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Ella's mind flickered back to the academy, the rigorous training, the lessons in profiling and understanding the criminal mind. She had learned to listen, to find meaning in the incoherent ramblings of the disturbed. But now, those skills seemed as distant as the stars above her.
Her body screamed in protest as she attempted to move, the bear trap a relentless reminder of her perilous situation. The metallic taste of fear and blood filled her mouth. She had to stay conscious, had to fight through the pain and the disorienting dreamscape her mind had conjured.
Arthur's voice became clearer for a moment, a string of words cutting through the fog of her pain. ‘It's... all a game... never ends...’
She remembered her own words from barely an hour ago. Better to be alive and unemployed than a hero six feet under.
Ella's survival instincts, honed by years of training and field experience, surged to the forefront, pushing through the veil of pain and hallucination. Her hand moved almost of its own accord, guided by muscle memory ingrained through countless hours of practice. She felt the familiar, cold grip of her firearm, a tangible link to reality amidst the chaos of her mind. With every ounce of strength she could muster, Ella pulled out her gun. Her vision blurred, and her movements were sluggish, hindered by the intense pain and her disoriented state. But her resolve was clear - she needed to regain control, to escape this dreamworld.
Arthur's shadowy figure loomed in her hazed vision. Ella's finger curled around the trigger, a motion she had repeated a thousand times in training, but never with such desperation.
Then, in a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, she fired. The gunshots rang out, shattering the oppressive silence of the junkyard. The sound was deafening, reverberating through the piles of metal and echoing back to her like a call to reality.
One shot. Two shots. The noise was a jolt, snapping her back to the present. The pain in her leg became sharp and immediate, but it grounded her, pulling her away from the edge of unconsciousness.
The world around her snapped into focus, the dreamlike visions dissipating like smoke. She could see Arthur more clearly now, his figure stepping back in surprise or fear. Ella's breathing was ragged, her heart pounding in her chest. She clutched her gun tightly, ready to defend herself against any further threats. The realization hit her - she was still alive, still fighting, despite the odds. The clarity of Ella's situation cut through her disorientation like a razor. The two shots she had fired were an instinctive reach for control, a desperate attempt to reassert her agency in a scenario that had spiraled into chaos. She wasn’t aiming for Arthur, merely shooting to shock herself back to life. The way experienced adventurers stung themselves with fire ants to keep the adrenaline pumping.
But as the echoes of the gunshots faded into the night, Arthur, quick and agile despite his own frailty, seized the moment. He lunged forward, his movements almost a blur in Ella's impaired vision. Before she could react, Arthur's hands were on her gun, wrenching it away with a surprising burst of strength. Ella's fingers, already weak and trembling from pain and shock, couldn't maintain their grip.
Disarmed and trapped, Ella's heart sank as she saw Arthur examining the gun with a twisted fascination. He turned it over in his hands, then, with a detached coldness, pointed the gun directly at her.
Ella's breath caught in her throat. The pain surged from her ankles to every nerve ending in her body. Looking down, she saw a bear trap coiled around her leg, the image conjuring memories of a life with only one foot.
But more disturbingly, she was now at the mercy of a man whose mind was a labyrinth of trauma and vengeance, whose actions were as unpredictable as they were deadly.
In that moment, Ella's training kicked in, not with physical action, but with mental fortitude. She knew that her survival depended not just on her physical strength, but on her ability to connect with Arthur, to reach whatever part of him that might still be receptive to reason or empathy.
What did she have that she could use to weaken him?
What fragments of his past could she draw upon?
Then it hit her, as long a shot as it might be.
‘Arthur,’ she said, her voice steady despite the throbbing pain and fear. Mere words wouldn’t do the trick. She had to speak to him in his native language of mystery.
‘With milk I swim, in a bowl I lay, A crunchy start to your day.’
Ella spat the words out, not knowing where she was going, just hoping that her destination revealed itself along the way.
She continued, ‘In the morning's first light, I await in a box, With puzzles and games, I'm sly as a fox.’
Her riddle hung in the air, a fragile bridge attempting to span the chasm between them. Arthur's face, illuminated by the intermittent glow of the moonlight, was a mask of conflicting emotions – anger, confusion, and a hint of hesitation. Arthur's finger hovered over the trigger, his decision hanging precariously in the balance. In his eyes, Ella saw the turmoil of a soul torn between revenge and redemption, between the haunting memories of the past and the uncertain promise of a future.
The silence stretched on. Ella's words seemed to hang in the air, their fate ambiguous. She could see the inner conflict raging within Arthur, a war between his need for vengeance and the dwindling embers of his humanity.
Arthur’s finger coiled around the trigger.
Ella remembered the old saying about life flashing before your eyes in the moments before death, but in this moment, Ella’s life didn’t flash before her eyes because she was in too much pain to think.
Perhaps tomorrow’s new FBI agents would have another body on their pile, she thought.
Ella closed her eyes, her dreamworld calling her again.
But as she stood on the brink of hallucination and likely death, a voice called out to her.
‘FBI! Drop the weapon!’
A voice she knew too well, but she never expected to hear on her deathbed.
