<span style="font-style: italic">"Continuing coverage of our top story tonight, a train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance. Authorities have called it an act of domestic terrorism citing an extremist group who are against the proposed demolishing of abandoned South London streets to expand the Underground Rail."<br/></span><br/><br/><br/><br/>------<br/><br/>Honey golden eyes, still hazy with traces of sleep, slowly eased open to the dimly pale lit room as the carelessly disheveled form awkwardly adjusted it's position amongst the tangle of sheets, before sagging it's weight down on to the aged mattress once more.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Ringing. </span><br/><br/>Sleep had come easy to the restless female.<br/>No sooner had time allowed her the moment, she had shed the worn stained excess from the day before, slipped almost contentedly in between the paper crisp folds and allowed her anxious mind to drift off to the furling gentle grasp of sleep. Well....at least.... that's what she had hoped.<br/>Peace. Calm. Stillness. Silence. At first, the hours slipped easily by as they had always done. But soon, slowly, the delicate caresses started to change. The<span style="font-style: italic">feelings</span>started to change. Those cobweb fine fingers that so lovingly caressed the flawless rounded edges of her dreams, her memories, were no longer fingers. They were<span style="font-style: italic">claws</span>. Sharply curved, biting, barbed with white hot jagged edges. Ravenously wanting. Desperately needing. Grabbing and pulling, pushing and clawing at her throat, pressing against her chest. Squeezing her mind to a deeper solace. Deeper, darker, further...further. But she didn't wake up. How? She couldn't.<br/>Throat tightening around the musty tainted oxygen. Muscle's tensed in to a shiver. Perspiration beading across her skin like dew drop scales. Hands deftly swiping, scraping away at where the ghosts may have been. Fighting, suffocating struggling  .........<span style="font-style: italic">Ringing</span>......<br/>It was over.  Just like that it was all.... over.  The female rested her head back down against the damp pillow and waited with eyes closed to the lesser darkness until the nausea subsided. And then... only then did she slowly open those honey golden eyes to the room around her.<br/><br/>The sun had barely risen above the third floor window and already she was hating today.<br/><br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Look around</span><br/><br/><br/>With a half sigh, the woman swung her legs over to the side of the bed and stretched out towards the cool paint speckled floorboards beneath, before slowly easing the aches in to some semblance of balance.<br/>Casually glancing about the room, it was painfully clear, that the room she had chosen was as basic and as bare as they come. With it's flaking eggshell painted walls and moth devoured light shade, the dust coloured benches and single wooden chair; it looked to be more of a cheap and questionable hotel as opposed to an apartment in the lungs of London.<br/>From the slightly sagging double bed and size too small closet. The tiny curtained off shower and the rickety three legged table. Right down to the flickering TV, barely illuminating the room with it's pale grey light and white noise; Despite the spidery cracks in the windows and the splintered mess that used to be a door. Despite all the weaknesses and flaws, the down town market apartment had decent heating and a clean water supply. There were no questions. No side eyed judgments. No noise. But the one thing that this place had that no where else did. The one that thing that drew the female to this this hole in the sky; was that this shoebox sized apartment, was on the twelfth floor. Second from the top.<span style="font-style: italic">Perfect</span><br/><br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Ringi......</span><br/><br/><br/><span style="color: #00BFFF">"Yes? What is it?... No, I was already awake.... Don't worry about it" </span><br/>A moment's pause. Another lost sigh. One final glance to a second chance<br/>Three tiredly clumsy strides across the room and she was there by the table, phone in one hand, a tight fist in the other; and listening to the strained notes and sporadic rise in pitch of the unnervingly familiar voice at the other end of the line. A voice, she had hoped to have never heard from again.<br/><span style="color: #00BFFF">  "What do you want?..... No, I didn't hear the first couple of times..... Yes. I remember y......No, I don't work for them anymore. I am on a contract to contract basis. Yes I finished my year... No I...... I owed them a favour..... I'm not....." </span><br/>Those words. These feelings. The pause at the end of the line. It was like listening to an old recording stuck on repeat, playing over and over again with different voices and unfamiliar notes. It seemed no matter how many times she rewound and pressed 'play' or tried altering the tape, the ending answer would always be the same. But that was the thing with these old cassettes.<br/><span style="color: #00BFFF">"Fine. It will be done as soon as you have made the.... yes. That much hasn't changed. Good. We will speak again once it's over.... Good day to you too.... Goodbye" <br/></span><br/><br/>They never changed.<br/><br/>--------------<br/><br/>The city was always busy this time of day<br/><br/>Pulling the well worn black leather jacket, tighter around her taught and toned form, the female stepped out of the bustling station and started picking her way through the murmuring, swarming mass of people.<br/>In truth, the brunette woman loved the city when it was like this. The way the people endlessly filed out of the sky scrapers like busy body ants, filling the pathways, the roads, surrounding the buildings like an endless tide of expensive suits and flesh and bone.  Even when the ground looked like it could give way under the thousands of stampeding footsteps, even when the buildings seemed to sway against the sky, they kept on coming and going and coming back again with their eyes on their phones and ears on the ground. These<span style="font-style: italic">poor, pathetic people</span>with their one track minds and ready drawn paths. As long as nothing got in their way... as long as nothing stopped them in their perfectly curated careers; then who had the time to care? No one. No one at all. Which is why the brunette simply<span style="font-style: italic">adored</span>these people. They didn't care that the person that accidentally nudged past was carrying a<span style="font-style: italic">sniper rifle</span>in the little-too-average backpack. They didn't wonder why a singular female would ask which building gave the clearest view of the street. Without so much as to look up at the slightly more inquisitive female, the self important corporeal figments moved on with their life. Never knowing that they had just become accessories to the end of their perfection.<br/><br/>This had become too easy.<br/><br/>Within half an hour of receiving distracted directions and roughly scribbled notes, the sniper had located an old office building across the road fro them address given and quickly slipped inside, easily finding her way to the closest stair well. Then, without slowing her momentum she started up the skyward spiraling passage, clearing the steps two at a time, flying floor by floor until finally... finally she came to a well timed halt at level nine.<span style="font-style: italic">This was it. </span>The perfect place.<br/>With all the finesse of a common house burglar, the contracted female slunk in to the next room and closed the door behind her, softly clicking the lock in place....just in case. But no sooner had she ensured the memories of the walls wouldn't disturb her, something caught her attention. Someone moving down below.<span style="font-style: italic">Someone</span>whose name had already been engraved on to a tomb stone.<br/>Time was running out. With another small handful of minutes, she laid down her bag and unpacked her weapon of choice, putting it together within mere seconds of revealing it to the room. By the time it took her target to walk to the front door, the sniper was poised, perfectly still... balanced, crouched at the window with barrel aimed for foyer below and narrowly sharp eyes staring unwaveringly at the building opposite. But she needed to wait. No scope, no guiding cylinder red light just.... watching....and waiting.<br/><br/>The door opened.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Watching. </span><br/><br/>He stepped inside.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Waiting.</span><br/><br/>Took a step to the window.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">B.A.N.G!</span><br/><br/><br/>The reaction was<span style="font-style: italic">incredible.</span>It was like god himself had commanded the world to look up.<br/>The minute...the second the tell tale<span style="font-style: italic">crack</span>had echoed it's cries around the over crowded buildings, the man at the end of her aim suddenly went weak at the knees. She watched as all his strength abandoned him at once and he toppled over like a felled tree. Landing hard on his shoulder with a sound she was happy not to hear. And before the morbidly curious people gathered about their fallen stranger with phones out and gossip hot on their lips, his heart would have stilled. His last breaths slipped peacefully away. And only the small,<span style="font-style: italic">clean</span>hole between his eyes and the trench coat falling open to reveal the explosives taped to his chest, would provide the explanation they all looked around for.<br/><span style="color: #0080FF">"It's been done"</span>. The London Police Force now owed her one.<br/>As for what happened next? Well... she didn't stick around to find out. Grabbing the casing that had rolled under the desk, the mysterious killer started to disassemble the rifle half as quick as she had put it together, and wipe down the table of it's fingerprints. She packed away the stand, put the room back to the way it was, and just as fast as she had got in, the female was out and looking for the elevator on the other edge of the floor. By the time the local police force had got there and figured out her trajectory... by the time they had worked it out and started storming that same convenient stair well, the woman would be calmly stepping out of the elevator and out through the main entrance... smoothly,<span style="font-style: italic">flawlessly</span>blending in with the blissfully ignorant crowd.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Just in time to grab a late lunch</span><br/><br/><br/>-----------------------------------------------------<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">'What the hell is going on here'</span><br/><br/>On any other day, she would have preferred to take the late train home.<br/>Just wait around town, shopping, looking, wandering aimlessly until the day light people had filed busily, back in to their buildings, leaving only the displaced and disowned. All she would have to worry about is immersing herself in the mindless music of the radio in her ears and make sure to find a seat far from everyone else. Just close her eyes and wait for the hands of time to carry her back to the shoe box apartment somewhere up high. Simple. Perfect. Easy... If this was any other day.  But it wasn't... of course it wasn't.<br/>Turning the volume up and adjusting her bag more comfortably over her shoulder, the exhausted female started slowly pushing her way through the usual chaos of mothers too young for responsibility and their one of three possible fathers. The homeless and many homed and the suits that tried to avoid them. With as little contact as she could manage with the rebellious teens and over worked civillians, the female slowly... slowly wove her way around to get her ticket and find a quiet corner to stand... and that's when she heard it.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"Continuing coverage of our top story tonight, a train car arrived today at Amersham station with all its passengers missing. The train had been full when it left a station earlier in the morning and only one of the twelve cars was affected by the mysterious disappearance...."</span><br/><br/>She didn't need to look up to know which station she had walked in to. She didn't need to look down at her ticket to know which car she was in either. The way her stomach clenched... and twisted.... and folded over in on itself was all the reassurance she needed.<br/>So with one last sigh, the female pulled out a cigarette from the box in her pocket and rested it casually between her lips, breathing in the deep relief as the dwindling lighter flame ignited it's edge. There was no way the station master would switch out her ticket now.  Backing out was pointless. It was going to be a long night.<br/><br/><span style="color: #0080FF">"Fan-fucking-tastic"</span>