Not sure if this should go here or in sci-fi....
I am currently writing part 2 and would appreciate input of any kind.
Thanks..

Hair swirled around her face and neck, as the air escaped her mouth in a flurry of bubbles, breaking the still surface of the water. She pressed the back of her head against the porcelain bath tub and willed herself to lie there a little longer. Just a little longer. The cloudy bath water had gone cold, but she stayed, unperturbed.
 

A loud bang sounded from the front room. It was the front door hitting the wall hard.
 

How long had she been in the bathtub now? Her lungs had emptied. She went up for air briefly, before re-submerging herself.
 

Another bang. Closer this time, and the sound of scuffling.
 

She watched the kaleidoscope of colours and shapes dancing beneath her tightly clamped eyelids, and chose to ignore the noises. Time seemed to move more slowly under the murky water.
 

She wasn’t sure why she was so determined to ignore the bangs and crashes drifting into her bathroom. It was a cold draft across her exposed knees that finally roused her. Wrapped in a towel, the young woman glanced distastefully at her semi-naked body in the mirror until the jangle of her cutlery being stolen caused her to act.
 

“Hey, who’s there?!” she yelled, dragging on jeans and a sweatshirt. She could hear footsteps, light and quick, and excited laughter.
 

Kids. She thought, annoyed and walked into her living room. Her beat-up DVD player was gone, and her CDs. The television must have been too heavy for them. In the kitchen her medicine cabinet had been raided, and they had mistaken her cheap cutlery for proper silver. Nothing of much value had been taken, but the lock had been busted off the front door. Another job for another day.
 

A broken pill bottle lay by the open doorway. The label stared up at her accusingly – Abbey Black, Valium. Her drug of choice… among others.
 

It wasn’t safe anywhere, anymore. But it was great for lowering the real estate prices, she mused. How else could a twenty-something, low income earner afford a two bedroom apartment in the centre of the city.
 

She kicked the TV and it sprung to life. It was the tail end of a report on the escalating violence in Europe. The BBC’s French correspondent stood nervously in front of the camera, knowing journalists often attracted unwanted attention. He wore a blue flack jacket and helmet. Behind him a university was burning out of control, while protesters and tanks clashed on the university’s lawn.
 

“Scenes similar to this are becoming common across Europe,” he said in closing, “and traditional religious and ethnic divisions are causing tension and violence once again; leading to all out civil war in some of the Baltic states especially.

“Add to this recent discord between the EU and Asia, after Asian proposals to conduct nuclear testing near the Siberian border and the situation in Europe is certainly volatile to say the least. Terrence Fielding, reporting from Paris, France.”
 

“It really makes you wonder doesn’t it? Could we be slipping into World War Three?” the female anchor asked, somewhat rhetorically, “now a word from our sponsors.”
 

‘The Second Cold War’ they were calling it, except this one was a little warmer than the first. The Middle East peace process had disintegrated spectacularly four years ago after the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem was destroyed, dragging each of the Arab nations into the fray as it raged. And Israel, a supposed safe-haven for the descendents of the holocaust, had been abandoned. The US and Russia had come to a tentative alliance, while China and North Korea vied for nuclear supremacy. Britain had stayed out of much of this. Vaguely allying itself to America, and being otherwise consumed by internal conflict.
 

Amazingly capitalism, the most powerful machine of man, ground on. In the war’s wake a deluge of self-fashioned gurus and profiteers had emerged to flog merchandise to the fearful masses.
 

Abbey’s attention flitted back and forth from the television to her window. Police sirens screamed in the gathering dark outside, interrupted occasionally by gunfire. On the TV a range of ‘self defense’ gadgets were being advertised, from pepper-spray that was akin to being hit in the face with mustard gas, to personal tazer guns that will fit conveniently inside your handbag.
 

Martial Law was called in Britain almost a year ago. Parliament was dissolved, a curfew was imposed and police were given the right to use extreme force at their discretion. Freedom of Speech was denounced for its ability to turn a rally into a riot and sedition was outlawed. The void left by the old parliament was filled by one man – Jonathon Goddensmith.
 

The result of all this was gangs and ‘localised terrorist cells’ fought police for control of the streets at night, and everyone else tried to get on with their business during the day. 

A mad search then began for Abbey’s cigarettes. One crushed fag was the eventual product of her feverish hunt, and she dragged on it deeply while cursing the useless nicorette patch adhered to her shoulder.
 

Her thin silhouette filled the window, smoke trailing around her. Outside the subatomic glow of the city lights were filling the sky, as the sun set in the distance. Curfew would begin in about ten minutes, Abbey thought to herself, the nicotine clearing her mind. Still, if she was quick it should be long enough to get another packet of smokes, maybe even something to eat too.
 

She hit the deserted streets with a vigor renewed, in pursuit of cigarettes; grog and a burger, in that order.

Abbey consciously stuck to well lit streets, deviating only to take a shortcut past Rose Park. The large park had been divided up into small farming plots, and a shanty town of tents and makeshift homes. Vagrants, refugees and gypsies populated these sporadic settlements and were the constant target of police, who would force them to pack up their homes and move else where.
 

She eventually made it to Main Street, and ducked inside Aladdin’s Cave Takeaway and Grocery shop.
“We are closing. Closing time, please go away.” Bilal Khadir called out from his office.
“Billy it’s me.” Abbey replied.
“Well then close the door girl, it is getting late.” he came out with two fat cigars in his mouth and handed her one.
“Billy you’re a saint.”
“If I am a saint, Miss Black, then you are the Virgin Mary.”
 

Inside Aladdin’s Cave the walls were decorated with cheesy murals of genies and golden treasures, and a large Persian rug covered most of the floor. Abbey walked through the shelves of tourist novelties, a jumble of teddies wearing the union jack mixed with plastic magic lamps and shiny bracelets, to the refrigerator.

“I thought Muslims weren’t supposed to sell alcohol?” she called out from the back.
“This is Britain, Abbey. Most of my revenue comes from selling alcohol, cigarettes, or kebabs to drunks.”
 

She left the shop moments later with the bottle of vodka, her beloved cigarettes and a falafel settling in her stomach.
 

In the middle of a side street Abbey had unwisely turned down, a young girl was pressing her back against a split garbage bag, trying to disappear amongst its fetid contents. Two large men were busily reconstructing her appearance; giving her a broken nose, fractured cheekbone and a split lip. She tried to make a gurgled scream, but her mouth was filling with too much blood. Satisfied with the job they had done on her face, they both began tearing off her clothing.
 

“Leave her alone!” Abbey screamed before she could stop herself. The thugs looked up from the pulp of a girl they were hitting. The men had Red Crest insignia on their chests. The Red Crest were Goddensmith’s private army, his very own storm troopers. They dropped the girl and advanced towards Abbey.
 

Inside her head Abbey admonished herself. What exactly did she think she could do? The girl was probably already dead. She could hear their heavy footsteps behind her as she began to run. I’m going to die here, the voice in her head raged. Not in this filthy alleyway she thought. Make a scene; if my time is up then I want an audience and I want some bloody applause.
 

She re-entered the street, but the few lingering street vendors who had been there minutes before were now gone. A siren heralded the commencement if curfew. Now Abbey had to contend with the official police patrols, as well as Red Crest militia. A rock grazed her shoulder, before another hit her in the back. She looked back at her pursuers, and was struck in the jaw with a stone. If nothing else, Abbey was at least grateful they weren’t willing to throw their batons at her.
 

She turned down streets at random. It had occurred to her that she couldn’t go home. Not while she was being followed, and certainly not while her front door couldn’t be locked. Her breath rattled and wheezed in her lungs, stinging her throat. Ten years of chain smoking will do that to you, Abbey thought. She might have been more deterred by the pictures on the cigarette packets if one of them depicted her being kicked to death because she couldn’t outrun two Red Crest henchmen. A large rock hit Abbey’s heel. Pain shot through her tendon like an electrical charge, shattering her ankle. She buckled. A buzz of adrenalin flooded her veins, holding her together, barely. She staggered across the road and disappeared into a shanty-town/park.
 

She continued to stumble blindly through the tents until she was deep inside the park, gasping for help. Arms wrapped themselves around Abbey’s waist; slender arms, female arms. She was pulled inside a derelict shack constructed of corrugated tin and hessian sacks. The earthen floor under Abbey’s face smelt comforting as she lost consciousness.
 

A boot hit her sharply in the ribs.

“Get up.” Abbey opened her eyes. The face and gangly body that accompanied the commanding voice was ill matched.
“Get up,” he repeated “you can’t sleep here.” He threw her a jacket. “There’s a storm coming, it’s cold outside. Now get up, we aren’t a motel.” The slender armed woman hit him in the back of the head.
“Shut up George. Here have this.” She handed Abbey a bowl of mystery stew. Smells like chicken, looks like lamb, Abbey thought quietly. Probably best not to ask.
 

George and the woman seemed like an unlikely pair. He had fiery red hair, pale green eyes and limbs that seemed wildly too long for his torso. She was slender and exotic, with dark coffee coloured skin and sandy blonde hair. She seemed vaguely Arabic, but bore a true English accent and introduced herself as Mila. Two more faces ducked inside the shack.
 

“Fuck me,” the first exclaimed, “is this the renegade them Crests are lookin’ for?” Abbey noticed the sarcasm in his voice when he pronounced ‘renegade’. George and Mila both nodded.
“Pigeon stew, Mila?” the second asked, nodding towards Abbey’s bowl.
“Rabbit,” Mila replied, “wipe your hands clean at least.” She added as she handed him a bowl.
“Lovely.” He was much bigger than the first man and George put together, but was also the most polite. His mother had made sure of that when he was a boy and old habits die hard.

 
They were both introduced in between mouthfuls of rabbit stew. The first was Bogdan-Dragomir Sedelič or Shit Head for short, and the second introduced himself simply as Oliver.
 

“Jesus Christ!” Shit Head erupted, “Look at your ankle!” With a thick Slavic accent he seemed to rape the English language every time he spoke. A thick coat of blood and dirt had hardened around her ankle and spilled over the rim of her sneaker. He had successfully reminded Abbey of the pain, which hit her again like warm tar, thick and inescapable.
“A gift from the Red Crest…” she mumbled.
“She can’t stay here. She can’t.” George insisted.
 

Soon Abbey found herself hoisted onto Oliver’s shoulders. They walked home thusly, like a strange two headed giant.
“At least you can see trouble coming,” Oliver joked. Shit Head scoffed, coming along somewhat reluctantly.
 

They eventually dumped Abbey unceremoniously on the doorstep to her apartment building; she was still clutching her bottle of vodka.
“There you go sweetheart,” Shit Head said almost sinisterly, “Remember won’t you, that you now own us a favour. Good girl.”

 
They walked away, and Abbey began to half hop, half drag herself inside. Gradually climbing the stairs to her third floor apartment, she could hear her television had been turned back on. Someone was inside. “All I wanted was one damn packet of cigarettes and something to eat.” she muttered, gripping her vodka bottle by the neck like a club. She pushed at her front door and stood with the bottle raised above her head as the door swung open. Inside she was met not with a vicious robber or gang of Red Crests, but the concerned face of Tim, a friend from the apartment directly above hers.
 

“Don’t tell me you were going to waste that poor bottle of vodka on an attacker?” he mocked, “Where have you been?”
“It was a rough day, Timmy…”
“You’re not kidding. What the hell happened to your foot?”
“No, no, no,” Abbey asserted as Tim picked her up and carried her to the kitchen, placing her on the bench, “first tell me what you’re doing in my house.”
“It’s after curfew Abbey, I saw your door had been busted in and you weren’t here. I was worried. So I decided to wait til you came back. Besides, if I watch TV down here it doesn’t cost me a dime.”
“Get us both a drink?” she asked.
“Bloody Mary?”
“No tomato juice or Tabasco for that matter. We do have half a bottle of orange juice though.” She offered.
“Then two Vodka and Oranges bar tender and easy on the orange.”

Abbey relayed the evening’s events to Tim, and was relieved when he insisted he sleep on the couch for the night.

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