Cheri Gillard is the Readers’ Choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. The winning entry is decided by the popular vote and rewarded with a special feature here today. (In the case of a tie, the writer who submitted an entry first is the winner per our rules.)
Without further ado, here’s the winning entry:
Trapped
by Cheri Gillard
“Hurry! They’ll be here any second!” The glass was too thick for her rescuer to hear but she’d try to force her brainwaves through.
The government prison was reputedly impenetrable. But if anyone could save her, Major Mary Scott of her galaxy’s most elite military force could.
Before her capture, she’d taken on the form of an earth life form, trying to blend in. But a “friend” betrayed her to the authorities.
Stand back Major Scott said into her brain. Her disciplined neurons were more powerful; glass was no obstacle.
She stepped away. The window melted, running thickly down the wall.
Scott thought, Follow me, and took off down the corridor.
Though difficult, she kept up, dodging around alarm laser beams just as Scott did.
They made it through the compound, then out a doorway in the outer wall. As they moved across the open land, their ship dropped its cloaking shield and became visible.
The strange form she’d taken was difficult to run with, clumsy and slow. But she couldn’t undo it with her depleted power cells. Must keep trying.
The portal zipped open.
Gunfire erupted, sirens blared from the compound.
The last three steps were in slow motion, nearly impossible.
A hand reached out, grabbed her in, and the ship shot into space.
“Welcome back. Let’s get you out of that ridiculous form,” her leader said.
She couldn’t wait. The odd human body of the girl dissolved and she once again became normal. Good riddance, she thought.
