Hiding under the desk, enveloped in darkness was the last thing that Nicah Rhoswen expected to be doing that day.

The darkness was accompanied by the sounds of hurried footsteps, which thundered in the silence. With each tick of the clock, the footsteps got louder. Meaning they were getting closer to Nicah's hiding spot. Which was bad. Very bad.

Nicah stiffened, when she heard a loud thud reverberate in the room, slightly shaking the desk. They found the room.

Thin threads of light sneaked into the room from the open doorway. Nicah had locked the room, but somehow they'd pried it open. The room was large but it wouldn't be long before they found her.

She could hear them roughing up the room, while looking for her. Though she wasn't sure why.

Today started out as a normal day. She woke up.  Had her morning coffee. And got geared up for jogging.

Everything was fine until she got attacked by balloons, and things just got progressively worse from there. One of her ear pods fell out and she couldn't find it. A bird pooped on her, which was gross and she had to jog away from her usual trail till she could find the public water basin to clean herself.

But the most concerning thing were these men in black. They seemed to be everywhere she went. Eyes following her wasn't something unusual for Nicah.

She was an attractive woman in her mid-twenties, with a powerful, toned body, honey skin and hair so pale that it was almost white. And if all that didn't catch people's attention, then her eyes that sparkled like amethyst, certainly did.

At first, she chalked it up to paranoia. But they were on her tail almost all the way through her jogging route, for the whole hour. That sent alarm bells ringing in her head.

And the stupidest error she made? Going back home. With those three still on her trail!

And that's how Nicah currently found herself hiding under the desk, in her own room. Those men had followed her and broken into her apartment. And she had no one to blame but herself.

They were trashing her room apart, neither turning the lights on nor talking. Which made things difficult for her.

Why was she singled out from all the other joggers to be stalked. And why did they break into her apartment. If they didn't talk amongst themselves, then she'd have no choice but to ask them directly.

Nicah took a deep breath, and tightened her arms and biceps. She just formulated a reckless idea, and it could go completely awry if she didn't time it well.

The footsteps sounded dangerously closer now. Nicah was always about taking risks. Her best friend, Stacey, always called her recklessly crazy. Which was true.

Counting the seconds under her breath, she gathered all her might and flung the desk backwards. 

"Crazy woman", one of the men shouted, the anger in his voice betraying a foreign accent. The desk had hit that man square on his foot. 

That moment of distraction was all Nicah needed to spring up, and dart around them to the other end of the room. She slammed the heels of her palm to the switch board, flooding the room with light.

"Now, tell me who you are, and what you want, before I call the cops", Nicah confronted, summoning all her bravado.

She was standing in the open doorway, blocking the only way out of the room with her body. It wasn't a smart move, considering that she was  caging three men, who looked to be twice her size.

Also by the looks of the state of her door, which was barely hanging onto it's hinges, these men seemed to be more than capable of bulldozing her over.

Maybe she was over-confident because of the black belt she painstakingly earned at Jujutsu. Or the shiny medals that were scattered around the room, which she won in various martial arts tournaments.

"You're awfully dimwitted aren't you?" One of the men laughed.

A small shiver ran down Nicah's spine, as he pulled out a gun and she heard the small click of the safety lock being undone.

She immediately ducked and dashed out the door, her feet carrying her towards the stairs. She was grateful for her instincts when she heard a terrifying sharp pop, indicating to her that she might now be having a small hole on her door.

The reckless part of her brain was running scenarios of her turning around and jumping at the man with the gun. Maybe if she managed to snatch the gun... The fleeting thought was tempting as she took the stairs, two at a time, hopping downwards.

"Are you crazy? The whole building's gonna be up at our throats at this rate ", she heard the one with the accent hiss.

"We can't let her go. It will be our heads flying if we don't have her corpse at his doorstep by today", she heard a grunt of a response.

The fear and bravado were playing a tug of war inside her mind as she overheard the conversation.

The men were in hot pursuit, but she was faster. Her trained nimble body had never betrayed her before. She rounded a corner at the last stair, and hid herself in the dark shadows of the corridor.

They were now two floors below her apartment. There was only one flight of stairs between her and the ground floor.

The men won't use their gun here. The neighbours were definitely gonna hear it, and she got the impression that these men didn't want attention on them. She was banking on that fact, as the reckless part of her mind won.

They came hurtling down, without realising that she was hiding just behind them, in the corner. The man with the gun was the last one to pass by her, and she took that split second to throw herself on him. She snaked her arm around his thick bulging neck, and tightened the crook of her elbow under his chin.

If ever she was an expert on anything, it was how to disarm an armed man, bigger than her. She had him on a blood choke from behind.

It didn't take her long to have the man crumple down on her feet, his gun dropped, and unconscious. This might not have been possible if he hadn't been taken by surprise, though.

"Now, your friend here asked me if I was dimwitted", she started, a grin pulling the ends of her lips wide apart. She bent over and closed her fingers around the gun, which was lying abandoned at her feet.

The cold of the metal bit at her skin, as she levelled her arms out, pointing the guns at the two men paused on the stairs.

Their expression made her giggle. Perhaps if she could ever witness two deer caught in the headlight, they would make the same expression as these two.

She kicked the limp body, lying on the cold ground, between them and her. He deserved that and more, for thrashing her place and pulling a gun on her.

"I can take out most men, thrice my size in a matter of seconds. Skills like that do wonders for a person's self confidence", she bragged, leveling her eyes at the two.

"So care to share? Who are you and why did someone send you to kill me, a harmless pharmacist?"

Instead of responding, one of the men growled and suddenly pounced at her. She had been sure that after the recent display of her skills, they might pause and give her some answers. But she'd misjudged.

She dodged his attack, because of the unconscious body lying between them slowing him down.

By now the fear in her mind was starting to overtake the reckless part. They were making a lot of ruckus and part of her hoped that someone noticed and called the cops already. Because it seemed like these men were hell bent on taking her down today, no matter what.

"This isn't a toy that a woman should play with", the man growled. He had leapt over his buddy's body and smacked his shoulder against hers, momentarily stunning her. He took that moment to grab the gun with both his hands.

Despite the shock from the impact, Nicah didn't loosen her grip on the cold metal. If she did, she might not live to see another second. Her adrenaline kicked in, as she fought tooth and nail to keep her grip on the gun.

In her focus to elongate her lifespan, she forgot about the third man, who was just behind the one playing tug-of-war with her for the gun.

"Let... go!" She spit out, her teeth grinding against each other. But her efforts were cut short by an oomph, as air left her lungs. Hot pain seared through her abdomen.

The third man had punched her in the gut, and she doubled over. Her fingers slacked, and the man was able to wrench the gun away.

With her hand pressed to the side of her stomach, she mustered the strength to sweep her legs under the one with the gun, sending him crashing to the ground. The gun clattered and slid away from all of them.

"Stupid bitch", the men were clearly very angry by now. The one still on his feet, closed in, and wrapped his thick fingers around her neck.

"Choke on this darling", he growled menacingly, as she fought to free herself, clawing at his arms, until she drew blood.

He slammed her furiously against the wall. Her head smacked against it with a sickening thud, before she slid down to the floor.

Meanwhile, the one she had rendered unconscious was starting to stir and the one she sent crashing to the ground was already on his feet.

"Should've escaped when you could", one of them sneered at her.

Her vision started to blur, and she felt disoriented. She tried to stand up, but the whole world seemed to be spinning in circles.

She saw a blurry afterimage of one of them bending down to pick up the gun, few metres away. No matter how confident she felt, she shouldn't have tried to take on three big men on her own.

"FREEZE! DROP THE GUN!"

That shout sounded like music to Nicah's ears as she let go of her struggle to stay conscious and embraced the darkness.