I'm not going to make it. My heart beats in a crazed, stattaco rhythm. I'm not going to make it. My feet pound the concrete, bare soles scraping into bloody ribbons. I'm not going to make it. The sides of the alley feel as if they close in on me while I run.

I trip, falling forward, but managing to flip sideways and land on my hip. I hear a crunch as my arm is trapped beneath me and broken by the force of my fall. I bite back a scream, nearly tearing all the way through my lip as my mouth snaps closed.

I stand, cradling my arm against my stomach. I hear my pursuer. His boots make footfalls echo around me, but I must keep going.

I'm not going to make it.

I know I'm not going to make it out alive, yet I have to try to live, if only for a few more minutes spent sprinting through alleyways in pain.

I run.

He runs faster.

I realize that I have been tricked. Before me stands my pursuer. Behind me is another. I've been driven deep into this hell hole, thinking I may escape, yet my killer is actually plural.

I'm not going to make it.

The man in front of me reaches into his coat. I stand still and tall, ready. I know it's over; there is nowhere else to run. No one to save me. I'm done.

But I won't go down at this man's hands, nor his partner's. No. I reach into my boot with my good arm and, before the pair of killers can do anything, I slit my own throat in a last act of defiance. In the second I have left, I fall to my knees as the killer shoots me in the head.

At least it was quick.