Prompt: you have ten minutes to escape a room before a bomb goes off

Ten.

She runs for the door, hands pulling angrily at her hair. She rams against the door with all her strength. Thud. It is not enough. Thud. The door stares at her, mocking her. She screams loudly.

Eight.

            Her seven years of karate are not paying off as she kicks at the door until her feet are cherry red. Frustrated voices echo in her head. She can almost see the seconds tick by slowly.

Six.

            She thinks about her little sister. Blonde and beautiful and luckier than her. “She’ll be alone if I die”, she thinks. Since her mother died when they were young, she was all that her sister had. She sinks down to the ground.

Four.

            To her, death is nothing but an ever-present reality. She doesn’t see the purpose in her life, no soulmate to love and no job to do. She wonders what getting blown up will feel like. A gentle breeze blowing by her ears startles her out of her thoughts. She looks to her left. “An air vent,” she realizes. She is once again filled with vigor and hopes for escape.

Two.

            She throws open the steel grate desperately and crawls inside. She is small enough to fit, yet too big to move at a fast pace. “I can make it,” she thinks. “I can make it.” She is racing for her life, and then she is stuck. Helpless, unable to move.

            “Please,” she whispers, but the world won’t watch her last moments.

Zero.