupt halt and I peered among the tall trees to find Xavier standing twenty feet away from me, his eyes wide in fright as he stared at me like he had seen a ghost for the first time in his life. And glancing over his shoulders I saw an army of nearly twenty men standing tall in an agitated stance, looking on edge as if ready to pounce at any second.

My eyes suddenly welled up in tears and I sobbed uncontrollably, my feet moving on their own accord and I found myself sprinting towards them.

Then at once, bullets were firing from my left.

I let out a scream as I fell to the ground, hearing Xavier yell out my name in agony. My right thigh felt like it was on fire. I peered down through tear-filled eyes to see a blotch of crimson blood expanding across my jeans.

They shot me.

I could hear my loud heart-beats drumming in my ears.

I could also hear a roar of fury and the thumping of dozens of paws. The wolves came surrounding us again, and as if my heart wasn't already beating at a rapid pace, it increased even further with my fear. I looked over at Xavier pleadingly, silently begging him to protect me from the long canines of the petrifying wolves. But Xavier was staring past me and the wolves, eyes narrowed and chest heaving up and down as he sized down his rival army, whom stood in a stiff stance with their guns pointed directly at us.

How was he not seeing the bigger threat? The wolves could tear us apart much faster than those men could, even if they were armed!

I opened my mouth to call out to Xavier, but my voice was stuck in my throat as I felt the last bit of my energy fading away. He suddenly let out a loud growl, one that raised the hair on the back of my neck and sent a cold shiver down my spine, and his gaze shifted to the wolves. With a fierce resolve and a raging expression he growled out his order to his men, while staring directly in the eyes of the wolves.

"Kill them all."

I heard growls, a dozen furious ones; and as if they understood his command, the wolves all simultaneously shifted to face the rival gang, and attacked.

My neck began to heat up, and my head started to feel lighter than ever before. I stared through a hazed vision as Xavier and his men suddenly shot forward, but they only made it a couple feet closer to me before the black spots evaded my vision, and their roars began to fade away. Within seconds, I had completely lost my senses, and I felt myself falling through the void.