Famer's Story-Writing Debate Round #1 Zaradi vs. Drafterman

My heart sank into my chest. I knew I wasn’t being as careful as I could have been, but I didn’t think I was being that obvious about winning. The man wore a dark grey three-piece suit with a red tie. If I had to guess I would say he was in his fifties with mostly grey hair. He had a slight smile, as if to give off the impression of friendliness, but I could tell that was just a mask.I tried to imagine escaping. What was the count-down? A couple hours. As we walked, some others joined us. More guys in suits. By their height and bulk I could tell that they weren’t here for their intellect. They escorted me to one of the elevators, the thugs hanging back a few steps behind us, one on either side.When we stepped into the elevator he took his hand off of my shoulder. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a key card. He swiped a magnetic reader on the panel of the elevator and then pressed an unmarked button. He put the card back in his jacket and turned to me as the elevator began to descend.“What exactly do you think you’re doing here, Mr. Miller?”I swallowed. This is what I feared. The Casino caught me. Or, at least, they suspected me, which was just as bad. As far as I knew, they were the law around here. They could basically do whatever they wanted to me. I had considered this possibility and had prepared.“Nothing. Just here with my family. Enjoying Vegas. I hear Circus Circus is a great place.”“You seem to be doing well at the tables.”“Me? I think you’re confused. I’m not even old enough to gamble, I’m only eighteen.”“Then why do you have that chip there?”The 10k chip. Before heading to the poker table I consolidated my winnings into a single chip. I just wanted to see what it would be like to hold a ten thousand dollar denomination chip and to see the look on the dealer’s face when I handed it to him.“Oh, this? Just a souvenir I had my dad get for me. Something to take home, ya know?“That chip is worth ten thousand dollars. Quite the expensive souvenir.”I slipped the chip into my pocket. The following silence was awkward.“Listen, I don’t know what you think I’ve done, but I get it: your house, your rules. So, just let me go back to my room and grab my things and I’ll be out of your hair.”“Oh. You think I work for the Casino? You think I’m here because you’ve been cheating? Well, yes, I’m here because you were cheating, but I don’t work for the Casino.”Before I could respond the elevator stopped and the door opened. He placed his hand on my back and guided me out of the elevator. The decoration here was in direct opposition to the brightly colored Casino floor we just came from. It could have been any office building anywhere in the country: fluorescent lighting; bland, off-white walls; tiled floor and ceiling; unmarked doors; drab.How long till escape? 2 hours. Either things were going more slowly than I perceived them, or my chance to escape depended on me taking some sort of action, but what? We walked along the corridor coming to one of the unmarked doors and he reached around me to grab the handle.Something possessed me at that moment. Maybe it was some intuitive function of my ability or just gut instinct, but I knew if I entered that room I wouldn’t be coming out again. As he reached around me I slammed my elbow into his stomach. I followed through and pressed all my weight into him, pushing him to the opposite wall. He was larger than I, and I was no fighter, preferring to use my ability to get out of or prevent physical confrontations. It was only through the sheer element of surprise that I was able to take advantage of the situation.Time To Escape: 1:59I pulled away and he doubled over, gasping for breath. I turned to dash toward the elevator but stopped after a few steps. I went back to the man, who was now on his hands and knees. I gave him a swift kick to the stomach again and he fell onto his side. I knelt down and reached inside his jacket. I felt for a pocket and pulled out the key card. I ran for the elevator.Luckily, it hadn’t move from this floor, and opened as soon as I pressed the button. I swiped the card and pushed the button for my floor. Once the door closed did I collapsed back against the walls of the elevator, holding my breath until I felt it begin to rise. I prayed that it would go straight to my floor without stopping. I closed my eyes and just concentrated on the movement of the elevator and picturing when it would stop. It was no longer a game this time. 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Ding. The doors opened to an empty hallway on the 10th floor. My floor.Time To Escape: 1:55I ran down the hallway, to the T junction, turned right and ran some more. When I arrived at our room I slipped inside, closing the door behind me. Instinctively I latched all of the locks. I began to hyperventilate. The situation was out of my control and I couldn’t handle being out of control. I really hadn’t learned my lesson. Ryan’s lesson. Ryan! I went to the bed.“Ryan, baby, wake up…”I kept my voice a whisper, trying to hide my anxiety.“Ryan, you have to wake up, we have to get out of here.”“Hm? Alex? What’s going on? What time is it?”Time To Escape: 1:44“I-I don’t know. It’s late. Something’s happened and we have to go.”“Huh? I don’t understand, what happened?”I moved from the bed and turned on the desk lap. I began gathering our things. Ryan was finally starting to wake up, and was getting nervous.“Alex, you’re starting to scare me. Tell me what happened.”“Baby, I can’t explain it right now, it’s too…” Fvck. What the hell could I tell her? “… It’d take too long. Just trust me; we have to get out of here now. Help me get our stuff together.”She watched me as I continued to pack. I could tell she was getting pissed at me. Not only was I cutting her vacation short, but I had somehow how gotten into a mess that I wasn’t telling her about. That was nothing compared to the mess we’d be in if we got caught. They knew my name, but the room was put on Ryan’s credit card. Hopefully they didn’t know about her. Yet.Eventually she got out of bed and started helping me back. In what I had to presume was record time, we had everything crammed into the two suitcases we brought. I took hold of both and headed to the door.Time To Escape: 1:35I opened the door and looked out. The hallway was still empty. I turned left.“Alex, the elevators are the other way.”“Uhm… I think it’s out of order, let’s take the stairs.”“We’re on the 10th floor!”From down the hallway I heard the faint ding of the elevator. I turned and began quickly walk toward the stairs at the other end of the hallway, rolling the suitcases behind me.“Trust me, Ryan, we have to go!”She stood, furious, but eventually followed, catching up with me. I opened the door to the stairwell and lifted the suitcases up by their handles. As the door shut behind us I thought I could hear a faint knocking on one of the room doors. I gave Ryan a look, trying to express what I couldn’t put into words. A look that, hopefully, would engender enough pity to get her to follow me without too much question. Thankfully, it worked. I hefted the suitcases down ten flights of stairs while she fumed quietly behind me.Time To Escape: 1:16As we exited out onto the first floor I went for the main exit. I hoped whoever was after me wasn’t going to make a scene in a public area like this. All I could focus on where those double glass doors. Once past the doors, I went straight for a waiting taxi and tossed the suitcases into the trunk and dove into the passenger seat. Ryan followed.“Ok, we’re out of the hotel. You better have a good story for all of this.”The taxi driver closed the trunk and rear doors and climbed into the driver’s seat.“Where too?”“The airport. How long?”“In this traffic? About an hour.”Time To Escape: 1:00