i write sometimes

Hi! I love your Janai icon. 👀

want to beat up a character but don't know how you wanna do it? same here, friend. behold, the whump wheel! it currently has 60 different prompts/tropes on it and is ready for use! 🎉 i...love this thing. it is wonderful for writing exercises. (if you wanna know what's on it before using it, take a peak at the screenshot below)

Erin kept her hands up as she was forced further back into the dingy alley. Her eyes flicked between the men who were cornering her, cataloguing their assets. One gun, a standard G19 pistol. Two knives, one a well worn pocket knife and the other a shiny new flip. The men themselves were varied in stature, but none of them were taller than 6 foot. Still tall enough to be above herself, but not so tall it’d be hard to reach their weak points.

Not that that’d be a problem.

“I think there’s been some confusion.” It was easy to keep her voice even, even while adrenaline was already coursing through her. She came to a stop as the alleyway dead ended, hands still raised almost lazily in the air. At some point, the rest of world faded away from her awareness, the street noise dulling to a soft background noise. She leaned back against the brick wall behind her, body purposefully relaxed despite her racing heart. “I’m not the one in trouble here.”

The men stopped advancing and exchanged looks with each other. The one with the gun barked an incredulous laugh. “What?” He sneered. The other three spread out, cutting off the rest of the alley.

She raised her shoulder in a shrug, aiming for casual. “There’s only four of you.” Power hummed under her skin, sensing her intent. Her lips curved up into a smile at its presence. One of the two holding knives took a half step back. “You’ll need more than that.”

Her eyes flashed, then she was gone, invisible against the brick behind her. The men cried out in alarm. The one with the gun swore and fired rapidly where he’d last seen her, but she’d already moved.

A brick shot out from the wall, clocking the one with the pocket knife solidly in the head, and the other screamed as he went down. So fast their cockiness had vanished, Erin mused faintly.

She let her camouflage drop and clocked the one closest to her - the weaponless one - in the jaw. He dropped. She didn’t bother checking for a pulse before vanishing again. She was familiar with her strength - he’d live. The one who’s been hit with the brick? Who’s to say. Not that she found herself particularly bothered by it in the moment. Perhaps later, when she had time to dwell on if she’d taken another life. Now? Now she stayed focused on the task at hand - escaping alive.

Two down, two to go. She touched a hand against the building next to her and forced forth another brick, sending it flying towards the gunner. She ran, trailing her bare fingers against the wall as he fired again. Behind her, she heard a thump! and pained swearing. Ah, so she’d hit another one. Good.

The rest of the fight - if one could even call it that - passed in a blur. She thought it was quick, but that could’ve been the adrenaline on her end. At the end of it, all she knew for sure was what she saw before her.

Several, broken bricks and three bodies littered the ground. The pistol lay in pieces next to one of the men. The fourth - the one she’d heard cry out - was collapsed at the end of the alley. She’d almost decided to let him go. They’d probably gotten the message. But, he’d seen her face, and if he was stupid enough to tell the cops, she needed the time to relocate.

As the adrenaline faded, so too did the mindset she’d fallen into. Erin averted her gaze from the fallen men as she came back to herself. It’d been…much too easy to slip back into the torture training she’d received. As much as she’d hoped she’d forgotten it, she knew the truth now. It’d been drilled into her for years. It was ingrained in her. Part of her. A part she wished she didn’t have.

In normal circumstances, she likely would’ve gone easier on the would-be muggers. Might’ve been more sneaky about it so she didn’t have her risk the wrong people finding out about her. In the end, she couldn’t say for sure why she’d been triggered. Because that had been it. Something had been said or done that was all too familiar in the worst way and her fight or flight had kicked on.

Don’t get complacent. Always stay on your toes.

No technology. No phones, no laptops, no tablets. Nothing that can be tracked or hacked.

No social media. Keep your face offline.

Have one weapon at all times, even if it’s as simple as a sharp key.

Never use your powers in public.

Keep all identifying marks hidden.

She followed the rules like Christians followed the Bible. Whereas Christians believed following the rules written in the Bible would allow them into Heaven, Erin’s rules would allow her to simply stay alive and free. It wasn’t pleasant, and it was tiring, but Erin knew no other way of life. If she wanted to survive, if she didn’t want to be captured and used again, she had to stay on alert and keep her head down.

Occasionally, she tried to get a job, but there were too many pieces of information she couldn’t provide. Where did she live? She’s likely squatting in an abandoned house or hotel. What’s her education level? Hell if she knows the answer to that one, given her…unorthodox upbringing. What’s her job history? Nothing that wouldn’t get her turned into the police, regardless of her being forced to do them.

She tried that once, before she escaped. Getting caught by the police. Left a little bit too much evidence behind, moved a little bit too slow. Surely if the authorities caught her, it was better than the life she was currently living, if it could be called a life. She wouldn’t even fight interrogation, if it meant her boss would be taken down. She was almost caught. Then he sent back up and extracted her from the scene before the cuffs could be put on. The next four nights were full of punishment for her defiance.

Most nights, she didn’t sleep. Either the nightmares woke her or the memories kept her awake. If she had one thing to be thankful for, it was for being raised to function on little to no sleep. So the hard nights didn’t bother her schedule much and her body could take the physical toll sleep deprivation came with. The emotional aspect? A little harder, but she’d learned the benefits of compartmentalization at a young age. All the bad memories, all the anger and grief that came with them, she shoved down into the basement of her mind, where they couldn’t get in the way. Sometimes, on the harder nights, they crept out. Those nights, Erin forcibly worked herself into the ground and pummeled them into submission, back to the basement, where they wouldn’t bother her.

The thing that slowed her the most though was the pain.

Whenever the weather changed, whether it was a thunderstorm or a warm front blowing through, all of her old injuries acted up. Her wrists ached with every movement. Her back cried when she laid on it, forcing her to lay on her stomach to avoid angering the old wounds on her sides. She could feel every joint in each of her fingers, pulsating with agony.

On her worst days, all Erin could do was secure wherever she was living from intruders and lay down until it passed. Most of the time though, she worked through it. Pain was nothing new in her existence. It lived with her, and she with it. It made her hands difficult to use somedays, yes, but it didn’t stop her. As long as the pain was below a nine on her scale of one-to-ten, she could function. Not always happily, and not always easily, but she could function. Ibuprofen and Tylenol were godsends, honestly, and helped whenever she found it was time to move again unless she wanted to be re-captured.

Erin would die before she let herself be taken back.

Maybe that’s why she found herself making a frankly horrible decision.

So far, everywhere she’d gone, they’d started to find her and come after her. They were actively looking for her, she knew, and they kept getting uncomfortably close. She’d tried rural towns, the countryside, burying herself in the hustle and bustle of a city. Places she could easily disappear. It wasn’t working. Which meant she needed to change her strategy - go somewhere they wouldn’t expect her to. Everywhere she’d gone so far had either been only a pinprick on a map or big enough to get lost in, places she’d thought she wouldn’t be easily found. Obviously, that wasn’t working anymore, if it ever was. But, she couldn’t do the opposite and go somewhere that’d draw attention to herself, or they’d find her just as quickly if not faster. But, luckily for Erin, there was more than one way to defy expectations. Unluckily for Erin, it was a very stupid route of action. Stupid, reckless, and dangerous. But…also genius, in a sense.