The man grinning at Nick reached out to grab him when Nick finally reacted. His leg shot out almost reflexively as his fight or flight instinct came out and his heel connected with the man’s shoulder. Pushed back slightly, the man grunted and opened his mouth to call over his comrades when Nick pounced at him with the pen forward, driving the tip into the man’s cheek before the plastic snapped in half.

“Argh!”

The man screamed out in pain and clutched his bloody cheek. The pen tip hadn’t broken the skin, but the snapped plastic scraped off a good layer before Nick released his grip on the broken plastic. The man’s companions started moving towards Nick’s position to aid their friend while taunting him for being injured by a pipsqueak with a pen.

Nick felt his adrenaline coursing through his body as he threw away the pen’s remnants and felt blood oozing from his fingers. Pushing through it, he curled his fingers into a fist and punched the man’s nose before he could recover before bringing down his other fist at the man’s gut. He knew that he didn’t have time to wrestle with this man, but if he could just take down one man, then he would have a better chance.

The man on the ground grunted in pain as bile threatened to spill out of his throat while pain exploded from his nose. He was definitely going to kill this man later after breaking the offending fingers. His companions were less than five meters away now and would be upon Nick in under a minute. Then he would have them hold this man down so he could stomp his finger bones to dust or maybe use a cigar cutter to remove them one by one.

Nick threw one last punch at the man before pushing off him, though it was blocked by a forearm. The other two men were nearly upon him already and he needed to get moving before he was pincered. He stomped hard between the prone man’s legs, missing his target slightly in his haste. However, it was enough to stop the man from getting back on his feet immediately or grabbing him as the man screamed out while clutching his right thigh.

Nick glanced at both men closing in on him and rushed to the nearest man on his left, as the other man held a chain in his right hand. The man on his left reacted by raising his arms in a defensive position while keeping his palms out to grab Nick at the first sign of faltering. Nick bent his back forward as he recalled the stance of football players that he watched once with his father’s employees; it was a major football game at Jimmy’s house with beer and pizza, though he paid more attention to Jimmy’s daughter than the game. Slamming into the man while distracted by irrelevant thoughts, he immediately regretted his decision to try using an unfamiliar technique as the man merely grunted and took a half step backwards. Then the man’s hands gripped hard on Nick’s shoulders and slammed him into the cubicle wall on his right.

Pain replaced all of the adrenaline and courage in Nick’s body as he sagged to the ground. The biker towering above him laughed as his left leg moved and rearranged the organs in Nick’s lower abdomen. Nick coughed up the contents of his stomach while grabbing his lower abdomen with both hands and wanted to simply curl up and die right there on the floor. Fighting was never his forte and his mind was on the verge of collapsing from the pain.

“Trash! Jack, how could you allow such a wimpy kid beat you so easily?”

The biker next to Nick laughed uproariously while his large hands grabbed Nick’s collar and pulled him to his feet. His laughter only cut short when Nick’s knee suddenly moved and lit up the bell between his legs. Another scream tore trough the office floor as the man released Nick and fell down, cursing nine generations of Nick’s ancestors. Meanwhile, Jack was back on his feet with bloodshot eyes full of rage and the other man with the chain had lashed out with it, using the chain as a whip.

Nick had only just regained his courage after being called trash when his back exploded. He nearly blacked out from the sheer pain as he was forced to take two steps forward before catching himself on the cubicle wall. Without turning back, he moved his feet and ran towards the sole office at the end of the floor, praying it had a lock. One side of the office wall was hardened glass with a curtain pulled across, but that was something he couldn’t worry about right now.

“Carl, you stupid pig, how does it feel to get beaten by trash?”

Jack laughed at the man still groaning on the floor as he ran past him. He still had a slight limp from Nick’s stomp but he was recovering quickly. The man with the chain beside him, Brent, had already passed by him as he was too slow.

“Save me a piece of the boy, Brent!”

Carl yelled from behind the two men as he struggled to his knees before pulling himself up using the cubicle wall. He nearly coughed up blood in anger when Jack threw his own taunts back at him. Brent, in the meantime, was shaking his head at his two pigs for teammates and making a mental note to ask the boss not to put him together with them again.

Nick had cleared the cubes and entered the office already while the trio was bickering and slammed the door shut behind him. The flimsy turn lock wouldn’t be much of a deterrent but it might buy him some time at least. His eyes scanned the room from top to bottom and felt despair grip his heart. The office was practically spartan, with only a desk, three chairs and an older model filing cabinet. The executive chair behind the desk was quite a bit raggedy, with a few seams torn wide open. The two chairs in front of the desk looked newer by comparison, though there were no cushioning. A manager that disliked guests, he thought as he looked at the office.

Nick grabbed the two chairs and jammed one below the doorknob just like he had seen in movies; with the other chair, he set it across the curtains as a small obstacle. With a bit of luck, maybe the trio outside might trip over it and break their own neck, he thought with a laugh. If his luck was really that good, he wouldn’t have been caught to begin with and his back wouldn’t hurt so bad. A long red line on it pulsed with pain every time he moved.

Shoving aside any unnecessary thoughts, he braced his feet and began pushing the desk in front of the glass wall as well. Then he dragged the filing cabinet over and jammed it against the door while yanking the executive chair onto the desk as another obstacle.

Only then did he approach the window and try to look for more escape routes or someone that he could wave down for help. Unfortunately, there was nothing, not a single movement outside, not even a flying insect. Just what the hell was wrong with this world, he cursed to himself. Turning back, he went to the drawers of the desk and searched for anything useful as the desk itself was clean of everything except a laptop and power cord. Within the desk, he found a letter opener, a stapler, a standard wood ruler and a small tub of paper clips. Frustrated, he punched the desk twice before calming down as his cuts on his hand sparked his imagination.

Outside the office, Jack and Carl were arguing over who should break down the door of the office while Brent just stood on the side rubbing his forehead. The two men decided to resolve it with rock, paper, scissors. Brent, seeing this, felt his intelligence degrade exponentially at the sight of his comrades. Gritting his teeth, he slapped both men on the back of the head with his open palms after laying the chain across his shoulders.

“What are you two, complete idiots? Just break it down and let’s grab this guy.”

Brent groaned at both of the men before pointing at the door and glass window. Jack and Carl grunted their displeasure as both maneuvered into position before charging at both the door and glass. Jack shoulder tackled the office door, only to bounce off of it after a loud crashing noise. Carl fared a little better as he made it through the glass like some kind of bad action hero, only to trip over the chair and kiss the flat top of the desk and knock out a few teeth. Brent shook his head in disappointment before pulling a bleeding Carl out of the way and taking his chain back into his right hand.

In a panic, Nick grabbed the stapler and threw it at Brent who narrowly dodged it. Then he threw the ruler, followed by the tub of paper clips which were also dodged by an annoyed Brent. Finally, he grabbed the letter opener and stabbed at Brent’s chest, causing him to step backwards out of the way while bending backwards.

Grabbing the opportunity, Nick crawled on the desk and then jumped to the filing cabinet, struggling to maintain his balance once on it. He jabbed the letter opener upward into the ceiling and shoved aside one of the ceiling tiles. In desperation, he tossed the letter opener into the hole before jumping up to pull himself into the ceiling crawlspace. With his body halfway into the space, two big hands gripped his ankles and yanked down hard. Nick’s scream rang throughout the office floor soon afterward.