A young business man steps out of a suitably armored SUV surrounded by men built like cinder blocks wearing black suits. His cool demeanor asserts his status as he buttons his shirt and heads inside the hotel. Gold accents extend across the corners and linings of the ceiling and marble pillars rise up to hold the structure in place. All of this along with cold slate flooring makes this place feel more like a sacred temple rich with history rather than a hotel. 

   A wiry looking, finely dressed old man excitedly skips over to greet the man,

   “Hello, Mr. Herring! We’re delighted to have you staying with us. Was the flight to your liking?”

   “I appreciate the hotel accommodations on such short notice, but I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I’m ready to get some much needed sleep, Mr. Gabriels.” 

   With a wink and a smile he gleefully lets the man and his entourage be on their way to their rooms. A young woman, Herring’s secretary, steps up to Mr. Gabriels with a stern look on her brow and declares to him that they’re being there is not to be broadcast to the news. He gives his word and she continues with the rest of the convoy. 

   Once on the sixty-sixth floor, a quick sweep of the room is carried out as per protocol. With no signs of anything unusual, the security detail disbands into their rooms all across the hall from each other. 

   “Pauline,” Herring calls out just before she can enter her room, “please see to it that everything is running smoothly in regards to our transportation to the embassy tomorrow. I want to make a good first impression here.” 

   “Yes, Mr. Herring,” she responds and sets her luggage inside the room before exiting and heading back to the elevator. 

   Meanwhile, as everyone gets ready for bed, a young woman wearing a cleaning outfit opens the door to Pauline’s hotel room and walks in, looks around to make sure no one is home. 

   Her first objective is the luggage which she pilfers through like a hungry raccoon. Once she finds an outfit she likes, she hops into the bathroom. The girl takes her time as she brushes her teeth, gets in the shower to wash her long, wavy hair. Once out she puts on the new clothes as she heads to the sink, plucks her eyebrows and then her nose hairs. A few silly faces along with a few attempts at seducing kisses in the mirror leave her satisfied with the visit to the bathroom.

   Immediately the woman violently and passionately begins to kiss the man. She rubs his chest with hers and the young girl can’t but notice his hands turning a sickly pale. This catches the young girl off guard and she gasps audibly. The looming silhouette’s head snaps towards the hole the young girl was using to spy.

   The cleaning girl yelps and trips backwards, landing on her tailbone. The sound of sprinting can be heard through the walls and so she picks herself up and tackles her way through the door to the hallway. 

   “Come here, girl!”

   The hallways echo with the demonic cry of the tall blonde banshee as she pursues the young cleaner. A quick turn of the corner reveals a cracked open doorway ahead. Adrenaline is pumping and feet are moving as the loud voice shatters her down from behind.

   “Stop.”

   She falls and sees only red, then nothing but black, then there is nothing. 

   Hours pass and the young girl dizzily wakes up covered in debris. 

   “What’s this?”

   Quietly, she picks some things up off herself, it is pitch black in here. 

   “Feels like maybe… a broomstick?” Clink! “That’s definitely a bucket. What is this wet stuff? Please tell me that’s just water… Oh, God, where’s the light switch?”

   Slam!

   Blinded by the newly opened exit, her hands instinctively cover her face as the doorway is filled by the silhouette of a soldier jamming the barrel of his gun into her chest. 

   “Raise your hands up above your head!”

   Wide awake on the morning brew of anxiety and adrenaline, she complies to this command as opposed to finding out what might be the possible alternatives. 

   “Turn around and walk backwards towards me!”

   Once again, she obliges to the order of the soldier. As she steps out of the broom closet another soldier slams her against the wall, yanks her arms behind her back, and slaps a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. She reacts with a quick sharp yelp.

   “Watch it!”

   “Shut up, bitch!”

   Promptly, the soldier frisks her and gives an all clear to his comrade. The situation proceeds as they aggressively escort the young girl to the main lobby area, bruising her arms as they bring her along. 

   Once in the lobby, the reality of the situation becomes all the more apparent as she is greeted to a room full of armed men, twice her size in stature, with dull empty eyes. Her mind races as the questions fill her head. 

“What’s happening?” “What are they gonna do to me?” “Will I be put in prison or will they take me to the Burner?” 

   These questions cause her whole body to tremble in desperate fear of the unknown. A group of soldiers approaches and she sits idly as they chatter in hushed tones. Words like ‘execute’ and ‘problem’ are bits of what she can pick out being that the adrenaline has begun making her ears ring so much that it’s nearly impossible to interpret the full sentences.

   The more they say, the more she wants to disappear, wake up from this nightmare. But this is reality, she’s running out of time and she’s gotta do something if she wants to make it out of this. There’s a window nearby. The chances of getting away are slim but they’re not zero. She starts to look around for anything, any kind of way out. It’s try and die now or don’t and die later. 

   She glances down to see the keys to the handcuffs on a soldier’s belt. She remains unsure of specifics but she has a plan. “Knock out the soldier, steal the keys, and run like hell.” Once they finish talking, she makes her halfassed plan a reality. 

   Without hesitation, her body steps into motion. She slams her heel into the groin of the key-bearing soldier, and the back of her skull into the nose of the other soldier.

   As they recoil she snatches the keys and makes a b-line for the window. She manages to get the handcuffs off and leaps into it, the other two soldiers quickly gaining on her. Glass shatters and bullets pierce the concrete walls around her, she rolls on the pavement, slightly scuffs her knee and both elbows, and sprints down the street. 

   Soldiers give chase but can’t keep up. A quick look back while running causes a head on collision with a pedestrian. After thrusting him into the pavement, a quick apology is issued and she’s off again.

 The young man lifts himself off the ground and looks at the ground. His eyes grow infuriated as he looks at his last cigarette, crushed from the impact. He picks himself up. His lips pucker with all the expressive anger of an angry child that never gets his way. He looks up towards the young girl and jumps into a full on sprint to get her. 

A parking garage ends up seeming like a decent enough hiding place to her, thus she runs inside, fully winded from the excursion, hyperventilating. Stress turns to giggling and proceeds to shock induced laughter at the astonishment and heart thumping realization that she made it out of the hotel alive by some impossible means. Suddenly she is forced back to reality as her wrist is yanked by a stranger, the young man she tackled on the sidewalk. Surprised, she instinctively pulls away to which his grip only increases. 

   “Bitch, do you make a habit of toppling over people on the sidewalk!? You crushed my last cigarette!”

   Before she can utter a response, two soldiers quickly rush in from the sides yelling to freeze. The young man looks at them, looks at her and raises his hands with a  disgruntled growl. 

   The soldiers move in. The girl is shoved to the ground. One of the soldiers grabs her legs as she tries to kick at him like a trapped animal. Her ankles are cuffed as a precaution to her previous offense. The soldier handling her speaks into his radio.

   “We’ve got the girl and a possible accomplice. Over.”

    A moment passes and the response over the radio is simple: “Stand by.” The other soldier proceeds to spread out the young man’s legs to frisk him against the wall. After being frisked he is asked to place his hands on his back. He overhears the response on the radio, 

   “Sending a Burner transport to your location. Over.”

   The two soldiers look at each other in mutual agreement for only a moment. This moment is just enough time as the young man grabs one soldier's wrist before he can be restrained. he dislocates the elbow.

   He makes a move to grab the pistol off his waist using his closer hand. Three shots are fired into the stomach and another into the head. 

   “Bang!” Fingers go flying off the other soldier’s hand before he can reach for his radio to call in the incident. Twice more the soldier is shot and the body falls to the pavement. Screaming echoes through the parking garage as the young man walks towards the girl. She pleads, 

   “Please! I’m sorry, please, I don’t want to die!”

   Snot and tears pour down her scrunched up face as anguish strains every muscle in her brow. 

   He looks at her and starts patting his pockets across his pants and jacket before squatting down in front of her, pistol in hand, he responds with a smug tone,

   “Aw, man, I can’t seem to find where that’s my problem.”

   He squats down in front of her as she flinches and closes her eyes. She hears him drop the gun and as she opens her eyes she can see him shoving his middle finger in her face. 

   “This is for ruining my last cigarette you stupid bitch.”

   “Fine, I’ll get you out of here. You’re gonna pay up and get me my cigarettes. I only smoke Vienna Slims. Got it? Anything different and your ass is back in custody.”

   She agrees and he helps her up and they disappear into the sea of parked cars as more soldiers approach the bloody scene.

   Meanwhile, somewhere near the city center. A sharp dressed man enters a room and begins to disclose information about the recent happenings,

   “The girl is gone. Her and a possible accomplice killed two officers about three blocks from the hotel. How would you like us to proceed?”

   “…”

   The silence is so strong the man can hear the blood pumping in the veins around his ears.

   A tall and slender silhouette stands up, the woman from the hotel. She proceeds to rip the flesh from her face down to her body. As it peels off the old flesh becomes a black and viscous mangled mess, an odor of tar and sulfur pierces the man’s nose though he does not react. Once finished, the woman looks to him and a smile can only faintly be made out amidst the otherwise obscured shape living in the darkness.