Diana glared at the old grandfather clock, quietly ticking away at the side of the entrance hall of the mansion just outside the town. 5:36 pm. As she watched, the second hand crossed the 12, and with an audible click, the minute hand advanced one place. 5:37 pm. When she’d been assigned a mentor, a new program that The Night School was trying out, she had expected her mentor to be someone worthy of her talent as the top graduating student of the last class. And she’d at least expect them to be punctual. She’d already been waiting here for seven minutes, and was due to have met her mentor at 5:30. Diana glared at the clock as it ticked over to 5:39 pm. She turned and stomped away, even though time was trickling away. She was losing precious monster-hunting time waiting for her so called ‘mentor’, and decided that she would be better served by actually going out and killing the things that terrorized the night.
As Diana reached the door, the clock ticked over to 5:41, and she put her hand on the handle.
“I wouldn’t do that, If I were you,” came a smooth voice from behind her, with just a touch of wrongness to it. Diana had always been good at sensing the monsters of the night, and upon turning around, she found herself staring at a well-dressed businessman, who was just a touch too pale, a bit too good-looking for his apparent age. Her silver-plated pistol was out of its highly visible side holster before the obvious vampire could hopefully react, but before she could pull the trigger and eradicate the stain on the earth, a knife clanged into the gun, sending ripples up her arm, and forcing her to drop the gun. From a chair at the side of the room that Diana hadn’t noticed before, a man stood up. He was maybe five or six years older than her, dressed in a dark grey hoodie, jeans and sneakers. Brown hair swept across his forehead, just clearing the man’s steel blue eyes, and beneath the man’s right eye was a tattoo. Diana gasped. She knew this man from Night School’s records-his real name eluded her right now, but she knew his moniker; The Hunter. The only student to graduate a full two years early in the last ten years.
“Fucking hell, girl,” he said, picking up the gun and glancing at the clock on the other side of the hall. “I’ve been sitting there for the last seventeen minutes, and you never noticed me. Did you slack off during your observation training, or is the Night School not teaching that bit anymore, and hoping you just get lucky?” The Hunter pressed her pistol back into Diana’s hand, and turned to the vampire.
“Sorry about that, boss. Guess they sent me an overzealous one.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said the vampire, “I’ll leave you two to do whatever you need to. Do put some ground rules down for her though, will you?”
“Got it. We’ll probably be done by one. We’ll try not to wake you.” The vampire waved, and headed deeper into the mansion, and The Hunter turned to face Diana.
“Right, before we go any further, I have some questions. Firstly, why the fuck did you come dressed in full gear? You look like you’re off to start a fucking war.”
“I was under the impression,” said Diana, her voice cold and steady, “That our purpose is to hunt everything that stalks the night, not work for them.” The Hunter sighed.
“We do whatever we must to fufill the goal of keeping the people of the world safe and more importantly, unaware of what we do. Sometimes that means killing. Other times, it requires more subtlety. Secondly, are you aware of the ‘Protected’ list? My boss, and his immediate clan are all on it. Thus, no killing them without three different kinds of say-so, and mine is one of them.”
“The Protected list is a bunch of bullcrap,” spat Diana, shoving her pistol back into its holster with far more force than was recommended. “we should just kill all of them and be done with it.” The Hunter sighed, and moved.
A shift to the side, and Diana reeled back as The Hunter’s foot slammed into her stomach. She was not given time to recover, as the heel of the man’s other foot slammed into her head, knocking her to the floor.
“When you can beat me, missy, you get to decide what we do. Until then, you are my little bitch, got it?” he snarled, and Diana decided that now would be a good time to go unconscious.
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Taken from writersyoga's prompt:
Look at the time on the clock nearest you. Write a story about the time on the clock that includes the line, "She/he/ze turned and stomped away, even though time was trickling away."
