Survival

Equal parts worn out and desperate, she sprinted towards her one chance at escape and jumped as high as she was able. She missed the target by inches, the tips of her fingers grazing the cool steel of a ladder. Defeated, she looked up at the fire escape mounted to the outside of a random building; she had genuinely thought she could latch on and climb away. 

Over the violent pounding of her frazzled heart, she could hear booted footsteps growing nearer - the relentless march of executioners closing in on their prey. Gathering all of her remaining strength, she bent her knees and tried again, but from the moment her feet left the ground, she had known she was destined to fall. Instead, she flew.

Hauled up by her ridiculous fuchsia overskirt, she came face to face with a stranger who held her at arm’s length, her body dangling before him like a piece of meat as he made use of strength she hadn’t known ordinary men could possess. His tawny eyes gave nothing away; moreover, they glowed in the dark, same as an animal’s.

They - potential victim and questionable hero - stared at one another openly, perhaps longer than necessary, for it was in that pivotal moment, when beauty met beast, that silence laden with menace was broken by a simple question carelessly hurled into the howling wind: "Do you want to live?" 

Her answer was immediate, her acquiescence to his offering, both their beginning and end.