Chapter 5 By Eshaan Mistry When my eyes finally lifted from the ground, I found a stranger standing in front of me. No empathy. No compassion. Just Bluu, with a heart cold as ice, reaching for his gun and ready to sacrifice me for his friends. So naturally, I panicked. Taking him by surprise, I threw my shoe. Instinctually, he caught it, leaving him in an awkward position to grab his gun. In other words, I could run. And boy did I run. I reached his Rolls Royce, and by sheer luck, managed to open the car before he fired his first warning shot. I looked back to find a frenzied Bluu trying to get the door of the totalled car open. It must have gotten jammed after the hectic chase with Freya. “Jimmy! We can talk this over! Don’t-” I pulled away, before I had a chance to second-guess myself out of pity. Then I realized I had nowhere to go. Bluu could probably find out where my therapy business was, and finding my house would probably be even easier. Sh*t. Anyway, it’s not like I was going to let all of the hostages get killed by Sunside…right? I just needed time to think, but before that, I had to shake Bluu off of my tail. His car, while still damaged from my earlier chase with Freya, was following me closely. I took a deep breath, and analyzed the streets. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. The only advantage was that my car was in a better shape than his. So, I hit the brakes hard. Just as I skid into an alleyway, Bluu crashed into me. The smoke emitting from the front of his car transformed into fire. The bright dancing tendrils grew more and more in size and intensity until…silence. I woke up nauseous and light-headed. As I turned over to throw up, I realized I was on a bed. On a second bed next to me was Bluu, all bruised, covered in bandages, and snoring with gusto. Am I…in the Dreamworld? Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t realize there was someone else standing in front of me. “Ah. You woke up.” He was a tall, rugged man, with dreadlocks and a tattered muscle t-shirt. Frankly, if his beard was any longer, he could’ve passed
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