I wrote this short flick some time ago. It’s set before/during the movie from the viewpoint of my own character. There isn’t much of a story line, it’s just different events that she experiences during the movie, with a bit of Preston/OC in it. The chapters won’t be that long, or in many. Maybe only five to six will appear.

Enjoy

The Liberation

Chapter 1 - Her Box

Gifts of liberation to guide your path,

Words of love and hate from Pandora’s box,

Magic captured in a single photograph,

Emotions strain to break the locks.

They were closing in on her fast, wheels racing through the soft ground after her, low and bellowing voices of emptiness calling and shouting for her to cease movement, ordering her to give up, telling her that resistance was futile, that she couldn’t get away. But she ignored them.

Resistance meant strength, meant justice, meant feeling and life.

She thrust the noises away, the noises of metallic engines chasing after her, of hoarse and cold voices screaming at her, pushing them from her mind. Her sweating and tired face looked ahead through the black and darkness, dark green eyes piercing through the night for a way ahead, through the thick trees and black. Panting with her breath harsh and rough, she strained to see ahead, squinting her eyes and gritting her teeth as she rushed over the dirt, letting out a loud snap as her boot trod hard on a twig.

Her breath caught in her throat, letting out a whispering pant of pain as she looked back, catching a glimpse of the long beams from headlights that stretched through the darkness, pointing and waving past her, and flashing across the trees, illuminating the foliage in white spots, disturbing the birds that nestled there.

The motorbikes were closing in, their engines whirring loudly, their wheels skidding through the mud and dirt.

She let out a short gasp and looked back to the way she was running, the midnight surrounding her like a black shroud. Her feet stumbled on the ground, she almost tripped, letting out a breath of need as she adjusted her step, and forced herself to continue running across the grass and mud. She ran, her long brunette hair flicking at her face and flailing around her shoulders, her boots splashing through puddles in the thick black grass, racing up an embankment in the ground, leaning forward and forcing herself ahead, to then skid down the small hill on the other side and past the rough skin of a tree.

The trees, rushing past in lines of dead black, tall silhouettes that towered over, watching silently as she ran through the woods at full speed, attempting miserably to outrun her pursuers, attempting to flee, attempting because that was all she could do.

Her eyes flashed down to the ground, watching her black boots thud rapidly into the grass and mud. Black trousers whipped past each other, bubbles of mud flicking from her boots causing them to stain the midnight brown. The mud soaked into her trousers, soggy as she raced past the trees. The waving beams of white panned around, flashing side to side and illuminating her from behind. She could feel the lights waving across the back of her neck, flashing across the rough trees.

Her eyes flashed up, dodging another tree in the ink black night as her eyes squinted to gain focus of the midnight, forcing her eyes to adjust, swallowing dry air in her throat, feeling her heart pounding in her neck, panicking and frightened, beating with weakness, but beating strong as she strained to run harder.

She had to outrun them, had to get away, had to run into the darkness, had to find her car, had to escape.

She would not accept confrontation, would not accept defeat. To end this fight and to stop running was to give in, to let them win over her, to win over justice, to win over what was right. She would not allow that.

Her eyes flashed to the bundle in her arms, the items that she carried so carefully and lovingly, almost like the child she never gave birth to, like the dying husband she never married. Small photos of people, small drawings of plants or places, small books of stories or poems, small items like shiny pebbles or flowers, all encased and held tightly with in a small and carved wooden box.

The box, it’s oil-polished skin, dark and tanned, wrapped in a grey cloth. Her box.

It was all she had left of her humanity, of her life. No one could understand what it meant to her, what it meant and what it symbolised to her. The family, the love and compassion, which she had so desperately craved but had never been given, this was what her box mean to her.

She wasn’t about to let any one or anything take them away from her. She wasn’t about to let a cold hearted, unfeeling, insensitive and unknowing person full of false hope and lies take all that she had away from her. Take her only family and love away from her.

The heat of light and breath was on the back of her neck.

“Freeze!”

The cold voice, full of emptiness, screamed louder than before as though its heart might explode. The chocking pollution of engines raced past her, catching her up in a gust of grey and black midnight air, causing her hair to flying across her cheeks as the bikes began to move past her.

They had caught up.

A slow and tired gasp emptied her lips as her boots skidded to a halt, this time forcing herself to dig her step into the grass.

Standing frozen. Clenching her jaw. Holding her box.

The motorbikes were now circling her, like lions to the kill of a baby lamb, innocent and scared, but with no hope of gaining mercy in the face of death itself.

They screeched to a halt like bats in the night, forcing craters of black mud in the ground, splashing the dirt against their wheels. Their movements came to a halt, to become motionless like her self. The owners of the voices pushed from the seats of their bikes, with their boots touching the ground and digging soft dips in the black earth as they formed a circle around her, stopping her chances of escape.

This was it.

She felt a cold breath of dark air fill in the void of her lungs, slowly letting a part of her escape in a flurry of steam and wisps of icy air. She hugged her life closer to her chest, bare hands clasping it tightly into the leather jacket that she wore to keep out the bitter cold. The ridged and stiff touch of fate placing a hand on her shoulder, letting the shiver wave through her, causing her head to slowly turn from left to right. Her eyes ticked, looking side to side, feeling the wooden box poking hard into her chest with numbness, but still not willing to let it go.

She could feel it, the cold beams of light casting lines across the ground from the motorbikes on the edges of the circle. The horizontal pillars cast circles of light on the tree trunks, in the leaves, on the ground. The cold circles of white among a total blackness of night, they were against the warm circle of the moon that glowed above, paved with a carpet of stars. Wisps of white licked through the air as she let another breath escape, as though each breath took a part of her with it.

Long dark coats touched the ground, staining with the wet and black mud that hid among the grass. Black helmets reflected the lines of white with expressions of coldness, lifeless and empty. They shifted, lifting their guns slowly, but not hesitantly. Stretching out the time she had to breath for her last. They took aim, prepared to ‘neutralise’ her.

This couldn’t be it, not now, not the end.

She had always imagined her death. She had imagined it to be heroic, something that was to be remembered. Or she had imagined it to be peaceful, in her own bed at an age where she welcomed it, when she was an old woman with a fulfilled life.

But not like this. Not like an animal, herded and slaughtered as though she had never existed.

She wasn’t going to let this happen, never, there was no chance in the world of this happening to her. There was no chance it could end like this, her box being burnt, her life being taken from her. She’d come so far, risen so high in rank and status and had accomplished so much in the way of helping the ‘Emotional’ to escape and be free for at least another day. But all of her efforts to help the Resistance while being undercover in the Tetragrammaton were about to be ended. She was going to be killed, killed with no trial, not even processing.

No nothing. No something.

It gave no possible comfort, no possible feeling of explanation or reason or right, just wrongness. It was just wrong, all of this, this process of neutralising, this system of justice. It was enough for her stomach to churn, her throat to swell as she looked at her box, nestled in her arms, gripping it tightly as though she might break.

Her eyes looked up.

“No”

Blunt and simple, her words were spoken with little emotion, something that those men couldn’t understand, something they could never touch or hope to dream of. She spoke with a voice of defiance, full of hatred and strength as her eyes bore through the darkness and into the skulls of the men that surrounded her.

Her fingers flexed open, feeling the cold air against them as she let her grasp on her box release, dropping it through the air. Her arms flew out, her palms opening and stretching as she dropped her box of possessions to the floor, hearing the cloth flap at the sides as it fell, the men jolting at her sudden movement.

“Stop!”

Her arms stretched out to the sides. A squelched thud came from her box landing on the black grass. Clicks of the spring loaded ejectors under her jacket sleeves. Her guns were thrust into her hands, her grip to clasp firmly around them. The hilt of each gun unfolded from the barrel as her fingers wrapped around.

Her hands shifted.

Her green eyes looked up in anger.

The men around her moved in response.

Her arms rose up.

She pulled the triggers.

She span on the spot.

Dust and powder was blown everywhere.

The muzzles of her guns blazed with white fire.

The bullets pounded into the group of men that had formed a circle around her.

Her arms swept from sides to side.

She turned sharply on the spot.

The shells flew one after the other from the top of the barrels.

She swung her arms around her waist and fired.

She crossed her arms over her chest.

The men shuddered in pain.

She aimed her guns over her shoulders.

Her fingers pulled on the triggers with rapid succession.

She spun on one foot, throwing her arms out over her shoulders to hold them in opposite directions and turning swiftly on her heels.

She swung her arms around in arks, as she stomped on the floor with one boot, halting her movements with her left leg stepped forward and her body twisted to the left, both of her arms crossed over her chest and aiming away.

She breathed out.

Crumples of jackets and knees slowly bent over themselves. The slumps of bodies turned on the spot, rolling over their hips and landing hard on the mud at her feet. The grass squished with water and blood and dust, causing her to take in a slow breath of cold air, moving her feet and slowly straightening her pose, looking down with her eyes closed as she breathed deeply.

She looked up, opening her eyes and letting the cold air escape her lips again as she pushed the barrels of her handguns up, causing the hilts to fold and her handguns to slide under her sleeves.

It was silent.

The darkness around her smothered all noise.

Her eyes scanned from left to right, moving over the circle of bodies that lay on the black grass around her. The bodies were still, void of emotion, void of life. Dead. The distant sound of an owl hooting and flying away caused her to look up, her green eyes staring off through the dark black night between the trees, hearing it fly far away.

It was time for her to leave as well.

She stepped forward and stopped. Her green eyes looked at the tips of her boots as she then bent over. Her hands touched the grass and her fingers curled around the edges of her box. She lifted it up, adjusting the cloth for a moment, wiping a speck of black mud from the corner, just able to see it with the help of the motorbike lights that shone in different directions. She rekindled her hold on it and stepped away, disappearing off into the darkness as she followed after the owl.

For a moment she looked back over her shoulder, leaving the circle of dead bodies lying on the dark grass far behind her, the headlights shining in motionless beams onto the trees and grass. The noise of the engines were gone, as they had been switched off, only silence remained, only the noise of her boots touching the soft grass, rustling and squelching as she walked away.

A cold sigh of relief escaped her throat, one hand wiping some sweat from her temple.

Confrontation hadn’t spared her this time, not like the many other times before. No one was ever that lucky. What would happen if someone put two and two together? How she would battle this one? They would realise a team was missing and find out about the killings here, searching for evidence to explain what had happened. But not the culprit, they wouldn’t find the culprit. She was too smart for that.

She had to find somewhere to hide her box; she had to move it to a better hiding place, somewhere secluded, a place where people didn’t go. She smiled to herself, letting the relief take a hold on her cold face, like a warm friend that she lovingly embraced, like the bundle in her arms. She had the perfect place to hide it.

An old abandoned church.

There was bound to be somewhere she could hide the box, like under the tiles or floorboards. No one would find it if she hid it there, no one would think to look in an old burnt and black church. Her box would be able to be left there forever, without being disturb, without her worrying that her box, her belongings, would be found and burnt.

No one would find her life, her box of possessions.

This took some time to come up with so - Please Review!