Lester

You never quite get used to it. Not to hearing your own heart beating in your chest. Not to the sensation of slow-moving time. Not to the tense that spreads through your body. But you could learn to shove it to the back of your mind, to stay focused on the task.

Lester didn't hesitate when he heard the footsteps. He spread his fingers right away, setting the last part of their plan in motion. His middle finger went down, while he made a careful step in front of the window, now seeing the tall kidnapper, hiding his face in the shadow of his hood, for the first time. His index finger went down, while he grabbed the frame, put his foot on the window bank and waited for the man below to stop. His thumb went down, and he jumped.

It was a short flight, but the pain of the landing was not. His ankle snapped to the side when he hit the kidnapper's shoulder and his elbow sent pain up his arm when he landed on it shortly after. But, unlike the man he had jumped on, Lester got up again. He looked at Jonathan slowly letting himself down onto the street, his nervous silence already turning into chatter again. »We got him.«, he said smiling. »We really…«

Meowing cut his sentence short. They both looked up the street to see a long-haired man sprinting toward them.

»Hold him down.«, Lester said, standing up grimacing in pain. He saw his partner sit down on the knocked-out man, before looking up at his opponent, who was trying to use his momentum for a quick first punch. After waiting until he was just a few feet away, Lester was able to dodge with a sidestep. He then landed a punch in the passing man's back. Having switched sides, he could now see Jonathan bending back the finger of the man he was sitting on, who started to struggle below him. Lester barely managed to raise his arm in time to block the punch, he had seen too late. He then put his left foot back a bit, swallowed the pain and raised his hands before him. The next attack came right away. He jumped to the right, but his foot slit away on the gravel road, sending another wave of pain up his leg. Lester turned his upper body to make the punch hit the air and before the long-haired man could try again he swung his left fist toward his chest, missing the moving body by an inch. With his right fist just shortly behind, he didn't give him enough time to react and hit the nose from below. And while Lester was catching his breath, the man was catching his blood.

He took another look at Jonathan, who was still holding the other man down, when he noticed a third person coming out of the psychiatric ward.

»Looks like I'll just have to do it myself. Like everything else.« He recognized Dorothy's voice as she hit Jonathan over the head making him pass out. And then she looked at him. Lester could see the toothy grin on her face as she came closer

»Why?«, he asked, but instead of an answer, he got the second man's fist coming at him. Lester jumped back, once again trying very hard to ignore the pain from his ankle. He managed to land one more punch before Dorothy started slapping him with her walking stick. From that on all he could do was defend himself. He tried to either avoided the attacks or to fight through the pain, but when she got the stick between his feet, making him fall, he couldn't even do that anymore. With three people hitting his curled-up body, he gave up. That made the hits stop and brought the ropes out. Dorothy and the tall man tied his and Jonathan's hands and feet, while the other man brought a wagon around.

There was a bit of light coming through a narrow gap in the tarp of the wagon, but not enough to see where they were going. And the only sound that reached him was the small stones being crushed below the wheels. He riddled his hands, slowly loosening up the knot around his arms. Jonathan started moving beside him.

Lester hushed.

His partner stopped moving and looked at him. »What happened? Where are we?«

»Dorothy happened, and I'm pretty sure we're out of town already.«

At that moment the wagon stopped. The long-haired man slit the tarp aside and let the bright sunlight in, making Lester wish he was able to shield his eyes. He then untied their feet and pulled them out. They were now standing on a field, covered in yellowish, sparsely grown grass, that let toward a simple fishermen's cabin standing on the beach. Behind it, the ocean extended into the horizon. The tall man joined them on their way to the house. As soon as Lester set a foot inside, the illusion of the simple cabin was broken. Between the padded chairs, the big fireplace and the modern kitchen stood a man in a white robe. A red shoulder pad, extending halfway down his chest on both sides, brought some color to it.

»Everything is ready for their departure.«, he said. »Give them some water and then let's ship them…«

Lester finally managed to tear open the knot around his wrists and ran toward the speaker. The man in robes stared at him with wide eyes. But then a smile broke onto his face and he spread his arms. A dome of light extended around them. It swallowed Lester first and Jonathan with the two men afterward. Then it stopped for a brief moment before pulling back toward his closing fist. And with it went all the light and all the sound, leaving them in perfect darkness and perfect silence.