Always On the Run

His lips fell.

“No way…”

Frankie was still counting her earnings when he spoke. By the time she looked up at the man, he wasn’t staring at some goth girl he’d never seen in his life before. He was looking at her.

“W-what is it?”

Still, she denied it. And in doing that, she let him see clearer than anything.

“You…”

She should’ve ran then. But part of her held on. Played the clueless victim. Part of her forgot she was ever Frankie to begin with, and glued her in place.

“You took… everything… from me.”

Bozo expected himself to be angry, but looking at the devil now, it was like he was talking to the ghost of an evil from a past life- ethereal and unbelievable.

He looked like the saddest man alive.

“I-“ Frankie raised a tongue in protest, but she had nothing to say with her persona slipping away from between her fingers.

“Why… are you here?”

He was so confused.

“Why did you come… straight towards me?”

She took a deep breath.

Bozo began to cry out something primal and righteous.

Happy as she was to have them, it wasn’t easy running with a bag full of 508 Moon Tokens.

Staff tried to help when she burst from the doors, but she ignored their help, fleeing the scene out onto the streets of Cinema City. With the roof of the museum visible far ahead, she made tracks, trying to ignore the heavy footsteps of her nemesis behind her…

But his words, she could not silence.

“Venge.”

Once again, the almighty Coaster Bozo rose into the air, pursuing her in flight, so that she could never escape at her current speed.

Is there really… nowhere to run this time?

She narrowly dodged his first assault- swooping down, he almost scooped her up into the air with him.

If that attack had connected… it’d all have been over…

She did her best to trade despair for desperate tenacity as she continued to search anyway. All across the street, the city watched her incredible life-or-death sprint, their attention always stolen by Bozo as he caught up over and over again.

Where?

Where do I go?!

There wasn’t a secret base, a hiding spot, or some home for her to retreat to. There wasn’t a peaceful ocean, nor was there any kind of real safety anywhere around her. There wasn’t even anyone who could save her right now.

But there was one thing.

Frankie finally saw it, just a corner away. The one place Bozo couldn’t go, that she’d been ignoring all this time.

Lines of people her age were extending from it- the local Cinema City teen’s club, The Flicker.