David could hear his heart beating out of his chest. His whole body was trembling in the

small closet. “Bang, Crash!” went the sound of glasses getting smashed. David could hear

maniacal laughter coming from the other room.

“Oh, David,” said a voice, “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

David couldn’t help it. A small whimper escaped his lips.

“Oh, there you are.”

David could hear footsteps coming closer, and closer, until he could sense a presence

right outside the closet.

“Inside the closet, are we? Oh, David, it's a shame it had to come to this,” a second burst

of laughter appeared.

David took a deep breath as the closet door opened. The man was standing there,

holding a baseball bat. David tried to run, but his body wouldn’t let him. Flashbacks of trauma

started coming back to him as he watched the man who had ruined his childhood. His limbs

stood frozen as the man said, “Well, well, well. We meet again, David. I see you’ve grown.”

See, the man worked for a testing company owned by the government that tested

children who they thought had supernatural powers. And who would’ve guessed, lucky David

was one of the children who had been taken away when he was no more than 3. But the thing

is, David didn’t have any powers. And when the lab discovered this, they didn’t know what to do

with him. They couldn’t bring him back because then David would tell the police about the lab.

So David grew up living in the lab, being tossed around and treated miserably until he decided

he was fed up with it. So one day, when he was 10, little David sneaked onto the elevator, and

crawled under the secretary desk out into the world. The police took down the lab but

unfortunately, the owner escaped, and had apparently survived all these years, plotting revenge.

There were no words to describe it as the man slowly walked towards David until they

were breathing on each other's faces. This man, with his grayish hair, eerie smile, and eyes full

of hatred, had lost everything because of David. He wanted revenge now. That’s when the man

whispered into his ear, “You have ruined my life, and now you will pay.”

The man lifted David up towards the window by his neck. Choking and unable to

breathe, David tried to kick the man, but his attempts were futile. As the man readied up his bat

to knock out David, he said, “Good night!”

But David wasn’t going to sleep yet. He landed a lucky shot and kicked the man hard in

the gut. They both fell to the ground, the man dropping the bat in the process. As it slowly rolled

towards the door, David got up and sprinted towards it. Running faster than what felt like a

horse, he suddenly slipped and pierced his hand in a nail that was in the ground due to a table

that David had been building.

“OWWW” David screamed.

As David was on the ground, he heard the man slowly get up.

“Oh no” David mumbled as he slowly turned around.

“Oh, yes!” said the man with glee.

Without thinking, David whipped onto his back, ignoring the searing pain of his fresh

wound. He kicked at the man’s ankles, making him stumble forward. David then kicked at the

man’s knees, making them buckle and causing the man to fall to the ground with a “THUD”.

David, dumbfounded at what he had just done, looked at the man, then the bat. The man did the

same. The two men both lunged towards it, now wrestling for the object.

“This isn’t how it was supposed to go!” The man snapped, spitting in David’s face.

“Well this is how it's going!” David shouted, unable to wipe off the spit.

Unfortunately, the man was stronger, and was able to kick David to the other side of the

room, acquiring the bat. The two men got up and circled each other, the man holding the bat

with a this-scrawny-guy-will-never-beat-me look on his face, and David, with his hand pierced

with a nail, held up his fists. The two men charged each other.

“BANG!” went a sound and a body fell to the floor.

Fortunately, it wasn’t David’s. Since the man was stronger than David, he was also much

taller than him. So much more so, that in fact, he whacked his head against a ledge sticking out

of the wall, and knocked himself out.

“YES!” David shouted.

He had done it. Now all he needed to do was call the police and they would arrest the

man once and for all. David reached into his pocket and grabbed his phone. Aw man, thought

David as he discovered that his phone had broken due to him falling on top of it. With no way to

call the police, David decided to just drive the man to the police station, where they would take

care of him. But first, David needed to remove the nail. So with a lot of deep breaths, he yanked

it out. “OWWWW!” Blood immediately started gushing out of his hand so he bandaged up the

wound as fast as he could. Afterwards, David’s hand was throbbing, but with a lot of grunting

and sweating, David dragged the man all the way to his car and put him in the back seat, laying

down. David then started driving.

While he was crossing over a bridge, he was feeling proud of himself. He had actually

done it! He had overcome his fears and-, “BASH” went the sound of the man’s fist against

David’s jaw. David almost blacked out but was able to stay conscious and start fighting the man,

but because of that, no one was controlling the car.

“HAHA you can’t get rid of me!” the man exclaimed.

“AHHHHH” screamed David as cars had to swerve out of the way of David’s

uncontrolled car.

The men started wrestling over the wheel, the car swerving right and left, and banging

into the side of other cars until the car got too close to the side and flew off the bridge and into

the river. Time seemed to slow down as the car dived into the water and David’s screams

turned into garbles. In the water, the man kept punching David and David kept fighting back.

After a while both of their punches were getting weaker and David knew he would have to get

out of there or they would both drown. The man, persistent to not let David leave, grabbed his

shirt when David opened up the car door and water came gushing in. David was trying to swim

upwards but it was hopeless as the man held onto him. So David unbuttoned his shirt and swam

up towards the surface, leaving the man holding his shirt, looking confused.

“NOOO” the man screamed but it ended up sounding more like, “GARBLE GARBLE.”

As David swam as fast as he could towards the surface, his eyesight was growing

dimmer and his strokes were getting weaker. He managed to break the surface with a gasp of

air. He sucked in huge breaths of air and swam towards the shore. He had almost made it when

he felt a tug on his leg and down went David under the water again.

Surprise, surprise, the man was back and he wasn’t giving up so easily. When David had

barely started breathing again, the air had been stripped away. Because of that, David ran out of

air really fast. The man was holding onto him and trying to drag him further into the depths. But

the man hadn’t gone up for air like David had, so in the end, the man’s grip loosened on David’s

leg and he floated down to the bottom of the river. And David, with his final bits of strength,

swam up back to the surface and all the way to the shore where he lay on the grass, his chest

moving up and down.

When David finally regained enough strength to get up, he decided to walk to his house

and watch TV (since he didn’t really know what else to do). Once he had achieved the long walk

to his house, he opened the door to a bunch of broken furniture lying on the floor. But David was

exhausted. He had pushed his body to its absolute limits by holding his breath for that long.So

he decided to deal with that later and sit on the couch.

While David turned on the TV, he heard a rustling sound behind him. David’s heart

started rapidly beating, his palms getting sweaty, but when he slowly turned around, there was

nothing. Probably the wind, David thought. So David turned on the News, but when he did, he

saw his house!

No, that couldn’t be right, David thought.

But sure enough, it was, and when he looked at the caption. It said, “Super evil criminal

and brother of the former owner of POWR Labs has escaped prison and has hidden inside this

strange house”

“What? No, they must be mistaking houses. And did they call my house strange?” David

said. Why did POWR Labs sound so familiar, though? David thought. But just then David felt a

presence behind him and a cackling voice said, “Hello David.”

“AAAH” David almost jumped to the ceiling.

He turned around and saw the same man standing there. “H-How did you survive?”

David stammered. But as soon as the question left his lips he realized something was off. This

wasn’t the same man. This man was taller and more muscular. Then he made the connection.

This was why POWR Labs sounded so familiar. It was the place he had grown up in. So that

meant, “You have gotten rid of my brother” this new man said, “and now you must pay.”