<div style="background-color:#353535; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">If she had been anyone but her, Mal would never have bee able to understand the stream of gibberish Blake was spouting at her. As it was, in her current 70% asleep state, she actually did not understand him, but she managed to grasp the general idea: Danger was imminent. She shot up, headbutting Blake in the process, but there was no time to care. Their miserable lives had prepared them efficiently for only one thing. Finding an escape route was second nature to them after fifteen years of running from bullies, her mother, and more recently, very angry, hungry, literal pieces of shit.<br/><br/>The window was up high near the ceiling, and looked far too small for anything but a toddler. But what choice did they have? She pinched her arm. It was bone thin, but she was not two-dimensional, and neither was Blake. She had just about given up when an idea came to her.<br/><br/>"Blake, get under the bed now!" She hissed as she jumped up on the bed to reach the window, hoping he would just do as she said and not ask any of his stupid questions. Glass could be shattered, right? She had never actually seen anyone break a window before, as no one in Denyan could afford to fill out their window frames. But one time had to be the first! She bunched up her first and punched as hard as she could.<br/><br/>It did not go as expected. The glass got a tiny crack, but more importantly, her knuckles hurt like <span style="font-style: italic">Hell</span>. She bit back two screams; the first one out of pain, the second out of frustration as she realized the window could be unlocked. She slammed it open. It hit the wall on the outside of the house, but Mallory had no time to regret her actions as she flew under the bed, pressing herself as close to the floor as possible and covering her mouth with her hand to stifle her panicked breathing, even as she heard the voices outside the door and approaching footsteps.</div></div>